Apple's Arrogance on Full Display

Apple's Arrogance on Full Display

There are many reasons for a professional photographer or video editor to shell out thousands of dollars for Apple's new Pro Display XDR monitor. But only Apple would be arrogant enough to think anyone — professional or otherwise — should shell out $1,000 for a stand to go with it. 

You read that right. One thousand U.S. dollars to hold upright the monitor you just spent $5,000 or $6,000 to purchase. It tilts! It rotates! It raises and lowers! Come on. 

I'm an unabashed Apple fan. I typed this story on a MacBook Pro, I use two iPad Pro 12.9" tablets for work and for fun, and I have an iPhone X. I love tech, and I'm willing to put out the money to acquire the latest and greatest gadgetry that makes my life a little more streamlined and, yes, fun. And I'll defer to Fstoppers colleague Steven Kampff who argues Apple's Pro Display XDR is worth it. But charging $1,000 for a monitor stand is the height of absurdity. 

The very idea of spending as much on a hunk of metal to hold up your display as you would for a portable computer that puts the world at your fingertips and fits in your pocket is almost maddening. 

Some may argue that given the exorbitant cost of a high-end monitor such as a Flanders, paying an additional $1,000 to bring your total cost to $6,000 or $7,000 for a quality display (and stand) is still a bargain. But, realistically, what's the point of spending that much extra money for a stand? 

You can literally just lean the monitor against your new Mac Pro computer or even prop it up with a stack of books, such as Business Plans For DummiesThe Total Money MakeoverStack Your Savings, and Why Didn't They Teach Me This in School?: 99 Personal Money Management Principles to Live By, all of which would represent a better investment spending than $1,000 on a stand. 

You'll probably want a more stable solution for your $6,000 monitor, but there are plenty of actual stands that retail for far less than Apple's. While they may not carry the status of a Cupertino product, they'll hold your monitor in place all the same. 

I'm all for getting immersed in the Apple ecosystem, but the Pro Stand simply doesn't fit in at that price.

Would you spend $1,000 on a monitor stand? Drop a comment below and let us know what you think of Apple's pricing. 

Brian Pernicone's picture

Brian Pernicone grew up admiring the coastal waters of New England and that influence is evident in much of his work, which focuses primarily on coastal landscapes, boats, New England wildlife, and water sports.

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Lol in what universe is removing a headphone jack "courageous"? Does he even know what that word means? I'm absolutely baffled.

TBH I am actually a bit surprised. $1000 for a monitor stand is audacious to say the least. I'm a fan of Nikon and I can freely admit that the price for their AC Adapter is ridiculous for what it actually is. I do think that Apple's new monitor is actually a great deal for its capabilities and even if they charged $1500 more and bundled it with the stand and Vesa Mount, it would still be a bargain given the price of reference monitors with similar capabilities. They didn't bundle it, though. They decided to sell everything separately and rather than adding $1000 to the monitor and making the stand and Vesa Mount reasonably priced, they distributed the cost in a pretty awkward manner that I cannot quite understand.

I know the Apple has a really strong and loyal fan base, but any rational person can see that this monitor stand should not have been priced at $1000 regardless of how great a value the monitor itself is.

I agree. The weird thing is that by all the accounts I have read, the monitor is a bargain for what it is. They could have included the stand and mount, increased the price, and no one would have been the wiser. It would still have been a deal. Apple fans would be using that scenario as an example of how thoughtful Apple was to "include" the extras.

Apple selling the stand, for that price, standalone is an example of just how smug that company is.

Other companies absolutely charge an arm and a leg for some optional extras or after-market parts, but only Apple would go this way about it.

Apple, Hasselblad, Red, frankly all photography equipment is expensive for the higher quality stuff. But it's still a choice to buy it, and at least it's optional. If one can afford this monitor then this stand shouldn't be an issue

Well, we can hardly name a monitor screen "photography equipment", no? :-)

lol to the darkroom!

Faux Rage has been trendy for quite some time now. Hopefully, Faux Rage will jump the shark soon. How about an article showing Apple pro display alternatives? I think an alternative monitor solution would better serve FStopper readers vs copycat rants that can be found anywhere on the internet. It doesn't take a genius to point out problems, it takes a leader to offer up solutions.

