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When you see a computer setup with two monitors stacked on top of each other, what do you think? Maybe something like … doesn’t the person have to crane their neck to look at the top one? Isn’t it uncomfortable? Where does the webcam go? What’s wrong with side-by-side, maybe with one in portrait (vertical) mode instead of landscape?

The person behind today’s featured setup is confronting those very questions on the way to deciding a common multi-display conundrum: to stack or not to stack? That is the question.

Dell said it has started shipping two new monitors that are the first on the market using LG’s new IPS Black Technology, rolled out at CES in January. IPS Black promises 35% deeper blacks than typical 4K displays, which tend to have poor contrast in favor of other benefits (mainly brighter colors). That’s effectively doubles the usual contrast ratio to 2000:1.

If you depend on your display for the best possible image — say, like a designer does — the new monitors could offer the great color IPS displays are known for, but with solid contrast, too.

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Who doesn’t love good optical illusions? And they’re especially cool when they result from an unexpected action that works as well as the expected action. Today’s featured computer setup surprised us with a floating display.

Thing is, though, the screen is not mounted on the wall. And it’s not levitating, either.

When you spend a third or more of your waking hours all but chained to a computer setup, you might as well make it a pleasant place to spend time. That’s what most of Cult of Mac‘s Setups coverage is all about, really — glorifying both the high-tech performance and the stylish comfort that ease your enslavement to whatever it is you do with tech.

Today’s 14-inch M1 Pro MacBook Pro-based featured setup shows a “before and after” transition. Musician and Salesforce consultant Jon Young said a revamp of his wife’s “nicer and more spacious” work area inspired his changes. “Mine just has more gadgets lol,” he said.

On Fridays it’s fun to focus on computer setups with entertaining features whenever possible. Sometimes it’s seriously vintage gear. Or it could be wacky decor. Once in a while, an exotic location pops up. Today we found one where a brand new M1 Pro MacBook meets a kooky crew of bobbleheads and other figures under a really over-the-top camera rig used as a webcam.

Multiple companies are reportedly gearing up to produce OLED displays for future iPad models. This would lead to a noticeable improvement in image quality.

But it’s apparently not going to happen before 2023.

With all due respect to some of the whiz-bang, over-the top computer setups we’ve looked at here at Cult of Mac, you don’t have to spend a zillion bucks and a year of your life putting together a highly effective workstation.

Today’s featured setup is not without flair and it gets the job done — all for the price of an M1 MacBook Air plus a few hundred bones, more or less.

For the first computer setup featured in the new year, we look backward. Not to the recently subsided and mostly loathed 2021, but further back to a controversial Apple product launch from nearly a decade ago. And deeper into Apple’s storied history. Cult of Mac reader Michael De Jong shared some interesting older gear and some iconic imagery with us in his setup photographs.

Apple’s next desktop monitor won’t be cheap, but it could be significantly less expensive than the high-end Pro Display XDR, according to a new report.

The new standalone screen is expected to land with a price tag of around $2,500. In comparison, the Pro Display XDR still starts at $4,999 — and that’s without the optional (but arguably necessary) stand that costs $999.

It’s Christmas Eve, and all we want for the holiday is a Porsche 911. It could be a gleaming new one, with a base price of a mere $99,200. It could be super-cool vintage one. Or it could even be a Lego one like the one featured in today’s MacBook Pro and iPad Pro-driven setup.

OK, given our paltry income, who are we kidding — we’d even take a die-cast 911, like the Matchbox cars of our youth.

This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: Our 2022 hopes are up, up and away on the latest rumors about what new features iPhone 14 Pro might bring. The camera sounds like it will once again deliver impressive gains, but it’s the potential for an iPhone 4-style makeover that’s really got us drooling.

Also on The CultCast:

• New Apple displays on the horizon?
• Dying AirPods … and amazing deals on replacements.
• Alex E. Heath’s goggle-eyed moment during his interview with The Matrix stars.
• More of our product picks in Gear of the Year.

Listen to this week’s episode of The CultCast in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video livestream, embedded below.

If you look up “11.11” in the Slang Dictionary, it says, “If it’s 11:11, make a wish! Some people believe 11:11 is a magic number or lucky time of day, good for making a wish … or reaching cosmic enlightenment.” Well, if something’s enlightened, or at least en-whitened, it’s today’s Mac mini-based setup.

