Apple

Apple’s Studio Display has 64GB of storage – Why?

Is it a coincidence that the storage amount is the same as the recently-discontinued iPhone SE (2020)?

by
Joe Rice-Jones
March 22, 2022

Image: Apple

When Apple announced the Studio Display at its “Peek Performance” event, one tiny piece of information escaped notice. We know that it has an A13 Bionic chip to run Center Stage and Spatial Audio, but we didn’t notice that it has 64GB of storage.

Yes, Apple’s latest monitor has 64GB of storage, the same amount as the conveniently-just-discontinued iPhone SE (2020). Noticed by developer Khaos Tian, this is way more than you’d expect for ‘just’ a monitor.

The Studio Display Power Cable Removal Tool is absolutely wild! pic.twitter.com/MoCY0pCdXt
— Stella – Fudge (@StellaFudge) March 20, 2022

The Apple Studio Display is only using 2GB of that storage capacity. So many questions raised here.

What does Apple plan to do with the rest? Is Apple repurposing old iPhones to create the monitor? Is the Studio Display just a really big iPhone?

Well, yes. I mean, it’s running Center Stage, Spatial Audio, and a bunch of other camera tricks that are specific to iOS devices.

Why shouldn’t it resemble an iPhone internally? That way, Apple can repurpose an existing manufacturing line instead of creating a new one for the display.

We found out another neat thing about the Studio Display the other day. The seemingly-attached power cord is actually removable. It does need a special tool though, as you can see in the embedded tweet. It’s a big, ugly tool as well, which totally doesn’t seem Apple-like.

Anyway, if you want to buy what’s essentially a 27-inch iPhone without a touchscreen, the Apple Studio Display is available from $1,599. You’ll have to spend another $400 to make it height-adjustable, or you could just stack it on top of your shiny new Mac Studio.

Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.