There are no complaints about the monitor in this article.

You were suggesting the pricing of the stand directly is a form of Apple arrogance. The same copy/paste (now cliche') complaints that are everywhere. The gist of what I am saying is write something interesting and informative.

So, an article stating the obvious just to spread affiliate links? I thought Fstoppers was better than this...

People who drive a Koenigsegg aren't bothered with little things like gas prices!

Just imagine the queue of 3rd party manufacturers itching to supply their own versions of the stand for $100 or less! My guess is that due to the probable extreme weight of this milestone monitor, an extraordinary stand is needed to give you something that can be moved freely with one finger as they claim.

<- Opinion from a Stills DIT

This thing's a bit rich for the work I normally do. But if I land a massive job this year or next and buy one, I do appreciate that the stand is optional. Becuase if/when I buy it, the first thing I'd do is mount it to my Inovativ cart's VESA arm. If it's not hooked up to a 5/8ths pin, it's in a Tenba Air Case, period. Also, 1000 Nits is crazy awesome for when you're shooting outside, in the valley when it's 100F, and no number of 4x floppys can save your sorry butt.

Believe me, the first thing that came out of my mouth when I saw how much this whole thing was, was "F*** OFF!" Especially when the $6k Mac Pro ships with only 256GB of SSD (This is literally Apple telling us creatives to eat a dick). But find another decent 30"+ 1000 Nit monitor that's not the cost of a BMW.

In the meantime, if you're in the market for a really bright monitor with decent color, the new 23.7" LG display is genuinely not bad. It covers 98% of P3 while hitting 500 nits. On the cart, outside in the sun, it's way easier to see than my Eizo (When your outdoors, color accuracy be damned, clients really appreciate being able to see) and it opens up 2 more ports on my MBP, and 2 outlets on my APC that would otherwise be filled, along with acting as a powered TB3/USB 3.1 hub.

The 23.7" calibrates better than the 27" LG that's also on the Apple Website, and has a TB passthru allowing me to plug my Luna Display dongle into the monitor, not my laptop (clearing ports!). This is huge when on location and I'm backing up onto a ton of drives at once.

Just an opinion from someone with skin in the game..

It's 2019, it should be illegal to make a computer with less than 500gb storage 🤦‍♀️

"the $6k Mac Pro ships with only 256GB of SSD"
Would you be happier if the base config had 1TB and started at $7k? Apple's giving you cheaper options. Jeez.

At $6k, it should ship with 1TB of SSD minimum. 256GB covers your OS, your software, and that's it. Anything outside of that needs to be ran off external (slow) media. Best bet for external media is this, but it's still not as fast as the internal NVMe

https://www.g-technology.com/products/desktop/g-drive-pro-ssd#0G10275

In the new Mac Pro case (pun intended) you can upgrade and add M.2 or an SSD internally. Regardless, not including a decent size M.2?

A 256GB M.2 costs around $40, what a joke. I would be embarrassed to include that in a machine I called Pro.

easy, just buy the tower and hook it up to an eizo colour edge.

Just like Apple, Fstoppers arrogance is on full display for presenting such nonsense.

To the “don’t buy it crowd” I would rebut “don’t read it”. He’s allowed to have an opinion about an overpriced stand. And maybe, just maybe, you will benefit from it when companies realize that products need to be fairly priced regardless if for professionals (who pass the expense onto consumers with their higher priced products) or average consumers. Don’t understand why people are so eager to defend a greedy ecosystem. Capitalism does not mean blind consumer acceptance. We are allowed to opinion and not purchase to influence the supply and demand.

"there are plenty of actual stands that retail for far less than Apple's"
So buy one.

People will buy it just because. I dont care but for sure in a few years you will be able to find it in garage sales for 5 dollars

FWIW, I've read one commenter who said that he was going to buy the Stand because virtually no one will buy them, so in a few years, they'll be rare collector's items and he'll be able to sell his at a tidy profit. That's an interesting paradigm shift ;-)

Thats depends. Check for example the first nintendos, they need it to pass at least 30+ years to actually get "profitable" as a collection item and that is not only for his really old production hardware but also for the iconic moment of mark an era. But the Apple stand that I presume is made with really common materials and had nothing really interesting that difference from other stand more than the brand. Would become collector? Probably, would be selling at a super high price? I doubt, in 30 years at the speed that the tech goes the stands would become a hughe paperweight. We must wait and see

I am far from being an Apple fan. I think it is an overrated company with products that are also overrated and technically poorly designed but design-wise very beautiful. Apple's mentality is really arrogant.

