Late Thursday Apple announced plans to discontinue the 5-year-old Thunderbolt Display, leaving it unclear if Apple’s display business is coming to an end or if another model is in the works for a future release. According to BuzzFeed‘s John Paczkowski, Apple isn’t done with Thunderbolt displays.
The 27-inch Thunderbolt Display, which had a resolution of 2560×1440 pixels, was first introduced in 2011. For the last few years, rumors have swirled that Apple is preparing a 4K or 5K replacement for the display line, but thus far none of the reports have materialized.
“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 in a statement given to TechCrunch.
Unfortunately there aren’t any other details to go on here, and a timeframe for when Apple could announce the new display remains a mystery as well. Still, with the discontinuation of the Thunderbolt Display this is a pretty good sign that something even better is coming down the pipe, even if we don’t have a date to circle on the calendar for its arrival just yet.
If a new Thunderbolt Display is planned for 2016, a logical guess at a release date might be in the fall alongside rumored redesigned Retina MacBook Pros.