Apple Suspends Sales of LG's UltraFine 5K Monitor Over Hardware Issues (appleinsider.com) 79
Roger Fingas, writing for AppleInsider: Apple has temporarily stopped sales of LG's UltraFine 5K monitor, due to technical problems associated with a lack of proper shielding from wireless interference. Over the weekend, Apple retail staff were told to keep the product on display yet not sell any units if people asked, according to a Business Insider source. The site added that it heard the same from a representative at a New York Apple store. Separately, AppleInsider has confirmed the organized removal from sale of the Thunderbolt 3 display. Sources inside Apple not authorized to speak on behalf of the company indicated that retail locations are retaining demonstration displays, but not selling any stock on-hand that it may receive that may actually have the shielding fix, nor filling any pending orders until otherwise informed. Big blow to Apple, which has given up on external monitors business. But at least, it's comforting to know people who wish to purchase a new display for their MacBook or MacBook Pro have several company-approved alternatives. Oh wait, they don't.
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Trouble is, they're getting nothing but positive feedback from the market. The crappier they make their hardware, the more they sell. Can you blame them for trying to take advantage of their users' gullibility?
doing the right thing (Score:5, Insightful)
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Clearly they are just holding their monitors wrong.
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Tim Cook is sad (Score:1, Funny)
First Tim Cook can't hire all those employees he desperately needs from Syria, Iran and Somalia for a few months, and now this. Guy is getting hit from all directions.
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Yeah i see the sarcasm. You seem to know who all these companies should hire. Yet none of you geniuses who say Google, Apple, Microsoft and others don't need to hire foreigners have ever made a billion dollar technology company (real estate, oil, and businesses profiting off monopolization of resources don't count).
There is a reason many of the patents on the original iPhone have foreign names.
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The reason? (Score:1)
No courage in this monitor.
Big blow to apple? (Score:5, Informative)
Why is a third party monitor having problems a big blow to apple? Why would mac users need an apple approved monitor? I've been using macs for the better part of 15 years and I don't recall ever using an apple branded monitor let alone some mythical "apple approved" one.
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Why is a third party monitor having problems a big blow to apple?
Because Apple no longer makes monitors, and other monitors don't use USB-C for video.
I don't recall ever using an apple branded monitor let alone some mythical "apple approved" one.
You traitorous scum!
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It's a blow because they decided to discontinue their own line of monitors (the "cinema" range) and instead nominate LG's display as the official successor. This monitor non-standard in a number of ways, similar to the old cinema displays, and somehow worse is better. For example, there is no OSD, all adjustments must be made from within MacOS.
Apple were clearly hoping that they could sell this monitor as the new "recommended" one, i.e. charge well over the odds for it.
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If it were an 'official' successor, it would have an Apple logo on it. Apple pushed LG to make a thunderbolt 3 monitor, in turn for carrying them at apple stores and mentioning them during a keynote. Hardly 'official'.
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They're the only monitors that the Apple Store carries.
They're the same panels that Apple uses in its iMacs.
They're official.
Re: Big blow to apple? (Score:1)
We all know how well this type of vision has worked for Google and Microsoft. Unless you have a healthy market of third-party manufacturers you may well end up needing to go your own way.
I think this may be a case of Apple rushing things. The MacBook Pro feels the same, where they could have left one legacy port as a compromise?
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That's not an Apple-specific feature. In fact, it's a standard feature of all modern monitors. Display Data Channel / Command Interface [wikipedia.org] is what's used for a computer to control the display. Granted, on PC, Microsoft has been lax on getting support for this, but on the later versions you should be able to control the brightness at least through Windows. Though some monitor manufacturers have utilities that let you configure the moni
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Apple hasn't sold a "line" of monitors since 2010. Just a singular one (other than overlap when a newer model came out). The latest one wasn't exactly a great seller either... If you fit it's niche it was a great display a few years ago... today... meh. It also had no OSD, can't speak to the revisions before it on that though. As such, it makes sense for them to get out of the business of selling their own (singular) display.
