If you’re a Mac user, and you’ve been using an ultrawide display, chances are that you know the struggle. Although it may not be a huge problem for a majority of users, considering that ultrawide displays are more ‘niche’, believe me, I can see how the experience of using an ultrawide monitor with a Mac hasn’t been the most optimal based on my experience.
When I was helping someone who owns an ultrawide monitor (e.g. 21:9 aspect ratio), I noticed the limited number of resolutions compared to those of a regular widescreen (with aspect ratios like 16:9, 16:10, etc.) monitor. This could be a huge dealbreaker not only for setups with one ultrawide monitor, but also with multiple monitors with mismatched aspect ratios (one widescreen + one ultrawide) because chances are, the resolution you could find on your ultrawide monitor (which may not be native) may not match that height of pixels in the resolution of your other “normal” widescreen monitor, which could take full advantage of its native resolution. In other words, if you have a “shorter” resolution on your ultrawide monitor and a “taller” resolution on your widescreen monitor (or vice-versa), because the heights of pixels for both monitors may not be the same, UI elements and windows may appear either larger or smaller compared to the other monitor depending on the configuration.
Thankfully, macOS 27 Golden Gate will mitigate this issue as the next version will soon bring native ultrawide display support for the very first time with higher resolutions up to 5K at 120Hz, so 5K ultrawide monitors could finally take full advantage of macOS’s Retina-scaled resolutions made for ultrawide aspect ratios. Additionally, Apple officially confirmed that display arrangements are now preserved across connections, so the Mac will remember the exact layout automatically every time the user plugs back in those monitors.
These remediations are certainly a welcome change that will surely make ultrawide users more than happy. macOS 27 is currently in developer beta, but a public beta will roll out sometime next month. An official release is slated sometime this fall.
