Report: Apple pushed Intel to develop Light Peak cabling
Following a demonstration by Intel of an advanced new optical data port called Light Peak, a new report says Apple actually brought the concept to Intel and that the new standard will play "a hugely important role" in upcoming Apple products.
Engadget reported the news first, based on "an extremely reliable source." The site said it reviewed evidence that Apple began talks with Intel in 2007 to develop a new cabling standard with the capacity to handle "massive amounts of data" and replace a variety of existing ports, including USB, FireWire, and DisplayPort.
The article said initial conversation and fleshing out of the Light Peak standard began between Steve Jobs and Intel CEO Paul Otellini. Apple expressed a need for a single port and that optical signaling made the most sense.
Apple is expected to incorporate Light Peak quickly and will use it to replace other legacy ports, much as it did with USB on the original iMac, albeit on a smaller scale. Engadget said that based on what it saw, it expects Apple to roll out the new connector on machines next fall, replacing existing ports for networking, display, and general peripheral use.
Within another year, it expects Apple to begin rolling out a low power version suitable for use in mobile devices such as the iPhone, iPod touch, and a version of the tablet device Apple is expected to bring to market early next year.
Light Peak uses optical rather than electrical signaling to achieve an initial throughput of 10Gbps ("you could transfer a full-length Blu-Ray movie in less than 30 seconds" Intel says). That's similar to high-end optical Fibre Channel or HDMI, and ten times faster than Gigibit Ethernet, more than twenty times faster than USB 2.0, and three times faster than eSATA/SATA 300. Within a decade, Intel expects to achieve speeds of 100 Gbps.
Unlike bulky copper cables (like HDMI), Light Peak achieves its speeds over fibre optic strands the size of a human hair. And unlike existing ports focused on solving a specific problem, such as USB for simple peripherals, DisplayPort for video, SATA for disk drives, and Ethernet for networking, Light Peak can handle multiple protocols over a single cable.
Replacing nearly all of the external ports on existing notebooks or mobile devices with Light Peak would enable a new generation of industrial designs without sacrificing features, as the MacBook Air had to do to achieve its thin outline. It would also enable users to run a single cable to an external display to provide video, audio, touch input, and peripheral expansion that included blazing network performance and high speed disk access.
In an introduction of the new standard, Intel explains on its website, "existing electrical cable technology in mainstream computing devices is approaching practical limits for speed and length, due to electro-magnetic interference (EMI) and other issues. However, optical technology, used extensively in data centers and telecom communications, does not have these limitations since it transmits data using light instead of electricity. Light Peak brings this optical technology to mainstream computing and consumer electronic devices in a cost-effective manner."
Engadget reported the news first, based on "an extremely reliable source." The site said it reviewed evidence that Apple began talks with Intel in 2007 to develop a new cabling standard with the capacity to handle "massive amounts of data" and replace a variety of existing ports, including USB, FireWire, and DisplayPort.
The article said initial conversation and fleshing out of the Light Peak standard began between Steve Jobs and Intel CEO Paul Otellini. Apple expressed a need for a single port and that optical signaling made the most sense.
Apple is expected to incorporate Light Peak quickly and will use it to replace other legacy ports, much as it did with USB on the original iMac, albeit on a smaller scale. Engadget said that based on what it saw, it expects Apple to roll out the new connector on machines next fall, replacing existing ports for networking, display, and general peripheral use.
Within another year, it expects Apple to begin rolling out a low power version suitable for use in mobile devices such as the iPhone, iPod touch, and a version of the tablet device Apple is expected to bring to market early next year.
Light Peak uses optical rather than electrical signaling to achieve an initial throughput of 10Gbps ("you could transfer a full-length Blu-Ray movie in less than 30 seconds" Intel says). That's similar to high-end optical Fibre Channel or HDMI, and ten times faster than Gigibit Ethernet, more than twenty times faster than USB 2.0, and three times faster than eSATA/SATA 300. Within a decade, Intel expects to achieve speeds of 100 Gbps.
Unlike bulky copper cables (like HDMI), Light Peak achieves its speeds over fibre optic strands the size of a human hair. And unlike existing ports focused on solving a specific problem, such as USB for simple peripherals, DisplayPort for video, SATA for disk drives, and Ethernet for networking, Light Peak can handle multiple protocols over a single cable.
Replacing nearly all of the external ports on existing notebooks or mobile devices with Light Peak would enable a new generation of industrial designs without sacrificing features, as the MacBook Air had to do to achieve its thin outline. It would also enable users to run a single cable to an external display to provide video, audio, touch input, and peripheral expansion that included blazing network performance and high speed disk access.
In an introduction of the new standard, Intel explains on its website, "existing electrical cable technology in mainstream computing devices is approaching practical limits for speed and length, due to electro-magnetic interference (EMI) and other issues. However, optical technology, used extensively in data centers and telecom communications, does not have these limitations since it transmits data using light instead of electricity. Light Peak brings this optical technology to mainstream computing and consumer electronic devices in a cost-effective manner."
Comments
The problem is - the harddrive speed. If a laptop have 4800 or 5200 RPM, that's not going to be good with apple's newest Light Peak.
I wondered if it will be much faster with either 7200 RPM or SSD?
Even the FW 800 or USB 3, it still "lag" behind b/c of the Harddrive speed. I hope I make sense on this one.
