Tag Archives: Pro Display XDR

Best thing about the new Mac Studio Display? It’s Optional with the Mac Studio Desktop…

Video September 23, 2022 Danny Leeds

Apple is now in the business of giving it’s customers what they actually want, as has often been pointed out by my colleagues since the Apple March event earlier this week. The show, unveiled under the moniker “peek performance”, was highlighted by the unveiling of the new Apple Studio Display along with the Mac Studio (Desktop), in both M1 Max and M1 Ultra configurations.

Other new products announced were the new iPhone SE 3, iPad Air 5. The demise of the iMac 27” (2020) was also quietly acknowledged.

The very big news was the apple silicon powered desktop duo. Most remarkable is the pattern that seems to be emerging at Apple. Instead of forging ahead with features and formats that are either out of reach of the masses, or just not what we have most devoutly wished for, they appear to be in full-on genie-mode and are granting wishes at an industrial clip.

Suddenly, the much maligned slogan for the iPhone 13 Pro, Oh So Pro, does not seem ludicrous anymore. Armed with an Iphone 13 Pro Max, a MacBook Pro 16 and the new Mac Studio ensemble, anyone would identify with that somewhat haughty designation; your motto could truthfully be Oh. So. Pro.

The Mac Studio Desktop M1 Max and Studio Desktop M1 Ultra versions are a case in point.

The biggest wish fulfillment dream come true is that this machine can be configured at the low end as an amazingly affordable stand-alone workstation, which with the addition of a non-apple monitor (that you may already have, for example) puts you into a pro-performance class at under $2000.

This is nothing less than the holy grail of what many pro and semi-pro mac aficionados have been pining for for nearly decades. The entry level Mac Studio vs Mac Mini (with any monitor if on a budget), The Mac Studio vs iMac 27” (now discontinued as per above), Hell, even the The Mac Studio vs the MacBook Pro 16” with M1Max, these are all a huge win for the Studio Desktop if you factor in price and performance.

At the other end of the spectrum, if you have the cash, the full Mac Studio, including the Apple Studio Display is a Mac Pro killer in price and performance. Naturally there have already been rumors that the Mac Pro update is near at hand and even that a new monitor with similar features to the 32-inch Retina 6K Pro Display XDR ($6k) but at a price point well below that lofty sum.

By making the monitor optional this blows apart the tacit strategy that has been followed for decades – want the newest top performing machine ? Then you either buy an iMac Pro, the top of the line MacBook Pro (with integral screen costs) or win the lottery first to attain the cash for the Mac Pro / Pro Display XDR combo.

No more. At under Two Thousand smackers you can improvise a display which you compute your way to the cash needed to purchase the Apple Studio Display. Once you get there you will be able to luxuriate in the unbelievable sound system built in, featuring a three-microphone array as well as a six-speaker sound system with Spatial Audio support. You’ll also get your screen debut using the 12mp integrated “web-cam” with Center Stage enhancement, all provided courtesy of the built-in A13 Bionic chip.

This not-so-subtle shift is also made evident by the plethora of ports and configuration options that make the system, how ever you choose to build it, very user friendly in terms of matching the budget to the tasks you plan to undertake with your prize.

The even bigger picture is the way that the entire product line from Apple is benefitting from the unique “whole-widget-strategy” first laid out by Steve Jobs. Since the introduction of Apple Silicon, first in iOS devices and now across the entire Apple ecosystem, there has been a massive acceleration of improved performance (peek performance indeed). Expect this trend to intensify as the migration continues alongside the eventual total integration of iOS and MacOS software.

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Business, Cutting Edge, Tech

The War is Over: The Good Guys Won – WWDC Day Explodes with Software and Hardware For The Ages

Video June 9, 2019 Danny Leeds

APPLE RELEASES MAC PRO AND PRO DISPLAY XDR –

Oddly fitting, it seems, to be writing this on the 75th anniversary of D-Day, and imagining a very different, yet strangely similar, world outcome at stake. As pundits and trolls debate prices and feature sets, something larger is happening just beyond the threshold of perception.

The superior ecosystem of integrated elements, conceived as a whole, is beginning to emerge after 35 years. And, as if rising from a fog, the outline of the way we will create and communicate via digital networks in the future, is getting clearer.

