LG Accidentally Leaks Apple iMac 8K Is Coming Later This Year 263
An anonymous reader writes LG accidentally revealed in blog post that Apple is planning to release a 8K iMac later this year. This news comes as a surprise as the leak came from a different company rather than Apple. LG is one of Apple's biggest display partners and has already demonstrated 8K monitors at CES in Las Vegas. They note that the panel boasts 16 times the number of pixels as a standard Full HD screen.
Too many pixels = slooooooow (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, 4k is already overkill in most situations. 8k is just fetishism. And it may well be worse, as all those pixels have to be controlled somehow.
Re:Too many pixels = slooooooow (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
Fuck everything, we're doing five blades.
Yeah!
And don't give me any of this "visible to the naked eye" or "only a dog could hear that" bullshit either. Marketing doesn't want to hear that! There will be ZERO excuses as to why we don't develop "high-end" headphones that go to 100,000Hz and 32K screens. Why? Because stupid people will buy anything when advertised as the "best".
No wonder I shave with a DE razor.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Because stupid people will buy anything when advertised as the "best".
Except 8K resolution is immensely better than 4K. The only people dismissing it as marketing bullshit are people who haven't seen it.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
I look askance at this 8k rumor. Apple isn't even done with the transition to 4k. and they declined to play the resolution race in the smartphone arena. and they are choosing to go with thinner hardware and eschew more power to get the battery life. case in point, their new MacBook has the same benchmarks as a MacBook air from 2011.
they are all about figuring out what is the optimum configuration for people's actual use, and designing to that.
NTMP (Never Too Many Pixels) (Score:2)
sheeeeeit. These are NOTHING compared to the 16k displays that'll be out in the spring. I hear that's when they're going to add the mandatory "oil cooling hotness" to the Mac Pro, too. Of course, if you wait till fall, those 32k displays are on the way!
[Looks sadly at N(ever)T(wice)S(ame)C(color) security monitor...]
As Cheech and Chong might have put it, "Even gets AM!" Well, ok, old school TV that isn't broadcast any longer. But you know what I meant.
Or not. I'm old.
GET OFF MY NURSING HOME'S LAWN!
Pixel density? VR! (Score:3)
8k iMac: depending on the specs of the iMac, that might means that they have managed to increase the pixel density (high DPI).
8k in it self doesn't mean anything. You have to factor in display size, viewing distance, etc.
And there is ONE FIELD that is going to benefit immensely from higher densities: VR!
VR is typically a field of application where you are viewing a relatively small screen (Occulus tend to use typical smartphone displays. Older VR headsets like eMagine 3D visor had even smaller display, like
Re: (Score:3)
They already have a 5k iMac...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
They already have a 5k iMac...
And, if you lean forward - which most people do instinctively when they want to see something in more detail - you can discern the pixels on a 'retina' 5K iMac. 8K would be a definite improvement for photographic or artistic work. If the new model has a larger screen, 5K would definitely be insufficient.
For many people, this would represent a significant improvement in quality.
Don't care (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm a photographer and and constant user/developer of image manipulation software. I edit every shot. I don't need 5k in a monitor; if I need a full-image overview, I can have that, zero perceptible time. If I need to look at pixels, same thing. Or anywhere in between. I do *not* need to be squinting at a monitor in order to resolve detail. I value my vision too highly. And at these resolutions, you don' t squint, you can't see
Re:Too many pixels = slooooooow (Score:5, Funny)
And 20 years from now when we are using 8M monitors, someone will dig up this post and giggle. "Remember in 2015 when gweihir said that 8k was overkill! ROTFlyingCar!!!"
Re:Too many pixels = slooooooow (Score:5, Funny)
In a few years we'll have videophiles who buy 2048 DPI screens and $1000 woven silver DisplayPort cables and describe how their new baby produces such a visual canvas with airy colors and edgy lines that add presence to windows and make Chrome seem more forward.
Re: (Score:3)
The true videophiles will be buying vintage 1024x768 TFT screens from 1997 because only over VGA can you really capture the warmth and vibrancy of the signal.
