Apple Announces New Mac Pros With Up to 12 Cores, SSD Options

[polaris20]

Let me get this right..... You admire Amiga because " .... they are never deserted their high end flagship base ... " and you worry that Apple will go bankrupt in the blink of an eye.

And Amiga is - where exactly?? And Apple sold more computers (not iStuff) last quarter every before, weathered the recession better than just about any other company, and has - what? - $40 billion in the bank? I'm not sure where your logic is leading..... maybe I'm a dolt. Can you help me out here?

Well he's a rich person with five figures into Apple so clearly he knows what's up in the world. If you'd like to count the Mac hardware I am directly responsible for, I'm in the 6 figures. I'm not exactly sweating at this point. I rely upon VMWare too; what if they go out of business? What if MS goes out of business? People can speculate and sweat it out all they want, but at some point you have to make a choice and move on.

I understand & agree with what you're saying, but my point is that Ethernet already gives us long run lengths, and it already gives us Video, and it already gives us USB, and also Power...and so on.

As such, my Devil's Advocate hat asks me why do I need LP when I can "Do It Today" by standardizing on a current (& relatively cheap) Ethernet snap?

Yes, the short/simple answer is that on the desktop, Ethernet is currently limited to Gigabit bandwidth, so its bandwidth is not necessarily capable of handlng literally everything. Golly, might have to have a couple of Ethernet cards.

Similarly, while this sort of stuff can technically be done today, it requires each non-Ethernet device to get an adaptor box ($$). But the counter-argument is that there's a lot more stuff today being produced that has Ethernet built right in...and its not expensive.

However, I do recall reading recently that current Ethernet unique 48bit MAC addresses are going to run out within a year or two, so "something" needs to come along soon that has a bigger address space...as such, I suspect that it is entirely plausible that Apple/Intel's plans with LP are a 'kill two birds with one stone' strategy.

Agreed, and all I'm saying is that it include the computer's Ethernet connection in this consolidation too, since most of what they're suggesting for LightPeak suspiciously sounds like what's already been demonstrated (although not necessarily been successful in the marketplace) with Ethernet.




Speaking of being annoyed, I have another example, from which I've pulled one of your earlier paragraphs down to here:



On the video connector front, dual monitor setups have become pretty popular over the past ~3 years in particular, and the Mac Pro has had dual display support for quite awhile.

However....as the buyer of a 2009 Mac Pro last year (for the office, not home), imagine my surprise when I went to hook it up to the pair (yes, two) of Apple 24" LCD Displays that we also bought for it.

Hmmm...the Mac Pro didn't come with dual mindisplayport plugs, and the 24" displays only have minidisplayport inputs.

Thus, Apple's demonstration of their ability to Plan Ahead was pretty damn lousy on the Mac Pro, because I have that second Apple 24" display still sitting unproductively in its box. Based on the limited research I've been able to do, it looks like I have to spring for a second video card, which I'll have a hassle justifying. If it was only a $25 adaptor plug, I'd simply buy it out-of-pocket.




Unfortunately, it only takes three systems (w/software) to break into five figures. If this represents a ten year slice of one's lifecycle investments, its only a four figure annual contribution to Apple's gross revenues...and roughly only a three figure addition to their annual bottom line. Thus, there needs to be far more than thousands or even tens of thousands of such customers in order for it to scale to become a noteworthingly relevant portion of their business portfolio anymore.


-hh

copper-based Ethernet is never going to scale to the speeds and length of LP, which is why I'm not exactly in favor of using it for these functions. Yes, LP requires another connector. But I would like to see it replace everything: USB, FW, HDMI, MDP, DVI, and Ethernet. One laptop, 5-6 identical connectors that can be used for anything. If you're on wireless, you've got one more connector for something else. Using a BT keyboard/mouse? two more connectors, potentially. Not using an external monitor? One more spare connector.

Right now at home I've got a MBP that's nearly never plugged into the network; it's always wireless N. Therefore I've got a plug never being used, with a wasted space on the motherboard. That could be used for something else, without the need for hubs or daisy-chaining.

I just think that while the use of Ethernet for multiple functions is neat, LP has a longer run in terms of viability since it scales to 100Gb/sec.

