From a technical POV, they did have a choice. But they chose not to use an additional semiconductor and rework the PCB's to fit them (additional costs).
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Any Guesses Why Apple Decided not to Include USB 3
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Probably the same way people keep coming up with 2012... guessing. But I think 2017's probably closer to the real date too.
Lightpeak is a great promising technology, but it's a long, long ways off from widespread industry adoption. It would require redesigns of nearly everything (monitors, hard disks, peripherals, etc). Look at how long it took USB to take over, it's going to be a pretty similar amount of time to transition to lightpeak.
Lightpeak is a great promising technology, but it's a long, long ways off from widespread industry adoption. It would require redesigns of nearly everything (monitors, hard disks, peripherals, etc). Look at how long it took USB to take over, it's going to be a pretty similar amount of time to transition to lightpeak.
Intel's claimed the parts are to ship towards the end of this year (avialable in distribution channels for manufacturers). Assuming they keep on track, products should be available in early 2011.
Adoption however, will depend on two primary factors as I see it.
1. That the peripheral chips will be available to manufacturers (i.e. SATA to LP, USB to LP, HDMI to LP, DVI to LP,... bridge chips = don't need a full re-design to get a product out). LP products from the original design will take time (if they happen at all, as not all devices would go this route). But to get started, bridge chips will suffice to get LP product to the market.
2. They have to be low cost.
If either fall short, LP will take a while to get going, and may end up a bust finanically speaking for Intel and other partners involved in it's development (USB 3.0 could end up gaining traction and displacing LP in enough areas that it won't be all that profitable if at all).
I'm sure Intel has learnt from USB... since well, they helped developed it in the first place. So they should know about getting people to adopt.
Intel to announce addition of USB 3.0 into new motherboard reference design, says paper
Looks like they are speeding up adoption by a cycle.
it wasnt from his brain by the sounds of it
Intel appears to be speeding it up thank god, i cannot wait
They aren't the only ones involved though, and if any one of the partners have a problem getting their end in line, the result could be a disaster.
I hope this isn't the case, but it's too early to tell.
Light Peak is protocol agnostic. As long as it can travel over a wire, Light Peak supports it.
Light Peak can run with any wired digital protocol such as USB, FireWire, DVI, PCI Express, optical audio, any future wired protocol, and yes, even Ethernet.
That's why Lightpeak has so much bandwidth. The idea is that you'll have all your devices running off one port.
Just a rumor though. Concorde Rules made it sound like it has been confirmed by Intel that X68 will support USB 3.0. I doubt Cougar Point will support USB 3.0 as it's due to be released in few months and all earlier reports have been saying that it won't so would be quite late call for Intel to add it now. Of course I'm hoping that it would, at least some of the chipsets.
Patsburg is a whole new story as it's not due before mid 2011. I guess we will know more after the IDF, hopefully something about LightPeak
I believe that Apple is going to introduce it into either the Mini or the Mac Pro first, with a completely redesigned case that will have just 2 LP ports (my betting is the Mac Pro). And perhaps a video port. And maybe one USB port for keyboard/mouse.
Along with the box you will get a LP to USB hub. Now all of your USB legacy devices will still work out of the box. Apple will/should also introduce a few LP products (or announce partnerships with manufacturers). There are two products that Apple could move immediately to LP though.... monitors (which is why I think it's Mini or MP first) and keyboards and mice. But I don't think the price of the LP chip will be cheap enough initially to be used in mice and keyboards (which is why I think they may leave one legacy USB port - though I suppose they could put it on the back of the monitor where it is out of sight.
Shortly after Apple introduces LP computers Intel and others will have LP to ??? hubs to handle Firewire, eSata, SCSI, Ethernet, etc etc.
The big advantage to a LP to ??? hub is that the hub can handle far more bandwidth, and can be far far further from the box (up to 30 metres).
The LP to ??? hub system allows computer makers to introduce LP capable systems while not breaking legacy support. Peripheral makers will then start putting LP connectors into their devices, bypassing the need for hubs.
The big driver for all this will be Apple. They will just roll out LP in their systems (consumer choice be d*mned).... however.... suddenly Macs will be different and cutting edge again. They will be exciting and sexy. Apple will get a huge amount of the tech press talking about Macs, which will filter into the mainstream press. (Tech heads on these boards will whinge, moan, complain how this will surely spell the death of Apple - and that they may as well just shutter their computer plants right now. Meanwhile, Apple will continue to sell record numbers of computers.)
Why does Apple like LP? Its simple. It's Beautiful. You can have a computer with 2 ports for everything. (How they will handle the mess of hubs is another question.... but the computer will look gorgeous.) One button for power. A port for power in, and two LP ports. Period. No more fuss over how many USB2 vs USB3 vs FW400 vs FW800 vs Ethernet vs Audio In vs Audio Out vs Mini DisplayPort vs DVI vs Display Port vs HDMI.
Next year, in time for the holidays....
