[tambourine_man]

On a second thought, there where some transformative hardwares though.

The iMac 5k for me, almost a decade later, is still better than anything other vendors have to offer. It’s my childhood dream monitor. Such a shame that they never sold it separately.

The M series laptops seem like an inflection point as well. A fanless powerhouse with more than a day's work of battery life and best in class monitor and trackpad.

[rsynnott]

> Such a shame that they never sold it separately.

Well, they sold the controversial LG 5K, which was the same panel, but certainly not the same build quality. I've got one, and it's... fine, and for a very long time was literally the only 5K monitor you could buy, but for the price it is not a well-built piece of kit. (And the first two versions had weird bugs)

They now (nearly a decade later) finally sell a fully first-party one, which is very similar.

[musicale]

The 2016 LG 5K is still my preferred monitor. In retrospect it was a surprisingly good investment at its $974 introductory price (~$1100 in 2022.)

The Apple Studio Display certainly improves on it, but at ~$1600 it costs more than a midrange 24" iMac.

It's too bad that the iMac 5K didn't support Target Display Mode. Maybe Apple will bring it back someday along with a new 27" iMac.

[rsynnott]

I was really hoping this would come back once it was feasible (at the time it came out, the only vaguely well-supported way to do it would have been two DP cables, but later versions of DP and Thunderbolt 3 and better can handle 5k without trouble), but, given that the 5K iMac is now gone, I wouldn't hold out too much hope...

[pram]

They do:

https://www.apple.com/studio-display/specs/

[tambourine_man]

You’re correct! How could I forget. Thanks. Shows I haven’t been shopping for Macs in a long time.