The reason why non-Pro-chip MacBooks can't drive three displays is very simple: Apple gives each display its own SRAM buffer to scan out from, separate from the main system RAM. The display controllers on Apple chips are literally larger than the CPU cores because of this.
The reason why they do this is because it lets them run system RAM at lower power or suspend it entirely without affecting the displays. Which saves a good chunk of power - AFAIK after Asahi added support for the display coprocessor firmware (which implements this trick) they got a few extra hours of battery life.
My main complaint is that you can't turn off the primary laptop display to get an extra external display back. That's probably why most people need >2 display controllers in their laptops. Though AFAIK this may have been fixed in the M3?
A) the device in question was provisioned by his employer, so it's not his laptop, ergo, the price is irrelevant. If he's not able to complete his work tasks on the device, then it's on him to communicate with his manager to procure a device that allows him to do so.
B) if the device was purchased by him, then the onus is on him to have researched the device's full functionality prior to the spending any amount in any currency.
C) "What Apple is doing is trying to squeeze even more profit out of all users who didn’t read the fine print."
Sounds a bit to me like the author of this blog is feeling a little guilty and self conscious about being apart of this subset of 'non-fine-print-readers'.
How does any of this detract from the absurdity that no MacBook Pro with the mainline M1/M2/M3 chips has been able to natively drive two external screens?
Being able to use two external screens is practically an expectation of any laptop at this point. I can understand the OP's point that this is ridiculous.
Counterpoint: driving two screens is something a $500 Windows laptop could easily do years ago so Apple offering a "pro" MBP that can't do this is a surprising choice especially when other MBP laptops have been able to do so in the past at similar price points. That this is because the "pro" laptop actually uses a mobile chip just means it's misleading advertising by using the established MBP brand to sell a completely different product.
You should generally assume your customer is an idiot and while it is legal to take advantage of customers being idiots, it's still deliberately abusive and not something Apple is known for doing given its reputation.
His criticism is valid: this is not a product matching what customers are used to from the MBP product line and it's even labelled as "pro" suggesting more capabilities not fewer (though of course this is technically correct relative to the non-pro version of the same model). He doesn't feel "a little guilty and self conscious", he feels scammed and taken advantage of. Was it a scam? I don't think so, but it was (deliberately or unintentionally) misleading advertising.
Absolutely agree with your first point. If this machine is such a detriment to OP's productivity, surely their time would be better spent communicating this with their IT/procurement team over making a public blog post.
What a stupid response. I imagine you were among those who flagged this post as well. "ergo the price is irrelevant" the price is relevant for other people considering purchasing macs. "then the onus is on him to have researched the device's full functionality prior to the spending any amount in any currency" god forbid he help others in their research. "Sounds a bit to me like the author of this blog is feeling a little guilty and self conscious about being apart of this subset of 'non-fine-print-readers'." A subset maybe, but not a proper subset given nobody bar nobody reads every dot of fine print before every purchasing decision. What was the point of this comment?
The competition can run multiple displays. The competition has built in window tiling shortcuts. The competition has built in clipboard history. The competition doesn't open up your music player every time you connect your earbuds. The competition doesn't require carrying around HDMI and ethernet adapters everywhere you go.
Apple is garbage, Macbooks are garbage, Windows + WSL beats them for every development task and in general productivity.
I recently came across this fact of Apple's display limits after Vision Pro came out. I thought that it would be great for virtual desktop/productivity use, but sadly limited only to a Mac I don't have. I found that the amount of monitors able to be shown was limited to those supported by a mac, to support 2 displays, you needed a Pro, and for 3 a Max. Wait, what?
As someone that has been using 3-6 displays for the past 20 years, I really don't get how or why this is hard for Apple to figure out. They're the only ones that haven't.
While Apple can't figure out how to show more than physical supported displays virtually, 3rd party Vision apps such as Immersed have, making proper apps that can render I think up to 5 displays. Over wifi or even usb-c, it'll never be as good as DisplayPort or other hard-line connection, so compromise is necessary regardless. It is "good enough" for these others like Immersed, and far better than anything Apple is giving.
