I remember looking into the back of what looked like a mechanics shop to see a guy actually machining replacement parts by hand because they were no longer commercially (or affordably?) available. Made me realise we live in a culture of excess and throw away things far too easily. Humbling.

Also, one argument I've heard for not including better cameras in laptops is that the lid is usually too thin to accomodate the housing. But a Studio Display is twice the depth of an iPhone, so they definitely could have included one. I just looked it up, a high-end 4K camera module costs $25.

That's nuts. I remember some of those streams back in the day, on the old band house site. You guys were early adopters to streaming.

Ha ha. I actually don't have one. I use a Mac Studio and Studio Display. I think given the price of the SD, the fact it doesn't have a 4K camera is kind of outrageous. I can only guess they held it back for a future update, but it's not a cheap piece of kit.

I was on a zoom call this weekend with seven or eight people, and the variation in quality was huge. Some people looked like they were skype calling from 2009.

I'm sure you're right and I know not everyone has the bandwidth but 4K video was introduced in the iPhone 6 in 2015, and it's still not in a MacBook Pro. I find that really odd. It feels like it's artifically been held back to give Apple a future feature to have 'in the bag' - know what I mean?

This is one of the ways future generations will be able to visually date historical records of this period. At some point, the tech will tick over and ALL video calls will be 4K and anything less will look ancient. Just wondering why it's taking so long?

Possibly some kind of future proofing of the infrastructure. Or maybe, there are people who are only now getting fibre, and it costs the same to put bigger pipes in, and I'm not really the main market.

Yeah, I think you're right. Our house is a heavy data user, but we've barely touched the sides of our 1GB connection. Our problem is that 1GB arrives into the house (and my main work machine) but falls stupidly off via Wifi elsewhere in the house. Lucky to get 100mb/s at the back of the house etc.

" They can then sell it for upwards of £1,000 to the customer. This provides profits in excess of £500 per device."