FOUR PILLARS OF HOPE

In our most recent article covering WWDC: 8-core MacBook Pro and iPod Touch with A10 chip Released to Coincide With iOS and macOS Upgrade Announcements at WWDC, a trinity of forces was mentioned:

“With overall improvements in connectivity coming with 5g, not to mention all the satellite systems being built, the trinity of hardware muscle, accelerated software evolution, and hi-speed networking will be the “one more thing” of the era to come”.

The real story is about the improvements in the creative and computational power coming together on three fronts:

“If you want to teach people a new way of thinking, don’t bother trying to teach them. Instead, give them a tool, the use of which will lead to new ways of thinking.”
― R. Buckminster Fuller

Powerful fast hardware (nobody is complaining about the speed and power of the new Mac Pro), extended functionality of software – whether embedded within macOS Catalina, or from third parties, and then, finally, the-up-and coming speed and low latency of 5G and satellite networks.

Mac Pro IMAGES:

[gdgallery_gallery id_gallery=”3″]

photos by Apple

THE SECOND WAVE STARTS WHEN THE FOUR PILLARS ARE COMPLETE

What shines through is the path that Apple has kept all throughout the years and into today. Steve’s continuing, guiding hand prevented the core value propositions and and underlying goals from changing. And hallelujah to that.

My understanding is that a great part, if not the greatest part, of that ethos, was that human creativity and communication are paramount. And that building tools, to enhance and engender those, are a scared quest, worthy of noble men and women.

Now, here we stand, in a world that cries out for, and is even in danger of perishing without, a new higher level of communication and creativity.

And the tools are arriving, hopefully in-time, so let us be thankful to Steve’s great legacy, to Apple’s perseverance, and now pull together – and get to work…

Pro Display XDR IMAGES

[gdgallery_gallery id_gallery=”4″]

photos by Apple

FROM WHENCE ALL WEALTH?

Much has been made of the high prices and perceived ‘lack of innovation‘ in this, most recent, stream of new products from Apple. One ‘Fair and Balanced’ news organization’s headline screamed that Apple was considered ‘criminal’ for charging $999 for a monitor stand.

Sometimes, information comes at us all so fast, our brains need some time to catch up to reality. T his year’s WWDC was a bit like that, an avalanche of updates and features, exploding from 90 foot screens.

“And whence will come the wealth with which we may undertake to lead world-man into his new and validly hopeful life? From the wealth of the minds of world-man — whence comes all wealth.”
– R. Buckminster Fuller

A thousand dollar stand? Horrors. 50k for the maxed out system, boo hoo. ‘You can buy a gaming PC for around the same as the stand’. So what?. Next we’ll see an article calculating that if you buy 10 Pro Display XDRs and 10 stands that’ll be over $60,000! And somebody groaned! Quel Scandale! Apple haters are still hating and if it bleeds, it leads. And missing the story like it was the the broad side of a barn.

As a species, Buckmintser Fuller probably also said, we have been on training wheels. Well, now they are coming off, and we will need every ounce of power we can get our hands on if we are going to innovate and communicate ourselves out the messes we’ve created in this world.

Are these the tools meant to help content creators contribute to Apple’s shift from primarily hardware profits to income from subscriptions and services? Yes.

They are also the tools to help creators, communicators and scientists to innovate and ideate our way out of a road to possible self-inflicted extinction. Oh, yea, there’s that.

So let’s stand up and cheer for the company that is trying, like Steve wanted, to give us the best tools. ‘Cause heroes are hard to find, these days. Hero companies? There’s only one, or maybe two.

Apple is leading the way with serious simultaneous improvements in 2 of the 3 pillars of the golden triangle: more muscular hardware such as the new Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR, shown here, and a new galaxy of capabilities that will grow out of iOS13 and macOS Catalina, both announced and showcased this week at WWDC.

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Cutting Edge, Observation, Tech

No Good Deed… The Saga of The Apple Pro Display XDR WWDC Debacle: The Stand Controversy De-bunked

June 6, 2019 Danny Leeds

Hilariously mis-understood marketing message

With all the amazing products and software updates unveiled at Apple’s WWDC 2019, you’d think the viral meme would be something related. You’d be wrong. The trending topic for the first several days was… the monitor stand.

More specifically, the price of the monitor stand. Before you get really confused, it’s more the fact that the price was quoted separately, not a usual thing in general for monitor pricing. But this is no usual monitor.