It’s all there in black and white, really, with “11.11” writ large on the dual displays — probably via the Fliqlo screensaver, though it could be a clock app — and Nintendo gaming consoles aplenty.

Apple is currently building two smaller, more affordable alternatives to its 32-inch Pro Display XDR, according to a leaker. The company is also said to be working on a new high-end display with a built-in A13 chipset.

The new screens in early development reportedly use LG panels. And it remains unclear when they might hit the market.

With the new M1 Pro and M1 Max MacBook Pro models selling like hotcakes, a lot of people are wondering how to incorporate their new laptops into their computer setups. Is it enough just to use the laptop, or should it be used with an external keyboard, mouse or trackpad, as well as an external monitor? If you’re setting up your Mac and find that Bluetooth is off, you may need to know how to turn Bluetooth on Mac without mouse or keyboard.

Not long ago we wrote about a person who fashioned an ergonomically healthy computer setup with little more than an M1 Pro MacBook. At the time, their fancy new display was still to-be-delivered, so they made-do without it. Now all the screens are in place and they make a magnificent workstation, with the MacBook running with one landscape-mode display and two portrait-mode monitors. It took some special connectivity tricks to make it happen.

You see a lot of people busting on each other for “flexing,” or bragging, about their computer setups shown in social media posts. We came across a doozy today with a dual-display setup bathed in a cool wash of color. But it’s not really about the double luxe displays; lots of people have that. It’s about the two expensive Mac Pros tucked under the desk.

Apple Music is now available on compatible LG smart TVs, just a few weeks after expanding its reach to PlayStation 5. The app is almost identical — in design and functionality — to Apple Music on the Apple TV.

Users can access their entire music library, as well as playlists, radio stations, and even music videos.

Coincidentally, our last Setups post concerned itself with proper ergonomics, and today’s sticks with the theme. On Friday we wrote about a person making a comfortable and productive workstation out of little more than a laptop. This time, someone has gone “ergo everything” on an M1 MacBook Pro rig with a big external monitor and a nice set of peripherals, furniture and accessories.

From time to time, as you work on making your computer setup all it can be, you order new equipment. And maybe it takes a long time to arrive. Perhaps “supply chain” issues intervene. And if that piece of equipment is your workstation’s visual centerpiece — the magnificent display, placed just so for graphical and ergonomic bliss — then what do you do, when you have no external monitor?

Do you hunch over your laptop until your neck and your back and everything else hurts? Not necessarily.

Apple has enlisted Samsung’s help in its effort to bring OLED displays to future MacBook and iPad models, according to a new report. It is also said to be in talks with LG, one of Samsung’s biggest competitors in the display industry.

It is believed Apple originally planned to launch its first OLED MacBook in 2025, but thanks to complications surrounding the display manufacturing process, the plan is “likely to be postponed,” sources familiar with the matter said.

LG is giving its smart TV customers three months of Apple TV+ free of charge. Those with an eligible 4K or 8K set made in 2016 or later have until February 13, 2022 to take advantage of the promotion, but there is a caveat …

If you’ve had an Apple TV+ free trial in the past, you’re out of luck.

Who says an M1 Mac mini and a revved-up gaming PC can’t get along? Macs aren’t known to excel at gaming, so it’s natural for many folks to keep a Mac alongside a tricked-out gaming rig. These days, it’s easy to switch back and forth, as we’ll see in today computer setup featuring a massive TV screen and a slightly more modest monitor.

A lot of computer setups we run across online look staged. They’re so perfectly, well, you know — set up. They boast impressive equipment. Some exhibit a spare beauty one would almost hate to disturb. Others scream hardcore productivity like the fate of all the companies in the Fortune 500 company rest solely upon them.

Marc Drucker serves as an associate director and technical lead for a pharmaceutical company in Menlo Park, California. Having shifted fully to working from home, he found his computer setup — his WFH rig — running so well and looking so clean, he decided to send it in to Cult of Mac.

Among the words he used to describe his WFH rig were ideal and perfect. We talked to him about what works so well for him in his workstation and included his answers, below.

So many devices, so many screens, so many devices with screens — how do you manage them all? Some people go to great lengths. Others … not so much.