I'm seeing nothing non-standard whatsoever about this display. As another comment m
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I hate Apple with a passion and lament their frequently backwards ways, but the drivel of a summary for this sorry excuse for a "story" brings the usual Apple- and Microsoft-bashing tripe I expect of this place to an even more pitiful low. Just ignore it and continue using your preferred variety of shiny.
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Because Apple decided to use unicorn ports on their new MacBook, and this is the one display that has a matching unicorn plug that doesn't require an adapter.
Except that apparently LG didn't bother to build it right. Oops.
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Since they discontinued their monitor line (not really sure I'd call it "their" line since they just repackaged panels by LG an
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Why is a third party monitor having problems a big blow to apple?
(1) Because these displays were advertised (by Apple) as being designed by LG in close collaboration with Apple. They featured prominently in the launch of the new MacBook Pro.
(2) Apple's new policy seems to be not to produce their own displays, routers, back-up drives (they've stopped AirPort development, dropped their existing display) - this is a blow to that policy.
(3) Because Apple have staked a lot on the Thunderbolt 3/USB-C port by making it the only port on the new machines (TB3 has been around on
And yet... (Score:2)
Re:And yet... (Score:5, Informative)
The FCC is interested in the emission of interference, not being affected by it.
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RF emissions (Score:1)
Now we should just get that router to stop all RF emissions...and problem solved.
Oh...wait....
Re:And yet... (Score:4, Informative)
Problems with interference are not the only ones this monitor has. It's supposed to be able to charge your MacBook at 85W, but it actually only delivers about 60W. People are finding that if they are doing intensive tasks the laptop's battery slowly drains while it supposed to be charging. MKBHD covered it in his review recently.
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In most countries, Immunity testing is also compulsory.
I'm not familiar with US laws, but even if the FCC doesn't demand Immunity testing, any manufacture who overlooks it is begging for trouble.
Since way back in the CB radio days, manufactures have known that they must address Immunity.
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FCC Part 15 "Class C" certification says that it emits no interference, and can be effected by already present interference.
There is nothing here that violates Part 15.
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It is true that the US Immunity laws are very lax, but to be sold world-wide it must meet EU/JA/AUS Immunity standards.
And even under Part 15 there are still Susceptibility tests.
Whatever, any manufacturer who ignores immunity testing is asking for big trouble.
Comforting? (Score:5, Insightful)
What's more comforting is that Apple don't have an "approved" display. What would be even more comforting is if they never did and if consumers didn't need such arbitrary "approvals" to plug a display into a computer.
What an absurd idea that is.
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This is not some mythical "apple approved" display. It never was. It's just a 3rd party monitor that apple sells.
You can get monitors for macs from any number of vendors.
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You do realize that if Apple is selling it directly, then it is defacto "Apple Approved" whether they explicitly say so or not.
The whole point of buying something directly from Apple, is that an average consumer has the reasonable expectation that Apple specifically vetted the device in questions as being fit for purpose against Apple-made hardware.
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What other monitor has a 5k screen and can connect to the new macbook pro without an adaptor?
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Not even Apple are courageous enough to limit users to not using adaptors.
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I never connected an Apple-approved display nor an Apple-made or Apple-approved mouse into any of my Macs.
I do use made-for-Apple and made-by-Apple keyboards, if only to get the proper labels and function keys for OS X*.
* my Mac stills runs 10.9.5, fuck off with your "It's called macOS now" reply.
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Too bad - the 27" Cinema Displays are actually really good products. I have two of them on my desk - one LED Cinema Display, and one Thunderbolt version, chained together.
One cable plugged into the side of my laptop gives me two 27" displays, external SSD, gigabit ethernet, the four speakers in the displays, camera, mic, USB keyboard, USB mouse. And there's a MagSafe connector coming off the same cable, which powers the MacBook Pro.
Add to that the Mini-DisplayPort version is on a KVM switch for my desktop
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Good for you that you can afford Apple Cinema Displays. But we're not all made of money like most Americans.
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One was purchased at a discount several years ago (the DisplayPort model) and the other was provided by my employer (the Thunderbolt model).