Re: (Score:2)
likely this is meant to be snarky, but it is actually true. philes love preserving the analog pathway. film on a projector is #1. Would not be surprised if VCR on a CRT became #2.
picking nits, but.... (Score:3)
An ASA 25 slide projected in a dark room looks *awesome*. A VCR on a CRT looks crap.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Too many pixels = slooooooow (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Too many pixels = slooooooow (Score:4, Informative)
It's useful for still photography - DSLRs are pushing 50 MB file sizes - a large 8K screen would be wonderful for Photoshop. Not so sure about the iMac format - that's basically just laptop parts slapped behind the panel. Maybe Apple can make an iMac + that's build from real computer parts.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: Too many pixels = slooooooow (Score:5, Informative)
Surely it depends on screen size and viewing distance?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
If you saw Interstellar in actual 70mm film, you can easily tell which scenes were shot in 35 vs 70 when the screen is the size of a real IMAX theatre.
I could see a qualitative difference in the image between IMAX and non-IMAX on a 1080p rip. It's not just down to resolution.
Although, to disclaim, the scenes were also different aspect ratios, which was a bit weird.
Re: Too many pixels = slooooooow (Score:2)
I'm going to stand out from the rest here and say that I think 8k is a good place to stop, similar to how VGA stopped at 24-bit color (not counting an added brightness channel, which will have a use in the future for better dynamic range IMO.)
The reason why is because soon enough, 72" TVs will be common, and 4k won't be enough if you sit less than 6 feet away from such a screen.
Re: (Score:2)
24 bit color is a problem. Out of those 16 million colors, about 1/4 are greys and about 1/2 are browns. The remaining 4 million are slightly more than a million of each of the reds, greens and blues leaving less than a million in the rest of the spectrum. When it comes to shades of oranges your limited to only about 60 that most people won't say are brown when viewed in isolation.
The flipper displays that use 18 bits are even worse and are way too common.
Of course the real fix for this is to run HSV r
Re: Too many pixels = slooooooow (Score:2)
Re:Too many pixels = slooooooow (Score:5, Informative)
4K is the limit of human visual perception.
The limit of visual perception is measured in pixels per angular distance. It doesn't depend on the number of pixels, but on their size and distance... at least until you get to the level where your entire field of view is covered by pixels that are small enough to be invisible at their given distance.
At the distance from my eyes to my desktop monitor (about 20 inches), I expect I can resolve pixels down do about 200 pixels per inch. My 30" monitor is about 26" wide by about 16" tall, which means that to reach the limit of my visual perception (assuming my estimate of 200 ppi is accurate; it may be a little low), I need 5200 horizontal pixels, about 5K. I'm hoping that within the next couple of years I can upgrade to a 40" monitor, though, and 8K would be about right for a display that size.
More pixels would be good if I sometimes want to lean closer to see fine details (and I do).
And, really, we absolutely do want sufficient resolution that pixels are indistinguishable, so we can have what appear to be perfectly smooth curves and arbitrarily fine lines. Smooth text, in particular, is much easier on the eyes. I have a MacBook Pro with a high-resolution display on my desk right next to my big monitor and it is sooo much more pleasant to look at.
Re: (Score:2)
People think I sit relatively close to my main 27" screen and I just measured and I am at a distance of about 58 cm (almost 23 inches for the metric-impaired people). If I went any closer and tried to watch something full-screen, I would have to turn my head right and left to track things. Don't get me wrong, I love monitor real-estate, so I have a second monitor (portrait mode) next to the main one, but I do indeed turn my head to see it. So 20 inches for a 30" monitor is a bit pushing it, therefore I rea
Re: (Score:2)
I don't use anything full-screen. The point of the big monitor is to fit lots of stuff, not to make a little bit of stuff really big. My 30" monitor normally contains nothing but terminal and editor windows, using a small font.
