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Comment by Udo | Hacker News Reader

The one reason people (like me) still want to keep the Pro alive, the one thing that no other Mac can do, is support for more than two screens.

Now, Apple already made it abundantly clear what they think of multi-screen desktops when they designed, and then failed to fix, the native full screen feature of OS X.

I love my Mac Pro mainly for this one reason, but honestly, like many other Pro customers at this point I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop. I'm not going to have different platforms as my laptop and desktop, so if the Pro goes that's it for me and Apple - if by that time there is no real alternative to achieve the same thing. This is a hugely depressing thought. I hopped on board when OS X came out and never looked back to the Linux desktop since. For me, it has never been about the hardware, but OS X which always felt like home.

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You can connect 3 external screens even to the cheapest 11" MacBook Air. You can do that with Retina MacBook Pros as well. I am not sure if you can with iMacs though.

The newest MBAs can power 2 external screens, as can the higher-end iMac (which isn't so bad since you can use the iMac itself as a 3rd). My "normal" 15 MBP can power one external (non-TB) screen, and I think the Retinas can power two TB + one HDMI. A lot of this assumes I'm buying Apple's expensive Thunderbolt displays, however.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/06/new-macbooks-can-manage...

The Retina MBP 15" (not sure about the 13") can do two Thunderbolt displays or any two Displayport screens, plus HDMI.

Ah, OK, thanks.

Since this thread has re-opened a wound, I've been browsing external Thunderbolt PCIe cases. Putting graphics cards in these is probably also on option, as long as I'm not doing anything seriously taxing with them. But holy fuck, they're expensive as hell, too.

The Mac Pro lets you have up to six. That's more than I personally need, but those who need that many need them.

Would a KVM solution like Synergy address your needs? eg an iMac and MBP side by side sharing a keyboard and mouse?

I tried that once out of curiosity but it's a clunky solution. You can't really drag and drop properly and it's not possible to move apps/windows across. One solution I'm about to try out is using the large new iMac and two Thunderbolt displays for a total of three which would be optimal.

What's not optimal is the price of these things, however. I liked the fact that I could hook standard displays up to my Mac Pro, but the multi-Thunderbolt solution looks workable as long as one is willing to shell out a thousand USD/EUR per display.

Have you tried Teleport[1]? It's not perfect, but works very well.

[1] http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/14042/teleport

It's the same as Synergy I think, with a nicer GUI though. I haven't tried this one specifically but it's not what I'm looking for. These Synergy-like apps are great, but it's something I'd use for attaching a random Windows or Linux box into my setup. It works well as a virtual KVM switch.

Thank you! Teleport just works. Great tip.

I had tried synergy a few times and never succeeded.

You can use non-Thunderbolt displays with your iMac. The DisplayPort adapters still work with the thunderbolt ports.

What platform would you move to then?

I'm not sure. Windows is actually looking pretty good these days, but I never really used it so I don't know what lurks beneath. I'd also give the Linux desktop another chance, but I'll probably run into the same old huge issues within the first few minutes (it's still my favorite server OS, though). There's not much else out there, that's why I said it's a depressing train of thought.

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