Pro Display XDR - Owners Thread

[Jawko]

I have not had this problem, and it doesn't sound particularly good to me. What machine are you connected to? It seems like I've seen these kind of resolution / placement oddities when connecting externals to laptops, but I don't think it aught to be happening in any overt way w the Pro or compatible machines.

I am on a 2019 Pro running 10.15.7 - Yes, it does almost seem like the monitor is trying to find the right resolution to display (just a guess).

The monitor firmware is still: 3.3.23 as I haven't received the option to update yet. I've read the above posts about disconnecting and powering down but I am reluctant to check the "Automatically keep my Mac up to date" box even though I don't have the "Install macOS updates" box checked in the advanced section (I'm really not ready to upgrade to 11 yet).

I turned off the "Put hard disks to sleep when possible" options a while ago with no change in behaviors. I have the internal 8TB Promise disk for Time Machine and I thought maybe the computer was waiting for it to spin up before waking up the monitor but I don't think that is the case.

Just this morning I clicked the mouse just once and counted to 6 before the screen came on, so it doesn't seem to be an issue with the bluetooth connection waking up the computer.

I may actually get the extended monitor AppleCare for the first time ever...

 

[mlykke]

To anyone who own the XDR display and an M1 mac, could you try to open display settings, hold option while you click on "Scaled", and let me know what the 3 largest resolutions you see available? I've seen multiple people not being able to choose anything higher than 3008 x 1269, even on 4K monitors and above, which seems to indicate a problem with the M1 ones display handling. So I want to see if this also happens on the XDR.

 

[louisitou]

To anyone who own the XDR display and an M1 mac, could you try to open display settings, hold option while you click on "Scaled", and let me know what the 3 largest resolutions you see available? I've seen multiple people not being able to choose anything higher than 3008 x 1269, even on 4K monitors and above, which seems to indicate a problem with the M1 ones display handling. So I want to see if this also happens on the XDR.

I plugged my M1 Mini to my XDR Display to test it for you & its exactly the same with the XDR Display. Im getting the Resolution of the XDR Display but nothing between 6016 x 3384 and 3008 x 1692.
Its showing the following resolutions:

6016 x 3384
3008 x 1692
2560 x 1440
1920 x 1080
1504 x 846
1280 x 720

 

[Maxwells_Equations]

My 16" MBP with the 5600M has the same options. I had to download SwitchRESX or whatever it is in order to utilize other resolutions.

 

[- rob -]

Just this morning I clicked the mouse just once and counted to 6 before the screen came on, so it doesn't seem to be an issue with the bluetooth connection waking up the computer.

I chatted with Apple Support yesterday and they suggested I turn off Power Nap and see if that fixes it.

This Morning I have it a little waggle and it seemed like it wasn’t resisting wake like before. I’ll give it more time to see—I think they said power nap might need to remain off to avoid the behavior I’m seeing.

They felt confident that this was the solution, that it was a Mac confit issue and not the XDR.

Has anyone heard of something like this for the xdr? I describe the waggle issue at the end of this post.

 

[mlykke]

I plugged my M1 Mini to my XDR Display to test it for you & its exactly the same with the XDR Display. Im getting the Resolution of the XDR Display but nothing between 6016 x 3384 and 3008 x 1692.
Its showing the following resolutions:

6016 x 3384
3008 x 1692
2560 x 1440
1920 x 1080
1504 x 846
1280 x 720

Thank you for testing.Interestingly enough you do actually get the full resolution. Others with 4K screens haven't got anything above 3008px, so something is off.

 

[joevt]

Thank you for testing.Interestingly enough you do actually get the full resolution. Others with 4K screens haven't got anything above 3008px, so something is off.

I plugged my M1 Mini to my XDR Display to test it for you & its exactly the same with the XDR Display. Im getting the Resolution of the XDR Display but nothing between 6016 x 3384 and 3008 x 1692.
Its showing the following resolutions:

6016 x 3384
3008 x 1692
2560 x 1440
1920 x 1080
1504 x 846
1280 x 720

When you click "Scaled", did you also enable the "Show low resolution modes" option?

 

[Jawko]

I chatted with Apple Support yesterday and they suggested I turn off Power Nap and see if that fixes it.

This Morning I have it a little waggle and it seemed like it wasn’t resisting wake like before. I’ll give it more time to see—I think they said power nap might need to remain off to avoid the behavior I’m seeing.

They felt confident that this was the solution, that it was a Mac confit issue and not the XDR.