I didn't have any problem purchasing the one I bought myself, because I bought one of the 20" displays at a discount a decade ago, and it still works flawlessly on my server rack. Apple built them right, and it shows. You might pay a bit more for one (when they were available for purchase) but you weren't going to throw it away for many years to come.
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What should be disconcerting is that while this monitor clearly is a turd, Apple admits to a problem.
Whereas in the rest of the PC industry such turds are on sale everywhere (from this vendor and others), and you will get no support for it, and people will look at you weird if you say you put your router next to it and it stopped working. If I add up the list of all the things my diy PC does "weird" and doesn't quite work at, I will run out of disk space. I suspect this monitor works "good enough" that if A
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It seems to have worked out fine for Apple since they discontinued their line of printers.
A monitor is a monitor. There really is no value that Apple can add to a monitor by designing and building it themselves. Since the return of Jobs, Apple's m.o. has been to focus their energy on areas where they can differentiate themselves on functionality as well as build quality. There was nothing that an Apple LaserWriter could do that a Canon printer couldn't, so the LaserWriter was discontinued. There is nothing
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What's more comforting is that Apple don't have an "approved" display. What would be even more comforting is if they never did and if consumers didn't need such arbitrary "approvals" to plug a display into a computer. What an absurd idea that is.
Do you know why motherboards have CPU and memory compatibility lists, NAS have HDD compatibility lists and so on? Because no matter how much you try adhering to a standard nothing beats actually testing the combination in question. Granted, graphics cards and monitors haven't been very big offenders in that department but I don't mind that Apple tries to sell you an Apple branded or recommended display, just like Dell will try to sell you a Dell monitor. And that does make it hurt when you tried buying the
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Exactly. An hour ago I finished debugging a problem with a non-approved SFP+ module not working. It turns out that Intel SFP+ SR 10G Ethernet modules do not have a proper checksum in their EEPROMs as defined in the SFF-8472 specification (section 8.8), hence my software rejects them (it turns out that the Linux Intel IGB driver doesn't validate the checksum either). I've come across a number of crap products that fail (don't get me started on USB thumb drives) because they are either buggy or don't follow t
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Do you know why motherboards have CPU and memory compatibility lists, NAS have HDD compatibility lists and so on?
You know why no one cares or gives a crap? Because 99.999% of the time when there's an issue with a part it's due to them not actually following the spec. Most of the time the compatibility list is either:
a) for complete idiots.
b) for procurement people who need easy purchasing decisions.
c) for contractual performance requirements (here's a combination we tested and actually achieves our xxxx reliability, buy this one if you intend to sue us).
d) for technical people who realise that the biggest problem is s
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Dell has been successful selling monitors because many people and institutions like being able to buy a complete system in one transaction. Who the heck wants to write two PO's? Apple not having a monitor is just another part of the AppleFail ® program....
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There was never any approval. This display just happens to use the unicorn port that Apple has festooned their latest notebooks with, rather than the standard Mini-DisplayPort that used to be good enough, and still is good enough for the rest of the world. You know, the connector that Apple created and gave to VESA royalty-free in order to increase the rate of adoption...
The note at the end is very impartial... (Score:1)
The note at the end is very impartial...
Re:The note at the end is very impartial... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's so impartial that you'd think msmash was an idiot who's never used a Mac in his life and doesn't know that Macs have used VGA, DVI, HDMI and DisplayPorts for over a decade now. And their keyboards and mice connect via USB or Bluetooth, just like a "PC".
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I said "for over a decade", implying that Apple has used industry-standard ports on most of their Macs since even before their switch to Intel processors.
But yeah, I forgot about the Thunderbolt ports since all I use is the HDMI port on my Mac mini. I haven't used one of their laptops in ages so my comment about standard ports is probably invalid for most Macs too.
Don't worry, Tim is on to it! (Score:2)
Tim Cook has announced [telegraph.co.uk] a new Mac Pro, Mac Book Pros will come with a 99 watt-hour battery and the Mac Mini will be updated. Oh, wait, no he didn't. He's doing something much more important.
Easy interim fix (Score:3)
Oh, that's right. They courageously got rid of the ethernet port because wireless networking is the future.
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Oh just man up and whip out your dongle.