With a group of followers which seem in general incapable of criticism. Don't believe me, just look at all the problems in the past few years with their designs and the manner in which Apple fans seem to accept just about everything.
Badly designed keyboard, soldered on hdd, badly designed monitor cables, badly designed thermals. Everything just to shave off a couple of mils.

This monitor however is cheap for what it is. It is not directed to the average photographer or small video-editing company. It is directed at a small niche for very wealthy editing companies that wouldn't hesitate to spend 30-40k on a monitor or 50-100k for a decent server. So 1000 dollars might be ridiculous for most people but not for that part of a market.
The Imac pro and this new monitor are for an entirely different and much richer part of the market than the old Imac Pro. Let's be honest, a new Imac pro with decent specs will easily cost 30k and how many of you could justify or afford that expense?

In few month we will see better stands, proposed by other brands, for 10% of the price of the Apple's original one.…

I’ve been in Camp Apple a long time but decisions like this (the stand, not the monitor) are continuing to erode any desire I have of staying in the ecosystem. Hopefully Apple gets back to making innovative products. If not, they’ll follow the same line as every other company out there who waited to long to change course and slowly fade into oblivion. Profitable for a long while no doubt but the interwebs are fickle these days. Todays ‘new hotness’ is tomorrow’s outdated trash.

As much as I didn't like Steve Jobs, the man understood perfection. Their current hardware problems wouldn't have existed if he had lived. The man, though unpleasant, was a genius.
Apple was really creative and made good products. Costly but inventive and creative.

For Personal use at home? Fuck No ... but if it is a corporation that buys 500 of these for their employess, yeah sure I use it lol :D

I think this is a marketing strategy from Apple, charging that much for the stand is making people talk about it, I am sure there are already third party manufacturers who are making stands for $500 or less

Hold on.

The display stand that has the mechanism to tilt, raise and rotate without pressure/force, and has good cable management and made from aluminum... Should be cheap?

A good third party swiveling table leg that you bolt on table or wall cost already 400-500€ and those are not easy to rotate, tilt or raise.

Sure, I found one great for 25€ once in sale, and bought three.

But c'mon!

You get a display that costs almost one seventh of that Sony cost, and others don't deliver that Apple does!

At least Apple sells just display if you so want!

I'm waiting the article, '10 ways Apple's $1000 monitor stand will make you a better photographer.'

False outrage from people would have no need for and will not be purchasing the Pro Display XDR.
First off let’s examine the name of the monitor, PRO Display. It is designed for and meets the needs of high end designers for whom the most precise color is everything. This does not include every day wedding photographers, people who design for local small business but for designers whose clients employ full time color professionals to tweak the exact pantone color of packaging and making sure the exact pantone color is rendered properly in all online and print advertising. Just as a photographer who takes yearbook photos for a middle class public high school is unlikely to invest in a $100,000 Phase One digital medium format camera system not including studio lighting, Apple’s new monitor system was created for a very tiny group of professionals who have big accounts with high paying corporate clients and the investment in such expensive gear is a necessary business expense.

The monitor stand is not a consumer product either. It is a remarkable piece of engineering to create such a small minimalist design that can raise and lower a 16.5 pound and 28” wide monitor with the lift of a finger along with being able to easily rotate the display as well. it is neither easy nor cheap to build such a stand. For consumers and smaller designers it is overkill. For full time professionals who have those big clients who pay a great deal, it is a small tax deductable business expense that makes life easier and will pay for itself.

Why doesn’t Apple include the stand in the price? It is an expensive system. Even high end pros who see the Pro Display XDR as a worthwhile investment do not want to waste money. Monitors burn out and become obsolete, high end stands do not and last longer. Many already have an expensive professional articulating stand and do not need an extra grand added onto the price of the monitor. Others may appreciate what the Apple stand does but do not need to rotate or articulate the screen and are happy with a simpler cheaper solution.

