I'd thought about buying one, but $3,300 for the monitor & $600 for the grpahics card? Ouch. I'll stick with my 23" for now.... my business partner will just have to limp along on his beige 19" with no hand-me-down.

The new displays are for PCs! The proprietary Apple ADC connectors are gone. The Apple Stores are turning into RadioShacks for PC owners with iPods, Airport Express, PC-ready cameras, scanners, printers, PDAs, and now displays.

The only thing missing from the Apple stores are the PCs. Don't be surprised when you start seeing HP PCs in your local Apple store. The Apple stores will carry both Macs and PCs for a transition period before phasing out the Macs.

The deal makes sense, HP agrees to sell iPods and Apple agrees to sell HP PCs. There's a reason Steve Jobs called them Apple stores, not Macintosh stores.

Well this isn't so bad. Like many other Apple products, I won't ever have a hope of being able to purchase one of theese displays, but at least they're ugly enough so I won't want to.

Hooray! With a VESA adaptor, I can finally mount one of these 30-inch displays on a big swing arm and screw it onto the top of a G5. Result? The biggest, baddest aluminum mutation of an iMac EVER SEEN!!!!

Or not...

-Ken P

Apple's not being shy about shaping its new image as a PC peripheral manufacturer. Is amazing that so many Mac fanatics can't see how Apple's changing, even when it's in black in white, right in front of their face.

Apple is clearly seeing the demand for many of their branded peripherals in the Windows world, this will become a good side market for them in the long run.

That's awesome...

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pyxl8 wrote:
Hooray! With a VESA adaptor, I can finally mount one of these 30-inch displays on a big swing arm and screw it onto the top of a G5. Result? The biggest, baddest aluminum mutation of an iMac EVER SEEN!!!!

Or not...

-Ken P

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RealityCheck wrote:
Apple's not being shy about shaping its new image as a PC peripheral manufacturer. Is amazing that so many Mac fanatics can't see how Apple's changing, even when it's in black in white, right in front of their face.

Apple's plan is to offer superior technology and more attractive design to computer users. The fact that Apple is choosing to increase the number of consumers who can take advantage of Apple's advanced technology all the better.

Each day more and more PC users are choosing to replace their virus-laden beige and black boxes with cutting-edge Apple technology.

Apple is selling more Macs and Apple-branded peripherals to discerning customers each quarter, gaining sales and market clout in the process.

This is a smart move for Apple and an even better move for consumers. I applaud Apple's product decisions and look forward to more PC users embracing the Macintosh way.

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DawnTreader wrote:
Apple's plan is to offer superior technology and more attractive design to computer users. The fact that Apple is choosing to increase the number of consumers who can take advantage of Apple's advanced technology all the better.

Each day more and more PC users are choosing to replace their virus-laden beige and black boxes with cutting-edge Apple technology.

Apple is selling more Macs and Apple-branded peripherals to discerning customers each quarter, gaining sales and market clout in the process.

This is a smart move for Apple and an even better move for consumers. I applaud Apple's product decisions and look forward to more PC users embracing the Macintosh way.

PC users have been kit bashing Apple's Cinema displays to use with adapters on PC's for some time now. Our advertising agency is an all PC house but they must have a dozen 23" Apple LCD displays. All this is, is Apple acknowledgeing the market and making it easier for PC users to use the products. The PC world has had available dual link video cards for sometime. See http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=251578 for a listing of some. They are no less expensive than Apple'scard for the G5. The professionals who want the 30"diplays features and capabilities wont hestitate to spend the money for the necessary dual link card.

Way to go Apple.

I don't think Apple saw a huge market for their displays on the PC. The real reason Apple Displays are now available for PC is that the displays now use exclusively DVI to connect with a computer. Apple's ADC couldn't transfer enough power to a 30" Display. The use of DVI also makes it directly connectable to a PowerBook or Power Mac, whose design the display compliments.

It just so happens DVI is a cross-platform standard. So now PC users can connect to one of these displays without the need for a clunky adapter. Apple realizes its displays now also work with a PC, so they put that up on their web page.

For $7200 I can have twin 30" monitors running at their native resolution -- but can I extend the Mac desktop across the two of them?

I seem to remember that Panther OS limits the desktop to 4,000 pixels wide, which is 1120 short of the goal.

Or do I need to wait for Tiger?

Heck if Apple can release a PC that can satisfy your typical Apple customer, then I'm all for it. They'll charge a bit of a premium, but it will be worth it. But Apple isn't going to dump their Mac business any time soon; it is the source of the majority of their revenue and income.

Of course Apple has the ability to make a PC. Tots like Reality Check were in diapers when Apple had an optional PC card for their desktop machines. It never really caught on, no doubt due to it being your typical PC.

Figures that as soon as I bought a (non-Apple) display, they had to release these But I'm very happy with what I got, a slightly newer model of what I use at work every day. Samsung SyncMaster 191T+ which (gasp) plugs right into the DVI port on my G5 Radeon card. If you're looking for a non-Apple display, give this model a serious look. And the vendor even took back a unit that had a stuck pixel; this is about the only downside of LCD displays.

I'm wondering how Apple is going to deal with stuck/dead pixel issues on these new displays?