Has anyone heard of something like this for the xdr? I describe the waggle issue at the end of this post.

I never had Power Nap enabled on mine so that's not a work around for me. I also talked to Support this morning for two hours! They seemed to think that during migration from my old Mac some of the old files and whatnot that got transferred over are causing the new computer to behave strangely when booting and causing it to wake slowly from sleep. I explained that just this morning the monitor didn't wake-up. I spent about 2 minutes moving the mouse around and bashing the bar to no avail. Eventually I just unplugging the monitor from the wall and then plugging it back in - it came up right after I plugged it back in.

We checked all sorts of stuff in the display settings, ran a computer hardware diagnostic, deleted some old plist files in the library but nothing seemed to work. His final recommendation was to do a reinstall of the OS and then manually drag and drop all my work over vs using the migration assistant. He said migration assistant can bring over old and outdated files etc that can mess with the new OS. Anyway, I told him I would think about it.

I didn't think about this while on the phone, but I sent him an email asking about the option of just swapping out the monitor for a new one. And then if the new one has the same issues, I would do a reinstall. I'll let you know what they say.

 

[louisitou]

When you click "Scaled", did you also enable the "Show low resolution modes" option?

yep I did. Nothing changed when I enabled it, it was still showing the same resolution options.

 

[BeatCrazy]

im typing this while using my new M1 MacMini with my XDR Display. So far I don't had any issues. Im testing it since 3-4 hours now, everything is working great. The only tiny lag I notice is when I open the Launchpad, everything else is working flawless. Im really impressed of the MacMini. I bought the base Mac mini with 512gb for the office stuff, but the performance is amazing. For sure its not on par with my MacPro2019 but in many tasks its pretty close. Cant wait to see the new Pro AS Macs coming next year.

Same experiences here. Mac mini M1 + XDR is a nice match. Only a dropped frame or two when initiating Launchpad via keyboard. To be fair most (all?) of my Intel Macs on various monitors/resolutions would also choke on this.

Now I'm off to see if I can force an XDR firmware update...

 

[LeonPro]

They snuck in another update today for the XDR in line with all the other Apple product updates after updating to Big Sur 11.1. However this was just a minor update:

Display Firmware 4.2.37​

• Addresses an issue where in-field calibration settings are not applied when using Pro Display XDR Calibrator.

Requires macOS 10.15.6 or later.

Per above it didn't require Big Sur.

 

[tskwara]

I just picked up an XDR Pro Display and Stand from my local Apple retail store. After a couple days of use, I'm quite pleased and feel good about the purchase.

My use case is 100% iOS development, that's my profession. Xcode, Sketch, Paw (similar to Postman), SublimeText, Tower, and DEVONthink are the apps I live in for 12h/day 6 days/wk.

Color accuracy is important for the UI work, as the designers sometimes get colors wrong when compared to client's design specifications. Not critical but nice when a dev like me can callout something not quite right to the designers.

The extra screen space picked up is nice, but the latest SwitchResX beta was needed to get a higher HiRes configuration than what can be achieved without the utility. Works like a charm in Big Sur (running on Intel, didn't check M1 yet).

I'm driving the display primarily with work 16" MBP I9/2.4/32GB/5300M. The fan spins at a good clip, and is used in clamshell mode 100% at the moment. The 16" is new to my workflow, so it's not clear if the XDR or the ****-ton of security agents installed are to blame.

My MBA M1 8C/16GB works quite nicely with the XDR. In fact Sketch feels more responsive with the MBA M1 than the 16". My files have around 50 or so art boards representing app screens. The 16" is responsive enough to not slow me down, but the M1 really screams. I also have a iMac Pro 10C/64GB/VEGA64-16GB that seems a little slower than the M1. I have to tip my hat to this MBA and feel really good having that for convenience.

Something else that makes the XDR pretty useful is that I now have views of two additional connected Macs (VNC) visible on the same single display. They are connected via TB3 wire to maintain a 40Gb network connection between the three Macs. This use case for the extra XDR real estate really pans out well.

I'm not necessarily Apple's target demographic for this (not video or art pro), but it checks the boxes for quality, utility, and my preference for the best tools that make my job all the more enjoyable. Truly love it, the XDR is great to have.

 

[nikster0029]

I just picked up an XDR Pro Display and Stand from my local Apple retail store. After a couple days of use, I'm quite pleased and feel good about the purchase.

My use case is 100% iOS development, that's my profession. Xcode, Sketch, Paw (similar to Postman), SublimeText, Tower, and DEVONthink are the apps I live in for 12h/day 6 days/wk.

