Apple Discontinues Thunderbolt Display (macrumors.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Apple has officially told several news sites that it plans to discontinue the Thunderbolt Display, which has been available online and in Apple retail stores since it was first introduced in 2011. "We're discontinuing the Apple Thunderbolt Display. It will be available through Apple.com, Apple's retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers while supplies last. There are a number of great third-party options available for Mac users," said an Apple spokesperson. Rumors suggest that Apple will launch a new version of its Thunderbolt monitor later this year, featuring an upgraded 5K resolution and discrete GPU. The new Thunderbolt Display may even launch alongside next-generation Skylake Retina MacBook Pros, which too are rumored to be released later this year. fyngyrz writes: So, bought into the whole Thunderbolt monitor thing from Apple? Might want to collect a few right now, while you still can. It appears that the Thunderbolt monitor is going the way of the analog [headphone] jack over at Apple. Isn't it fun to be part of an unsuccessful experiment?

Comments

Of course

[NotInHere]

dumb monitors are bad, they need to be smartified so that the only way you access them is through apps. Otherwise they are losing a big chunk of data.

Re:Of course

[rworne]

Not the first time this has happened. Back in the PowerPC days, they had an Apple LCD monitor that hooked up to the computer with a single cable. Basically a bastardized DVI cable with an oval connector, USB, and some extra power lines in it.

It was compatible with nothing but Apple stuff, unless you bought an expensive box to convert it into DVI and a wall-plug.

So this isn't the first time we are seeing this.

Re:Of course

[Scoth]

Untrue. I'm using a Thunderbolt Display with my Dell laptop right now. Just needs a real Thunderbolt port, which was somewhat rare on PCs until well after Macs.

Re:Of course

[seinman]

What's so "lololol" about it? It was a pretty good connector. To this day, I sometimes use a machine that uses it. The setup is super clean: the only cables I have are power from the wall to the tower, ADC from the tower to the monitor, USB from monitor to keyboard, USB from keyboard to mouse. Everything plugs in to the next in a chain and it works wonderfully.

Jeepers

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

For all of the hate we dish at Apple we sure do like talking about them 'round here.

Isn't it fun to be part of an unsuccessful experim

[JustNiz]

>> It appears that the Thunderbolt monitor is going the way of the analog [headphone] jack over at Apple. Isn't it fun to be part of an unsuccessful experiment?

I'll make a bet right now that killing the headphone jack will be a step too far and Apple will be forced to bring it back pretty quickly.

Re:Duh

[dgatwood]

Only if you mean mean Thunderbolt 3 (which happens to be based on a USB-C connector, but is not USB). Boy, will that cause consumer confusion, what with them sticking USB-C on the MacBook just months before Thunderbolt 3 was ready....

Convenience.

[Darinbob]

I sort of wanted one at work. I have a Thunderbolt (2.0) hub, that has thunderbolt in, with thunderbolt, gigabit ethernet, usb 3.0, audio, mini display port, and hdmi out. The hope was that one cable was all I would need to plug in whenever I dock my laptop at work, which has two monitors. Turns out that the only way to get two monitors with fed from one thunderbolt cable is if one monitor takes thunderbolt directly. So while one thunderbolt cable can do one 4K monitor, it can't do two 1920 monitors. Oh well, at least it's only two cables I have to plug in.

Re:Convenience.

[TheRaven64]

For us, the problem was the cost. The Apple monitor costs £900. The 4K monitors that we're buying cost about £200. For four times the price, we get a worse display. The hub features were not worth paying £600 for and putting up with fewer pixels.

Buying Apple is always a gamble

[Anonymous Coward]

Back in my ultimate Mac bigot days I managed to keep from getting burned by OpenDoc (by ignoring it as snake oil) and QuickDraw3D (by adopting it very gradually, thereby not losing much when it was suddenly cancelled with no replacement.) A lot of guys dove in and lost whole product lines if not companies.

