The Stand for Apple's New $4,999 Pro Display Costs an Extra $999

[palmerc]

The numbers sold will be measured in the 10s to 100s of thousands of units. This machine is for extreme professional workloads. If you're making the next 100 million dollar movie or producing a top tier musician, then you are the audience for this machine. This might be more generally useful in the rack-mount configuration as a Mac server - build / render farm at major production outfits.

As for necessity of the stand. Search around for 'mobile video production' or music production. These people live in the land of custom. Custom carts, custom workstations. The stand won't have any place in many cases.

As for the price of the stand... this is a low-yield product. Moving into the land of custom. When you build 50 to 100 thousand of something that is precision machined it isn't going to be cheap. You can't compare it to a hunk of angle iron or a plastic stand attached to a consumer monitor. This is a gorgeous piece of engineering attached to what may be the most beautiful and affordable reference monitor on the market.

 

[throAU]

This might be more generally useful in the rack-mount configuration as a Mac server - build / render farm at major production outfits.

If you’re building a render-farm, unless that ASIC is insanely good at ray tracing, you’d simply build racks and racks of Linux boxes with the same processing power for much less money, and run open source clustering software on it.

Setting these up as a render farm likely makes no sense, because you can get more processing power in a far cheaper package. The shiny aesthetics, non-rack mount case, etc. simply make no sense for installation in a render farm. The form factor is wrong, and you’re spending a heap of money on irrelevant components (hmm, seems to be an Apple theme lately).

You might use one or more of these for modelling with, but the render farm stuff would likely be pushed out to racks of Linux machines...

edit:
e.g.
https://renderman.pixar.com/tractor

For any seriously large deployment, you just wouldn’t run macOS in that way. A 5-10 machine deployment? Maybe. But not 100s of machines...

 

[benlukes]

Haven’t logged in for ages but had to here. The knee jerk comments showcase the finest wanna be pros showing off how they are in fact wanna be pros.

The iMac is for you. Not the new MacPro and/or Pro Monitor.

Is 1k for a stand priced on the high end?
Yes.

But if it is high quality, performs smoothly and lasts a lifetime then it’s priced fairly compared to the 300-400$ turd options.

The comment section of this website is a playground for fail trolls. Not even pro fail trolls.

Tell that to everyone in the audience.
[doublepost=1559717607][/doublepost]

I actually like that the stand is sold separately.
I think the price is hilarious, but, chances are it will work with any other screens they make in the future, for 10-15 years even.

Chances are? What makes you say that? What other Apple standard has lasted for the past 10-15 years? Not iPhone cables, not the MagSafe adapter...I can’t think of one.

 

[wgnoyes]

I"m thinking every Apple rep at WWDC is going to get such an ear full about the stand that Apple will have to come off of this idea.

 

[RiddlaBronc]

Courage!

 

[sofila]

The people actually buying these machines likely will not care. The keyboard warriors with no intention of buying this will have an issue with it.

Thanks for the advice. I will add keyboard warrior on my trophy list. Anyway, it still remains a 999 dollars stand. No luxury brand, no exclusivity halo around it. Just a stand. No hidden technology, no exclusive features, no unique R&D. A 999 dollars stand. Now go on feeling superior, you clearly need it

 

[bbednarz]

Thanks for the advice. I will add keyboard warrior on my trophy list. Anyway, it still remains a 999 dollars stand. No luxury brand, no exclusivity halo around it. Just a stand. No hidden technology, no exclusive features, no unique R&D. A 999 dollars stand. Now go on feeling superior, you clearly need it

A stand for a monitor you had no intention of buying. It's WAY out of my price range and I too think its a wild price. But, who cares if you're not the intended customer?

 

[blinkytoo]

Apple is charging $999 for a $99 stand. So what the real cost of the $4999 monitor? Maybe $999??? As a Pro user I am done shoveling money to the worlds most profitable company. No more Kool-Aid for me!

 

[sofila]

A stand for a monitor you had no intention of buying. It's WAY out of my price range and I too think its a wild price. But, who cares if you're not the intended customer?

Because the original post was intended for the "limit" Apple is applying to prices. Broken the 1000 dollars ceilling for a phone (I may not like it but I can accept it). given that Apple items may be/seem/look expensive, this particular stand goes beyond everything.

By the way I do work with images, not for a living, but as a longtime remunerative hobby. With the money I earn I buy my gear, lenses, tripods, computers and so on. Don't be so sure that I'm not interested in a monitor like this one. It is a new option to be considered with its pros and cons.
We're both behind our keyboards, don't knowing anything about each other. Don't decide if I'm not in the market

 

[Vash108]

Does the base have wireless charging I can lay my Phone, Air Pods or Watch on or ports I can plug things into?
[doublepost=1559764778][/doublepost]

This is a non-story. Apple is selling the best monitor ever built

Does it have Free Sync or G-Sync? Is it 1MS response? Is it 144MHZ or higher? Can I overclock it? How many ports does it have? What ports does it have? Does it have built in screen partition based on inputs? Can I draw on it with my Apple Pencil? Does it allow HDCP work arounds?

