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Desktops (Apple) Displays

Apple Plans To Launch a Mac Monitor That Doubles As a Smart Home Display (arstechnica.com) 34

Posted by BeauHD from the what-to-expect dept.
According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple will introduce an external Mac monitor that can act as a smart home display when a Mac goes to sleep or is shut down. Ars Technica reports: The feature would be available on at least one monitor in an upcoming lineup that will likely include successors to Apple's Pro Display XDR and Studio Display. The newsletter didn't go into much detail about the upcoming displays beyond the smart home feature. Like the Studio Display, a new monitor with smart home capabilities would run on a chip first seen in the iPhone. The Studio Display contains Apple's A13 chip -- the same seen in the iPhone 11 line of smartphones. The upcoming smart display could potentially run on the A16 seen in the iPhone 14 Pro, since that device introduced a similar always-on display feature to Apple's smartphone lineup.

The iPhone 14 Pro's always-on display currently shows what you'd see if you tapped your iPhone to see the lock screen: the time, wallpaper, and app widgets -- albeit at a very dim brightness. Later this year, Apple will launch iOS 17 alongside the upcoming iPhone 15. iOS 17 will introduce a new smart display mode for the iPhone that makes that always-on display mimic the features and information you'd see on a Google or Amazon smart display, a product category that was all the rage at CES a couple of years ago but that has not exactly become ubiquitous. It's fair to expect the Mac monitor's smart display to work a bit like that iOS 17 feature. But while iOS 17 is slated to launch this fall, Gurman predicts that the new Mac display won't hit the market until next year at the earliest.
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Apple Plans To Launch a Mac Monitor That Doubles As a Smart Home Display More

Apple Plans To Launch a Mac Monitor That Doubles As a Smart Home Display

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  • It's "StandBy mode" not " smart display mode". To be even more pedantic "mode" isn't actually used in Apple's marketing material, but as one has to rotate the screen to a landscape orientation and having it charging to activate "mode" kind of makes sense. iPhone Ex? NOOOO iPhone 10 People will end up calling it whatever they please.
    • I have an iPad that is basically this mounted on a wall. Lets my guests control the HomeKit accessories or adjust music. Why should I use my desktop instead? More importantly, will it be touch enabled? Doubt it.

      • I have an iPad that is basically this mounted on a wall. Lets my guests control the HomeKit accessories or adjust music. Why should I use my desktop instead? More importantly, will it be touch enabled? Doubt it.

        While I'm normally on Apple's side when it comes to their stance on No Touchscreen for macOS, I agree that this is an exception.

        Having this feature, but not having it be touch-enabled, would be silly.

  • Apple is slightly behind here (Score:4, Funny)

    by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Monday July 03, 2023 @04:40PM (#63654516) Homepage

    Samsung already sells a smart display which includes an entire refrigerator.

  • It'd be cheaper to hook a refurbished Mac Mini to a "dumb" display and call that your "smart home display".

    • It'd be cheaper to hook a refurbished Mac Mini to a "dumb" display and call that your "smart home display".

      This is for the case that you buy a nice Mac with a nice display, and when you don't use the Mac, the display turns into a smart display (whatever that means). Your solution means I have a nice Mac, a nice monitor, and a cheap Mac and a cheap monitor. Twice the space, twice the cables.

  • Does that mean it will support touch? A smart home display that you can't touch seems kinda useless.

    • Does that mean it will support touch? A smart home display that you can't touch seems kinda useless.

      Maybe a smart home display including Siri.

  • Re-use old devices (Score:4, Informative)

    by NotEmmanuelGoldstein ( 6423622 ) on Monday July 03, 2023 @06:56PM (#63654810)

    ... the time, wallpaper, and app widgets ...

    One can do this already with End-of-Life tablets that still work, just put the device's charger on timer: It's much cheaper than a new display.

    • much cheaper

      Apple users are not about that.That's why businesses love them.

    • And it will use a small fraction of the power consumption.

