DIY Apple Studio Display uses 2014 iMac to save $730
- Thread starter JournalBot
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Apparently the YouTube algorithm likes large faces with exaggerated expressions in the thumbnail. I’ve no idea why it’s programmed to do that, but possibly it’s looking for strong emotion to drive engagement and no one at Google has paid enough attention to what their ML has learned.
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OptimusP83
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Fair point. I'm curious how far off the calibration is on the generic driver compared to Apple's calibration. Would have been interesting to do a before/after not just a side by side Studio Display/Frankenstudio Display.
That being said I'm not entirely sure the value proposition is there for someone who is buying one fresh vs just trying to repurpose an old machine. Machines with the P3-capable screen run upwards of $700 so you've really got to not want to give Apple money for this to make sense if you don't already have a 5K iMac...
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It's a travesty that Apple got rid of Target Display Mode. Pure corporate greed.
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OptimusP83
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Well I suspect there could have been issues with the way their security model is setup and allowing target display mode to continue to function, but yea I still feel that it was axed for $$$ reasons rather than security reasons.
Even a simple “Yes I accept that my data could conceivable be exfiltrated in Target Display Mode, and I won’t hold apple liable for anything that could occur” would be nice as a bone to those who would want to use it.
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To be fair, back when Apple released the iMac 5K there was no external display connection that could actually drive that resolution. But since then they really should have brought it back. There's no excuse for the current iMacs to still lack that feature today.
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There's no reason for there be security issues, from the point of view of whatever is connected to a iMac in TDM it's just a plain DisplayPort intput.
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OptimusP83
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Oh thought it was Thunderbolt 2. Well yea in that case nevermind.
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While it is true that the 1440p 27" Thunderbolt Display was $999. It was also a full docking station solution that included Webcam, speakers, 3 USB 2 ports a FireWire port and Ethernet. So while it was steep it was not absolutely outrageous. The $300 repackaging of that same panel would have at best gotten you a USB hub in addition to that panel. For someone who would have had a MacBook Air during that time Apples solution had real tangible advantages to justify its higher price tag. I do not feel that their current offering fits into that same category however.
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Save $730 and gets an 8yr old Display without any chance in hell of getting anything repaired if it breaks.
You can easily get a used LG Ultrafine for $1000 ($600 savings from ASD).
I'll take a slightly used Ultrafine over an 8yr old display that has been Frankenstein.
Although if you do have an iMac already ... maybe it's not a bad idea, but that's it.
You can easily get a used LG Ultrafine for $1000 ($600 savings from ASD).
I'll take a slightly used Ultrafine over an 8yr old display that has been Frankenstein.
Although if you do have an iMac already ... maybe it's not a bad idea, but that's it.
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I admire the effort, but the DIY model doesn't appear to support HDR(hence the blown out highlight rendition), and is noticeably blue/green. Maybe that would be improved with calibration, but for more serious color critical work I would stick with the new retail model rather than a mod.
I still feel the price of the Studio Display is too high for what it is, the LG version was around $1299. It should have been less than that given that the panel has been in production for years now.
I still feel the price of the Studio Display is too high for what it is, the LG version was around $1299. It should have been less than that given that the panel has been in production for years now.
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Yup, the first-gen 5K iMac used a frankenstein'd display controller since no one had something that could push that bandwidth. But all later versions used a COTS displayport chip and could have easily supported target display mode.
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OptimusP83
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Well HDR standards really didn’t exist back in 2014 when the iMac was introduced. It also, notably, doesn’t support wide gamut DCI-P3, which the later iMacs did support. So yea of course the output is inferior to the current studio monitor or a later introduced Lg Ultrafine.
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Did they? I was under the impression all the 5K iMacs continued to use the same dual-DisplayPort controller system as the original model.
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Apple's evil genius is so incredible that that eight years ago they already knew they'd get back into selling monitors this year so they killed target display mode in 2014 to increase earnings one tenth of one percent in 2022.
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Funny you mention recipes, I have a instance of Mealie running on my home server and one of my favorite past times is to use the URL importer to strip recipes from sites and get just the instructions and the ingredients.
Not commenting on the video part, just thought it was a entertaining coincidence.
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If you think that when Apple makes decisions, it doesn't factor in their bottom line at least 10 years into the future, you don't know much about them or their history.
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Apple sold monitors as a retailer during that time. I'd imagine they took a significant profit margin on those sales
https://web.archive.org/web/20170723192 ... ays-mounts
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Obviously Apple makes some plans many years out into the future, but you're being very silly if you're going to argue Apple exited the display business in 2016 and effectively handed it off to LG for years with the full intent of going back into it in 2019. It's very obvious there have been some major changes in Mac strategy in particular from 2016 to now.
If there's any corporate greed involved in the decision to remove Target Display Mode, it's simply from not bothering to invest the time and effort into bringing it back once it became technologically viable to do so (ie, when Thunderbolt 3 came to the 5K iMac).
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Some greed, but not pure greed.
They did it when the 5K iMac first came out. At that time, there were no display cables that could deliver that kind of bandwidth. This was in the Thunderbolt 2 days. They had to use two separate channels internally to drive the display. Target Display Mode would not work in that scenario. Yes, they probably could have brought it back once Thunderbolt 3 was out, but by then, they had moved on.
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Apple was one of many retailers of LG 5K monitors, and sold them at suggested retail. While that’s a higher margin than discounters are willing to accept, it’s not as high as the margins Apple makes on iMacs.
