Intel details Thunderbolt, says Apple has full year head start - Page 4

HD video out, 10W of power (faster charge times), faster syncs (ensuring that the flash memory is the bottleneck).

Edit: Also one cable keyboard, monitor, mouse nettop/netbook potential. I think as iOS becomes more advanced Apples going to start implementing a desktop UI option (similar to but better than what the motorola Atrix does) for the iPhone and iPad.


When you have a head start, it's best to make use of it. It's fine to add the port as long as you still have legacy support. It's quite interesting that the MBP refresh and the iPad 2 event were spaced less than a week apart, especially considering the previous case leaks with what looked like a mini-displayport opening up top.


The dock connector doesn't have enough free pins for TB, nor do they need separate pins for USB and Firewire with TB. If they added this to the dock connector, it would be a brand new and likely incompatible one.

The royalty income from the dock connector may be hard to let go of, but I think they might ultimately end up doing that because TB can act as a total replacement for the dock connector once they get around whatever technical issues there may be (which would be beyond my level of understanding).

The dock connector serves a purpose as it combines multiple I/O formats into one port, but TB already does that so there's little reason to change the shape of the plug (the only reason would be to add pins to support analog audio and video but I think we're moving away from that).

I guess we'll see what happens Wednesday. I suspect we'll see the dock connector and one TB port (and hopefully a splitter or a dock for TB), but perhaps you're right and it isn't coming yet.

Here are the pinouts:

http://pinouts.ru/CellularPhones-A-N...r_pinout.shtml


As to usage of Thunderbolt on the iPad, syncing would be way down on my list.

I'd like to see the iPad as a co-peripheral to a Mac -- the iPad is an I/O peripheral to the Mac and the Mac (and connected peripherals) is an I/O peripheral to the iPad.

I attempted to describe this in a prior post (below), I am specifically thinking of Macs and iPads used for the coming Final Cut Studio. This could be so compelling that it would sell Macs, iPads and FCS -- whatever it takes to get the "jaw-dropping" capability.

... Not to mention any 3rd-party Mac app like CAD or Photo editing that uses a graphic tablet and/or would benefit from a multitouch control surface.

Just imagine, you sit down at your Mac/iPad workstation, do some Photo editing, CAD, or Video editing. Then you drag and drop the finished product to the iPad. You grab the iPad and walk into your living room, or the client's office and AirPlay the results to the HDTV.... WOW!

I am skeptical about them putting Thunderbolt on the iPad. For the simple reason of practicality. The majority of iPad buyers are either PC users or have an existing Mac. None of these people will use this port anytime soon. In fact, it's possible that they might not use this port during the lifetime of their iDevice (or until the very end of it). So most users would be stuck with a port that takes up space but does nothing. Or compels you to use adpators, which would annoy most people. I am willing to bet that most users would rather have a USB connection which lets them plug in their iDevice to any computer than a Thunderbolt connection which they would have little opportunity to use.

Apple has foresight to be sure. But I don't think they'd try to piss off their customers. Moreover, it's one thing to tack on another port on a desktop or a laptop. It's another matter to use a rare connection standard on one of two connection ports on a mobile device (in Apple's case, both not common).

In a year or two though....completely different story.

The iPad could come with a cable that's Thunderbolt at one end and USB at the other...

But, I'd be willing to bet that if Apple includes an iPad Thunderbolt port, and allows external devices (cameras, thumb derive, etc.) to be connected -- 3rd-party manufacturers would stumble over themselves supplying Thunderbolt cables to their devices.


Apple is estimated to sell 40 million iPads in 2011 (I believe it will be over 60 million). But. let's take the 40 number -- that would mean maybe 30 million iPad 2s with Thunderbolt -- that's a pretty good size target market! Not to mention other new iDevices.

I don't see how adding a port would annoy users. Adding a port at this point wouldn't be about mass adoption, it would be about demoing capabilities.

You say the port would be useless to most, but many people have an HD TV at home and could benefit from mini DisplayPort through a simple mini DisplayPort to HDMI adapter. iOS devices not even supporting 720p video out is a bit of a short coming right now (in before AirPlay comments).

I agree with this!

I was going to add the following as an edit to my prior post:

1) I don't follow the PC hardware -- but I think most PCs and laptops have the requisite PCI interface slot in their motherboards. If true, many existing PCs could, with a Thunderbolt adapter, take immediate advantage of the technology -- Apple's advantage is that the adapter will be built-in to all Macs (next refreash).

2) If there are apps running on PCs that could benefit from an iPad co-peripheral (as I described earlier) then these would be great targets for sales of software, hardware, connectors and iPads..


In my history with computers I have had the privilege to experience, first hand, several revolutions -- where the capability was so compelling that it was the only way to go. Cost was not an issue -- the results were not practical any other way!

Apple ][ and VisiCalc -- a $79 program that sold many $3,000 plus computers to run it.

Mac and the LaserWriter -- a $10,000 plus package that created the Desktop Publishing industry.


I believe the joining of the iPad with the Mac (or PC) is another one of these revolutions.

I believe the AutoCads, the PhotoShops and, yes, the Final Cuts have seen what loosely-connected iPads and computers can do... and understand the potential of more tightly joining them as co-peripherals.


That's just the creatives -- haven't even considered the enterprise, educational, medical, defense and gaming potential of co-joined computing.

Hopefully some of your ideas do come to fruition. The iPad could definitely be a great asset for productivity on the mac.

When will they realize these new fangled connections don't last, and go back to LocalTalk?

Ethernet, as a backwards compatible connector, has survived a long time. 15 years at least.

best post this week

9

After re-reading my post, it's obvious to me that the fact that the first 4 posters were all complaining about the story, and the time of day for me was later in the PM (when my blood sugar gets down to the "bitchy" level) .... I let that dictate the tone of my reply to you. I was wrong for that and you have my apology.

Why do you not READ the article?
Nothing about exclusivity.
Nothing about Apple blocking anything.
Just everybody else sitting on his fat ass waiting to see if this is successful and then decide to join.

You blame the wrong company!

We did.


It was edited.


It was edited.


You blame the wrong posters.

In addition, every packet on USB requires processing by the CPU, impacting your overall system performance the more you send data. Firewire controllers are able to handle the transaction without host CPU involvement, freeing more processing for your applications. This also means that realtime transfers (synchronous data) is really synchronous - no dropped frames in your video. The synchronous data in USB is just mostly synchronous.