Agree. Two inputs would have been a killer feature that would’ve made it fly off the shelves. But I don’t think you can do it with Thunderbolt input, versus DP or HDMI ones.
I hope there are some decent videos online showing the display on Vesa mount arms, so we can see how they work with Apple’s new display.
There isn’t generally a lot of load, but I do sometimes use the machine for Xcode builds. I was mainly wanting a 32GB device. My previous two mini servers started with small RAM and drives, and got upgraded along the way. This machine doesn’t provide that option, so I am potentially over-buying to future-proof my purchase. If Apple decides to release a 32GB mini at some point, I’ll repurpose this machines as a workstation.
I thought about this, but I really need a single monitor that can display as large a Xcode window as possible. A 3008 x 1682 window on a 6k display would be so much nicer to work in than my current 2560 x 1440. And, I might be able to push that up to a bit bigger. if I could get closer to 3300 x 1850 I’d be in heaven.
Remember that desktops are a small fraction of the Macs that Apple sells. It’s predominantly laptops.
That’s what I figure too. But hasn’t that been the case for a long time?
I think the reservation of modularity for the Pro line is born of experience, most users buy their machine and never modify them. The laptop has turned us all into dongle users…
What modularity means… that’s another matter. I wonder if that’s modularity within an Apple world only, a set of optional addons that they offer which could scale or add features over time. I’ve been suspecting they would look at a new bus which would be a spine for modules they add on. Or whether third party cards and such can be slotted in. Who knows… perhaps both. Back in the day, every computer was such.
My Studio Display is on order… awaiting a delivery date.
I have to find a way to switch it and a set of peripherals between my Max laptop and my 2019 iMac.
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Sure, which is why Apple’s desktop offerings have tended to have gaps in them for a while. The Studio, rather than filling one in an existing lineup, shifted the gap higher up.
TBH, I’m not expecting too much upgradability or expandability from the new MP either.
We won’t see socketed CPU or RAM. (Edit: daughter cards – well maybe…) We’ll again see soldered flash. I doubt we’ll see RAM slots. Heck, I doubt we’ll even see a PCIe slot. Perhaps a couple internal drive bays or some Apple proprietary slot to add excessively expensive flash storage cards. That’s what I’d expect.
Apple was never big on internal expansion in the more recent future. And they were rarely really good at it. When we had drive bays, there often was a lack of power or cooling or some other half baked shenaningan that made it cumbersome. When we had card slots, there were often few good cards available and they were expensive as heck and often left unsupported by subsequent OS updates. It was always a solution that felt like superglue, duct tape, and bale wire. Not something I would associate with modern OCD Apple and its clean Apple Silicon platform.
Claim w/o data and lacking citation.
The fact that Apple ran a highly successful iMac line for two decades tells me they made a boatload of money off of it.
Maybe in junk PC land that statement is true, but that Apple found a way to make a pretty penny off of consumer desktops? There is zero doubt about that. Perhaps they think they won’t in the future, but they certainly have in the past. And they certainly made much more off of it so far than they have made on all these silly vanity projects they seem so obsessed with lately like TV and crappy arcade game bundles.
if I could get closer to 3300 x 1850 I’d be in heaven.
What about something like the Alienware QD-OLED? That has a resolution of 3440 x 1440. Not quite your ideal resolution, but pretty close. I haven’t researched it, but I imagine there are other displays of similar resolution that have different panels and features.
You might also want to head over to Amazon, do a search for desktops, and keep and eye on the number of PCs that have their prices marked down.
Thunderbolt allows hot swapping, so if a monitor had two TB inputs, would just need a button to switch between…but not familiar with TB well enough to know if the monitor could maintain the illusion to the non-selected computer that it was hooked up to a monitor so it didn’t instantly go to sleep (closed laptop for example).
And not even sure there are any thunderbolt KVMs that support 5K resolution. So think the option is “move the cable”.
Please keep it civil, folks.
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Yes, the Studio Display has only a single input. This has, unfortunately, been an Apple tradition since at least the first Studio Displays around '98 (if not longer).
As I already wrote above: just because that might be the case in junk PC land, doesn’t mean it holds for Apple. And Apple does not publish such information.
What we know is that Apple made a tremendous amount of profit with iMac for two decades. They obviously assume they can make similar profits with mini+Studio or they wouldn’t do it. They make plenty on the desktop or they wouldn’t do it. They don’t give two hoots about what Dell and friends need to do to make money over in Windows land. And they certainly don’t base their lineup on whatever pops up when you search for this or that on Amazon. 
The probable reason they don’t “publish such information” is that except for the new top of the line XDR, which was released about a year ago, Apple hasn’t manufactured a freestanding display for quite a few years.
Has anyone actually seen a hands on review of these? The big gap between these and the old in person announcements is there’s no ‘and then we were led to another area…” coverage.
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I’m pretty sure that review units are in the reviewers’ hands now and any reviews are embargoed until a day or two before the release to stores on Friday, March 18. If I were a betting man, I would bet we’ll be seeing reviews on sites like Daring Fireball, the Verge, Ars Technica, the WSJ (with a Joanna Stern video), and Macworld either fairly late on Wednesday or early Thursday.
I’d note that John Gruber at Daring Fireball was been really quiet this week (just a few short comments).
For what it’s worth, I ordered a few days ago with delivery of the display in early April and the box in mid-Aprtil. If reviews are terrible, I can always cancel before shipping. I’ve already figured out how I’ll be changing my desk as well as the strategy migrating from my iMac.
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@aforkosh posted a link up there to Dan Moren’s great piece which nicely sums up where we are now with the Mac lineup. And that there is a gap.
He breaks it down this way. There’s two affordable desktops: $699 mini and $1299 24" iMac. Meanwhile there’s three more powerful options: $1999 and $399 Studio plus the $5999 MP and for each of those add $400-$2k for the display depending on where you stand on the scale from junk 4K to Studio with decent stand. So realistically speaking, there is nothing between $1299 and $2399.
And what’s missing right in there is the “prosumer” option. Those folks perhaps need more than the M1 (external displays, 16-GB RAM ceiling) so a MBA plus screen is not a viable alternative either.
The M1 Pro brings exactly that to the table. Now perhaps, Apple is just waiting to update the M1 mini and 24" iMac with the M2 and it’s likely the M2 will offer support for more TB busses (displays) and 32-GB RAM ceiling. Then a $699 Mac mini plus perhaps a USB/TB hub for more ports can fill that void. Certainly not as elegant as a high-end M1 Pro mini, but viable.
Ironically, such an option again underlines this lack of a more affordable Apple display. Say you’re targeting that gap in terms of funds to spend. So once you deduct ~$1k for either an alleged M1 Pro high-end mini or $699 for a future M2 mini, you’d be left with ~$900-$1200 and that simply does not buy you a Studio Display. Not even if you opt for the silly stand.
I was never a 27" iMac fan, but darn if this whole exercise hasn’t reiterated what a great value it presented. 
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