Color accuracy is important for the UI work, as the designers sometimes get colors wrong when compared to client's design specifications. Not critical but nice when a dev like me can callout something not quite right to the designers.

The extra screen space picked up is nice, but the latest SwitchResX beta was needed to get a higher HiRes configuration than what can be achieved without the utility. Works like a charm in Big Sur (running on Intel, didn't check M1 yet).

I'm driving the display primarily with work 16" MBP I9/2.4/32GB/5300M. The fan spins at a good clip, and is used in clamshell mode 100% at the moment. The 16" is new to my workflow, so it's not clear if the XDR or the ****-ton of security agents installed are to blame.

My MBA M1 8C/16GB works quite nicely with the XDR. In fact Sketch feels more responsive with the MBA M1 than the 16". My files have around 50 or so art boards representing app screens. The 16" is responsive enough to not slow me down, but the M1 really screams. I also have a iMac Pro 10C/64GB/VEGA64-16GB that seems a little slower than the M1. I have to tip my hat to this MBA and feel really good having that for convenience.

Something else that makes the XDR pretty useful is that I now have views of two additional connected Macs (VNC) visible on the same single display. They are connected via TB3 wire to maintain a 40Gb network connection between the three Macs. This use case for the extra XDR real estate really pans out well.

I'm not necessarily Apple's target demographic for this (not video or art pro), but it checks the boxes for quality, utility, and my preference for the best tools that make my job all the more enjoyable. Truly love it, the XDR is great to have.

I picked up one from my local apple store after seeing all the positive reviews, and, am happy to say that the M1 MacBook Pro is running it better than my 16 inch MacBook Pro did. Feel much better about the purchase

 

[syndr0me]

M1 MBA is amazing. Drives the XDR effortlessly. Docker dropped a preview last night and it can run x86 and arm containers somehow. Rosetta 2 is indistinguishable from magic. I'm basically going from my least favorite mac ever (16" i9 MBP) to my favorite ever, the M1 MBA.

 

[- rob -]

My use case is 100% iOS development, that's my profession. Xcode, Sketch, Paw (similar to Postman), SublimeText, Tower, and DEVONthink are the apps I live in for 12h/day 6 days/wk.

congrats.

I use it primary for webdev. I also use Paw! It doesn’t fit horizontally into 1000px columns unless you hide the left side requests w a drag left. But it’s a great tool.

do you use a window manager? I have a set of global divvy shortcuts that use a variety of XDR widths and heights that is very useful for dev.

I'm not necessarily Apple's target demographic for this (not video or art pro), but it checks the boxes for quality, utility, and my preference for the best tools that make my job all the more enjoyable. Truly love it, the XDR is great to have.

I’m not sure that video or pro art needs to be the target demo for this product.

It is for people who professionally use their computer all day. Great color and contrast shouldn’t be limited to that group anyway, otherwise we wouldn’t have the qualIty of displays we have in Apple’s mobile line.

I do think the pricing keeps it from being most pros who use the computer all day though.

 

[tskwara]

do you use a window manager? I have a set of global divvy shortcuts that use a variety of XDR widths and heights that is very useful for dev.

I use Magnet to help manage the chaos.

Over the years I haven't [consciously] hit that 1000px limitation with Paw. Love this tool though!

Pricing is here is at a premium, but is so subjective. It's easy to assume larger companies can escape price-to-cost ratios that constrain all companies, but whatever. I have a decent gut feel, and the XDR price feels in-line with what I'm getting.

 

[BeatCrazy]

M1 MBA is amazing. Drives the XDR effortlessly. Docker dropped a preview last night and it can run x86 and arm containers somehow. Rosetta 2 is indistinguishable from magic. I'm basically going from my least favorite mac ever (16" i9 MBP) to my favorite ever, the M1 MBA.

It looks like 11.1 fixed the dropped frames with Launchpad. Which basically means these M1 Macs can push the XDR with zero issues, from my experience so far.

 

[checkler]

To anyone who own the XDR display and an M1 mac, could you try to open display settings, hold option while you click on "Scaled", and let me know what the 3 largest resolutions you see available? I've seen multiple people not being able to choose anything higher than 3008 x 1269, even on 4K monitors and above, which seems to indicate a problem with the M1 ones display handling. So I want to see if this also happens on the XDR.

I'm running MBP M1 that is running through a Blackmagic eGPU and my Mac will not display the eGPU symbol in the menu bar. Also, my display resolution will only go to 3008 as well. Not sure what the issue is.

