I’m going to largely ignore the base Studio Display for the duration of this post and focus exclusively on the XDR version.
At around half the price of the previous-generation Pro Display XDR, the Studio Display XDR offers the following:
Overall, this is clearly an upgrade, but also a mixed bag. For $3,500 USD (or $4,500 CAD), you’re getting a monitor that is substantially cheaper than its best prior comparison. The technology has gotten better. I will miss the Pro Display XDR’s cheese grater aesthetic, but that design was because the Pro Display needed a heatsink, and the lattice design clearly increased manufacturing cost. 2,304 dimming zones is four times what was available in the larger Pro Display XDR’s screen.
But at 27″, the Studio Display is smaller. I think Apple fumbled here; I would love a 32″ Studio Display XDR. And while 2,304 dimming zones is more than the “one” dimming zone on the standard Studio Display, it’s comparable to the dimming zone count in the MacBook Pros.
I want to hammer home the latter point, because it would be better if the Studio Display XDR had more dimming zones. The equivalent, proportionally, would be closer to 10,000. I don’t know if any display manufacturer makes a 27″ or 32″ screen with 10,000 dimming zones, but Apple’s own 13″ iPad Pros offered 10,000 mini-LEDs grouped into 2,500 zones years ago.
Again, I don’t know if this technology exists at these screen sizes. It’s just what I wished for.
Otherwise, this really does look like a great monitor for professionals.
Apple’s P3 colour gamut has now added Adobe RGB support, in addition to P3. They also say they have more than 80% Rec. 2020 coverage. Rec. 2020’s gamut is significantly larger than Adobe RGB. The Pro Display didn’t support Rec. 2020, and the laptops offer a bit over 60% of Rec. 2020. So this is a much more detailed (and hopefully even more accurate) display.
And why would you care about that? It’s very useful for print design and photography (especially for printing), and having it built in to the default P3 mode is great for keeping workflows easy. If you’re a working professional who cares about colour accuracy across multiple mediums (hello, it’s me), then this is a big deal.
My plan right now is to buy one and upgrade my current Studio Display, because this level of colour accuracy and HDR support is very useful for my work. But I dearly wish a 32″ 6K option were available.
I am waiting to read and watch reviews first before I place my order.
I have a few questions I’d like answered:
That’s it for 2025. This year I’d like to start fewer games and finish more of them. Right now I’m focused on Mass Effect 3, and I’m doing weekly Forza sessions with a buddy. I’m looking forward to the new Wolverine and to Forza Horizon 6. I’m sure I’ll buy the new Grand Theft Auto if it releases this year, but I am also positive I’ll mostly be disappointed because it’s not Red Dead Redemption.
]]>A lot of these categories are really tough. The Best Actress category is a real competition; I’ve have trouble picking between Rose Byrne in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You and Emma Stone in Bugonia. Best Actor is similarly stacked. Timothée Chalamet is apparently remarkable in Marty Supreme, which I haven’t seen yet. Dicaprio was fantastic in One Battle After Another. Michael B. Jordan is operating on a whole other level with Sinners, and I sort of hope he wins the category.
Also, holy smokes, the best director category is stacked. No idea how I’d pick between Coogler, Paul Thomas Anderon, Chloé Zhao, or Josh Safdie.
If I had to make a few guesses in categories I’m confident in:
I find the Oscars are kind of hard to predict; it’s not a meritocracy. Even if it were, art is subjective. I’m curious to see who wins.
There are also a couple films on the list I’m eager to see once we can get them in our home theatre. I’ve been looking forward to Marty Supreme and Hamnet for the better part of a year. I also need to make some time for Frankenstein, which I’d like to see but honestly keep forgetting about. And KPop Demon Hunters is very near the top of our Netflix queue as well.
Ten years from now, I think we’ll find the obsession with One Battle and Sinners to be a little much. Both are great movies, but they’re each bloated in every sense of the word. Around that same time, I think smart cinephiles will start asking why Black Bag was snubbed this year. I just wanted to make sure it was clear I asked first.
