Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has announced plans to discontinue its Thunderbolt display which it introduced to the market five years ago.
The Thunderbolt display is a desktop monitor that has been around since 2011. A spokesperson from the company stated that Apple will continue to sell the remaining stock through its retail stores, authorized Apple dealers and Apple.com. The spokesperson also revealed that there will be a few third party options available to customers. The firm did not reveal whether it plans to introduce a replacement. Nevertheless, there have been rumors that the company has been developing a 4K or 5K display.
The Thunderbolt display was priced at $999 when it launched, and it offered ports for FaceTime HD camera, FireWire 800, MagSafe connector, microphone, Thunderbolt and Gigabit internet. It has had a slight decline in its price tag over the years. Apple has been in the display business for quite a long time, and the discontinuation of the Thunderbolt display might be a strategy to usher in something new.
The firm is thus expected to release a new display sometime soon. The speculation about a new display always seems to die down because it is usually overshadowed by other products. This is because displays are not the main product category for the company.
At the moment it is unclear whether Apple has something new in the pipeline. Perhaps Apple’s strategy is to divert the focus to its all-in-one iMac offering which features 4K and 5K displays. However, the tech giant is yet to confirm its intentions with the all-in-one lineup. Apple has over time maintained a low profile when developing a new product. The company tries as much as possible to maintain secrecy until the launch of a product, so perhaps this is what will happen for the next display from the firm.