Apple displays

In the beginning (throughout the 1970s), Apple did not manufacture or sell displays of any kind, instead recommending users plug-into their television sets or (then) expensive third party monochrome monitors.

It was a 12″ monochrome (green) screen that could display 80×24 text characters and any type of graphics, however it suffered from a very slow phosphor refresh that resulted in a "ghosting" video effect.

So it could be shared with Apple II computers, a plastic stand was made available to accommodate the larger footprint of the display.

By early 1985 came the first color CRTs, starting with the Monitor 100, a digital RGB display for the Apple III and Apple IIe (with appropriate card), followed shortly by the 14″ ColorMonitor IIe (later renamed to AppleColor Composite Monitor IIe) and ColorMonitor IIc (later renamed to AppleColor Composite Monitor IIc), composite video displays for those respective models.

The Apple High-Resolution Monochrome Monitor was a 12″ CRT that supported up to 256 shades of gray at a fixed resolution of 640x480.

Apple continued the all-in-one series with the larger 14″ Macintosh LC 500 series, featuring a 14″, 640×480 Trinitron CRT until the LC 580 in 1995, which heralded the switch to shadow mask CRTs for the remainder of Apple's all-in-one computers until the switch to LCDs in 2002.

The last Macintosh to include an integrated CRT was the eMac, which boosted the display area to 17″ with support up to 1280×960 resolution.

The 17″ displays were notorious for faulty flybacks and failing in a manner that could destroy the monitor and catch fire.

[citation needed] The last Apple external CRT display was introduced in 2000 along with the Power Mac G4 Cube.

This monochrome display was capable of 80 columns by 24 lines, as well as double hi-res graphics, but had an odd aspect ratio (making images look vertically squished) and required a very strong external light source, such as a desk lamp or direct sunlight to be used.

The PowerBook and MacBook series would continue to use LCD displays, following an industry-wide evolution from black-and-white to grayscale to color and ranging from 9″ to 17″.

Apple's current MacBook portable displays include LED backlighting and support either 2560×1600 or 2880×1800 pixel resolutions depending on screen size.

In 1997, Apple released the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh (TAM), its first all-in-one desktop with an LCD display.

Drawing heavily from PowerBook technology, the TAM featured a 12.1″ active matrix LCD capable of displaying up to 16 bit color at 800×600.

While Apple chose to retain traditional and cheaper CRTs for its all-in-one desktop line for the next 4 years, the TAM is undoubtedly the predecessor for the successful LCD-based iMac line of all-in-one desktops starting with the iMac G4 released in 2002.

The first desktop color flat-panel was introduced on March 17, 1998, with the 15″ Apple Studio Display (15-inch flat panel) which had a resolution of 1024×768.

The 30″ version requires a dual-link interface, because a single-link DVI connection (the most common type) doesn't have enough bandwidth to provide a picture to a display of this resolution.

Initially, the only graphics cards that could power the new 30″ display were the Nvidia GeForce 6800 DDL series, available in both GT and Ultra forms.

The original Mac Pro was also available with both the ATI Radeon X1900XT card and the NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 as build-to-order options.

The 27-inch model is compatible with older Thunderbolt 2-equipped Macs using an adapter, but is limited to displaying their maximum output resolution.

[6][7][8] LG acknowledged that early production 5K models lacked shielding for radio interference and could become inoperable if placed near a wireless router and introduced a repair program.

In July 2019, the 27-inch model (27MD5KL-B, 27MD5KB-B) was updated with USB-C video input, adding compatibility with the 3rd generation iPad Pro at 4K resolution, auto-brightness, and increased power output to 94W.

It features a 27-inch, 5K Retina monitor, with 5120-by-2880 resolution at 218 pixels per inch, 600 nits brightness, wide color (P3), and True Tone technology.