Say goodbye to the Thunderbolt display: An Apple 5K Retina Display is coming but it’s only half the story
It’s finally time, it seems, for the aging Thunderbolt display. As one of the few Apple product lines seemingly left behind, without a single refresh in years, the Thunderbolt display has been sharing a very uncomfortable seat on the back-burner, along with the 2013 Apple Mac Pro.
Consumers and industry watchers have been wondering whether Apple has had any interest in refreshing these products at all, but as Apple has shown, with reference to Apple TV, and the Mac Mini, hope is in the air, if anything, for the Thunderbolt display, whose supply has decreased exponentially, with retailers finding it increasingly difficult to restock.
Shorter supply is typical of an impending product update, especially in the case of a product as old as the Thunderbolt display.
Once atop of its category, the Thunderbolt display is now considered largely obsolete, with other devices, including laptops, leaving the aging display in the dust, as far as resolution, design, energy efficiency, and even interface connectivity.
Considering how far ahead of the Thunderbolt display is the display built into the Apple iMac Retina 4K and 5K, one can’t help wonder why Apple waited this long to phase out the Thunderbolt, and introduce something more advanced.
This very question is at the center of a very real possibility that if Apple is going to refresh the Thunderbolt display with a new 5K Retina display for the Mac, it won’t be long before Apple surprises us with another Mac announcement as well, perhaps in regard to the Mac Pro.
Why the Mac Pro? Simple: the Mac Pro is the only desktop Mac that is capable of handling 4K and 5K resolutions on an external display, at frequencies beyond 60Hz.
By this token, it would make little sense for Apple to manufacture a high-end 5K Retina display, if the only desktops capable of driving it, namely the iMac Retina 4K/5K, already have the same capability built-in.
Of course, Apple could still release an amazing 5K Retina display, and introduce a mild refresh of the 2013 Mac Pro to go with it, which is also a very real possibility, however there is a third factor in this equation, which is the potential for Apple to drop the ax on the MacBook Air, which would allow Apple to stage one of the biggest Mac announcements of the current decade.
An event of this magnitude is also long overdue, as Apple has been focusing much of its resources on iOS devices, like the iPad Pro and the iPhone.
Chances are, we won’t get a glimpse of whatever Apple is planning to do with either the Thunderbolt display, nor the Mac Pro, until after WWDC, and possibly around the same time as the company announces the iPhone 7.
PortableOne.com is an Authorized Apple Reseller and will have any new Apple Display launched in 2016 available on-line as soon as details are known!