I would bet most photographers or photo editors investing in this system are processing files from digital medium format systems or at the least from photographers whose camera and lighting systems are beyond the budget of most Apple critics.

> It is a remarkable piece of engineering ...

Not at all, for technologies for counterbalances have been around for centuries.

Plus this one is very obviously recycled from Apple's internally developed 2002 era iMac G4 (which only cost $1299, including the computer).

From an Engineering perspective, to change the component spring rates from supporting a 5lb screen to a 16.5lb screen is "undergraduate" trivial.

Apple is getting a lot of press over their new line of Mac Pros and these displays. They're also going to sell a lot of them, and remain one of the most valuable companies. I say they're doing something right.

For that much maybe you have someone build a stand for you? Maybe you can get he dimensions from somewhere ?

when you want to get your apple products repaired thats when they will screw you to pieces. I avoid them like the plague,. Any company that solders hard drives and RAM to their logic boards is appalling.

Even at $5k, the monitor MAY be a great deal (pending real-world reviews), but to try and sell the stand alone for $1k??? That's pure Apple hubris. Apple should offer two purchase options at the same price: one with a stand, and one with the VESA adapter. Charge $150-$200 for the stand alone. Unless these stands are hand-machined from titanium one at a time, there is no way they can justify asking $1k for it.

Sure, some simple pro photo and video equipment like tripods can be expensive, but those items are used hard and abused every day. A monitor stand just...stands there. On a desk. Not out in the rain or freezing cold. A monitor stand is not expected to function after being dropped onto the pavement from three feet.

What bothers me about monitors - and it's not just Apple who does this - is when the manufacturer doesn't include a standard VESA mounting pattern into the monitor case. That is my biggest pet peeve regarding monitors, followed closely by buttons placed right where you are most likely to touch the monitor to adjust tilt or height.

The price of the stand will become $750 soon enough because third parties are busy making one for under $400-500 now. LOL

Obvious that this article so written for the traffic and comments, but I am going to bite.. This is NOT a monitor for you mate!!@@!! It serves a TINY niche that is willing to pay for that stand.. Think of big animation studios or video production companies (and dentists a Leica). Get mad over the fact that Apple does not sell a "normal" cinema display anymore..

In the time when a perfect monitor, 90% of what this one does, can be obtained for one tenth of it's price, a thousand dollar stand is just what you have called it... Arrogance.

If Apple would have presented it better, i.e. The price of the monitor is $6000 or $7000 and you can save $1000 if you choose to use a Vesa Mount, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Nothing to see here, folks, just another person who doesn't understand a Louis Vuitton / Maserati etc product market.

I learned long ago to not complain about luxury items I thought were exorbitantly over-priced. It's my own damn fault for not busting my ass hard enough to become so wealthy that I don't bat an eye at $1K add-ons.

Thankfully, I'm happy to spend the rest of my life as a used/refurbished Macbook Pro kinda guy.

This is part of what's wrong with society today- the aggressive shaming of something we're just jealous of. Get over it. There's stuff in this world you'll never be able to afford.

So what, Some female friends of mine give this amount of money for a handbag.

They could just as easily use that handbag to prop up the monitor and at least they'd be able take it when they go for a night out once in a while.

My company had to pay over $2k for a simple rig handles for the RED camera (few simple pipes and screws). Nobody complain about that on internet. Only because this is Apple, people have internal a.. pain. The $999 is nothing unacceptable in pro world, where we facing prices, which are not comfortable for normal people.

I bought the XDR displays (x2) without the stands, only because I have ergotron arms already and all I need are VESA adapters. That way I saved $1600. If horrible Apple introduce the monitor with the stand for 7k, I would have to throw away the stands anyway. I’m really grateful that they didn’t do this.

BTW, please also remember, all things we buying are directly business “expenses”, so depends on your location, you get eventually stuff for cheaper (minus 23% VAT and 19% income tax).

BTW2: I’m not complain about things I don’t need or can’t afford ether, and suggest you to do the same if you want to be happy in your life.