My desktop machine actually has three monitors connected. A 30" in the middle, in landscape orientation and 24" monitors on the side, in portrait orientation. I do have to move my head to look at all of this screen space, including to look at different areas of the 30". I will repla
Re:Too many pixels = slooooooow (Score:4, Insightful)
4k on a 32" monitor isn't even "retina" by Apple's original standard, let along near the limit of human vision. The original iPhone retina display was 325 PPI, which if scaled to 32" would result in an 8k display.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Complete and utter BS.
The limit of visual perception depends entirely on the viewing distance and on pixel density.
Re: (Score:2)
No, it's roughly the limit of 20/20 vision. I checked using the spreadsheet here [carltonbale.com] and my 28" 3840x2160 screen that I sit 60 cm in away from is perfect for anyone with 20/18.5 vision or worse. However, that's only the lower limit for what is considered "normal" vision, not perfect visual acuity [wikipedia.org]:
Healthy young observers have a binocular acuity superior to 20/20; the limit of acuity in the unaided human eye is around 20/10-20/8 (6/3-6/2.4), although 20/8.9 was the highest score recorded in a study of some US professional athletes.
I know that I at one point could make out most of the 20/16 line, not anymore though. Moving to 8K would double the pixel density so the same screen, same distance at 7680x4320 would be good up to 20/9.25 vision, cover
Re: (Score:3)
4K is the limit of human visual perception.
Nonsense, stop repeating this untrue lie.
The same crap was said back when 1080p came out, there were even people saying that 720p was enough and that 1080p was overkill unless you were on a 50" screen.
It just isn't true.
Load up a game on a 4k screen, with AA turned off. Find something like stairs and turn left and right with them on screen. You'll still see jaggies.
Then turn AA on, notice it gets better.
When AA no longer makes a difference, then we're there.
You may or may not be able to see each pixel, bu
Re: Too many pixels = slooooooow (Score:3)
I'd rather have Apple implement 10- or even 12-bit displays first. It's kind of annoying seeing banding where none actually exists in the underlying RAW photo.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Too many pixels = slooooooow (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously, 4k is already overkill in most situations.
Agreed. I ended up getting 2k monitors this time around; (2560x1440) because good 4k screens tended to be slower (refresh rate), much more expensive, and put more demand on the video card).
Admittedly technology doesn't stand still, and I might have bought a 4k screen if I were shopping TODAY. Prices have come down, refresh rates over 30Hz aren't hard to find on affordable units, etc.
Or maybe not...they still push the video card a lot harder, and I'm happy with my 2k screens. They are great for programming, and working with PDFs, etc. 4k honestly doesn't look better to me; there is virtually no 4k content at all, games don't benefit from it... the consoles barely drive 1080p; and I need a pretty solid card to run my 2k screens in games. And shrinking the text down and getting 4x as much on the screen wouldn't be readable to me anyway so that's not a plus. So even 4k, as the parent said, is overkill for most things.
8k ... what's the point? Do I want one? Sure I do. And a pair of GTX titans to drive it too. But need one? Or have any use case that even sort of validates having one? Nope. I don't. And I'm curious what one would even look like.
I guess at the end of the day, I'm glad it exists because it'll continue to push the hardware advance, and prices will come down.. and maybe one day I'll be able to buy a 100" 4k TV for cheap because the 150" 8k 3D TVs will be "the premium" model.
Re: (Score:3)
4K = 3840 x 2160 or in other words double the dimension of the 1920x1080 doubled in both directions. I've always thought calling it 4K was a bit dubious, yes it's 4 times the number of pixels but it's only twice the resolution.
But calling 2560x1440 2K is just an abomination of nomenclature, it's neither twice the size nor two times the number of pixels. In fact there is no mathematical relationship between them that's even a whole number. It's not 2K, it's a resolution between HD and 4K, but it's not halfwa
Re:Too many pixels = slooooooow (Score:5, Informative)
I agree, and I misused the term.
That said, 2k *is* a real thing. Its a cinema / projector standard (usually around 2048x1536)
And cinema 4k is 4096 x 2160; whereas monitor resolution 4k is 3840x2160 -- which comes up a bit short. Cinema 4k refers to horizontal reslution being 4k (4096) vs it being 4x as many pixels as 1080p (1920x1080).
