Live data from Hacker News

Apple testing new external display with A13 chip

9to5mac.com

21–30 of 43 posts

Re: Apple testing new external display with A13 chip

#21

Why would you want your external GPU built into the display? When I saw the headline, I thought maybe it had a webcam and the A13 would do things like portrait mode, before the image reached the computer.

I don't know, but my guess: Apple Exec: "Build an external display for the iPhone and/or iWatch." Apple Engineers: "Ok, but we will need a GPU built into the display or it'll look like shit. It'll also need a lot of RAM/SSD to store textures, etc. Additionally, a high bandwidth, low latency wireless connection between the iDevice and the display (e.g. UWB)." Previously to support an enormous external display the iDev…

Perhaps ironically the original Apple Watch wasn’t much more than an external display for the iPhone.

Re: Apple testing new external display with A13 chip

#22
post #20

Why would you want your external GPU built into the display? When I saw the headline, I thought maybe it had a webcam and the A13 would do things like portrait mode, before the image reached the computer.

Arguably what's an appropriate GPU bandwidth is largely defined by the display attached to it, primarily its resolution, color depth, and refresh rate. But I still don't think it makes sense to physically merge the two. Displays wear out far faster than the GPUs driving them, and just have much higher failure rates in general, being physical targets for thrown handheld controllers and what not. Doesn't seem wise to m…

> Displays wear out far faster than the GPUs driving them, and just have much higher failure rates in general, being physical targets for thrown handheld controllers and what not. Doesn't seem wise to make the display so much more costly to replace by shoving the GPU within it.

Is this true? This seems nearly diametric to my experience.

Re: Apple testing new external display with A13 chip

#23
“...but there are still no rumours of an updated version...”

Is it me or does this statement imply the need for an updated version. To me, it implies an updated one is needed because that’s what is meant to happen, we get a new one every x years because - not because it’s actually needed.

Re: Apple testing new external display with A13 chip

#24
post #20

Why would you want your external GPU built into the display? When I saw the headline, I thought maybe it had a webcam and the A13 would do things like portrait mode, before the image reached the computer.

Arguably what's an appropriate GPU bandwidth is largely defined by the display attached to it, primarily its resolution, color depth, and refresh rate. But I still don't think it makes sense to physically merge the two. Displays wear out far faster than the GPUs driving them, and just have much higher failure rates in general, being physical targets for thrown handheld controllers and what not. Doesn't seem wise to m…

> Displays wear out far faster than the GPUs driving them

Do they?

In my experience they both last forever until you decide to upgrade to better specs. And in that case it's quite likely you upgrade both together.

Displays don't really "wear out" these days in normal usage.

Although I guess I'm not really sure why you say they're a target for thrown handheld controllers ha... are you speaking about yourself or about kids...?

Re: Apple testing new external display with A13 chip

#25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, but my guess: Apple Exec: "Build an external display for the iPhone and/or iWatch." Apple Engineers: "Ok, but we will need a GPU built into the display or it'll look like shit. It'll also need a lot of RAM/SSD to store textures, etc. Additionally, a high bandwidth, low latency wireless connection between the iDevice and the display (e.g. UWB)." Previously to support an enormous external display the iDev…

macOS uses a PDF-like canvas as the core display engine^, upon which everything writes object layers that have refresh loops independent from the main canvas 'flatten layers into the display' loop. This is all inside WindowServer, and is why lets you select an entire window including the shadowed border, without picking up anything from above or beneath it, because Spacebar activates object selection mode. And we kno…

In other words, they would reinvent X display servers, but with X replaced with PDF?

Re: Apple testing new external display with A13 chip

#27
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguably what's an appropriate GPU bandwidth is largely defined by the display attached to it, primarily its resolution, color depth, and refresh rate. But I still don't think it makes sense to physically merge the two. Displays wear out far faster than the GPUs driving them, and just have much higher failure rates in general, being physical targets for thrown handheld controllers and what not. Doesn't seem wise to m…

> Displays wear out far faster than the GPUs driving them, and just have much higher failure rates in general, being physical targets for thrown handheld controllers and what not. Doesn't seem wise to make the display so much more costly to replace by shoving the GPU within it. Is this true? This seems nearly diametric to my experience.

Mine too.

In fact I dare say the GPU has been the single most failure prone component of every computer I’ve owned for the past 15 years.

Which only further illustrates the point that putting something expensive and unreliable into an already expensive device seems risky.

Re: Apple testing new external display with A13 chip

#28
post #5

Sounds like iOS or tvOS will be on board the monitor. I would find it more interesting to have a monitor with 16 to 32 cores of M1 (or M2?) that expand the compute and render capacity of a MacBook Pro when plugged in. As nice as mobile video editing is currently, having your monitor host an elastic compute capability and help cut down on 4K or 8K video rendering would be very, very interesting.

It could be the fabled Apple TV that Steve Jobs was hinting at before his death.

To be honest, both Amazon and Google has gotten this right already with no touch voice controls.

Re: Apple testing new external display with A13 chip

#29
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguably what's an appropriate GPU bandwidth is largely defined by the display attached to it, primarily its resolution, color depth, and refresh rate. But I still don't think it makes sense to physically merge the two. Displays wear out far faster than the GPUs driving them, and just have much higher failure rates in general, being physical targets for thrown handheld controllers and what not. Doesn't seem wise to m…

> Displays wear out far faster than the GPUs driving them Do they? In my experience they both last forever until you decide to upgrade to better specs. And in that case it's quite likely you upgrade both together. Displays don't really "wear out" these days in normal usage. Although I guess I'm not really sure why you say they're a target for thrown handheld controllers ha... are you speaking about yourself or about…

> Do they?

Yes.

Burn-in is a real problem [0], especially for OLEDs last I checked.

LED backlights wear out, I've personally helped multiple people replace them in external monitors and laptops over the years.

And they're obviously more fragile and exposed to the elements than a GPU within a case.

> are you speaking about yourself or about kids...?

What difference does it make? You do realize kids are a real factor, they exist, are rather common actually. And these days gaming has become just as popular among adults too.

It's as if everyone forgot the rash of broken displays when the wii came out... surely those people appreciated not having to pay for a GPU too when replacing those displays.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_burn-in#Plasma,_LCD,_an...

Re: Apple testing new external display with A13 chip

#30

Why would you want your external GPU built into the display? When I saw the headline, I thought maybe it had a webcam and the A13 would do things like portrait mode, before the image reached the computer.

Most people probably don’t want an external GPU built into the display.

What they maybe do want is to plug a mobile computer into a big sharp hi-res monitor and get great performance. Since many graphic loads scale with resolution, building some processing horsepower directly into the monitor could be a way to deliver the experience that people want, even if their current computer doesn’t have very powerful graphics.

Post reply on HN