I initially started this thread because the baked in and easy to use Display Calibration Assistant was hidden and there was no obvious way to calibrate and color correct my new MacBook Pro's XDR display (as I've done for the past 20 years with every new Mac purchase). A quick, easy, and manual process (by eye).
This was a huge problem for me as my eyes are very sensitive to typical factory calibrations (including Apple's) which tend to have a heavy green and often dingy tint to them - which these XDR displays have (to my eyes). I just wanted to make this display pop and look more vibrant (to the eye) by adding in some much needed red/blue to reduce the green and adjust the white point a bit - as I typically would with my other Macs.
For me, this was not about having the perfect hardware calibration (by numbers, on paper) for actual pro work and pro editing, but I am glad that this thread morphed into a resource for those of you who need proper calibration for your jobs, businesses and hobbies. While a lot if this is over my head, I think I am learning a bit more about 3rd party hardware calibration and software, and it may be something I will look into further.
But for me, at this moment, I just want to be able to color correct my XDR display so that it is pleasing to my eyes (not what the industry calls 'perfect and on point'), and so far, it doesn't look like editing 'Presets' will help me accomplish this. I've tried to edit presets to at least adjust the white point, but it locks the brightness slider and there is no way to color correct with presets. And why is there no on-screen visual of what the desired white point and gamma will look like? You have to input X and Y values? The entire process is not very intuitive and is definitely targeted towards industrial work.
But here's the thing, there are plenty of us MacBook Pro users who are just regular Mac fans who want (and can afford) the best and most powerful Mac portables who enjoy and utilize the power and technology, but who also want to color correct our displays.
I guess I just don't understand why the XDR displays added such a layer of complexity where an average user cannot adjust, color correct and calibrate the display to their liking using built in macOS tools/apps like we've done for decades. Is this Apple's arrogance saying that their factory calibrations are so on point that 'you don't need to adjust the colors', or is there something else going on here? I've been going back and forth with an Apple senior account support rep, but they don't seem to know more than the rest of us in this thread and keep pointing to the limited (and useless to me) Presets.
If my high-end Samsung TVs had no option to adjust colors, darkness, gamma, and so on, and I was left with their awful (but great on paper) factory calibrations (or their oversaturated presets), and required a complex process to change very limited options and with the help of 3rd party hardware or software, they'd be returned in a heartbeat!
So I am hoping that there is a happy medium and Apple will add color correcting and white point adjustment (with on-screen visuals/sliders) to the preset customization process. I don't see how or why this would interfere with the XDR content, nits, and so on. If this is their reasoning, they need to code around that or revamp the Display Calibration Assistant to work well with XDR display technology. The current limitations for color correcting a display on a very expensive machine is just unacceptable in my opinion.
I realize that most people will never adjust their display's color, white point and so on, but I am sure that there are many of us out there that who are affected by these dingy, green tinted, default factory calibrations that we cannot change, and would like to correct it using the very simple to use Display Calibration Assistant (or a more robust and easier to use preset customization process). Based on the professional display calibration videos I've seen with these new MacBook Pros, it looks like Apple's default calibration is very close to what 3rd party hardware calibrators suggest is on point, so if you don't see this green tint, or it doesn't bother you, that's great. For those of us who see it and want to change and correct it, there should be an easy way to do so.
I am still using the Display Calibration Assistant to create and apply color profiles using the workaround I posted, but I would prefer a best of both worlds option where we can color correct our new XDR displays, without using complex 3rd party options, and without losing some of the XDR capabilities while doing so.