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Data Storage Displays Apple

Apple's New Studio Display Has 64GB of Onboard Storage (9to5mac.com) 46

New submitter Dru Nemeton shares a report from 9to5Mac: Apple's new Studio Display officially hit the market on Friday, and we continue to learn new tidbits about what exactly's inside the machine. While Apple touted that the Studio Display is powered by an A13 Bionic inside, we've since learned that the Studio Display also features 64GB of onboard storage, because who knows why... [...] as first spotted by Khaos Tian on Twitter, the Studio Display also apparently features 64GB of onboard storage. Yes, 64GB: double the storage in the entry-level Apple TV 4K and the same amount of storage in the entry-level iPad Air 5. Also worth noting: the Apple TV 4K is powered by the A12 Bionic chip, so the Studio Display has it beat on that front as well. Apple hasn't offered any explanation for why the Studio Display features 64GB of onboard storage. It appears that less than 2GB of that storage is actually being used as of right now.

One unexciting possibility is that the A13 Bionic chip used inside the Studio Display is literally the exact same A13 Bionic chip that was first shipped in the iPhone 11. As you might remember, the iPhone 11 came with 64GB of storage in its entry-level configuration, meaning Apple likely produced millions of A13 Bionic chips with 64GB of onboard storage. What do you think? Will Apple ever tap into the A13 Bionic chip and 64GB storage inside the Studio Display for something more interesting?

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Apple's New Studio Display Has 64GB of Onboard Storage

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  • the 27" iMac went!

  • "..Will Apple ever tap into the A13 Bionic chip and 64GB storage inside the Studio Display for something more interesting?"

    Do humanity a favor and knock that shit off.

    Every time you wonder about something "interesting", privacy gets ass-raped. Again. 1984 has been welcoming itself enough lately. Doesn't need fucking help.

    • by leonbev ( 111395 )

      We could be hopeful that Apple makes that storage available for something like Time Machine backups in the future.

      Apple usually isn't the privacy raping company... that's more in Google or Microsoft's wheelhouse.

      • 64gig isnt gonna be much use as backup. Depending on how far back you want your archive to be useful, you generally want between 2 to 4 times the storage of the device being backed up. So, 1 gig for a small 256gig macbook air, all the way up to 32 terabytes for one of those 8TB monster sized NVMes in the higher end mac studios and mac pros

        • Backups are BS for 64GB. There are so many more useful applications for that storage. How about storing color and brightness settings for certain Apps with incredible detail? How about storing movies that can be watched while the host sleeps? How about storing a lightweight OS that can be used without a Mac Pro for basic tasks like email and web surfing? How about perfect video capture for screen recordings? How about PiP features with display only Apps that do not run on the host for security reasons? How
          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            Computer monitors used to be fairly reliable, being mostly dumb displays. Unlike smart TVs, which often crash while trying to send your viewing habits back to the mothership.

            Apple just made a smart monitor. This will not end well.

      • lol, where do you see evidence of this - not just their words. Here's my counterexamples: they don't encrypt cloud storage. The "privacy labels" are all but garbage. White-hat malware only gets identified when they come out, despite thousands of installs (then they get ejected from the store, so they can't prove there's still massive weakness any further). They sell ads. They accept a LOT of money for Google to be on their phones - I wonder how much information they're selling for 4 billion a year? I
    • by Jeremi ( 14640 )

      Every time you wonder about something "interesting", privacy gets ass-raped.

      You have extremely novel ideas about how cause and effect work, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

    • You’ve got to know that OP was talking about running the display as a standalone low-end macOS or iOS device the same way I use an LG Chromebase as a monitor. In a pinch, I can plug my ethernet and keyboard directly into the monitor, and get internet access.

      Frankly, I think this is a great thing. Plug your shit in, maybe with a USB-C to Ethernet adapter, and bam, you’re back online. At least online enough to look up user manuals, or schedule a Genius Bar appointment for your real computer. Furt

      • Quit being so conspiracy-minded, and think of the actual reason people buy gear like that, ffs.

        People buy gear like that because they believe Apple propaganda about respecting your privacy when there is no evidence that they do, and ample evidence that they do not.

  • by heinternets ( 4001613 ) on Monday March 21, 2022 @10:09PM (#62378843)
    Airplay built into the display?
    • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

      Yes, that's the most obvious reason for doing this.

      I could also easily see them sell a version of the same monitor that is a smart TV by just running tvOS firmware on it, possibly using the integrated camera for a gesture-based remote control or something.

  • 640KB should be enough for any Apple user.

  • by aerogems ( 339274 ) on Monday March 21, 2022 @10:12PM (#62378849)

    They are going to eventually offer it as an AppleTV with the display integrated. Of course it could also be that the A13 is just the cheapest SoC they're making right now, and basically everything except the baseline AppleTV is using a 64GB NAND, it just made it the cheapest and easiest solution to use that. Instead of negotiating new supply chain contracts they could just increase the order for existing SKUs.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It just shows how much they are over-charging for it. They can afford to throw a fairly powerful SoC into a monitor, even though at the moment it doesn't appear to do anything other than handle the standard monitor stuff. The margins are that big.

      • It just shows how much they are over-charging for it.

        The "standard glass" Studio display ($1999 CAD) is in the same price ballpark as the LG 27MD5KL-B 27 inch UltraFine 5K ($1,849.00 CAD). Where are you getting over-charging?

      • That A13 SoC is pretty old and was made in pretty high volumes already, particularly when you consider the relatively much lower volumes Apple will sell of the Studio Display. I won't say whether or not the display is overpriced, but certainly the A13 isn't a meaningful consideration in that cost.

      • These monitors are a low volume part. They're probably using left over iPhone components that were ordered by the million. They can probably squeeze several years of production for these displays out of those parts. And when they run out they do a refresh and use a more recent set of leftovers.

        The point is that the parts were already paid for and Apple is just recycling. The only greedy part is not letting the monitor function as some kind of stand alone device when it's clearly capable of it based on th
    • Right. One presumes the SoC can handle Bluetooth for a remote?

      Why sell a monitor when you can sell a monitor that supports a subscription fee?

  • It's literally just easier to fab the same chip you already built than to take the time to create something else. They likely have no need for the large amount of RAM or storage but why change it? What would it gain them? Might even be binned chips, though I doubt they would call them A13 if they are binned.

  • So, that's progress, isn't it?

  • I’d dearly love it if this thing could boot into tvOS with a side of Safari

  • Some clever hacker can probably get Doom to run on it, with only a controller attached to one of the ports
  • The 64GB of NAND is built into the A13 SOC and it was cheaper to just use the A13 as-is than it was to redo the fab to create a version with less storage...
  • I think Apple isn't building iPhones with 32 GB RAM anymore, so they just took the complete part, CPU and 64 GB of RAM, from an iPhone. No development cost, no risk getting something wrong, and plenty of spare parts if needed.
  • I've designed built a RP2040 board. The first prototype now appears to be working (as of march 23rd 2022). I ported the full application (just a few minor things to add) to it and... 0.27% of flash used.... OK. I did mount the big flash chips because a few dollars on the prototype is not going to kill me.

    For apple mounting 64Gb as opposed to say 4 or 8 is not significantly impacting production costs significantly for an already expensive product. So mounting it (like me!) with the attitude: "Who knows what

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