The only company I hate more than Apple is Meta, but I'll probably buy a $500 Meta Quest 3 + my already suitable PC before I ever do Vision Pro + Mac for some $10k, and get far more functionality (and available apps).
Well, if there is another laptop that runs something suitable for development (Fedora is fine), has 10-12 hours of battery time, lightweight, and with a hi-DPI display... oh, there are none. Sorry. No manufacturer in the world ever could make it, for some reason.
A user can't be blamed too much for assuming a $2k+ laptop with Pro in the name supports multiple external displays. A 2013 MacBook Pro can drive two external displays. But the base M1 and M2 MacBook Pros can not. The base M3 apparently can with specific hookups and a specific connection procedure requiring you to close the MacBook's lid but can't use standard docks with DisplayPort MST like other laptops can.
And I say this as someone who bought and uses a used M1 MacBook Air and knew about the display limitation when I purchased it (and almost went with a used Mac Mini instead due to that limitation).
Meanwhile my Intel i5 Macbook Pro 13" from Early 2020 which was around 1.8K when bought new in 2020 CAN DO IT! So it has been better in the past!
Apple downsized in regards to multi-monitor support so that you were forced to buy an M1...M3 Pro CPU which costs substantially more for only being able to drive more than one monitor.
A shame that they did not fix the clamshell mode on the basic M3 Macbook Pro yet.
Hopefully Apple wakes up with Qualcomm X Elite chips soon flooding the Windows laptop market (and they can all drive at least 3 external monitors).
I've been using MacOS for ~2 years, and GNOME in various forms for ~10 years. I'm even typing this comment from a Mac.
For me, the biggest thing is that MacOS has lengthy sigmoidal animations, and no ability to move windows between desktops ("spaces") with a keyboard shortcut.
Those animations are a source of constant friction, and the limited multi-desktop functionality makes single and dual monitor setups very frustrating.
GNOME has neither of these problems, so for these two issues alone, I think it far outshines MacOS's desktop environment.
I'm sure familiarity has a lot to do with it, and I'd argue KDE and Pop! OS's custom GNOME are more polished than base GNOME, but I wouldn't attribute OP's statement to frustration.
There's several things I don't like about the Mac (Settings is now an umitigated disaster, for example), but it's IMHO the best of the bunch, with Windows some way behind, and Linux (anything running Linux) some significant way behind that.
Every now and then I'll fire up a VM and install Linux. Try some stuff, and think "nope, still not the year of the desktop on Linux".
Is this expected? I’m able to drive a 2nd 4K screen no problem on my MacBook Air m2. It’s at the cost of some battery life though. Also my machine is fully specced out - 24g memory, 1tb hard disk.
I have the same laptop. I am able to run two monitors plus my internal screen without display link. The trick is to use ALT mode on one. This is dependent on at least one of the monitors supporting ALT mode.
i hate windows and refuse to use it, but this is also the most annoying thing apple does outside not allowing real third party browser support in ios. it's 2024 and the robots are having human conversations with us and rockets are landing themselves. i think apple could make this work just fine if they wanted to
> Bottom line: it wasn't hidden from you[1]. You made an assumption without reading up on your "$2.2k laptop" and it didn't work out for you. Fortunately Apple have a relatively generous returns policy, take it back and get on with your life.
Speaking of assumptions, looks like you made an assumption the OP bought this laptop themselves.
kmeisthax|1 year ago
The reason why they do this is because it lets them run system RAM at lower power or suspend it entirely without affecting the displays. Which saves a good chunk of power - AFAIK after Asahi added support for the display coprocessor firmware (which implements this trick) they got a few extra hours of battery life.
My main complaint is that you can't turn off the primary laptop display to get an extra external display back. That's probably why most people need >2 display controllers in their laptops. Though AFAIK this may have been fixed in the M3?
politelemon|1 year ago
rc5150|1 year ago
B) if the device was purchased by him, then the onus is on him to have researched the device's full functionality prior to the spending any amount in any currency.