]]>]]>The people of France, upon learning that two tiaras, two brooches, two necklaces, and 1.5 pairs of earrings had been stolen, reacted with humiliation and apoplexy. The director of the Louvre called the theft a “terrible failure.” The French president labeled it an “attack.” The crime, the minister of justice said, had given the country an “image terrible”—this last remark raising uncomfortable questions: How exactly do French people imagine the rest of the world conceives of their hexagonal nation? As a futuristic police state where the rule of law is rigorously enforced? Surely, to everyone outside the republic, a pair of cat burglars cleverly robbing a museum in broad daylight and escaping—Beep! Beep!—on mopeds is very nearly the Frenchest thing that could have happened.
On the superpower of focus:
“What looks like a talent gap is often a focus gap. The “all-star” is often an average to above-average performer who spends more time working on what is important and less time on distractions. The talent is staying focused.”
On discipline and creativity:
Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky explains that discipline precedes inspiration:
“Inspiration is a guest that does not willingly visit the lazy.”
Source: Letter to Nadezhda von Meck (1878)
And this quote made me think about how bloody revolution often leads to bloody revolution, but a revolution of peace — the kind of nonviolent revolutions led by Jesus, Gandhi, or Martin Luther King Jr. — start within us.
American novelist Ursula K. Le Guin reminds us that change always begins by taking responsibility for how you live:
“You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.”
Source: The Dispossessed (1974)
Anyway, go sign up for his newsletter if you haven’t already.
]]>Edit to add: Jessica Hische, who serves on the Canva Design Advisory Board, posted an encouraging thread about Canva’s intent and goals.
]]>Between this and the awful Safari design on iOS 26, I’m very close to making Chrome my default browser.
Does anybody know how to fix this? I tried updating to the Safari beta, which apparently has the fix, but it’s still entirely broken.
]]>In my opinion, Yotei is a meaningfully better game than Ghost of Tsushima by every imaginable measurement. The story is more interesting. The music is better (and the sound is crazy too). The side quests are far and away more interesting, and much less repetitive. There are fewer fox dens, but each fox den is actually fun, which is a nice change. The cinematography, when they include recorded cut scenes, is fantastic. I never thought Tsushima compared to Kurosawa, and I never understood why they would invoke that comparison. But Yotei has moments where I get it. (And I love Kurosawa.)
The combat (which was already excellent) is better, if only because there’s more weaponry and variety.
The world design is leagues better. Tsushima had some of the least inspired open world design I can recall; Yotei’s world is actually interesting to explore. I want to see every nook and cranny.
I’ve seen some folks compare Yotei to Red Dead Redemption II. This is a terrible comparison. RDR2 is a much better game. Yotei isn’t operating in that weight class.
But Yotei reminds me constantly of the first Red Dead Redemption, which I replayed only a couple years ago and am also currently re-replaying on my PS5. Red Dead Redemption evokes a particular feeling: I am a western cowboy acting as a sort of bounty hunter, taking on quests from people in a world that seems (to me) plucked straight out of a spaghetti western. Red Dead Redemption II did not scratch the same itch (but it is one of my all-time favourite games). Ghost of Yotei feels like a game in which I am a samurai bounty hunter, taking on quests from people in a world that feels plucked straight out of Kurosawa’s Sanjuro or Yojimbo.
This is, from my perspective, the highest praise I can give it. It evokes a feeling that Tsushima never did.
This has been a big year for games. I’ve bought more than I would care to admit. Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, the Oblivion remaster, AC: Shadows, Split Fiction, Donkey Kong: Bananza, THPS 3 & 4, Mario Kart World, Tears of the Kingdom on Switch 2 (where it finally became playable), etc.
Out of all of them, Yotei is maybe my favourite. It feels like the samurai game that was made for me specifically. (If TOTK was a new game, that would be my favourite, but as it is, I am deeply enjoying my replay.)
Thus far, it is highly recommended.
]]>The whole thing is worth reading, but I’ll highlight one section I particularly enjoyed. Nick writes about macOS here, but there are many apps in iOS and iPadOS where this same critique could be levied, including Safari. (The emphasis below is mine.)
