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Thunder struck: Apple kills off display line

Curse of the Cupertino peripheral strikes again

Apple has ended production of its line of Thunderbolt monitors.

The Cupertino idiot tax racket says that it will no longer be making the display available after its current stock is sold out in Apple stores and online.

Apple debuted the Thunderbolt display in 2011, pushing the screen as a reason for users to adopt its new peripheral interface capable of pushing data at speeds up to 20 Gb/s. This display also included Firewire, Ethernet, and USB 3.0 ports.

At the time, Apple claimed that the Thunderbolt connection would allow for high-resolution screens, while also being able to carry PCI Express data. Since then, Apple has built Thunderbolt connections into its MacBook, Mac Pro and iMac models, though the monitor has never received much in the way of updates or overhauls.

Apple has not said whether it plans to release another monitor model. As it stands, Apple would no longer produce displays, leaving that task up to third-party hardware developers. El Reg has asked Apple for a statement on the move, but they rarely respond to our requests for comment.

Throughout its history, Apple has never had much luck when it comes to peripherals and new connection interfaces. Among the failures to come out of Cupertino were the ill-fated FireWire and Apple Desktop Bus (ADB), both of which by and large failed to gain a foothold outside of Apple's own branded hardware. On the other hand, Apple was also an early adopter of technologies such as USB and SCSI that would go on to become industry standards. ®

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