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Where Is Apple's 5K Thunderbolt Display?
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No, it's just good software and hardware engineering. They talk to each other.
Android is made by some other company and the hardware is made by someone else. Pretty much like Windows.
$199 if you let Apple do it.
I'm glad my 2008 MBP has a battery cover. ~$60 and you can swap back and forth all you want. But then I could add USB3 via my Express Card slot too. Apple has gone down hill for their designs since then.
Actually, most of the software that runs on the iPhone is written by someone other than Apple, so so much for your theory.
As for Android: I guess you think only at Apple can hardware and OS engineers talk to each other and coordinate things. Because Apple is magical.
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What are you talking about?
Apple writes their own software and designs their own hardware.
If you mean iOS is based on FreeBSD and Unix then ok. There is even software in iOS that goes back to NexStep.
Android is based on Linux, and Linux is based on Unix.
You could accuse any hardware maker or car maker or whatever larger product of getting "parts" from other suppliers. There's still a HUGE difference between Android that does not make any hardware (i.e. phone or tablet or anything else) products and Apple that designs their own products. Yes, they're using off-the-shelf parts in many cases, although they do their own iOS CPU designs now and appear to be kicking some serious arse doing it, I might add having the fastest mobile ARM CPU on the planet right now. Android depends entirely on other companies to make hardware and it has ZERO control over whether they update their operating system and this is causing them major headaches for security and support, not unlike Microsoft that can't try hard enough to get people to move to Windows 10 when twice the market is still using Windows XP and 60% is still using Vista/Win7/Win8.x (most on Windows 7).
Google also made the initial Android OS mostly open source and have regretted that move to this day (and are trying DAMN HARD to close it up again). Apple is greedy? Google is fast becoming the definition of GREED and they have FAR more in common with Microsoft than Apple (i.e. Android to Windows, Google to Bing, OneDrive to Google Drive, HotMail/Outlook.com to Google Mail, etc.) while Microsoft is desperately trying to imitate Apple's business model now by making their own hardware, which something they never used to do other than things like Mice (Surface Book to Macbook Pro, Surface Line to Macbook Air and/or iPad).
And in case someone thinks I'm some Apple fanboy by saying the above, frankly, I'm glad there is some actual cross-platform competition starting to warm up here. Apple was far too long ignored by the software industry because of market share and now Microsoft is having the same problem with mobile? It's ironic to say the least. Competition can only improve things and I hope the Surface Book gets Apple off their bums to start making meaningful improvements to Macs once again as they keep getting ignored (e.g. Where's an update to the Mac Pro? A 4k or 5k Thunderbolt II or III monitor/hub? Why don't all the Macs have USB-C ports on them by now (at least one?) I hate complacency from a company as large as Apple has become. They used to have an excuse ten years ago. No longer. They have enough money to buy most smaller companies so they sure as hell could hire enough programmers and designers to keep things up-to-date every single year and not just iPhones. They seem to be gliding on the iPhone's success and keep entering new areas (watch) while not keeping other items up-to-date.
I just ordered a Windows smart phone (Lumia 640). Sacrilege? The thing is $48 outright! Given it costs 1/14 the price of a new iPhone, I'd say it's a pretty damn good deal. Not enough Apps? To save $700, I'll deal with it. No Android phone at twice the cost came close to the camera quality or battery life. Yes, their software support for the Mac to interface with it has been abysmal and even that has been removed from the App Store entirely now (with a team member indicating they have better things to do with their limited Mac team resources; yeah that will help sell more Microsoft phones...ignore entire groups of people. The sad thing is someone fixed their older App for them with a simple library update, but it only works for people that already have the App since they pulled it).
So why on EARTH would I still want the phone? I can set up FTP to move media to/from it. It's not a big deal, really. Yeah, it would be nice if it synced and all that crap like the iPhone can do, but the truth is what I really need is a phone with great battery life and when this phone can do smart phone functions for only $48 and has magnificent battery life to boot with a decent 8MP camera as well, it's a no brainer to pick it over some non-smart phone for only $25 more and it can replace 90% of what my iPod Touch is used for most of the time (music player and photo viewer) leaving me carrying ONE device instead of TWO (used to carry regular cell phone + iPod Touch as I don't want to pay $70 a month for a flipping cell plan). With tracfone, I can pay basically $100 a year and have the same phone minutes I had with AT&T Go plus a thousand or so text messages and about 4GB of data that I can avoid using by turning Cell off and only using WiFi except when really needed. No iPhone model can touch that deal and the phone has dual-sim so I could use it in Europe if I needed to (going on a big trip in the future) and you can expand storage to 136GB total (with a 128GB SD card).
I hate to say it, but the iPhone really is a huge rip-off by comparison for someone that doesn't need to use it night and day on the best possible model. Yeah, if you want to compare flagship models, the iPhone does much better especially with a zillion Apps, but even buying a $225 iPhone 5 that I could use with the same plan has major issues. For example, iOS9 will run like absolute CRAP (ruining the experience period) and using an older iOS version would mean most Apps will no longer run on it so it's just about WORTHLESS and still costs over 4x as much. No thanks.
