Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Apple Discontinues Thunderbolt Display

tubeexperience said:
No kidding! You can find a monitor with the same resolution for less than half the cost of a Thunderbolt Display.
Click to expand...

Apple and oranges. The TBD is a display and thunderbolt dock... can you buy a comparable display and thunderbolt dock for half the price of the TBD? I bought the TBD with my Macbook Air and its been a great combo. If they keep minimalist MacBooks with no ports, not sure what they expect people to use with it to expose the additional IO ability when in the office.
 
I'm not shocked to see this, but I'm not convinced this is the end of Apple displays. Not having an Apple Display available means MacPro and MacMini users can never use FaceTime.

Beyond that, this is actually good news. I hate seeing people throw good money away on the Apple Display. You can get the exact same display (yes, the exact one) with more USB ports, an SD card slot, an HDMI port, and an adjustable height arm for 20-35% less. It just has a black plastic bezel and an ugly Dell logo on it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: bernuli
invisiblecube said:
Guessing that Steve would not approve.
Click to expand...

I have to agree.
When you are working/playing with an Apple product, you know it. An iPhone , an iMac, a MBP. But Apple has cut off a very important brand visual! If you have a mini or a mac pro and have a Dell monitor. All you're going to see is "Dell" "Dell" "Dell". I think Steve would have kicked Tim's a$$ on this one!
I think it would be stupid of Apple not to have an interesting replacement.

I just thought of an interesting replacement. (I'm sure someone has thought of this too!)
A 27" 5k screen like an iMac with GPU & SSD. But change SSD format to something like a DRAM board. So you could plug in like 4 SSD sticks. Add a few ports: USBs and a Firewire. Perhaps also a smaller size with less features.
 
Menopause said:
Why so? It has been one of the best quality displays available in the market IMO.
Click to expand...

Well it's been one of the best quality displays available in the market *from Apple*. Life is so much simpler when you only look at the offerings from one company, isn't it?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Patron_Saint
MacGizmo said:
I'm not shocked to see this, but I'm not convinced this is the end of Apple displays. Not having an Apple Display available means MacPro and MacMini users can never use FaceTime.

Beyond that, this is actually good news. I hate seeing people throw good money away on the Apple Display. You can get the exact same display (yes, the exact one) with more USB ports, an SD card slot, an HDMI port, and an adjustable height arm for 20-35% less. It just has a black plastic bezel and an ugly Dell logo on it.
Click to expand...

Tim, Tim, Tim :(:confused:
 
MacGizmo said:
I'm not shocked to see this, but I'm not convinced this is the end of Apple displays. Not having an Apple Display available means MacPro and MacMini users can never use FaceTime.
Click to expand...
Pretty much any USB web cam will work with facetime
 
Menopause said:
Why so? It has been one of the best quality displays available in the market IMO.
Click to expand...

Yup, I went with a $500 Acer monitor. Was a good price compared to competing options, and it works well for what it is. However, it has this nasty habit of just shutting off after a while, and that's after it goes on-off-on-off when first connecting it. Just not the user experience that I'm looking for. I would fully expect an Apple-branded display to behave so much better, and likely does. It's the user experience, that sense of quality, that you're paying for.
 
So because a monitor is being discontinued, the entire Mac lineup is going away? What is with people here? I got one of those displays. It is not very good. I do not like having the cables built in. The bezels make the monitor TOO LARGE where my Dell 27" looks incredibly small. There are no hardware controls to manage power, brightness, and other things you need an on screen display for on a monitor. On Windows 10, too much green is added for some odd reason. That required a lot of calibration. The panel is highly reflective, I can always see my self in the reflection.
 
amegicfox said:
Mac Mini:
Look at Intel with the NUC skull canyon. It's is an amazing product (quad core / skylake) and this is what the mini should have been. Tim and Jony should learn from it. They are two idiots and I am mad that Tim hasn't been fired yet.

