It is with a mix of sadness, contempt, and relief that I offer you the news that Apple acknowledged it has put a bullet in its 5-year old Thunderbolt Display. The company issued a statement to The Verge confirming the news, directing customers to third parties for their external display needs.
Apple's statement:
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.
That Apple chose to announce this means the company is very unlikely to replace it with anything up to date. If that's the case, Mac users will be forced to live with the stylings of HP, Dell, and Samsung for their external display needs.
Like an animal.
That's annoying. Apple sells a best-in-class 5K display in its iMac, but appears not to care enough about its professional users to bring that same technology to an external display. It's difficult impossible to understand why, though considering the lack of attention the professional market gets from Apple in the Mac hardware space, this is really just par for the course.
That covers my sadness and contempt—the relief comes from the fact that Apple is putting this product out of its misery. That the company still sells the Thunderbolt display for $999 is an embarrassment. While pretty, this device falls far short of what you can get for a fraction of the price in terms of resolution from competitors.
If Apple didn't intend to replace the Thunderbolt Display, it should have discontinued it years ago.