Apple custom hardware is even less dependable. Don't buy anything you can't afford to have orphaned without notice.

Love Apple all you want, but don't trust 'em. They were never in business to help you, and now they don't even have to care.

Fortunately

[Ol Olsoc]

There is an alternative. Microsoft, who has never discontinued anything, and their next failed piece of hardware will be their first.

And before you mark me as a troll, consider this

From the summary...... So, bought into the whole Thunderbolt monitor thing from Apple? Might want to collect a few right now, while you still can. It appears that the Thunderbolt monitor is going the way of the analog [headphone] jack over at Apple. Isn't it fun to be part of an unsuccessful experiment?

So it looks like Slashdot has gone full troll itself.

Re:Fortunately

[Anonymous Coward]

Zune.

Re:Isn't it fun to be part of an unsuccessful expe

[Yvan256]

And you underestimate the power of the buyers. Remember how the 3rd-generation iPod shuffle didn't have any buttons? That experiment failed, so the fourth-generation iPod shuffle had buttons, just like the 1st and 2nd generations.

Re:Duh

[93 Escort Wagon]

Bluetooth is so last-decade. The new monitors are going to be driven by the user's imagination.

Huh?

[Guspaz]

> Isn't it fun to be part of an unsuccessful experiment?

What? The monitors did what they were supposed to do, are doing what they were supposed to do, and will keep on doing the same thing they were supposed to do. It's also entirely possible that they will work with thunderbolt 3 via an adapter.

They also stayed on the market for 5 years, which is unheard of for a modern display: most companies like Dell discontinue their displays after a year or two.

What's the problem?

[SuperKendall]

If you have a Thunderbolt monitor, it's not like it's going to stop working... I don't get the snide comment about being part of a "failed experiment", it's no more a "failure" than any other monitor ever has been.

I personally would have loved a 5K Thunderbolt, and think we may have seen one yet in a ew months (probably with the same auto-color balancing feature the newer iPad Pro 9.7" offers). But I didn't buy something that doesn't work for me, a while ago I needed a higher res display so I bought a 4K LG monitor I really like and will be happy to use until a really nice Thunderbolt monitor (or something else better) comes along.

One thing really bugs me about the LG monitor though - it has about five USB ports on it, but it's basically the equivalent of an unpowered USB 3 hub! Seems like it wouldn't have taken much effort to supply decent power through the output ports, an iPad connected cannot even charge while in use.

So this is Slashdot under new management?

[phayes]

Why is BeauHD Openly trolling in the summary and where the fuck is the new management that claimed that they were taking slashdot back to it's roots?

I suffered through the Dice dark ages and saw so many other old school slashdotters leave.

I saw the new owners denounce the worst of Dice's excesses and had hope but openly trolling the way this submission did destroys what little expectation I had that this could happen.

Re:Isn't it fun to be part of an unsuccessful expe

[stealth_finger]

>> It appears that the Thunderbolt monitor is going the way of the analog [headphone] jack over at Apple. Isn't it fun to be part of an unsuccessful experiment?

I'll make a bet right now that killing the headphone jack will be a step too far and Apple will be forced to bring it back pretty quickly.

Nah they'll just keep reminding you they do adapters (for a reasonable fee, of course) then once everyone's finally either bought one or gone to wireless headphones, that's when they'll bring it back.

Re: And Their Headphone Jack Will Fail Too

[ColdWetDog]

There's no failure here, just evolution. Or did you really expect we would be still be using the same old connectors 1000 years from now? Tech evolves, get over it.

I do so miss SCSI connectors - connectivity and personal defense in one somewhat unwieldy package.

Re: And Their Headphone Jack Will Fail Too

[Lisandro]

It still much much better than having a Lightning connector or USB-C getting smashed in your pockets. The only drawback of the 3.5mm jack its its length, which translates to torque, but it is offset by its mechanical simplicity, large electrical connectors, availability and ease of maintenance. 3.5mm are easy to fix and replace.