If you're into home recording (who isn't, these days?), this is a huge blow. When your Pro Tools/Cubase/Logic project has 40+ tracks of high resolution audio files and several high quality real-time plugins processing each one of them you really need a lot of CPU power.
I purchased a Thunderbolt display just a couple of months ago. I wanted to use it with my Macbook Air while waiting for the Mac Pro to be updated, feeling that not even Apple could get away with a $1000 display that was not supported by its super expensive high end computer.
I was wrong, apparently. Now I know what it must have felt like to have bought NeXT computers or Betamax VCRs.
I wouldn't count on that, because I actually had to update my macbook air just to get the Almighty Thunderbolt Display to work. In fact, my previous MBA (2010 generation, display port)didn't even power the thing up (it's powered exclusively over thunderbolt).
I don't think that's accurate. The thunderbolt displays include a power supply with a magsafe power OUTPUT for charging a mac laptop plugged in to the thunderbolt cable, so it logically follows that they must have their own AC input.
You are right, the monitor does have AC input. Still, it won't even power up unless it's connected to a Thunderbolt port. Believe me, I've learned this the hard way.
Cubase VST was doing 32 track audio flawlessly on Windows back in the late 90s on an original Pentium. Seriously weird seeing people demanding more power for audio work.
That's like saying people were multitasking just fine on Windows 3.11, so why would anyone want a modern OS? If you want to work at a professional level and produce music that actually sounds good you need to work with high resolution audio files and complex, CPU-intensive plugins.
Unless, of course, you own extremely expensive hardware or happen to be a lo-fi genius like Bob Pollard or Calvin Johnson :)
I purchased a Thunderbolt display just a couple of months ago. I wanted to use it with my Macbook Air while waiting for the Mac Pro to be updated, feeling that not even Apple could get away with a $1000 display that was not supported by its super expensive high end computer.
I was wrong, apparently. Now I know what it must have felt like to have bought NeXT computers or Betamax VCRs.