As the name implies: The Pro Display XDR is meant for professional use. Hence the fairly hefty 5k price tag. So far, no big deal, right? Had Apple just announced a professional monitor, comparable in specs to pro monitors costing upwards of forty thousand dollars for 6k$, we’d probably have seen articles lauding them for creating thirty-four thousand in “savings”.

Lots of Bunk that needs De-Bunking

Further, if they had announced that the $6,000 monitor could be purchased “sans stand” for only 5k$, again, it’s all good. Instead, it was accidentally implied that the average-joe (who wants to buy a professional stand) would have to pay 5k$ for the screen and then another 1k$ for the “optional” stand.

Once this was announced scribes and haters all across the land began to decry the injustice to the world that this “arrogant” company would have the nerve to charge “as much as an iPhone XS”for nothing but a chunk of metal.

The race was on to compile the most outrageous comparisons: “you can buy an entire gaming PC for the price!”, wrote one, “it’s everything wrong with Apple today“, screamed another. After many such articles, each more ridiculous than the last, the “grown ups” began to chime in.

Digital Deflation is a Tricky Business

Finally, it was pointed out that professional video or film editing businesses, the folks for whom this stand was designed and priced, tend to have studio edit bays custom built for the purpose of high end editing, processing and color correcting, among other professional activities.

The plot thickens…

So, wait, what was really announced is that those same pros described above could opt-out of a monitor stand they do not need and save the much whined about $999? You don’t say. How nice those Apple folks are. So thoughtful. Trying to help rich folks avoid paying $999 for a stand that will end up in a storage room.

Why so misunderstood then, if this is all so obvious? Digital Deflation. Yes, that nasty sounding trend that has changed the world around us for more than 25 years.

History of cost reduction to zero dollars

To make sense of this hilarious tale, it seems, we have to first go back. Waaaay Baaack. All the way to around 1996. At that time there was no 8k video to edit, let alone multiple streams of said 8k. Nevertheless, a professional workstation, absolutely necessary at the time to do any non-linear editing or EFX, would set you back around $100,000+. And those monitors? They’d likely be CRT and still cost 50k or some ungodly number.

Many of the processes that were routinely required in editing, color correcting and EFX generation could not be achieved on any computer or software alone. Everything had hardware add-ons, tally up another 50k here and 50k there.

So, once again, why the huge misunderstanding?

Fast forward to 2019. Your iPhone can shoot excellent 4k video anywhere, anytime, since it’s already in your pocket. Cost: zero additional dollars after owning the phone.

Add to that software, if you are on a budget you can forego the daunting challenge of coughing up a couple of hundred dollars to buy Final Cut Pro (there’s that pesky “Pro” again in the name), and go with Blackmagic Design’s “DaVinci Resolve” software, which happens to include excellent non-linear editing, EFX generation and management, color correction and much more. Price tag? For the functioning entry level version, zero dollars. For added professional functionality, a few hundred dollars.

Bottom line, if you already have an iPhone and some kind of Mac, zero dollars.

Tricky Business, Indeed

Here’s where it really gets crazy. Apple, and other tech companies, have, in essence, engendered this deflation by reducing the costs of everything needed for digital media creation, at a higher and higher level to, practically, zero$.

Great, right? Well, not entirely. It seems that when the cost of production nears zero, the monetization of the fruits of creation head south even faster. Translation? It’s damn hard to get paid if you are a freelancer producing and editing digital media products. Only the highest level creators (Hollywood Heavyweights, top of the charts, you get the idea) can garner much of anything, and, of course, they can afford many times that $999 for fruit toppings at breakfast.

Everyone else (a.k.a. “the rest of us”) live in side-hustle hell. Hence the moans, groans, and whining over the “dream” of having $999 to spare for a monitor stand.

So, to re-cap, the same people who were “gifted” by massive advances in technical capabilities spearheaded by apple, to the point where millions of dollars of production overhead for hardware was reduced to almost zero, were also victims of an unemployment epidemic, unleashed by the “barriers to entry” for their chosen profession being reduced to… wait for it… zero.

And, yea, by the way, all this applies double to writers working for digital media outlets. So let the angst flow freely next time an arrogant monolithic company has the audacity to release a pro product at a pro price. I feel ya, Dog, I really do.