    • Indeed - a tablet probably does a better job of a smart display, and naturally has touch, a camera and other sensors which may or may not be useful. It's also upgradeable, duplicate-able and portable.

      I can remember vendors trying to put computers into monitors back in the 80s. It wasn't a good idea then, and it isn't a good idea now. In fact, its an even worse idea now, because now we can pack all the "smart" these gadgets need into a "stick" you can plug into an HDMI socket. Then you get to sell your "smar

  • Wow, this is exactly what I don't want a monitor to do. Hard pass.

  • Asking for a friend.
  • The 55 inch monitor I bought (and tech I buy) has the ports that the fruit company courageously removes. I wanted a monitor with maximum extensibility and no lock-in shenanigans or ridiculous price inflation. Does Apple's have 2 x HDMI DisplayPort VGA input Audio line-in Audio line-out USB 3.0 upstream 2 x USB 3.0 downstream RS-232 USB 3.0 with battery charging LAN
    • It probably has Thunderbolt = USB-C plus extra speed.
      • If the price was close and the monitor had the features I listed plus the Thunderbolt functionality you mentioned, I might be willing to pay $50-$100 more than I did for Thunderbolt. It's not enough of a feature to stand on its own though.
        • How this might happened: Apple wants to update its monitor. Inside the monitor is an A13 for various things, very much more powerful than needed, but Apple makes loads of them for iPhones, so they are cheaper (to Apple) than a less powerful chip, and they have all the iPhone software to make it do things, without designing anything new which also costs money.

          And then someone thinks, since we have this powerful processor in there anyway, what could we do to make the monitor more useful?

    • The 55 inch monitor I bought (and tech I buy) has the ports that the fruit company courageously removes. I wanted a monitor with maximum extensibility and no lock-in shenanigans or ridiculous price inflation.

      Does Apple's have
      2 x HDMI
      DisplayPort
      VGA input
      Audio line-in
      Audio line-out
      USB 3.0 upstream
      2 x USB 3.0 downstream
      RS-232
      USB 3.0 with battery charging
      LAN

      Why would a monitor need Audio IN?

      And RS-232? For what?

      • Audio in allows for playing the 3.5mm audio out that Apple and Samsung convinced everyone they didn't need. It's about $1 of 50 year old technology. RS232 allows for control from/by another system: PC or other system operates the TV and turns it on, off, adjusts volume, or other input commands, rather than using an IR remote I know, it flies in the face of a disposable and thin device meant to quickly become ewaste. Interesting question, wondering why I would want control. ZigBee, infrared, sure, add i

        • Audio in allows for playing the 3.5mm audio out that Apple and Samsung convinced everyone they didn't need. It's about $1 of 50 year old technology.

          RS232 allows for control from/by another system:
          PC or other system operates the TV and turns it on, off, adjusts volume, or other input commands, rather than using an IR remote

          I know, it flies in the face of a disposable and thin device meant to quickly become ewaste. Interesting question, wondering why I would want control. ZigBee, infrared, sure, add it. Going to use this for years. Same reason I prefer devices with headphone jacks and replaceable batteries.

          I guess I sort of understand routing audio through your TV, if you are also using it as a source-switch. When I converted my home A/V system from a pile of RCA cables and HDMI Switches to an all Digital system with just a couple of HDMI cables and a TOSLink Optical cable from my TV to my audio Receiver (old enough that it wouldn't do Audio Extraction from HDMI), my TV ended-up as essentially a "hub" that everything routed-through.

          And about a million years ago, I wrote some code to control a Pioneer LVP-4200

    • I did a little research. Apple actually knows how (if you want to pay $7000)... https://www.apple.com/mac-pro/... [apple.com] It can do some from my list of Dell conference room monitor features (cost $900 last year) 2 x HDMI DisplayPort VGA input Audio line-in Audio line-out USB 3.0 upstream 2 x USB 3.0 downstream RS-232 USB 3.0 with battery charging LAN

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