So yeah... I definitely abused the nomenclature; and I'll avoid calling 2560x1440 "2k" going forward as you are right... But its not like I started it. Nomenclature for resoultion standards is a godawful MESS.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't disagree, I get a little neck twitch whenever they call it 4K or 8K.
The 2048x1536 resolution is pretty close to 1.5x the number of pixels or 50% more pixels which at least sort of fits with the whole 100% bigger = 4x nomenclature. But otherwise I agree, the whole nomenclature system is completely screwed up. You had to expect it when the marketing department got on board, not that different than HDMI CEC where it's got about 50 names because each manufacturer gave it a name specific to that brand.
Re: (Score:2)
8k resolution is 7680x4320. At 32" that's only 275 PPI. My OnePlus One phone is 400 PPI, and even an iPhone manages 325 PPI. It's not actually that extreme for the largest monitor you would reasonably want on a typical desk.
The other advantage of going to 8k is that scaling works better. With 4k on a 28" monitor you probably want about 1.5x normal scaling, which means any old bitmaps are going to look crap. Once you get up to 8k scaling by non-integer numbers isn't too bad.
For games, just run at 1/2 or eve
Re: (Score:2)
8k resolution is 7680x4320. At 32" that's only 275 PPI. My OnePlus One phone is 400 PPI, and even an iPhone manages 325 PPI. It's not actually that extreme for the largest monitor you would reasonably want on a typical desk.
PPI is a meaningless stat. An inch 11' feet away (my TV) is not the same as an inch 3' away (my PC monitors), is not the same as an inch 12" away (rougly where I usually hold my phone.)
pixels per degree (of field of view) is what matters. This is why a phone needs hundreds of PPI while a movier theatre 40 feet away needs a fraction of that to look just as good. The human eye only has so many receptors after all.
There is some debate on just how many pixels per degree the human eye can discern, and there are
Re: (Score:2)
Resolution is relevant for application developers and video hardware makers, and PPI far less so to them, and there are a fair few developers on
Most of the discuss
Re: (Score:2)
With a PPI value, anyone can figure out if it will benefit them at their viewing distance, and based on that viewing distance, what resolution is their 'sweet spot'.
True enough.
The resolution value without the PPI is meaningless.
If you have the resolution value; and the screen dimensions you've got PPI, if you want it. Or you can add viewing distance and go straight for PPD.
PPI is, at best, an intermediate calculation step that really doesn't need to be used. I suppose its somewhat useful to save you some calculation effort to find your sweet spot; but the truly educated don't need it and calculate it themselves. And the general consumer should really just be given PPD at standard viewing distances; with a caveat that human eyes get 400 PPD or 900PPD... or whatever the number is scientifically valid...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks, although that's a use case for something that needs extremely high resolution its not a use case for that high of a resolution on an imac screen. Unless I sit 1.5 inches from it.
Re:Too many pixels = slooooooow (Score:5, Insightful)
8k is just fetishism.
And yet an 8k monitor would be very useful for viewing the complete image of many DSLR cameras without scaling or subsetting, with room for controls and menu bars or panels to be also visible. I'd probably get one for this reason.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Don't forget to buy a magnifier as well, as your eyes cannot see detail this fine.
Re: (Score:3)
The iMac "Retina" has a AMD R9 M290X (Pitcairn?) by default. It can be ordered with an AMD R9 M295X (Tonga XT?). Both are "mobile" chipsets,
Re: (Score:2)
We were stuck at the 72-100 PPI Monitors for the longest time.
Still most displays are still at that range.
I am hoping the jump to 4-8k should be the limit for 2d displays, of desktop size. So we will get to the point where video drivers can once again handle full screen at that resolution.
Re: (Score:2)
Seriously, 4k is already overkill in most situations. 8k is just fetishism.
You're wrong, and I can't explain why. You have to see an 8K screen showing a real, native 8K video stream. It's jaw dropping, even compared to 4K.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe it's so that content creators can work in 8k. Like if you're working with 8k video files, you need an 8k screen to view your work at full resolution.