The way toolbars and their buttons are displayed on MacOS is, at best, something to get used to, though I have tried and failed. Where there was once a solid area for tools has, in many apps, become a gradient with floating buttons. The gradient is both a fill and a progressive blur, which I think is unattractive.
This area is not very tall, which means a significant amount of the document encroaches into its lower half. In light mode, the background of a toolbar is white. The backgrounds of toolbar buttons are also white. Buttons are differentiated by nothing more than a diffuse shadow… the sum of this design language is the continued reduction of contrast in user interface elements to, I think, its detriment.
Apple justifies these decisions by saying its redesigned interfaces are “bringing greater focus to content”. I do not accept that explanation. Instead of placing tools in a distinct and separated area, they bleed into your document, thus gaining a similar level of importance as the document itself. … in my experience, the more the interface blends with what I am looking at, the less capable I am of ignoring it. Clarity and structure are sacrificed for the illusion of simplicity offered by a monochromatic haze of an interface.
Even if I bought that argument, I do not understand why it makes sense to make an application’s tools visually recede. While I am sometimes merely viewing a document, I am very often trying to do something to it. I want the most common actions I can take to be immediately obvious.
The passage I emphasized is the very same problem I have with the design, particularly as a designer. When the tools of the OS bleed into my document, particularly when designing a website, my design has to accommodate Apple’s UI, and that deeply frustrates me.
But Nick also writes about something else vexing. Tools are now hidden in junk drawers, and often more difficult to find. Apple’s software is great graphic design, but it is becoming frustrating interface design. These are different practices, with different goals. Graphic design is intended to draw attention, often for the sake of branding or advertising. Interface design is not unlike designing a hammer: it is the practice of making a tool useful and usable. For Apple’s software to be a great piece of graphic design, but not a great interface design, is a dramatic failure of purpose.
Nick also asks why Apple feels the need to do this now:
Why is this the first time all of the operating systems are marketed with the same version number? And why did Apple decide this was the right time to make a dedicated “operating system” section on its website to show how it delivers a “more consistent experience” between devices? I have no evidence Apple would want to unify under some kind of “Apple OS” branding, but if Apple did want to make such a change, this feels like a very Apple‑y way to soft-launch it. After all, your devices already run specific versions of Safari and Siri without them needing to be called “Mac Safari” and “Watch Siri”. Just throwing that thought into the wind.
Stop giving them ideas, Nick.
Apple has worked to unify their designs for years, despite the cries from the design community that this is a fruitless idea. Large, multi-window operating systems like the Mac (and now the iPad) naturally demand different interfaces than a modal OS running in a device you hold in your hand. I don’t know why they did this now. I like Craig Hockenberry’s thoughts on this, where he posits that this all might be in preparation for a foldable phone, but I question anybody who thinks Apple plans that far ahead. I think Apple looks 12–24 months out at a time, like most organizations I’ve worked with.
What I’ve pieced together from years of rumours is that Apple started this redesign process shortly after Ive departed. There was a rumour years ago that Apple was working on a design that embraced “neumorphism,” which is a word I never hoped to have to spell.
What Apple ended up with isn’t exactly — look, don’t ask me to spell it again. But it’s not far off. Listen to the criticism of neumorphism, directly quoted from the Wikipedia page:
Neumorphism has received criticism from UI designers, notably for its lack of accessibility, difficulty in implementation, low contrast, and incompatibility with certain brands.
That sounds about like where we’re at to me. From Wikipedia’s Liquid Glass entry:
However, other users noted that certain elements were too transparent, making text difficult to read in low-contrast environments, such as direct sunlight. Designers interviewed by Wired felt that the visual effects distracted from app content. One designer said developers with smaller teams might struggle to meet the high visual standards set by the new interface.
Neumorphism and Liquid Glass are by no means identical, but one could argue they share the same etymology. Based on when neumorphism was trending (2022 and 2023), I’d wager they’ve been working on Liquid Glass for two years. I’d also wager they might have waited another year to ship this redesign, if it weren’t for the disaster that Apple Intelligence was for the company last year. They needed a win.
