You’ll Need to Be Extra Careful When Cleaning Apple’s Expensive New Display

Apple’s expensive new display, the Pro Display XDR, went on sale today along with the new Mac Pro. The new monitor is not cheap by any means — starting at $4,999, the monitor is easily one of the most expensive displays you can buy right now.

But here’s the thing, for $4,999, you are only getting the regular display, without a stand. So if you actually want to use the display, you would have to pay a crazy $999 for the “Pro” stand or $199 for the VESA mount adapter. And if you want Apple’s fancy new nano-texture glass, you would have to pay an additional $1,000.

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If you do spend $1,000 more for Apple’s new nano-texture glass, you will have to be extra careful when cleaning the glass. In fact, Apple has actually released a support document detailing how users should clean the new nano-texture glass on the Pro Display XDR (via MacRumors).

Spoiler alert: you can only clean it with a dry polishing cloth that comes with the display. Anything else could potentially affect the display, but Apple didn’t provide a reason as to why you need to use the polishing cloth made by the company itself.

For those unfamiliar, Apples nano-texture glass is essentially a fancy name for a non-reflective, matte texture display. “The nano-texture on Pro Display XDR is actually etched into the glass at the nanometer level. The result is a screen with beautiful image quality that maintains contrast while scattering light to reduce glare to the barest minimum,” says Apple.

Apple won’t sell the polishing cloth required to clean the display at stores, so you would have to contact Apple for a replacement polishing cloth. Users are recommended not to use water or other liquids to clean the nano-texture glass, and Apple has even detailed how users should clean the polishing cloth.

All of this does sound really annoying, but if you end up spending around $6,000 on a monitor, you will probably put in the effort to take care of the display.

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Conversation 19 comments

  • rm

    11 December, 2019 - 7:29 am

    <p>How much is the cloth?</p>

    • StevenLayton

      11 December, 2019 - 7:51 am

      <blockquote><a href="#497386"><em>In reply to RM:</em></a><em> If you have to ask, you can't afford it. Luxury cleaning cloths aren't for the masses ;)</em></blockquote><p><br></p>

    • MikeGalos

      11 December, 2019 - 9:50 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#497386">In reply to RM:</a></em></blockquote><p>How much is the kit to clean the cleaning cloth?</p>

  • red.radar

    Premium Member
    11 December, 2019 - 8:08 am

    <p>I doubt that the clientele that buys this type of editing equipment will be bothered by this requirement. </p><p><br></p><p>It would seem that Apple was serious about the term professional when it came to the MaC product line. However they throw the term loosely around for phones and tablet product lines. </p><p><br></p><p><br></p>

    • MikeGalos

      11 December, 2019 - 9:45 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#497388">In reply to red.radar:</a></em></blockquote><p>Not so much the Mac product line as just the Mac Pro product itself. </p><p>The MacBook Pro and iMac Pro really aren't targeted at the same professional market.</p>

  • harrymyhre

    Premium Member
    11 December, 2019 - 8:38 am

    <p>DisplayGate</p>

  • jeffferguson

    11 December, 2019 - 9:45 am

    <p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">"</span><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Apple didn’t provide a reason as to why you need to use the polishing cloth made by the company itself</em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">"</span></p><p><br></p><p>Because Apple.</p>

  • MikeGalos

    11 December, 2019 - 9:49 am

    <p>To be fair this isn't really that unusual in very high-end monitors. Even going back decades, Tektronix vector display terminals 35 years ago could be damaged by cleaning them improperly or by having somebody put a Post it note on the screen.</p>

  • datameister

    11 December, 2019 - 11:05 am

    <p>I still can't get over the $999 price tag for such a simplistic stand. You can't say Apple never price gouged anyone with this thing on the market.</p>

    • MikeGalos

      11 December, 2019 - 12:51 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#497453">In reply to DataMeister:</a></em></blockquote><p>But would you trust your $6,000 (sorry, $5,999 plus tax) monitor with its delicate screen coating to anything less? I'm surprised they don't sell an $899 silk cover to place over the monitor when you aren't using it to keep dust off.</p><p><br></p>

    • warren

      11 December, 2019 - 6:54 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#497453">In reply to DataMeister:</a></em></blockquote><p><br></p><p>I have VESA mounts and articulating arms for my expensive work monitors. If I could save 20% of the purchase price on a display by not getting a stand, that's actually compelling.</p><p><br></p><p><br></p>

  • hellcatm

    11 December, 2019 - 12:40 pm

    <p>Any other cloth will probably scratch. Its probably made of a special extra smooth cloth made out of a rare birds feathers. You can't wash it, you can only use it 3 times and it cost $30 a cloth and the screen is a dust magnet, you have to clean it 2 times a day.</p>

  • RonV42

    Premium Member
    11 December, 2019 - 1:41 pm

    <p>They didn't say if it was a single use cleaning cloth. Because once you get the dirt off the screen how do you get it off the cloth?</p>

    • MikeGalos

      11 December, 2019 - 2:13 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#497480">In reply to RonV42:</a></em></blockquote><p>From the article:</p><p><br></p><p><em style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Users are recommended not to use water or other liquids to clean the nano-texture glass, and Apple has even detailed how users should clean the polishing cloth.</em></p>

  • illuminated

    11 December, 2019 - 3:01 pm

    <p>Does apple also come with taped banana?</p>

  • soundersfan

    Premium Member
    11 December, 2019 - 7:33 pm

    <p>How much is the stylus/pencil/pen you use with the display's digitizer. You didn't mention that it supports touch and inking, but I assume with those prices that it certainly does, right? … Oh, it doesn't. Wow, and it costs that much?</p>

  • lvthunder

    Premium Member
    12 December, 2019 - 4:28 pm

    <p>Why is this even an article here? Do you think any of the readers of this site is going to buy this monitor?</p>

  • misterstuart

    Premium Member
    14 December, 2019 - 8:33 pm

    <p>Apple neglected to mention that you actually CAN clean these fancy new monitors with one other thing besides the special polishing cloth; liquid arrogance!</p>

  • Jeffsters

    21 December, 2019 - 5:06 pm

    <p>The stand is really cool. Magnetic and allows for pivoting etc. What people don’t seem to understand is this monitor competes with ones costing $50,000. Of course these monitors come with a typical rigid stand. </p>

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