I'll be generous and say Apple could make a prettier one out of billeted aluminum and still be well under $100. but using a mechanism that's overly complex.Īn aftermarket VESA mount single monitors stand articulates and tilts and costs <$50. So you have a stand that articulates up and down and tilts and allows the monitor to rotate between portrait and landscape. If a user discards the stand and uses a monitor arm or multi-monitor mount, who cares? It's not supposed to be a valuable commodity. They all have VESA mounts and they all pack in the stand with the kit because that's the sane thing to do. So you're spending $5k for an incomplete product? Even if the stand isn't used by every user that's the case for every other professional grade monitor out there. The Ars article goes into this without exploring that crucial bit of detail: That would imply that there's a VESA mount on the monitor then, when there isn't. Making the stand optional implies that the buyer is more likely to mount it on a monitor arm or on the wall? That doesn't seem to be the 'Apple Way' but it's possible some users who need absolute color matching will have special mounting hardware. So I'm fully on-board with the $999 stand being a hyper-douchey move from a company that sorely needs some aggressive government regulation, but from a practical standpoint I don't understand it either.

Apple 999 stand