Cinema Display models were no longer offered on the Apple Store website as of August 2014.

The first model—the 22-inch Apple Cinema Display—was introduced in September 1999 alongside the Power Mac G4 and used DVI for video input.

It was eventually replaced by a 20-inch model on January 28, 2003, that also used an ADC connector and sported a widescreen display with up to 1680×1050 resolution and a brightness of 230 cd/m2.

The new models had an anodized aluminum enclosure that matched Apple's high-end lines of professional products.

Though the display enclosures had not been redesigned for a long period of time, several "silent" improvements were made to the brightness levels and contrast ratios.

[5] Due to the high resolution (2560×1600), the 30-inch model requires a graphics card that supports dual-link DVI.

A Power Mac G5 with the new Nvidia GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL graphics card was initially required to run the display at full resolution.

Discrete MacBook Pros are also capable of driving the 30-inch display, while all Macs released after October 2008 require an additional adapter.

The Radeon 9600 Mac/PC was another aftermarket graphics card that supported dual-link DVI and was also compatible with older AGP-based Power Macs.

The Wall Street Journal referred to Apple's removal of the matte screen as one of their worst design decisions.