But no thanks to Microsoft either for not supporting their damn phone properly for Mac users when they claim that's where they want to be (i.e. taking over iOS market share). They've improve their Office support, but did it at the cost of everything else? It's not like Microsoft is suddenly too poor to hire people either.
Basically, you've got companies making BiLLIONS in profit that don't update their products (whether hardware or software) on a timely basis as if they were poor. Where's the 5K Thunderbolt display? Apple can afford that ridiculous giant spaceship building that costs 10x what a conventional building would cost, yet they can't afford to update the CPU/GPU on the Mac Pro or improve their Thunderbolt display? These companies need to get their priorities straight.
I do too, especially since I'd like one for my ultra reliable Mac Pro.
But that said, I think Apple's having a bit of a hard time managing the projects they have now. With Apple's Car getting so much attention, even if only a rumor, they're bound to be struggling. It's evident in the decline of quality with more than one of their products.
Between Intel's issues with Skylake, the somewhat awkward transition to a USB-C world that combines USB 3 (now 3.1 Gen 2), Thunderbolt 3, and DisplayPort, and Apple's general disinterest in pleasing the high-end market, I have little hope we'll see a 5K Thunderbolt Display anytime in 2016.
I'm resigning myself to the fact that if you want 5K with a display having an Apple logo staring back at you, you have to go with an iMac, and either get portability from a MacBook or iPad and pay the price for that setup. I'm ok with that setup since I have an iMac and iPad now, but can't justify the cost to upgrade to a 5K iMac when the case design is the exact same as the one I paid $1,799 for just 2 years ago.
As soon as there is a new iMac design, hopefully this year given that they'll have to add some Thunderbolt 3/USB-C ports, I'll pull the trigger. Waiting for this mythical Thunderbolt Display update is too painful to bear anymore.
I'm resigning myself to the fact that if you want 5K with a display having an Apple logo staring back at you, you have to go with an iMac, and either get portability from a MacBook or iPad and pay the price for that setup. I'm ok with that setup since I have an iMac and iPad now, but can't justify the cost to upgrade to a 5K iMac when the case design is the exact same as the one I paid $1,799 for just 2 years ago.
As soon as there is a new iMac design, hopefully this year given that they'll have to add some Thunderbolt 3/USB-C ports, I'll pull the trigger. Waiting for this mythical Thunderbolt Display update is too painful to bear anymore.
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Thunderbolt 3 only has DisplayPort 1.2, which simply doesn't support 5K displays.
Now, if you could get a USB-C port with both DisplayPort Alternate Mode and Thunderbolt 3, that'd work.
DisplayPort 1.2 already does 5K over a single USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 cable using Alt Mode. Some Windows-based machines out now can do this. The only problem is it uses MST instead of SST as the MacRumors article states.
If Apple does release a 5K Thunderbolt Display this year, it will either have to only do MST or they'll have to come up with some kind of magic solution like the 5K iMac's custom timing controller, but unlikely given that they don't control the inner workings of the USB-C/TB 3/DP standard.
Yeah, not very likely.
Knowing Apple, that one's more likely.
Unfortunately, seeing how they are still selling a 2011 Thunderbolt Display at $999, I doubt they have engineers scrambling around One Infinite Loop desperately trying to build a 5K display before the tech required can comfortably run it.Knowing Apple, that one's more likely.
I think MST is a hacky way to generate a 5120x2880px image on an external display and thus unlikely a solution Apple would implement. Until DisplayPort 1.3 is supported by Intel chips and Thunderbolt 3, I think the wait will continue for a next gen Apple display.
Hacky? Maybe, but they can optimise it, and should not be that choosy, because Dell and others will release usb-c 5k displays with MST.
MST is still done over one cable. You just can't daisy chain anything past it. But DP 1.3 is long way off and I don't think there are any video cards that support it period right now. I think AMD announced something, but we'll see.
Yea, we'll see. I suppose they could go with some fancier implementation of MST that they'd be happy enough with to ship, but given that they've allowed the current Thunderbolt Display to languish since 2011 while still laughingly selling it for the same $999 price it launched at 5 years ago doesn't give me confidence they will release a 5K model this year with the tech not quite up to snuff.
That will suck, if they come up with nothing. It's completely just my opinion, but Apple products are becoming more and more useless to ME outside of media consumption. I've been a hardcore Apple fan a long time now. But here I sit writing this on my tab pro s with full windows and a gorgeous OLED screen, while my ipad pro sits in the corner. I feel like I have to put a huge effort in to make my apple devices more productive. Things don't “just work” anymore and the software no longer has less bugs than android or windows, in fact it's starting to feel like more.
Sorry this isn't a rant and it's purely my opinion. I'm just wondering if I'm the only one that feels this way, and no longer excited about anything new because it will be plagued with bugs or be behind technology by many years yet still claiming “world's first”.
One thing I learned, matte + retina = horrible awful moire / sparkle effect. Even the Dell 5k is glossy for the most part. I have a 4k 32" dell, and the anti glare sucks and it's considered very light. Sorry, I hope they don't go matte, but rather figure out an even better coating than their current macs.