 

[BeatCrazy]

I plugged my M1 Mini to my XDR Display to test it for you & its exactly the same with the XDR Display. Im getting the Resolution of the XDR Display but nothing between 6016 x 3384 and 3008 x 1692.
Its showing the following resolutions:

6016 x 3384
3008 x 1692
2560 x 1440
1920 x 1080
1504 x 846
1280 x 720

I'm running MBP M1 that is running through a Blackmagic eGPU and my Mac will not display the eGPU symbol in the menu bar. Also, my display resolution will only go to 3008 as well. Not sure what the issue is.

Here's mine, what other resolutions am I missing?

 

[itsphilgeorge]

I'm running MBP M1 that is running through a Blackmagic eGPU and my Mac will not display the eGPU symbol in the menu bar. Also, my display resolution will only go to 3008 as well. Not sure what the issue is.

Your MBP M1 does not support the Blackmagic eGPU.

Use Blackmagic eGPU with your Mac

The Apple Silicon machines can not use eGPU's at all. Hope that helps. I imagine it is simply not being used in your configuration.

EDIT: Apple Silicon M1 Mac detection of Thunderbolt 3 eGPU gives hope for future support

 

[joevt]

I'm running MBP M1 that is running through a Blackmagic eGPU and my Mac will not display the eGPU symbol in the menu bar. Also, my display resolution will only go to 3008 as well. Not sure what the issue is.

eGPU is not supported on M1 Macs. The Blackmagic is not driving the display. The DisplayPort signal is coming from the M1, is put on the Thunderbolt bus, goes through the Thunderbolt controller of the Blackmagic to the Thunderbolt controller in the XDR where it is converted internally from Thunderbolt back to DisplayPort. ioreg will tell you that the display is connected to the iGPU in the M1 and not the Radeon in the Blackmagic.

Here's mine, what other resolutions am I missing?

What is missing is HiDPI modes 3840x2160, 5120x2880. If you click the "Show low resolution modes" then they may appear as modes with the " (low resolution)" suffix which means they are scaled modes 3840x2160x2160 and 5120x2880. For those modes to be HiDPI, the M1 would need to be able to support scaled modes 7680x4320 and 10240x5760.

 

[Maxwells_Equations]

Could you guys with MacBook Pro’s or Air’s do me a favor and report back.

1. Put laptop to sleep
2. Sit there for roughly 2-3 minutes although it may happen sooner
3. Does the back of the XDR begin to emit a “coil whine” like frequency?
4. Have tried changing power settings and switching from extension cord to directly into wall nothing stops this from happening on mine. Display is 2 weeks old and I’m about to box it and ship it back.

Figured I would ask about it in here first. Thanks!!

edit: took a video https://streamable.com/kpd1la

not happy to say the least.

 

[tskwara]

Does the back of the XDR begin to emit a “coil whine” like frequency?

Could it be you are hearing the XDR's two internal fans cooling things down briefly? Try repeating the test using a very low brightness setting, then maybe low or no noise will result. If this correlates, at least that would explain the noise.

 

[Executor]

Could you guys with MacBook Pro’s or Air’s do me a favor and report back.

1. Put laptop to sleep
2. Sit there for roughly 2-3 minutes although it may happen sooner
3. Does the back of the XDR begin to emit a “coil whine” like frequency?
4. Have tried changing power settings and switching from extension cord to directly into wall nothing stops this from happening on mine. Display is 2 weeks old and I’m about to box it and ship it back.

Figured I would ask about it in here first. Thanks!!

Something is very wrong with that XDR. I use mine with a Mac Pro and a Mac Mini and I’ve never heard a sound from the display (despite using it a full brightness for hours at the time). I know it has fans inside but I’ve never heard them and I certainly never heard that high pitch sound you shared. I would switch the display to another power outlet but if that doesn’t solve it it may be best to contact Apple for a replacement. Best of luck and please let us know if your issue is eventually resolved.

 

[TylerYYC]

So my ProDisplay XDR arrived

The shipping box arrived with a hole pierced through it and that hole ended up on the product box However, physically the screen appears to be protected. When I first plugged in the monitor, however, there was a ~ 2-inch x 2-inch square on the middle left side of the monitor that displayed a bunch of red, green, and blue squiggly lines (could this be a couple local dimming zones?)... I quickly unplugged the monitor and plugged it back in... everything has been fine since then. I'm hoping it was just a fluke..... Anyone else experience this?