If Apple was working on this for at least two years, and it involved redesigning everything (including macOS), I’m not convinced it was for a foldable phone. I’m also unconvinced their plan is to make one unified operating system. If I worked at Apple, the major selling point of a cohesive design is a manageable component library. Every large platform I’ve worked on is obsessed with minimizing components across all their apps. Apple makes a lot of operating systems and need to avoid both design and engineering complexity. It is easiest to share parts where they can.
I don’t think they have a plan. While a unified design library makes sense to me as a design practitioner, I am not certain it works in practice (particularly on macOS). As far as asthetics, I think Apple thinks design is partially fashion, and that they need to be a forward-thinking fashion house. They are not wrong. But is OS 26 forward-thinking or merely a facade? I suspect the latter, but only time will tell.
]]>I have not kept secrets about how badly I want to buy Apple’s Pro Display XDR. That would be a terrible decision, because the display is practically ancient at this point. It’s a Mini LED display with over 500 dimming zones, but that number is paltry across its 32″ canvas. The MacBook Pros are also Mini LED, and the 16″ model — a quarter of the size of the Pro Display XDR — has over 2,500 dimming zones.
I know specs aren’t everything, but basically, that’s a lot more lights, which means a lot more consistency in brightness across the display. 2,500 is five times more than 500, but it’s also in a quarter of the space, so a new Pro Display XDR would need 10,000 dimming zones to keep up. That’s twenty times more dimming zones than it has now.
The Pro Display XDR’s matte coating is also less effective than similar technology in the MacBook Pro line. In the MacBook Pro, the nano-texture coating is chemically etched, which is far more subtle than the physically etched coating on the Pro Display XDR. On my matte MacBook Pro, there is barely a perceptible loss in brightness or contrast. With the physically etched implementation on the Pro Display XDR (and Studio Display), I get a headache.
So the technology in the Pro Display XDR needs a rethink.
However, the Pro Display XDR is not rumoured to get a revision right now. Apple apparently only plans on updating the Studio Display next year. In my mind, the Pro Display XDR needs this revision much more than the Studio Display does. Apple could do nothing to the Studio Display for another five years and it would keep selling like hotcakes.
That’s because the Studio Display is a great monitor. It looks good on a desk, and despite the fact it’s “only” an IPS display, the colours and brightness are consistent across the entire panel (according to my calibration device). Competition is only now starting to catch up, with similar panels from ASUS and Samsung hitting the market this year.
The Studio Display’s rumoured updates include Mini LED, which would be interesting because it would supplant the Pro Display XDR if it were done well. There are apparently two Studio Displays in testing at Apple. I have a few theories about this:
What I want is the Pro Display XDR. But the technology in that display has come down in price, and it seems reasonable that a panel with similar tech (and a more modern implementation of that tech) could be made for around the same price as the current Studio Display.
Historically speaking, top-of-the-line monitor tech from Apple works its way downstream, and then the top-of-the-line monitor disappears. (See the high-end Cinema Display becoming the affordable Thunderbolt Display somewhere around 2011.) So Maybe Apple plans on removing the Pro Display XDR from the lineup entirely.
If Apple ships a 32″ Studio Display with 10,000 dimming zones next year, I will happily replace at least one of the two Studio Displays on my desk.
(It’s worth noting that ASUS just released a 32″ 6K display with similar technology to the current Studio Display. YouTubers have posted a couple reviews, and while the panel itself looks totally fine, I can’t imagine working with a flimsy, plastic thing on my desk. I have to stare at that thing all day. I would genuinely rather set money on fire and buy a new Pro Display XDR if I were forced to pick one.)
]]>In short:
What follows that are some terrific thoughts on what creators can do to mitigate TikTok-style algorithms (which are now all over YouTube and Instagram), and what the responsibilities are of creator-focused platforms.