 

[snberk103]

@-hh

You make some good points about ethernet. And of course all this talk about Light Peak is merely speculation fed by a good dose of "wouldn't it be cool if".

So, keeping that in mind.... and trying to reverse engineer how the tech people managed to sell the idea to the suits who fund the projects. One of the aspects that has been mentioned more than once about LP is that any protocol can use it - so protocol neutral - or a 'swiss army knife' of connections.

Buildings are already wired for ethernet.... and no technology is going to be so "freaking great" that anyone is going to rip those wires out. But, your LP hub can have an ethernet plug. Then you just plug the LP hub into the existing ethernet set up. Wonder how it would handle multiple ethernet devices?

So, backwards compatibility. Customers don't have to re-do existing networks.

Hook your ethernet into the LP Hub, plus put a monitor and an external HD or four of whatever connections you have (USB, FW, eSATA, SCSI) and - in theory - even with the the ethernet going full-tilt there is enough bandwidth in the LP cable to handle these other peripherals.

So, computers can become much simpler to manufacture. You just need one or two (relatively expensive) LP ports to replace every other i/o port on a computer. Plus convertor hubs. Hmmm.... that's where the money is going to be.... convertor hubs. I'll bet that Intel makes the standard open, so that they can get the entire industry on board, and then make a killing on providing the chips and circuits for the convertor hubs.

And that, I've just convinced myself, is why LP is going to get pushed out big time. Consumer level computers are approaching the point where they don't need to get any faster or smaller. Portable systems need to be big enough for a keyboard and screen. Consumers are starting to clue in that they don't really need a faster system..... techies, nerds, and geeks won't agree, but they don't buy the millions and millions of systems needed to sustain the industry. So, if the basic system is approaching maturity, then Intel's lead in R&D regarding speed and size starts to mean less (for consumer level machines - which help to subsidize the speciality systems). Why invest that money in something that is getting harder to sell. So, you start a whole new market category - and simplify your customer's lives - by inventing the "one-size-fits-all" cable. [As a side note, have you noticed that Apple's biggest improvements to their portables are not cpu speed lately, but batteries. Look at the specs over the past few years to see what I mean. I think they have decided that the basic notebook is doing everything any computer should do, that making it faster doesn't make the user's experience any better. But .... making it go longer and longer between charges will make the user's life better.]

So, Intel's LP starts out at 10 Gb/sec - sell a bunch of cards/motherboards with v1 - and then ramp the bandwidth up every year by a bit so you can sell something new. Keeps the bottom line healthy. There are a fair number of steps up from 10 Gb/s to the promised potential of 100 Gb/s. Intel can milk that for years.

So, do I think this is all actually going to happen. Not really. Could it happen.... I think it could. Should it happen? Absolutely!!! Once upon a time in a past life I did tech support and installation training for a hotel software company. I didn't program, I did the hardware connections, and trained the hotel staff. The OS was something called Super DOS. I could talk someone into re-inputting their Autoexec.bat over the phone at 3am (that last ctrl-z was a real pain to convey to someone over a phone) and could crimp up several different kinds of serial cable ends. My point though is this .... there has been one imperative in the computer industry over all this time. Make things simpler for the basic consumer. Let them do more, while knowing less about how the thing actually works. Some people want to know.... most people don't care. USB was a big step in the right direction, and if LP gains traction, it will be a big improvement. One connector to find them, to connector to unite them, one connector to rule them all.

If I was a conspiracy theorist I would speculate that Apple deliberately kept changing up their video connectors in the last few years to make it a challenge to match displays to systems - so that when LP was introduced, and Apple declares that this was finally the display connector they were going to standardize on for all eternity, people would have one more reason to trade in their perfectly functioning (but hard to match a display to) systems for the new LP enabled Mac. But Apple would never think that way...... I'm pretty sure.

As I said.... all pure speculation. I follow Mac Pro news only for interest. I have a 2008 octocore that will suit me fine for few more years. I'm still waiting for the promised SW changes that will allow me to use more than 2 or 3 cores at a time.

p.s. the missing attribution would have been me, and I didn't even notice until you pointed it out....no worries.

 

[polaris20]

@-hh

You make some good points about ethernet. And of course all this talk about Light Peak is merely speculation fed by a good dose of "wouldn't it be cool if".