Did nobody else catch on to the fact that this 30" monstrosity (ok, I want one, but that's not happening) REQUIRES 1. a G5. 2. a $600 video card. So, on top of my $3,200 G5, I have to spend $3,800 on a display and special video card.

This WON"T work with PCs people. Hello..................

talk about take the snootiness up a notch.

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Tiger wrote:
This WON"T work with PCs people. Hello..................

While that could have been put a bit more politely, you're not wrong. Apple's site says "The Apple Cinema Display line features a gorgeous new anodized aluminum enclosure to complement the Power Mac G5 or PowerBook G4 and includes PC-compatible 20-inch and 23-inch models." (emphasis added) They only state that the 20 and 23-inch models are PC-compatible (at least officially.)

But I do have to wonder if they could work with other dual-link cards on PCs since it's standard DVI, after all.

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Anonymous wrote:
For $7200 I can have twin 30" monitors running at their native resolution -- but can I extend the Mac desktop across the two of them?

I seem to remember that Panther OS limits the desktop to 4,000 pixels wide, which is 1120 short of the goal.

Or do I need to wait for Tiger?

Well, it's not going to happen right away. At this point the issue is purely academic because you'd either need multiple AGP slots or a compatible PCI-X card that probably doesn't exist yet.

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David Nelson wrote:
But I do have to wonder if they could work with other dual-link cards on PCs since it's standard DVI, after all.

I bet the only thing keeping you from plugging a 30" Apple Cinema HD Display into your x86 PC is a video card that supports Dual Link DVI, of which there are quite a few. Among them are the 3DLabs Wildcat Realizm 200/800, the ATi FireGL V7100, maybe the Matrox Parhelia, and various Nvidia GeForce 6800-based boards.

I'm sure it's possible. My guess is that Apple didn't say anything about compatibility because they don't sell a card that will drive it on an x86 PC, and they don't want people with GeForce4MX cards shelling out for a monitor they can't use.

Well, Apple is pretty clear about the 30" display and what it requires:


Power Mac G5 and NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL graphics card (offered as CTO option for new Power Mac G5 customers and as a kit for current Power Mac G5 customers (M9593G/A)

Taken straight from here: http://www.apple.com/displays/specs.html

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Tiger wrote:
Well, Apple is pretty clear about the 30" display and what it requires:

It's possible that that's just the only configuration that Apple supports. They can't be sure an x86 PC user has a compatible card, so they aren't going to stick their necks out. Apple's GeForce 6800 card and the 30" Cinema HD rely on Dual Link DVI, which all of the cards I listed above support, so there's no reason the setup shouldn't work, aside from Apple somehow arbitrarily limiting compatibility.

Apple limiting compatibility to Macs only would be quite stupid in this case, since the same people that require a workstation-class video card will probably be falling over themselves to get their hands on a 30" display.

Brad sent me this link:
http://images.apple.com/hotnews/articles/2004/06/wwdc/images/display7413.jpg

Apparently the card actually has four ports!

I was hoping these would be cross platform. The more exposure PC users get to Apple products, the more they are going to appreciate Apple. This increases the chance that they will consider Apple the next time they need to buy a computer.

But on the other hand, Apple most likely wants the "largest high resolution display ever created" to appear to be a Mac-only advantage. Understandable.

I think it WILL eventually have a PC solution, but as it is now, ONLY that video card works with the monitor and I'm sure that's how they wanted it to start. They do like timed releases to build anticipation...

Creepy marketing.

ADC dead - Rejoice! Shame it took four years but still.

Firewire ports on the monitor - Rejoice! But again why didn't they do this instead of that idiotic ADC in the first place? Might almost have saved the Cube if they had.

And USB 2.0 as well for those who care. - Aint bad.

Bigger sharper ... - Good. But having a cheaper 17" one as well would've been nice and a good move.

VESA & hinge - Good riddance to the tripod, but maybe the iLamp's monitor is still bizarrely more nudgeable than the monitor that costs twice as much.

Aluminum enclosure - Good, as far as it goes*, but why wasn't it introduced around the same time as the matching computer? And where's the Apple keyboard and mouse that doesn't clash with it all? For pity's sake I had a good hunch what the next PowerMac would look like once the PowerBook G4 came out why didn't anyone clue in Apple's peripheral designers? *Personally I'm not impressed with the styling so far but maybe they look much better in person, then again judging by: the eMac, iLamp, 3rd gen iPod, white keyboard, soap on a rope mouse, and bluetooth mouse I wouldn't count on it.

-M --Who do you have to kill around here to get good design these days?

Just use the Nvidia FX5900U or 6800 (both have dual-link DVI that support up to 2560x2048) on the PC.

It will work with no problems with the 30 LCD.

The only thing to worry is the driver support availability at 2560x1600.

I am just wondering how well they optimized the lower resolutions like 1280x800 and so on.

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Anonymous wrote:
I am just wondering how well they optimized the lower resolutions like 1280x800 and so on.

I'm sure they'll look as good as they can for a device with a fixed native resolution. But in my humble opinion, someone who buys a 30" LCD and runs it as lower resolution is really wasting their money. Some of the users I support run their 17" Studio Displays at 800x600, which itself is tragic. But I think the idea of a 30" display at 1280x800 is going to give me nightmares.