Plz post pics when you get yours with an in-depth video review and monitor comparison.

 

[Juan007]

Does the base have wireless charging I can lay my Phone, Air Pods or Watch on or ports I can plug things into?
[doublepost=1559764778][/doublepost]
Does it have Free Sync or G-Sync? Is it 1MS response? Is it 144MHZ or higher? Can I overclock it? How many ports does it have? What ports does it have? Does it have built in screen partition based on inputs? Can I draw on it with my Apple Pencil? Does it allow HDCP work arounds?

Plz post pics when you get yours with an in-depth video review and monitor comparison.

Irrelevant, this isn't a toy, it's a high-end studio display. "Can I overclock it" - this isn't for games kid.

 

[Vash108]

Irrelevant, this isn't a toy, it's a high-end studio display. "Can I overclock it" - this isn't for games kid.

Then your claim is absolutely absurd. Monitors are subjective. Claiming it is the best monitor ever built is lunacy.

 

[palmerc]

If you’re building a render-farm, unless that ASIC is insanely good at ray tracing, you’d simply build racks and racks of Linux boxes with the same processing power for much less money, and run open source clustering software on it.

Setting these up as a render farm likely makes no sense, because you can get more processing power in a far cheaper package. The shiny aesthetics, non-rack mount case, etc. simply make no sense for installation in a render farm. The form factor is wrong, and you’re spending a heap of money on irrelevant components (hmm, seems to be an Apple theme lately).

You might use one or more of these for modelling with, but the render farm stuff would likely be pushed out to racks of Linux machines...

edit:
e.g.
https://renderman.pixar.com/tractor

For any seriously large deployment, you just wouldn’t run macOS in that way. A 5-10 machine deployment? Maybe. But not 100s of machines...

We have to build on Macs. We build our non-Apple software on Kubernetes. Up to this point we've been using a rack full of Mac minis.

I might add Kubernetes has been rather unreliable. The Macs are basically bullet-proof.

 

[Software Maniac]

@Apple, before it is too late: INCLUDE the Mac Pro Display Stand in the [$5K] price for the monitor. Spread the word! It is like selling a MacBook without a power adapter. PLEASE! Otherwise, your monitor may become a dinosaur at release. #IncludeTheStand #WWDC19 @cnnbusiness Alternatively at least include a VESA mount & basic desk stand. The new stand is an amazing design but once you set the viewing height/angle, who changes it? You can't possibly sell this without any stand at all.

 

[Analog Kid]

Unless you know better than the crowd watching the keynote who (for the first time ever I can remember) audibly groaned.

Tell that to everyone in the audience.

Why does every one think an audience of devs is qualified to judge a video production reference monitor? It's like going to NAB and asking the audience what they think about associated values in Swift enumerations.

What I heard was a self interested audience. They liked the Mac Pro, they barely recognized half of the companies pledging support for things like Afterburner, and then realized they wouldn't be buying the fancy new display Apple just showcased.

It was arguably the wrong audience to debut this in front of, but it's without argument that it's the wrong audience to listen to for feedback.

 

[Black Tiger]

Hey Apple did sell a now-obsolete Apple Watch in 24k gold for about $20k only a few years ago. This seems like a bargain by comparison!

 

[Analog Kid]

Then your claim is absolutely absurd. Monitors are subjective. Claiming it is the best monitor ever built is lunacy.

Don’t partially quote someone to trim off their qualifiers— that just shows bad faith...

Can you point to a better one with a succinct explanation of why it’s better?

And while @Juan007 didn’t make this distinction, I think it’s implicit in this thread and explicit in the keynote and product marketing that “best” is meant to be measured in the context of professional reference monitors.

 

[Gasu E.]

Apple is charging $999 for a $99 stand. So what the real cost of the $4999 monitor? Maybe $999??? As a Pro user I am done shoveling money to the worlds most profitable company. No more Kool-Aid for me!

Where do you find a monitor stand with this level of smooth adjustability (height, angle, and orientation) for $99? Maybe you can find a desk mount with a cheap version of capability in that price range, but a stand?

 

[krell100]

 

[startergo]

There is an interesting comparison:

 

[BornAgainMac]

If I was Apple, I would sell the monitor for 10K and give the stand away for free along with the monitor.

 

[eco7777]

I literally LOLed when they announced this, and so did the audience, so much so the presenter wasn't able to continue. This is something that Apple wouldn't normally announce in a Keynote.

this is something no one in their right mind would announce.

 

[DeepIn2U]

Thieves... that's what they've become. Dirty thieves.

Did you catch the stutter in the presenters sentence and how quickly he high tailed off the stage based on the comical chuckle after the price?

Maybe it’s all the the timing and the delivery between optional stand and the price mention. Maybe a much better written delivery was required.

 

[cocoua]

rear USB-C ports are USB-2, please Macrumors editors, specify that in the main page as now it could be interpreted as the 3 ports are USB-C 3.1

https://www.apple.com/pro-display-xdr/specs/

https://www.macrumors.com/roundup/displays/

classic annoying detail from Apple