Seven Apple products that are headed for extinction

As the iPhone gets bigger, the case of the iPad mini gets weaker. This is doubly so if the OLED iPhone 8 ships with the rumored 5.8-inch display.

The iPad mini is also getting old, with the September 2016 update being only a storage bump.

Once Apple's thinnest and lightest MacBook, it now is neither of these things, with the MacBook taking that spot in the lineup.

The MacBook Air was last given a significant upgrade back on March of 2015, and rumors that it is being discontinued have been circulating for months.

Apple could dramatically simplify its Mac lineup by letting this ancient one go.

Apple released its radically redesigned Pro desktop Mac back in December 2013, but since then the product has received no attention from Apple, leaving Apple's most expensive product essentially dead on the vine (after all, who is going to spend top dollar for technology from 2013?).

As Apple shows every sign of getting out of the pro market to focus on mainstream products for a mainstream audience, it seems highly unlikely that the Mac Pro will be refreshed.

Once Apple's top product, the iPod is now little more than a reminder of what propelled Apple into the consumer space.

Apple still sells iPods - in the form of the iPod touch, iPod shuffle and iPod nano - but these are all years old. The iPod touch got its last refresh back in July 2015, while the iPod nano and iPod shuffle last got a major refresh (excluding new colors added to the lineup) September 2012 and September 2010 respectively.

Once the low-cost gateway device into the Mac ecosystem, the Mac mini last saw refresh love from Apple back in October 2014.

Nothing about the Mac mini makes sense any more. The form factor was based around the footprint of an optical drive, and the idea was that those switching up from a PC could keep their old peripherals and just slot the Mac mini into their workflow. Nowadays the focus is more on laptops and the Mac mini feels like a relic of a bygone era.

Apple once used to describe the Apple TV as a hobby, and it was supposed to be the device that gave the Cupertino giant a foothold in the living room and the chance to revolutionise the way people watch TV.

But now, almost a decade on from its initial release, the Apple TV is no closer to changing the way people watch television. If anything, all it has accomplished is to turn the TV into a giant iPhone, where users have t wade through a myriad of apps and services to get the content they want.

Now that Apple has disbanded the group responsible for these products, it's fair to assume that they're on borrowed time and that it's not going to see a refresh.

This is a shame since these products were rock solid and both easy enough for newbies to set up yet powerful and versatile enough for enthusiasts.