So, keeping that in mind.... and trying to reverse engineer how the tech people managed to sell the idea to the suits who fund the projects. One of the aspects that has been mentioned more than once about LP is that any protocol can use it - so protocol neutral - or a 'swiss army knife' of connections.

Buildings are already wired for ethernet.... and no technology is going to be so "freaking great" that anyone is going to rip those wires out. But, your LP hub can have an ethernet plug. Then you just plug the LP hub into the existing ethernet set up. Wonder how it would handle multiple ethernet devices?

So, backwards compatibility. Customers don't have to re-do existing networks.

Hook your ethernet into the LP Hub, plus put a monitor and an external HD or four of whatever connections you have (USB, FW, eSATA, SCSI) and - in theory - even with the the ethernet going full-tilt there is enough bandwidth in the LP cable to handle these other peripherals.

So, computers can become much simpler to manufacture. You just need one or two (relatively expensive) LP ports to replace every other i/o port on a computer. Plus convertor hubs. Hmmm.... that's where the money is going to be.... convertor hubs. I'll bet that Intel makes the standard open, so that they can get the entire industry on board, and then make a killing on providing the chips and circuits for the convertor hubs.

And that, I've just convinced myself, is why LP is going to get pushed out big time. Consumer level computers are approaching the point where they don't need to get any faster or smaller. Portable systems need to be big enough for a keyboard and screen. Consumers are starting to clue in that they don't really need a faster system..... techies, nerds, and geeks won't agree, but they don't buy the millions and millions of systems needed to sustain the industry. So, if the basic system is approaching maturity, then Intel's lead in R&D regarding speed and size starts to mean less (for consumer level machines - which help to subsidize the speciality systems). Why invest that money in something that is getting harder to sell. So, you start a whole new market category - and simplify your customer's lives - by inventing the "one-size-fits-all" cable. [As a side note, have you noticed that Apple's biggest improvements to their portables are not cpu speed lately, but batteries. Look at the specs over the past few years to see what I mean. I think they have decided that the basic notebook is doing everything any computer should do, that making it faster doesn't make the user's experience any better. But .... making it go longer and longer between charges will make the user's life better.]

So, Intel's LP starts out at 10 Gb/sec - sell a bunch of cards/motherboards with v1 - and then ramp the bandwidth up every year by a bit so you can sell something new. Keeps the bottom line healthy. There are a fair number of steps up from 10 Gb/s to the promised potential of 100 Gb/s. Intel can milk that for years.

So, do I think this is all actually going to happen. Not really. Could it happen.... I think it could. Should it happen? Absolutely!!! Once upon a time in a past life I did tech support and installation training for a hotel software company. I didn't program, I did the hardware connections, and trained the hotel staff. The OS was something called Super DOS. I could talk someone into re-inputting their Autoexec.bat over the phone at 3am (that last ctrl-z was a real pain to convey to someone over a phone) and could crimp up several different kinds of serial cable ends. My point though is this .... there has been one imperative in the computer industry over all this time. Make things simpler for the basic consumer. Let them do more, while knowing less about how the thing actually works. Some people want to know.... most people don't care. USB was a big step in the right direction, and if LP gains traction, it will be a big improvement. One connector to find them, to connector to unite them, one connector to rule them all.

If I was a conspiracy theorist I would speculate that Apple deliberately kept changing up their video connectors in the last few years to make it a challenge to match displays to systems - so that when LP was introduced, and Apple declares that this was finally the display connector they were going to standardize on for all eternity, people would have one more reason to trade in their perfectly functioning (but hard to match a display to) systems for the new LP enabled Mac. But Apple would never think that way...... I'm pretty sure.

As I said.... all pure speculation. I follow Mac Pro news only for interest. I have a 2008 octocore that will suit me fine for few more years. I'm still waiting for the promised SW changes that will allow me to use more than 2 or 3 cores at a time.

p.s. the missing attribution would have been me, and I didn't even notice until you pointed it out....no worries.

I think the concept of LP + a small hub that has multiple connectors could be a good bridge for the transition to the technology.

 

[AidenShaw]

I think the concept of LP + a small hub that has multiple connectors could be a good bridge for the transition to the technology.