C) "What Apple is doing is trying to squeeze even more profit out of all users who didn’t read the fine print."
Sounds a bit to me like the author of this blog is feeling a little guilty and self conscious about being apart of this subset of 'non-fine-print-readers'.
eganist|1 year ago
Being able to use two external screens is practically an expectation of any laptop at this point. I can understand the OP's point that this is ridiculous.
hnbad|1 year ago
You should generally assume your customer is an idiot and while it is legal to take advantage of customers being idiots, it's still deliberately abusive and not something Apple is known for doing given its reputation.
His criticism is valid: this is not a product matching what customers are used to from the MBP product line and it's even labelled as "pro" suggesting more capabilities not fewer (though of course this is technically correct relative to the non-pro version of the same model). He doesn't feel "a little guilty and self conscious", he feels scammed and taken advantage of. Was it a scam? I don't think so, but it was (deliberately or unintentionally) misleading advertising.
ctippett|1 year ago
tonynator|1 year ago
lofenfew|1 year ago
euazOn|1 year ago
estebarb|1 year ago
arresin|1 year ago
tonynator|1 year ago
Apple is garbage, Macbooks are garbage, Windows + WSL beats them for every development task and in general productivity.
bastard_op|1 year ago
As someone that has been using 3-6 displays for the past 20 years, I really don't get how or why this is hard for Apple to figure out. They're the only ones that haven't.
While Apple can't figure out how to show more than physical supported displays virtually, 3rd party Vision apps such as Immersed have, making proper apps that can render I think up to 5 displays. Over wifi or even usb-c, it'll never be as good as DisplayPort or other hard-line connection, so compromise is necessary regardless. It is "good enough" for these others like Immersed, and far better than anything Apple is giving.
The only company I hate more than Apple is Meta, but I'll probably buy a $500 Meta Quest 3 + my already suitable PC before I ever do Vision Pro + Mac for some $10k, and get far more functionality (and available apps).
atemerev|1 year ago
gberger|1 year ago
hyperhello|1 year ago
JohnTHaller|1 year ago
And I say this as someone who bought and uses a used M1 MacBook Air and knew about the display limitation when I purchased it (and almost went with a used Mac Mini instead due to that limitation).
therealmarv|1 year ago
Apple downsized in regards to multi-monitor support so that you were forced to buy an M1...M3 Pro CPU which costs substantially more for only being able to drive more than one monitor.
A shame that they did not fix the clamshell mode on the basic M3 Macbook Pro yet.
Hopefully Apple wakes up with Qualcomm X Elite chips soon flooding the Windows laptop market (and they can all drive at least 3 external monitors).
FredPret|1 year ago
lynndotpy|1 year ago
For me, the biggest thing is that MacOS has lengthy sigmoidal animations, and no ability to move windows between desktops ("spaces") with a keyboard shortcut.
Those animations are a source of constant friction, and the limited multi-desktop functionality makes single and dual monitor setups very frustrating.
GNOME has neither of these problems, so for these two issues alone, I think it far outshines MacOS's desktop environment.
I'm sure familiarity has a lot to do with it, and I'd argue KDE and Pop! OS's custom GNOME are more polished than base GNOME, but I wouldn't attribute OP's statement to frustration.
spacedcowboy|1 year ago
Every now and then I'll fire up a VM and install Linux. Try some stuff, and think "nope, still not the year of the desktop on Linux".
kaycey2022|1 year ago
bofaGuy|1 year ago
zdw|1 year ago
Also you aren't frying the hardware by running it in clamshell mode (was a worse problem with earlier, warmer running hardware)
93po|1 year ago
alanfranz|1 year ago
Ajay-p|1 year ago
the “base” M3 chip is essentially an overclocked iPad chip put into a computer, and it does not have two display controllers.
spacedcowboy|1 year ago
[deleted]
eganist|1 year ago
Speaking of assumptions, looks like you made an assumption the OP bought this laptop themselves.