Check out the speeds of the SDXC. According to my calculations SDXC is twice as fast as a 7,200 RPM hard drive.
Unfortunatly present SD enabled Mac's can't use the speed, only the storage capacity up to 2TB.
Of course the problem is naturally is power with Light Peak, most Apple cables provide both data and power.
So are we going to see some sort of hybrid?
I miss my Firewire iPod... *sniffle*
Third party fiber cable networking for Mac's has been around for quite some time, used for G5 based supercomputers, when the G5 processors was all the rage.
I wouldn't be surprised if this article came out from Apple because of the fact that Intel was running Light Peak cabling on a hackintosh, in violation of EULA.
If this article is to believed, no sooner will have people bought their peripherals and adapters to make use of Apple's odd ball mini display port machines than Apple will change it up once again.
How many formats does that make in the last ten years or so?
What I find interesting is the thought that Apple brought up the idea. It makes me wonder if the intent is a Firewire like interface with optical media. At the demo the had a huge LCD screen running off a data link with disk access over the same link. It just seemed like a Firewire over optical type protocol. In anyevent I'm hoping that Intel is on board in a big way and that they don't screw things up like they did with Firewire. By that I mean royalties and the other things done to slow adoption.
Which brings up another concern I hope this is cheap and easy to implement so that it is adopted by a wide range of hardware. That and an easy to implement API, without all the registration issues of USB. In otherwords I hope that hardware vendors will have an easy time bringing out products.
Of course people looking at buying Display Port based monitors have to be concerned. But it does allude to the possibility that Apple is working on very high resolution displays for next year.
Dave
I would welcome an über port to rule them all, but Apple's endless tinkering with monitor connectivity is kind of crazy making.
If this article is to believed, no sooner will have people bought their peripherals and adapters to make use of Apple's odd ball mini display port machines than Apple will change it up once again.
How many formats does that make in the last ten years or so?
Maybe they will keep mini-display. They had to be developing it at the same time as they were thinking of doing this.
If every computer had a "monitor hole" and a "everything else" hole, it would still be a much more compact situation than at present.
Of course the problem is naturally is power with Light Peak, most Apple cables provide both data and power.
So are we going to see some sort of hybrid?
+1.
I'm hoping it's actually 2 cables in one sheath. 1 optical + 1 power.
Jobs is picky about this kind of things. If this is true, Firewire is dead, period. No 3200 for you.
As for USB3, I'm not sure what this means. Apple can't ignore that the entire market will go to USB3 this winter, but at the same time adopting USB3 means that Light Peak adoption will lag.
From: http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-10360047-264.html
Bring it on!
Is there any company that Apple Fans don't hate. The shere stupidity with the posts in this forum and every other Apple Forum makes me think that I'm real glad that my iPhone will be the last Apple product I will buy.
Apple users spread Hate and mistrust to every company that even has the remotest advantage to them.
You are all a bunch of lunatic Nut Cases that need severe counseling.
Steve Jobs is not a leader, he is not a cult and neither is Apple for anything but a piece of tech that plays music and makes really bad phone calls, Apple Fans spread hate and mistrust to the point of it being really scary as an outside observer.
Apple Fanatics and the Tea Party Clan need to get together. You'd have a great time spreading hate and lies about everything when you don't know SHIT about anything but APPLE and that's pathetic.
I wouldn't be surprised if this article came out from Apple because of the fact that Intel was running Light Peak cabling on a hackintosh, in violation of EULA.
Would people stop saying this. Intel violated nothing since they are NOT an "End User".
EULA <- read it.
So Apple Fans have now added Google to the "HATE LIST"?
Is there any company that Apple Fans don't hate. The shere stupidity with the posts in this forum and every other Apple Forum makes me think that I'm real glad that my iPhone will be the last Apple product I will buy.
Apple users spread Hate and mistrust to every company that even has the remotest advantage to them.
You are all a bunch of lunatic Nut Cases that need severe counseling.
Steve Jobs is not a leader, he is not a cult and neither is Apple for anything but a piece of tech that plays music and makes really bad phone calls, Apple Fans spread hate and mistrust to the point of it being really scary as an outside observer.
Apple Fanatics and the Tea Party Clan need to get together. You'd have a great time spreading hate and lies about everything when you don't know SHIT about anything but APPLE and that's pathetic.
I wonder why the mods here haven't booted you for trolling yet.
This is really good news.
So Apple Fans have now added Google to the "HATE LIST"?
Is there any company that Apple Fans don't hate. The shere stupidity with the posts in this forum and every other Apple Forum makes me think that I'm real glad that my iPhone will be the last Apple product I will buy.
.....
Apple Fanatics and the Tea Party Clan need to get together. You'd have a great time spreading hate and lies about everything when you don't know SHIT about anything but APPLE and that's pathetic.
I wasn't aware that google was mentioned except in your tirade. Agreed, Non VendorFan is an troll and an angry one at that.
This is about about parts of a single device communicating with other parts of the same device-- for example, a foldable (clamshell) tablet device with 2 touch screens, These can act separately: virtual kb & screen; two screens... or when locked in an extended position, 1 large screen (and virtual kb).
Even better, with a suitable connector, multiples of these devices could be interconnected to create an interactive video wall, operating at the speed of light... plug your iPhone (or anything else you can think of) into that!
This changes everything!
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