Of course, that would imply that these might be external displays to be used with a Mac Pro rather than iMacs. Also, it would seem strange, since Apple generally leaves that kind of niche market to others.
Re: (Score:2)
What's so great about an 8k? I had a Macintosh 128k in 1984.
Get off my lawn.
Re: (Score:2)
So Apple came out with retina display and that is as high as the eye can see, so why would anyone want 8k? I read somewhere 4k was more than they eye could see and it would be a standard for a while. I think this is just a ploy to get people to buy more crap?
Re: (Score:2)
Seriously, 4k is already overkill in most situations. 8k is just fetishism. And it may well be worse, as all those pixels have to be controlled somehow.
Seriously. No PC users needs a resolution above 1024x768!
Re: (Score:2)
I had a book on GW Basic back in the late 80's
Under displays it had the following.
Screen 0 Text only 80x25 16 foreground colors, 8 background colors.
Screen 1 Graphics 320x200 and Text 40x25. 4 colors, choice of 8 background colors, and bad choices for foreground color.
Screen 2 Graphics 640x200 (High Resolution) and text 80x25 2 color. You had 16 colors to pick for the forgound color and 8 to choose for the background.
My computer only had a CGA compatible display so the below wouldn't work.
Screen 7,8,9, 10
Re: (Score:2)
Those are characters, not pixels.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The theoretical total screen display resolution of the MDA was 720×350 pixels. This number is arrived at through calculating character width (nine pixels) by columns of text (80) and character height (14 pixels) by rows of text (25). However, the MDA again could not address individual pixels; it could only work in text mode, limiting its choice of display patterns to 256 characters. Its character set is known as code page 437. The character patterns were stored in ROM on the card, and so could not be c
Re: (Score:2)
The Hercules graphics card fixed the limitations of MDA, and back in the early days, they had the highest resolution graphics available on a PC.
I remember writing circuit board design software on Windows 2.03 in monochrome graphics on a 286 PC! It was the best thing out there.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Without knowing the size of the display the whole discussion is pointless 8k in 2" or 8k in 50"?
Cause there is a world of difference, and humans have pretty good spatial memory. Having a monitor larger than what can be seen without moving your eyes/head is a good thing. In fact that is what I'm using right now, 4 monitors are already more than I can see at the same time. With my focus on the left monitor I can't really see anything in the right. But that doesn't make it less useful for having a PDF open, or
Re: (Score:2)
Thank you for finding actual evidence. However, I think one of your numbers is off. Angular resolution says ~1 arc-second per pixel; field of view says ~120 degrees horizontal that's binocular. The two together says 7200 pixels wide, not 4000 (and more if you're willing to go outside the binocular zone, up to about 12k).
However, that does imply that 8k would probably be "enough" for most purposes, because yeah, to get in close enough to see pixels you have to let some go outside the field of binocular visio
Re: (Score:2)
Dots are these funny really small inkblots that overlap, or have weird sparse patterns, or are used arbitrarily so as to fake the picture, fonts, greyscales and colors to successfully fool the human eye. So, a 600 dpi inkjet printer is not actually comparable to a 600 ppi monitor.
Re: (Score:2)
"From 3ft away
If you increase the distance from the display, the resolution requirement lowers, not raises, so if 4k is good on 19" at 2ft, then perhaps roughly 2/3 of that resolution would match the capabilities of the same eyes at 3ft. i.e. less, not more. If the display size increased, however, not the distance, or if the distance shortened, then yes, larger resolution would be required to maintain viewing quali
Re: (Score:2)
Check that: 8k is equivalent to FOUR 4k displays: two wide and two high...
What are those pixels for? (Score:5, Funny)
I thought the "retina" display already has a higher resolution than the human eye can discern. Are these new Macs for cats?
Re: (Score:2)
So you can sit 1/2 meter away from a 2 meter diagonal 8K screen.
Re: (Score:2)
I would guess that it would be for bigger monitors. I would love to have a bigger monitor with a higher resolution.
Outside of macs, 8k would look amazing in my theater room. 1080p looks pretty good, but I'm sure 8k at 100" would look stunning.