If target display mode was easy and cheap to reimplement once the 5K iMac had a version of Thunderbolt that could handle 5K video, Apples incentives would heavily be on restoring it. That’s because selling more iMacs was a far higher priority than selling a few more 3rd party monitors. Apple is always looking to add more value to products to justify their higher prices, MagSafe, TouchID, Touchbars, Retina, 5K Retina, etc, etc.
Hardware like iMacs have roughly 50% gross margins, meaning the hardware parts/assembly costs about half of the retail price. For Macs another 35% is spent on R&D, Marketing, Admin, etc leaving about a 15% profit margin. Every extra iMac sold drops 50% to the bottom line once all the operating costs are covered. This means each extra $1300 iMac sold nets Apple around $650, while a $1300 LG 5K bets around $200.
And this isn’t counting customer satisfaction and goodwill and that value for future sales. Apple values that very highly, it’s Tim Cook’s # one stat.
So we can be pretty sure that restoring target display mode wasn’t cheap or easy or the product manager would have championed it so she had another value feature to tout.
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Target display mode doesn't sell new iMacs. Nobody is buying two iMacs to use one in TDM, they are putting their old iMac in TDM instead of buying a monitor.
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Nobody buys Macs for MagSafe. Why does Apple Pay extra to provide it?
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Honestly, I suspect it just boils down to: Target Display Mode is and always was a niche feature that few users actually used, and once they had to cut it for the initial 5K iMac it wasn't deemed worth the trouble to bring back.
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Well, I for one know I will never buy a iMac ever again until Apple reimplements that feature.
Hard to tell if that's a common opinion though.
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TDM is being retroactively viewed through rose-tinted tea shades. It was never a particularly “workable” solution. You can’t just turn the monitor on — You must to “boot” the monitor using a keyboard or SSH login. I used it occasionally to provide a large screen for my then MacBook. The iMac was still in service at the time. I can’t imagine using it as a full-time, stand-alone monitor for any length of time — despite being firmly in the “retina” camp, I’d find a $350 4K monitor preferable.
Sure, there are some out there who will put up with the nonsense. There always are. Especially when it’s just words… The idea of using your ten year old iMac as a dedicated monitor never made practical sense to anyone but techno-masochists.
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Target Display Mode was always pretty janky. A proper fix would be to be able to configure the iMac so it boots via the firmware straight into a mode where one of its ports acts just like a displayport input, and passes that video signal straight to the monitor driver. No booting into an OS at all. But there doesn't seem to be strong demand for Apple consumers to implement this sort of feature.
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OptimusP83
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Yea essentially have TDM as a "Boot Drive" on the list when you hold option at startup. That would be a kludgy, but perfectly workable solution, tbh.
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I could see it being an important feature to have in the one iMac you buy. I can't see anyone buying a second iMac just to use it in TDM, which was my point.
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Sure, but it just highlights how niche this feature was.
I'm not surprised that once Apple ran into the bandwidth limitations as they launched the 5K iMac, it just was never worth putting the investment into it.
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But nobody ever said that. The main selling point of TDM was always to extend an iMac screen's usable life past the computer inside it.
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One man’s kludgy but workable…
This requires dedicating a keyboard to your monitor — or plugging one in for the duration. (I’m ruling out the SSH option for the vast majority of users).
I understand that I am not everyone — but I suspect the overall market leans in my direction. TDM is useful on an ad hoc basis. That usefulness falls off dramatically once the computer is out of service. I don’t celebrate Apple for removing the feature, but I understand the engineering compromise. At the end of the day, it just wasn’t that useful or popular.
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...which means you are continuing to use the iMac rather than buying a separate monitor.
Apple has a financial interest in selling you stuff. That stuff includes monitors. Now, it's the Pro Display XDR or the Studio Display. Before, when TDM was killed, it was a selection of LG panels at standard retail pricing. In either case, Apple profits by selling you a monitor when you otherwise would have used TDM.
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OptimusP83
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True. I used TDM once or twice on older iMacs but it was mainly used for diagnosing a slightly dead (but not all dead) Macbook whose screen wasn't working.
I also agree that just having a real monitor makes a TON more sense from every perspective except "I already have this perfectly good screen but the mainboard died or is too slow". On the one hand I can see why Apple likely nixed the feature when it became impossible to maintain (prior to standards catching up with the 5k bandwidth requirements) and then later just not worth the effort of reintroducing it. On the other hand I also see the ewaste inherent in the All-in-one form factor being problematic and wasteful to throw away a really high quality screen because the guts are outdated or dead.
But throw it on ebay, let some enterprising modder put the screen to good use and recycle the useless guts and that problem is sorta solved. I think people don't realize that once electronics are sold on they aren't always just thrown in the trash destined for some toxic waste dump in a 3rd world country.
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OptimusP83
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Well I was assuming you could choose TDM as s "default" so it always booted into TDM vs booting from the internal storage. One could remove internal storage completely to make TDM the default I suppose...
But yea your average mac user likely doesn't care much, they'll just get a new one, and bring the old one in to Apple to recycle and get a nice $2-400 credit towards their new machine.
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Because at the time the 27" 5K iMac came out, there wasn't a port that could support 5K. The previous 4K 21" iMacs did offer this
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It's not the algorithm that likes those thumbnails, it's that those types of thumbnails get more people to click, and the more engagement the video is getting, the more the algorithm will boost it.
Veritasium has a video about "thumbnail face" and other forms of clickbait to get people to click on the video:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2xHZPH5Sng
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