Well the question was why Apple didn‘t use this 8K panel before Asus did, and the answer is that all modern Apple displays have a PPI of around 220, so they would never have used this panel.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
The *complete* list of 8K monitors
- Thread starter tenthousandthings
- WikiPost WikiPost
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
- Status
Well the question was why Apple didn‘t use this 8K panel before Asus did, and the answer is that all modern Apple displays have a PPI of around 220, so they would never have used this panel.
macOS cannot do on-the-fly 3X scaling. It cannot 3X scale up from 3072x1828 to 9K internally and then back down to 8K for output.
It’s possible, but my feeling is that it would have leaked if it were so. This specific AUO panel and backlight has been known since January of last year. If Apple were a customer, I think we’d know by now. Although, that said, AUO has almost certainly been making the panel and backlight in the current Pro Display XDR since 2019 and nobody has ever (to my knowledge) leaked that fact! Rumors in 2019 were that LG Display was making it, but if you look back you see that was pure speculation, with no foundation.
The prototype 8K BOE dual-mode panel was edge-lit, I believe, so not a candidate for the XDR.
As for 8K OLED monitors, LG Display sold their LCD television division in order to focus on OLED, and they seem to have made some breakthroughs, but it still seems a ways off.
The MacBook Air (224 ppi) doesn’t have the same PPI as the MacBook Pro (254 ppi). So there is precedent for Apple using different PPI for different products in the same category (laptops).
Like I said, 218 ppi is Apple’s minimum standard in desktop displays since 2015. That doesn’t mean they can’t or won’t go beyond it.
What I like to point out with the MacBook Air is Apple doesn't even use 2X scaling for that. It uses 1.78:1 scaling, yet nobody ever complains about the scaling quality on that laptop. That includes big tech reviewers, despite the fact some reviewers will suggest that 2X scaling is necessary for desktop Apple displays.
A key question is what the higher end professional class wants, particularly since for some time 8K displays are apt to be very expensive. Do they want the same pixel density on a 40 rather than 32" display, which can be handy when working with video where you want the tool bars around your full-size video being edited? Or would they prefer very high resolution for extra fine detail on tiny things observed at close range by people with good eye sight? The former does sound a bit compelling, but it belies a questionable common assumption, that once resolution hits 'retina,' that's as good as it gets in the context of the human eye's capabilities, and there's no point making anything higher resolution than that. And that no one gets closer to their screen than Apple assumes they view it from. In the t.v. world, the case for 8K is more obvious due to huge (by monitor standards) displays with relatively low resolution.
So is there a strong consensus 8K is about bringing current retina-class to a 40" form factor? Not 'beyond retina' dpi?
Last edited:
You‘re right, this is an example of > 220 PPI. But it‘s on a very different device (and display size). I guess people tend to sit closer to a tiny laptop screen than to a huge desktop display. iPad Pros have even higer PPI (264) as folks hold these even closer to their face. So no, there is no precedent for an Apple desktop display > 220 PPI.
I bet you that this is exactly what it means.
Well Asus is obviously doing the latter. Apple I believe would do the former (if they ever make an 8K display, which I doubt).
Agree. 13.6" MBA is 2560x1664 so 25% down-scaling (your "2x scaling") is 1280x832. But macOS uses 2x 1470x956 as the default, which is 33.01% down-scaling. That is 258 ppi (2940x1912) at 13.6". So macOS is scaling up 132.03%.
The 15.3" MBA is 2880x1864 so 25% down-scaling is 1440x932. But macOS uses 2x 1710x1107 as the default, which is 35.27% down-scaling. That is 266 ppi (3420x2214) at 15.3". So macOS is scaling up 141.02%.
Whatever artifacts are introduced by scaling up are handled well by macOS for the MacBook Air display. Like you say, nobody seems to complain about it.
So let's turn to this 32.0" 7340x4320 ProArt 8K. Instead of scaling up (as it does for the MacBook Air), macOS would scale down 64% to 6144x3456 (2x 1728p) or 61.36% to 6016x3384 (2x 1692p). We can set aside, to avoid headaches, the difference between 32.0" and 31.5" -- but keep in mind that Apple may well choose a slightly different default for 32.0" like 2x 1710p, 6080x3420, which is *exactly* 218 ppi at 32.0", scaling down 62.67%.
What I was trying to say is that I think artifacts from scaling macOS down is less of a problem than scaling up, and they might actually be helpful, sharpening text/objects instead of blurring them. Regardless, if macOS can handle the MacBook Air adjustments, it can handle the ProArt 8K.
The great thing is we will see soon enough, like in the next few weeks!
~
8K (4x 4K) is here to stay. Apple would probably prefer 10K (4x 5K), and HDMI 2.2 would support that, but this is not like the 4K versus 5K watershed.
Well, you are the future and I am an April 1985 Mac System Update keep on truckin' icon, so what do I know, but I think it's a bad bet to think that, while there have been five 8K desktop monitors produced by the computer display industry to date (by at least four different panel manufacturers) and all of them have been 31.5" (LG Display and Sharp) or 32" (AUO and BOE), Apple would somehow reject that research and try to market a 40" monitor that is better off on a wall, as opposed to a desktop, just so it can be 218 ppi.
8K (4x 4K) is here to stay. Apple would probably prefer 10K (4x 5K), and HDMI 2.2 would support that, but this is not like the 4K versus 5K watershed.
I love your icon. 😊
What you seem to forget is that Apple was out of the display game for a good long while and that it was rather surprising to many observers that they re-entered it in the first place. So my guess is that Apple will do neither a 32“ nor a 40“ 8K display as both of these things are way too niche for modern Apple. Even the existing Studio Display and Pro Display are more „fan service“ than serious business cases for Apple and we can count ourselves lucky if they‘re updated every few years.
Edit: also, do not underestimate how stubborn Apple can be once a line has been drawn (hello, one button mouse). If 220 PPI has been defined as „perfect“ (as in: all the human eye can discern) for the typical desktop viewing distance, by that same definition everything above that is „overkill“. The only way for an 8K display from Apple to ever exist that I can see would be if at some point in the future they wanted to update the 32“ Pro Display and 8K displays were so common by then that they can‘t even source a 6K panel anymore. But that scenario seems very „far out“ to me, in more ways than one.
Last edited: