
Apple Pro Display XDR - tinodotim
https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/03/apple-releases-the-6000-pro-display-xdr-a-32-inch-6k-display-available-this-fall/
======
mikestew
I'm hearing that the LG displays were running out of stock, possibly in
anticipation of a new Apple display. Sure enough...wait a minute, FIVE
THOUSAND DOLLARS?! Oh, I understand it's a reference-quality, blah, blah,
blah, but I just need something to replace an aging Cinema display that was
originally $1000. The fucking _stand_ for the new display costs that much
(note the audience response when _that_ price popped on the screen).

So if I can't buy an LG, what do I buy for less than a couple grand, Apple?

~~~
outworlder
So it has an insane resolution for an insane amount of money. The original
monitor also had an insane resolution for the time, but did not cost 5k. 1k is
pricey for a monitor, but understandable. If they had segmented and offered a
lower resolution monitor for a lower price (basically, an updated
Cinema/Thunderbolt display), that would have been enough. The greedy
beancounters have fully taken over.

Subjective, but that's also the ugliest piece of hardware Apple has ever
created.

~~~
phaus
But its not an insane resolution. Its twice as expensive as 8k monitors and
the only reason they used a proprietary resolution was to attempt to justify
it. I thought the monitor was going to be around 2-3k like others in its
class.

I agree that the stand might be the ugliest thing they've ever made.

~~~
zachwood
I thought they made a pretty good case why there is nothing else in its class,
the only thing close being the $30k sony reference monitor.

~~~
dethac
Isn't that thing OLED? I'm not surprised that it's 30k. It's effectively local
dimming... for each pixel. Not at all comparable to Apple's HDR display.

~~~
ksec
Depends, They had an OLED version that they stopped making or selling the OLED
version because it wasn't good enough.

And no, OLED, its current form is not the holy grail as some would like to
imagine.

------
Areading314
Starting $11000 for a Mac Pro plus display

That's a bargain compared to the LISA, which was only $25k adjusted for
inflation!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Lisa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Lisa)

~~~
gipp
Don't forget the extra grand for a static hunk of aluminum to put it on.

------
dmix
You could hear a gasp in the crowd when they listed $999 for the stand alone.

Apple is certainly pushing themselves up-market with this one.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
"Pro"

Fairly predictable. Commodified tablets for consumers, laptops for developers
(still working on that...), hugely expensive thoroughbred (status symbol)
hardware for professional content creators with professional budgets.

Problem is, there's _much_ more money in the prosumer niche than there is at
the high end. For every successful LA movie score composer there are
thousands, even tens of thousands, of bedroom DAW users.

What "pros" really want is outstanding performance at an affordable price.
This is outstanding performance at a painful price - which is a novel
combination of aspirational and incredibly annoying.

~~~
clarkmoody
Pros can justify the price if the performance is top-of-the-line and downtime
is zero (or support & fix is near-instant).

If Apple's quality control game leaks over into this new Pro line, then there
will be lots of unhappy professionals staring at their $11k paperweights while
shopping for something else.

~~~
spronkey
They can justify the performance to a point. If it costs twice as much as a
competing system offering similar performance, reliability, and service, it
becomes much more difficult to justify.

------
jannyfer
The “XDR” part of the name seems a bit out of place for an Apple product.

I guess I’m stuck in the past and Apple is really a different company now.

~~~
djsumdog
Yea, I didn't see any mention of HDR support. Is XDR their rebranding? Will
macOS support HDR10 or DolbyHDR when this monitor comes out? Will it be
supported on any HDR screen or just this overpriced one? Or does this monitor
not have HDR at all?

HDR so far only seems supported by Windows, xBox, and PS4. Linux/X11 and Mac
still have no HDR support.

~~~
holy_city
They talked about it at length. Per the keynote it's 10bit color at 1000
nits/1600 peak which would put it at about Display HDR1000 (but no mention if
it's certified, so probably not).

It can't support Dolby Vision (requires 12 bit color), which means that it
can't replace reference displays for professionals.

Also HDR playback has been supported for awhile on MacOS, since high sierra
it's been one of those "it just works" features.

------
SamuelAdams
Why doesn't Apple introduce different options? For example, I would never need
a 6k display, but having a nice, matte finish, 1000 nit display at 1440p or 4k
would definitely be on my radar.

If they sold smaller resolution displays at more appropriate price points, I
would be more inclined to buy it. They offer similar pricing structures for
their iPhone and MacBook lines, so why not apply the same to monitors?

~~~
deergomoo
They would never release a 1440p display today considering that’s a lower
resolution than the panels in their 13” laptops. However, I’m disappointed
that there’s no standalone version of the display from the 5K iMac. That was
the 5K LG UltraFine, but that seems to be disappearing from shelves.

------
empath75
Did he say $999 for the stand?!!

~~~
cwbrandsma
I was laughing hard when I heard the audience grown at that announcement. The
presenter's face just DROPPED. Seriously, that had to be an "Oh shit" moment.

~~~
uasm
[https://youtu.be/YzQZLucY8iw](https://youtu.be/YzQZLucY8iw)

~~~
kissickas
To my extreme disappointment, "This video is unavailable."

~~~
huntermeyer
[https://youtu.be/0Nk538OH5xQ](https://youtu.be/0Nk538OH5xQ)

------
m52go
Maybe a bit off-topic, but each of these announcements seems to be posted here
on HN as a TechCrunch link.

Can we not do that?

Their site is very hard to browse these days, and there are plenty of better
options.

~~~
ddalex
I'd appreciate the suggestion of one of these options

------
president
Not hearing anyone mention the precision counter-balancing arm (there's an
animation of it on the website). I've never seen a monitor stand arm that
isn't pure trash. Not that I would pay $1000 for the stand but it looks to be
well-engineered and I really wish I could have one.

~~~
asdff
Careful not to drink the koolaid here. How many times do you adjust your
monitor once it's on your desk? Make one out of scrap wood to your exacting
custom specs and use the $999 for your 1tb ssd upgrade.

~~~
president
I move mine pretty frequently depending if I'm sitting or standing at my
stationary desk. The two things I would appreciate are:

1) Being able to fine-tune the height of the monitor

2) A monitor arm that's not a flimsy piece plastic that shakes whenever the
table moves

Who knows if the new mount even fulfills those 2 things but if they did, that
would be pretty cool. I don't think I could ever afford this in my lifetime
though.

~~~
plorkyeran
You can buy a solid metal VESA monitor stand that's easy to adjust for about
$50.

------
sleavey
The person describing the stand said it generates lots of heat so they need to
put a (fancy looking) heat sink on the back. If you take their advice and
chain 6 of these to one Mac Pro, what sort of heat output do you get?

~~~
luckydata
perfect for video editing in the night during a Michigan winter.

~~~
auggierose
laughing so hard

------
minimaxir
The real lede here is 1000nits of brightness; even the old LG Ultrafine
displays capped out at 500nits.

~~~
dethac
[https://www.dell.com/en-ca/shop/dell-ultrasharp-27-4k-hdr-
mo...](https://www.dell.com/en-ca/shop/dell-ultrasharp-27-4k-hdr-monitor-
up2718q/apd/210-amvp/monitors-monitor-accessories)

I mean there's that.

~~~
ksec
No it is not. _Peak_ 1,000 nits. Not sustainable brightness. The two are
totally different class.

------
pgib
I really hope they introduce a Semi-Pro display for those of us with existing
MacBook Pros (I think my 2016 can only push a 5K) who just want a successor to
the Thunderbolt Display. I'm currently using a Thunderbolt Display as well as
an LG 4K display. While I like the high resolution of the LG, the quality of
it is garbage compared to my Thunderbolt Display. The USB-C port works at best
5% of the time, and of course it stopped working after the warranty period.

------
qblv
I have been waiting to buy a monitor for a while and knew apple was up to
something. It looks like Apple totally nailed it but this is way too
expensive.

------
mr_tristan
This seems to be a luxury statement piece for for 99% of what I would consider
to be professional workers: people who spend 8 hours a day consuming text and
video, and producing knowledge work.

As a software engineer, I just can't quite figure out when the "Pro" label
might apply to me these days. The iMac Pro and MacBook Pro labels seem apt,
but the Mac Pro and Apple Pro Display labels do not.

It just feels kind of "un-Apple" that it takes research to figure out what
works for me, and their product categorization is now rather opaque.

------
mxfh
How do reference and fancy FALD (Full Array Local Dimming) do even go in the
same sentence?

Just give the people a OLED panel subscription instead of this LED unifomity
nightmare waiting to happen.

~~~
klodolph
Are there OLED panels available with this size and pixel density? My
understanding is also that OLED panels currently can suffer a bit from burn-
in, or at least color stability problems, which is a no-go for reference
monitors.

~~~
mxfh
That what I meant, a built in calibration arm/camera unit plus easily
replacable panel w/o driver unit might have been a killer feature. But
replaceable and Apple don't mix.

To me this looks like a overengineered consumer device, with insane macro-
scale part count and failures/uniformity issues just waiting to happen.
Besides local contrast issues with in a LED driven pixel area and the borders
between them. You can do this, but comparing it reference class seems quite
the claim to live up to.

The $40k Sony device mentioned is OLED btw.

[https://www.apple.com/105/media/us/pro-display-
xdr/2019/1e43...](https://www.apple.com/105/media/us/pro-display-
xdr/2019/1e439996-d014-462a-94d6-f67407717b60/overview/layers/large_2x.mp4)

~~~
gridlockd
> The $40k Sony device mentioned is OLED btw.

...and it still burns in, degrades, etc. It's not supposed to show a desktop.

Even with a replaceable panel, it would be a very costly affair. LCD panels
are mass market products, even if they happen to be (cut as) 6K or 8K.

~~~
dethac
I'd imagine that that's implicit: Nobody's buying a 40k display to show a
desktop.

------
gigatexal
Complaining only signals that you are not the market they’re targeting. This
is for Hollywood media makers, high end studios, etc. This was never to be a
mass market item.

~~~
Ninn
Cooperate and developers is a mass market, and I sure am the target segment.
But 1k stand is for sure taking a piss on us. You can't just deflect valid
criticism...

------
runesoerensen
Product page is up now: [https://www.apple.com/pro-display-
xdr/](https://www.apple.com/pro-display-xdr/)

------
Redoubts
$1K per K

~~~
obenn
1$ per pixel

~~~
gonational
You sho bout dat?

------
StillBored
I'm confused, didn't they spend a while talking about how great the 8k
streaming/editing/etc is on the new mac? Why isn't this an 8k monitor?

After all the dell UP3218K has been available for a while now and its 8k (and
actually priced less, and comes with a stand). Frankly, it looks nicer too as
they seem to have overdone the industrial cheese grader look IMHO.

------
tracker1
I wish they'd just bring back a "Macintosh," non-pro, non-book... Standard
itx/matx/atx size with a nice looking case and upper-middle parts in it for
something resembling an upper-middle price ($1500-3000 for desktop).

~~~
manuelmagic
It's never gonna happen. It simply is not Apple.

------
tbrooks
There also does not appear to be a front-facing camera on the display.

------
yhoiseth
I'm looking forward to seeing how well the matte option performs. Maybe we'll
even see it on other devices such as the MacBook Pro.

------
_ph_
Is it just me or is it odd that they show how the new display can be connected
to a Mac Pro or a Macbook Pro, but it doesn't feature even 2 inputs so you can
connect both and switch between as needed? That was already the reason why I
bought the Dell 30" screen instead of the Cinema Display, as it only had a
single input.

------
preflight
Apple produced the best $6,000 display you can buy. When the majority of pro
users wanted the best $1,500 display you can make. We want an iMac without all
the computer part. And they delivered a real 'pro' display.

Maybe this is a big middle finger up to all those asking for Apple's pro line
up to be more 'pro'.

------
dba7dba
Five freaking thousand dollars for a monitor?

Who is their target market? I'd like to know.

------
geophile
Apple is just completely out of touch now, aren't they?

~~~
dlivingston
This is not for consumers. This is for AV industry professionals whose
companies are footing the bill.

Apple has, rightly, been under fire lately for forgetting about the pro
market. This display, in the context of the presentation, is intended to
demonstrate that their professional focus is back.

~~~
geophile
I am not an AV industry professional. Are there competitive displays now? How
much do they cost?

~~~
threeseed
High end reference monitor is $30k.

[https://pro.sony/en_FI/products/broadcastpromonitors/bvm-
hx3...](https://pro.sony/en_FI/products/broadcastpromonitors/bvm-hx310)

~~~
dethac
It's also OLED, though, so there's that.

------
NN88
Apple is ahead of the game officially.

------
ilovecaching
Absolutely not interested in spending that much for something that’s not OLED.
OLED is the future of display technologies. We’re already seeing it hit the
laptop display market. You’ll get significantly better contrast for
professional work, power savings, and reduced eye strain from not staring at
1000nit light bulbs all day.

Also the stand part was funny.

~~~
gridlockd
OLED absolutely is _not_ the future of display technology. Besides phones,
it's a stopgap solution for TVs until MicroLEDs become feasible.

OLED makes for terrible monitors to use for hours on end, with all the
stationary UI elements causing burn-in. It's an unsolved problem.

OLED also isn't all that bright, especially on a smaller screen. You want
those nits for bright HDR content, like the sun, not to stare at it all day.

OLED also isn't substantially more energy efficient.

OLED visibly degrades in quality well within its lifetime.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love OLED TVs to watch films on, but they
don't make for good monitors.

~~~
ilovecaching
Lenovo is already starting to sell them. SamsUng would have told you they are
too expensive to produce until LG figured it out, just like they’ve figured
out how to make sceeen from phones to TVs with real longevity. We’ll see about
competition when it comes.

~~~
gridlockd
Nobody figured out burn-in or longevity with OLED. Sure, some companies may
sell such products, that doesn't mean they solved these issues. It just means
they don't care about those issues.