I’ve been designing a creator-focused media platform for a client for a couple years. It’s a massive project. It launched last week. (I can’t share a link yet; I’m waiting for the go-ahead from the client. Sorry.) It was great to watch this talk and hear some of what we’ve been discussing internally reflected in Conte’s conversation.
Part of the problem is that this is a huge task:
So one could easily imagine a wide variety of features that need to exist on a creator-focused platform before that platform will capture the eyeballs of its target audience. Building all those features costs a lot of money, and if you don’t already have a platform, requires a lot of investor capital.
Patreon is in a unique position to do this. I hope my client can make a bit of a splash in that market as well.
]]>Loving the tools you use makes it more likely that you will use the tools, and that makes it more likely you will finally write the novel you see in your head, or write the program you’ve been putting off developing. The tool itself does not make you more productive. Your desire to use the tool makes you more productive.
My father-in-law is not a carpenter, but he sure does love his saws and his drills, and so he finds excuses to make things out of wood.
Similarly, I am a designer, and I value high-accuracy monitors and televisions with colour gamuts and brightness curves that are close matches to reality (and the artistic intent of others). I currently use two Studio Displays. I would like to upgrade one of them to a Pro Display XDR. It’s bigger (32″ instead of 27″), brighter (real 1600 nit HDR instead of the 600 nit Studio Display), and much more colour accurate (10 bit instead of 8 bit). It is also eye-wateringly expensive, and made for people who make TV shows and movies. As an interface and graphic designer, I am not technically part of its market.
And yet, I want one anyway. Mostly because I think I’ll like staring at it even more than I like my Studio Displays.
Look, if you want to create something important — something that takes time and energy to do well, like a novel or a software application — you must love the process. A writer must love writing. A software developer must love programming.
And if you were to do that job full time, and immerse yourself in that process with no interruptions, you’ll quickly learn what Adam Mastroianni talks about when he writes about unpacking people’s jobs:
… people spend so much time doing their jobs. Hours! Every day! It’s 2pm on a Tuesday and you’re doing your job, and now it’s 3:47pm and you’re still doing it. There’s no amount of willpower that can carry you through a lifetime of Tuesday afternoons. Whatever you’re supposed to be doing in those hours, you’d better want to do it.
Of course, it’s never quite so simple. It’s easier to write if you are inherently a creative person who likes creating worlds and living in them; a good writer (particularly of fiction) is probably also a daydreamer. A great programmer is probably enthusiastic about the visual aesthetics of their work; they may not be a designer, but they would know the difference between an unusable garbage design and something intuitive. These skills — creative world building or a sense of visual taste — can be developed over time.
But first, a writer must want to write, and a programmer must want to program.
This is all true and extremely important. What we don’t talk about in the same fashion is that people who do those jobs for a living ought to like the sound their keyboards make.
Of course, the keyboard doesn’t matter, but it also does. That’s why people like Jon Gruber write with a 1990 Apple Extended Keyboard II, and have multiple spares ready to go for when their favourite discontinued keyboard bites the dust. It’s why George RR Martin still writes in DOS. It’s why so many designers on YouTube own a Pro Display XDR, which is not a screen they technically need, since they are not working in a film or television studio. (Remember my tl;dr. I also do not need this display.)
For Jon Gruber, any keyboard would work, but only one will do.
For me, any monitor will work, but only extremely nice ones with excellent colour accuracy and little to no eyestrain will do.
The tools don’t matter, but you have to like love the tools you use. Nobody wants to use a wooden shovel for snow removal if the shovel gives them splinters. If you’re using these tools all day, every day, you’re not looking for a tool that will magically make you more productive. You’re looking for a tool that makes you want to do the work.
Because it’s 3:47 on a Tuesday afternoon, or 10:30 on a Friday night, and you’re still working on that passion project.
Just a quick aside: I am aware that the Pro Display XDR uses outdated display tech, but show me another 32″ 6K monitor with support for real HDR and the same colour accuracy. It might be outdated, but only on a tech spec, and not in objective reality.
One more thought: writing this hasn’t assuaged me of my gear lust.
]]>_-_2.jpg){kind=link}