Apple has some pretty great displays in its lineup already. It appears the company is planning on expanding its display lineup, but the next offering will be a little different than before. Apple is working on a new external display for Mac that you may be able to use without a Mac as well.
Mark Gurman, in his latest Power On newsletter, said that Apple is working on multiple new displays. One of these displays under development is one that will double up as a smart display when the connected Mac is off.
iPhone StandBy-like features coming to Apple's external displays
Apple recently introduced StandBy for iPhone, as a part of iOS 17, which is set to release later this year. Interestingly, this new display sounds like it will have a similar set of features. Gurman says that the display will be powered by an Apple silicon chip, quite like the Studio Display, which is running the Apple A13.
What this means is that the display will be able to run without having a connected Mac. Apple will likely leverage the chip to add features that will make the display a smart one, being able to run a few smart functions, like notifications and weather, in a low-power mode.
The Studio Display, which is built to work with the best Macs out there, currently uses the A13 chip for the camera and speaker features. Apple is looking to expand the smarts for this new monitor, giving it features similar to the StandBy feature on iOS17.
Gurman said that Apple is also working on follow-ups to the Apple Studio Display and Pro Display XDR. Whether these smart functionalities will be standard across all of Apple's displays or just available on this new display Apple is developing is not known just yet. Gurman expects this new display to launch in 2024 at the earliest.