Yeah! More $99 dongles.

 

[polaris20]

Yeah! More $99 dongles.

You'd rather stick with 4 or 5 different connectors forever, in light of something that can do everything, and do it better than the current technology?

By all means, be my guest.

 

[AidenShaw]

You'd rather stick with 4 or 5 different connectors forever, in light of something that can do everything, and do it better than the current technology?

By all means, be my guest.

No, I'd rather that during the transition period devices have both old and new ports - like my ThinkPad from a couple of years ago has both ExpressCard and PCcard slots.

Take away the USB and RJ45 ports only after LightPeak mouses, external drives, network connections, 4G modems and the like are commonplace and reasonably priced.

 

[MorphingDragon]

Take away the USB and RJ45 ports only after LightPeak mouses, external drives, network connections, 4G modems and the like are commonplace and reasonably priced.

But that doesn't happen until companies start forcing the new connections onto consumers.

 

[DMann]

But that doesn't happen until companies start forcing the new connections onto consumers.

Yep, funny how things work that way.

 

[-hh]

copper-based Ethernet is never going to scale to the speeds and length of LP, which is why I'm not exactly in favor of using it for these functions.

Understood. My point isn't necessarily the copper ... its the Ethernet as a protocol. I'm quite aware that at increasingly higher frequencies, electrical inductance properties make even good conductors eventually become non-conductive. If I recall correctly, there's already an Ethernet-on-Fiber implementation out there...in general, its barrier to mainstream adoption has been cost.

Yes, LP requires another connector. But I would like to see it replace everything: USB, FW, HDMI, MDP, DVI, and Ethernet. One laptop, 5-6 identical connectors that can be used for anything...

Agreed, although a better idea would be a single port and a protocol that mandates daisy-chaining. This allows already small laptops to become even smaller, thereby conforming to Apple 'thinner' philosophies.

I just think that while the use of Ethernet for multiple functions is neat, LP has a longer run in terms of viability since it scales to 100Gb/sec.

It will invariably have to be compared to 40Gb Ethernet and 100Gb Ethernet which were just ratified by IEEE this past June (as per Wiki).

FWIW, I'm not trying to promote or champion Ethernet. Its a "...um, why reinvent the wheel?" type of a question with the observation that Ethernet has the bandwidth...the inevitable 'big question' is going to be implementation costs. For example, Apple's 4Gb Fibre Channel cards and conventional 10Gb Ethernet cards both currently run over $400/unit.

The key to LP is going to come down to its price, and how that compares to competing technologies. Afterall, in the general PC market, if it costs them only $2 on a motherboard to include 5 USB2 ports, that's what they're going to do, because it will sell with their customer base.


-hh

 

[AidenShaw]

But that doesn't happen until companies start forcing the new connections onto consumers.

The logic behind that statement is just too twisted for me. If a new connection has value for customers, the customers will demand it. There's little value to customers in "forcing" them prematurely to move, and orphaning the peripherals that customers currently have.

For quite a while most systems supported both PS2 and USB keyboards and mouses. Customers liked that. Now, years later, it's rare to find a PS2 port on a system. It's good to have a gradual transition rather than a forced migration.

Is the need to "force" why Apple is forcing eSATA on customers? Why Apple is putting BD drives in everything? Forcing customers to catch up with the times?

 

[polaris20]

The logic behind that statement is just too twisted for me. If a new connection has value for customers, the customers will demand it. There's little value to customers in "forcing" them prematurely to move, and orphaning the peripherals that customers currently have.

For quite a while most systems supported both PS2 and USB keyboards and mouses. Customers liked that. Now, years later, it's rare to find a PS2 port on a system. It's good to have a gradual transition rather than a forced migration.

Is the need to "force" why Apple is forcing eSATA on customers? Why Apple is putting BD drives in everything? Forcing customers to catch up with the times?

while the lack of eSATA ports is indeed puzzling to me, it's quite obvious why there are no Blu Ray players on Macs. For better or worse, Jobs wants people to buy iTMS downloads.

The only other use for Blu Ray on a Mac already works fine; data storage.OWC recently started offering affordable mods to the new 27" iMac for eSATA. Pretty cool to do that, since Apple refuses to put them on there.