I bough the skull, installed RAM and SSD in literally 1 minute. It is quiet, light, small, blazing fast and has USB-C/thunderbolt 3, display port and HDMI ports. Apple still sells the mini with 2 cores, soldered ram and good luck in replacing their overpriced SSD.

I wish whoever designed the Skull Canyon was right now the CEO of Apple
Click to expand...

What OS are you running on it?
 
tentales said:
Yes, it's called the iMac 21" 4K & 27" 5K and you can buy it now and activate target display mode.
If Apple still charges $1K for an outdated 27" display, then what would the price point of a 4 or 5K monitor be ?
$1499 and $1799 ? right.. that's the price of the current iMacs.

Just removing the logic board would not lower costs significantly enough to squeeze in between $1K - $1.5K and still be a viable option when compared to competitors offerings.
Click to expand...
This makes lots of sense. This is probably why Apple are not selling stand alone monitors anymore. Because Apple already is (with target display mode)
 
im assuming it's because TB hasn't really caught on. Even in the business world of art studios, they use Ethernet storage for large photo and video repositories. It's cheaper, easier to expand, and manage.
 
  • Like
Reactions: bernuli
bladerunner2000 said:
Doesn't matter, there's always an exception. The vast majority... well actually, damn near everyone else doesn't care for thunderbolt; the devices are all expensive, it's limited to pretty much only Macs, and there aren't many things that actually need thunderbolt anyway. Essentially, it's another Apple failure just like Firewire.
Click to expand...

Because Thunderbolt is not for the average consumer, its meant for professional use. Consumers have the cheapy USB 2.0/3.0 if they need to use it.
 
I remember being excited to see the TB display when it was still relatively new(around the time I got my first Mac) and very nearly bought one at the time.

As said, though, what was a great display in 2011/2012 really is a joke now for what they charge for it.

After buying a mid-2012 MBP with a matte screen, I'm also hooked on them and really don't want another glossy screen computer in any form. My Mac Pro(which now has hit a brick wall with Sierra with no work-arounds to install it) has a pair of 23" aluminum cinemas, and I'm quite happy with it. In fact, I have a "scavenged" 2010 27" iMac(high end BTO) that I got from a surplus pile at work and more than once I've been close to replacing my(personally owned) Mac Pro office computer with it. The screen would drive me nuts, though.

Hopefully if Apple does re-enter the display market, they'll come back with a matte offering, although current trends on portables don't suggest that. My 2012 was the last matte screen Apple made, and even at that it was a BTO option.
 
People seriously need to think here. The most expensive part of the iMac is the monitor. There is not much wiggle room there. Apple could not sell that for $500 or whatever the people want it sold for. A business would just buy an iMac as the monitor for their Mac Pro. Works fine in target display mode, also it is a PC too so it can be used without the Mac Pro at times too.

A slightly pricey but very high quality way to get a 4k (or higher pixel count) monitor.
 
A few years ago I cheaped out and opted not to buy the TB display and instead bought a Dell monitor with USB and created this TB "substitute" with a nylon wire sleeve. I plug/unplug my 2011 MBP from my workstation about 5 times per day, and for a few weeks, maybe months, it was fine. But over the years even this easier rig has become tedious each time I plug/unplug, or wanted to add additional cables, such as for sound. Or easily add a second monitor. I dreamed of the single TB connection, and I vowed that when it was time to upgrade my system (I'm ready NOW), I would get whatever 4K/5K TB display Apple may offer after an update even paying more. Sadly it looks like that may not happen. Thunderbolt definitely has value.

upload_2016-6-24_8-47-52.png
 
Corrode said:
You, among many others, are missing the point. They don't care about the discontinuation, it's the lack of a new model that is disappointing. We've been waiting on the edge of our collective seats for a retina Thunderbolt Display and to hear they won't sell the old one but also won't make a new one is what's truly sad.
Click to expand...

After year one of this (2012) not getting an update it was quite obvious. It is 2016.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back