Yes, indeed. I have a iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2017), and am thinking of getting a Mac Studio. The ‘obvious’ way to go is to buy a Studio Display as well and throw out the iMac. But then I would be spending $1600 to replace the iMac 5k screen with essentially the same screen, plus better speakers and an allegedly better webcam (but there are many reviews saying that the webcam doesn’t work properly at the moment). So keeping the iMac and using it as the ‘Primary’ screen connected to the Mac Studio using Luna and a Thunderbolt cable might make sense. Adam lists some issues with the Luna, but I am wondering whether any of them are relevant to my suggested setup:
- Performance not great - but he was testing with a wifi link, and says that ‘If you were using the 40 Gbps Thunderbolt 3 … the extra speed might eliminate all the interface hiccups’.
- Occupies 2 Thunderbolt ports - not an issue for the iMac (I would only be using it as a screen, so nothing else connected) and the Studio has 4 Thunderbolt ports, so losing one is not a problem.
- Video is jerky - see previous points.
- Apple Watch unlocking doesn’t work - I don’t have an Apple Watch.
- Restarts require App Window rearranging - if the iMac is the primary (and only) display, it is not clear whether or not this will be a problem.
- Kernel panics - this hopefully will not be an issue.
However, the Luna website does not seem to consider this possibility (it does describe using an iPad as a primary display for a Mac Mini, and an iMac as a secondary display, but not an iMac as a primary display).
Do you think this setup would work satisfactorily?
UPDATE:
Luna have said to me:
Thank you for your interest in Luna Display! We expect Luna to work with the new Mac Studio and to allow you to use a 2017 iMac as a display for it, but we cannot say for certain at this time as we haven’t had a Mac Studio in to test with Luna yet.
You should be able to be set up the Mac Studio the same way the Mac mini can be set up in headless mode with Luna. The initial setup process for headless mode would require an external monitor, a mouse and a keyboard connected to the primary Mac since you will need to install the primary Luna app on the Mac Studio.