Re: (Score:2)
4k certainly looks awesome in my theater. its all about content though...
Re: (Score:2)
I wouldn't mind a 39" curved monitor with 8k resolution, along with two 4k displays (left and right) oriented in portrait for my workstation.
Computer monitors are the one application of curved displays that actually makes sense.
I like my 3 WQHD displays, but there are still times when I'd like a bit more "space" for development and debugging.
Re: (Score:2)
I like my 3 WQHD displays, but there are still times when I'd like a bit more "space" for development and debugging.
Wow, maybe you're just not managing what you have very well.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
The "retina" display is so you cannot discern a pixel. Having more makes the image even more crisper. I am sure we are reaching a point of diminish return though.
Re: (Score:2)
Microsoft is unable to antialias font correctly.
So they solved this problem by hammering the font into the display grid.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, that's game over for LG. (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe they'll start buying their panels from Samsung...
Re: (Score:2)
Apple have a history of shutting out suppliers who have loose lips.
Is there any evidence of that happening post-Jobs, though?
Re: (Score:2)
They switched to buying from LG because they didn't want to buy panels from Samsung when they were suing them. There aren't very many panel manufacturers though there are a couple Chinese makers but they won't be getting the top end panels from the Chinese, all the major panel research is done by LG and Samsung these days.
Re: (Score:2)
Apple buys their components from whoever is the best for Apple. If they really didn't want to support Samsung when they have all of the legal troubles with them then they would have shifted the processor production away from them but Samsung has been the, and remains, the prime manufacturer.
Re: (Score:2)
Samsung don't make any suitable LCD panels. The only people who can supply them are LG and Sharp.
Re: (Score:2)
"Samsung don't make any suitable LCD panels"
As I sit here looking on my 32" Samsung S-IPS panel, which is nearing a decade in age and is still operating flawlessly - BULLSHIT.
for those complaining about this being too much... (Score:3)
Keep in mind that if proper scaling ever gets implemented, there is still a long way to go for displays to equal the quality of text compared to paper. I saw noticeable improvements in text quality from laser printers all the way up to 1200dpi, and people back in the day were saying we'd never need anything more dense than 300dpi, then it was 600dpi, etc. If we can get displays to 1200dpi, and especially with near-zero reflectivity, then I'll say we've gone far enough - but we're nowhere near that yet.
But we need GOOD scaling. I've read that Windows 10 will have proper scaling. We'll see.
8K 40 inch imac..... PLEASE! (Score:2)
How about just bringing back the 17" macbook for those of us that do real work?
Only 8k? (Score:3)
Silly Apple, my Commodore had 64k way back in 1983!
It's an answer looking for a question (Score:2)
Feature overkill anyone? I suppose there are probably a few edge cases for needing an 8K display but I can't imagine the everyday user needing it.
8K? (Score:2)
Is that the resolution or the price? :-D
Not an External Display? (Score:2)
I think it would make more sense if it was a stand-alone ultra-wide "Cinema Display"(tm) intended for the Mac Pro.
Ultra-wide 21:9, 34" at 8192Ã--3510 pixels: 221 pixels per inch resolution. That would be on par with the resolution of the retina MacBooks, only 5.6-7.3 times larger.
Re: (Score:2)
What makes it funnier, is that is just for the display on one pixel line in black and white.
Your video card will need at a bit over 1 gig of ram, to display a full screen frame buffer in 32bit color.
Re: (Score:2)
I already have >1G of ram on my video card. And besides, that means that we might be catching up proportionally to the early 90's when I had a 4MB computer with a 1MB graphics card.
Bring it on, I for one welcome having a 50+" display that I can't see the pixels on from 2' away. Even if the video card burns up 200W just to refresh a 2d screen. That is why I have a desktop. Leave the boys with their laptops to crummy resolutions.
About time.
Re: (Score:2)
Do'h smacking myself on the forehead.
Re: (Score:2)
This will probably be Skylake with GT4e with 72EU's and 128MB eDRAM. Not sure what kind of gaming performance that would give, but probably plenty to drive an 8K display at 60fps in 2D for media production.