Apple has added their 27-inch Thunderbolt Display to their “vintage” products list since has been nearly five years since it was last offered for sale.
Apple Thunderbolt Display was the world’s first display with Thunderbolt I/O technology and the ultimate docking station for your Mac notebook. With just a single cable, users could connect a Thunderbolt-enabled Mac to the 27-inch Apple Thunderbolt Display and access its FaceTime camera, high quality audio, and Gigabit Ethernet, FireWire 800, USB 2.0 and Thunderbolt ports. Designed specifically for Mac notebooks, the new display featured an elegant, thin, aluminum and glass enclosure, and included a MagSafe connector for charging MacBook Pro or MacBook Air.
Products are considered vintage when it’s between five and seven years since Apple stopped distributing them for sale.
Apple introduced the Thunderbolt Display in 2011, but never shipped updated models. It was discontinued on June 23, 2016, with no successor to follow. Apple in 2017 debuted LG UltraFine displays made in partnership with LG, but for many years, there was no Apple-designed display available.
That changed with the release of the Pro Display XDR, which accompanied the 2019 Mac Pro. At $5,000, the Pro Display XDR is not a replacement for the more affordable $999 Thunderbolt Display, but there are rumors suggesting Apple is developing a lower-priced Apple-branded external monitor.
MacDailyNews Take: Hope for an Apple-branded display for “the rest of us” springs eternal and WWDC 2021 is next week!
Yes, we need a large screen Apple display at reasonable working man prices. If I can buy huge 4K TVs for a couple hundred bucks, their is no excuse Apple cannot offer monitors at reasonable prices.
Oh wait, Apple has a beancounter CEO squeezing every dollar out of loyal customers priced far above what they are worth.
Never mind…
If you are willing to put up with the image accuracy of a commercial television set, rather than of a professional monitor, just buy a Thunderbolt to HDMI cable for about ten bucks or a Lightning to HDMI cable for about twenty. If you don’t know the difference, you probably would not notice the difference.
Know the difference?
How about see the difference when reading?
HA!
Obviously the woke Leftist does not practice what he preaches…
Agreed
I still have one of these displays and it works well for my 76 year eyes. I’ve used it in my office, using dual displays with the PowerBook in those days. Now it is for looking at pics and using Elements to repair the really old ones. Just can’t see getting a new display if this one keeps working.
But, to show how inconsistent I am, I’m still dreaming of another MacBook Pro when the M2 is announced!
These were such great monitors (still use mine).
With so many people using MacBooks, Apple simply has to produce their own prosumer-level display again. Right now, their Mac experience is ruined the moment they try to plug in an external display.
It’s a very puzzling and inconsistent reality. Apple, a premier marketing (and brand) company and Apple, the master of the ecosystem, fails in both areas when it comes to glass on the desk.
Plus, it’s the last technology before consuming the visuals. Again, the company courted by the creatives for decades, shoots a blank.
Yes, as a creative under Cook regime of wokeness he has failed our profession repeatedly. Over six years for an update to the MacPro, discontinued monitors and routers, now back with exorbitant prices. Creative FAILURE…
Four words – Think $700 MacPro wheels
Right now my problem is not my two TB displays; its my M1 Mac Book Air (2nd in 6 months) that crashes when plugged into the venerable displays. I know that I am not the only one feeling excessive purple screens of death.