Did anyone else notice that the new Mac Pros seem to merely placeholders this time round? Has anyone thought about the fact that a large R&D bundle got dropped into the Mini's new form factor - but that the entire back panel can be replaced without affecting the rest of the body? That the Mini seems to have ports for just about every protocol out there (very un-Apple like)? However, if the all of those ports were connected internally to a couple of LP ports, then the Mini could support all of those legacy devices through LP to ??? hubs without re-engineering the entire motherboard.
Just some speculation on a rainy morning, first day back to work this week.
I think likely that Apple will include a USB port or two for legacy. I can see them dropping Firewire and DVI (possibly MDP) in favor of light peak.
Possibly/Probably. And probably intended for the keyboard and mouse since the cost of adding a LP plug to them would increase the cost substantially (compared to the cost of adding it to higher priced items where the price difference could balanced by eliminating the other ports).
I think it depends on how hard Apple wants to push this thing.
+1 +1 +1 +1...
Its said that projects that get SJ's attention get fast-tracked - I can see him devoting half an hour to this
And you'll have to buy the fancy Apple monitor to get this unavailable-elsewhere functionality...
Yeah, I can't see Apple including a LP->USB hub in the box, very inelegant.
I could see them trimming the number of USB ports down to two or something in the mini and throwing on two LP ports.
Intel's latest motherboards don't support it. To support it would mean adding an additional PCI card, which costs money. Even though the mac pro is a $2000+ machine, Apple's still trying to squeeze you for every last cent.
Or maybe it's because they didn't want to use a PCIe lane, do more design work on top of the Intel chipset, or cludge together such an inelegant solution.
They've never, ever liked throwing parts together like that, and they never did it to satisfy customer demand. Why would they start now?
They've never, ever liked throwing parts together like that, and they never did it to satisfy customer demand. Why would they start now?
Not to say they couldnt add support for it... but Intel doesn't make any boards that i know of that use usb3.
Since usb3 is backwards compatible apple should have gotten usb3, maybe from another manufacturer like Gigabyte, asus, etc that have a nec host controller.
Right now there is pretty much no need for usb3.
If you want it, get a PCIe USB3 add-on card.
A nice scenario, but it's never going to happen. LP is going to appear first as an add-in PCIe card for PCs. It probably won't be popular or well known and when Apple does release a LP product most apple users will assume Apple was the first but they are going to be wrong.
Apple would not release a product with such a large kludge as a LP > ??? hub as a required element. If anything, they will start by replacing a couple of USB ports with LP, maybe release a Mac Pro with a LP enabled video card, eventually phasing in more and more LP until it's your perfect box with a power cord, on button, and X number of LP ports. It will take a long time.
But it also won't happen because Apple is simply not a big enough player in the market to drive it. sure they are popular, but their marketshare is too small to drive the adoption of a new technology. If apple is only 10% of the market, what peripheral manufacturer is going to start hardcore development of LP devices to satisfy that 10%?
Ruahrc
I agree with the bit about Apple users believing Apple invented many things that Apple merely popularized. In this case I wonder if it's different though. One story is that Apple brought the idea/specs to Intel to develop... Certainly Apple and Intel are working on this together because the prototype was debuted on a Mac Pro. One of the advantages Apple has, in Intel's eyes, is that if Apple buys into a technology they just implement it. Period. They won't offer their customers the option. And it's a small market share, but Apple it is seen as a leader.
I agree about the inelegance of the hub. But I don't see them adding LP over too long a time either. They will at a minimum replace an existing port, certainly not add yet another hole in the back. The problem with a slow transition is that you don't get people to buy into it.
If Apple made high bandwidth peripherals like external disks and whatnot, it would be easy. They would just roll out the computer and the peripherals with LP. Choices be d*mned. So, I don't know how Apple will handle this bit. But just moving a video port to LP doesn't do anything for them, or LP.
They may be a small market share, but it's an influential one. And it's homogenous. If adopts this fully, then every new Mac will LP with no (or few) alternatives. Apple will also need a compelling reason why people will "need" LP - at least from a marketing perspective. My money (but its a bit of long shot admittedly!) is that Apple has that compelling need figured out and that we will see LP in time for next years holiday shopping crush.
Hi
I have a vision of Steve and Jony standing up and saying "trucks are out, Apple is green" and showing a 16-core low TDP unibody monoblock device more like a bigger Mac Mini, connected by the thinnest of threads to other similar monoblocks that house the graphics engine(s), solid state storage engine(s), HD video/audio I/O etc etc. Built up like lego - $10,000+ for the full works...
Someone tell me that won't happen. Seems very Steve to me...
I have a vision of Steve and Jony standing up and saying "trucks are out, Apple is green" and showing a 16-core low TDP unibody monoblock device more like a bigger Mac Mini, connected by the thinnest of threads to other similar monoblocks that house the graphics engine(s), solid state storage engine(s), HD video/audio I/O etc etc. Built up like lego - $10,000+ for the full works...
Someone tell me that won't happen. Seems very Steve to me...
Bingo! Plus, LightPeak is 3 times faster than esata. I would look for LightPeak macs after the first of the year. I am holding off on a new Mac simply for the reason of having LightPeak.
Not going to happen, Intel has already stated it won’t happen until 2012. Apple WILL move to USB 3.0 soon.