 

[MorphingDragon]

The logic behind that statement is just too twisted for me.

Its only made by observations. Bar a few exceptions, most consumer standards became consumer standards because of umm, powerful corporate backing.

If a new connection has value for customers, the customers will demand it. There's little value to customers in "forcing" them prematurely to move, and orphaning the peripherals that customers currently have.

Alternatively if a mass of companies want to force a product onto consumers all they would have to do it force it. Apple and Intel together account for over 50% of most personal computer hardware. Light peak would be a walk in the park.

For quite a while most systems supported both PS2 and USB keyboards and mouses. Customers liked that. Now, years later, it's rare to find a PS2 port on a system. It's good to have a gradual transition rather than a forced migration.

It is, but that rarely happens.

Is the need to "force" why Apple is forcing eSATA on customers? Why Apple is putting BD drives in everything? Forcing customers to catch up with the times?

Is the need to force why Microsoft is forcing HTML5 on customers? Why is Microsoft using better security by design? Forcing customers to catch up with the times?

Come on Aiden, you know I'm more than experienced at being a ponce, try harder.

 

[iRobertM]

I just spent a good few hours going though this thread hoping for good information on the new Mac Pros, but found nothing but whinny belligerent posts. I swear the maturity of MR has gone down hill.

"I can build a Windows PC with the same power for less!" - Good, go do that and find a windows forum.

"I am SO glad I bought last years <Inset purchase here>" - I am happy for you, congratulations, but do we really need to read about it over and over? To me these posts are a sign of buyers remorse.

"No Blue Ray, USB 3, Firewire 1600 no sale!" - Ok, thanks. I was on edge waiting to hear what your buying decision was going to be, can now relax.

"hackintosh!" - If I wanted something unreliable Fry's has hundreds of cheap PC's I can buy.

Apple hardware carries a premium for a reason, if you don't understand why please do us all a favor and get a PC and head over to a Windows site.

 

[glassbathroom]

Brilliant. Well said!

 

[DMann]

The logic behind that statement is just too twisted for me. If a new connection has value for customers, the customers will demand it. There's little value to customers in "forcing" them prematurely to move, and orphaning the peripherals that customers currently have.

Customers would still be demanding floppy disks if this BTO option were available today.

Prompting a move forward actually requires 'moving on,' since the innate inertia of the human tendency to 'hold on' to the past, all but delays this process.

For those relatively few, whom 'legacy' peripherals and connection are important, USB options and mods are available.

It's good to have a gradual transition rather than a forced migration.

Not if you're a single company with finite resources, one which wishes to initiate trends, as well as migration, maintain a streamlined core of products and designs, and thereby eliminate the additional costs of mass producing, designing, and carrying models X, X1, Y, Y1, Y2, Z, Z1, Z2, Z3...

Is the need to "force" why Apple is forcing eSATA on customers? Why Apple is putting BD drives in everything? Forcing customers to catch up with the times?

I wish Apple would 'force' eSATA, as well as BD, even though BD currently conflicts with iTunes offerings.

However, for those who currently want them, there are several solutions available for BD authoring and playback on a Mac, as well as solutions for eSATA via ExpressCards, cables, upgrades, and mods.

Being that Apple is but a single company, amongst dozens, it makes sense, from a business POV, to encourage customers to 'catch up with the times' when 'upgrading' to new systems, as mass production, for the comparably minuscule elite, has, in the past, proven to be costly. (1989-97)

I just spent a good few hours going though this thread hoping for good information on the new Mac Pros, but found nothing but whinny belligerent posts. I swear the maturity of MR has gone down hill.

"I can build a Windows PC with the same power for less!" - Good, go do that and find a windows forum.

"I am SO glad I bought last years <Inset purchase here>" - I am happy for you, congratulations, but do we really need to read about it over and over? To me these posts are a sign of buyers remorse.

"No Blue Ray, USB 3, Firewire 1600 no sale!" - Ok, thanks. I was on edge waiting to hear what your buying decision was going to be, can now relax.

"hackintosh!" - If I wanted something unreliable Fry's has hundreds of cheap PC's I can buy.

Apple hardware carries a premium for a reason, if you don't understand why please do us all a favor and get a PC and head over to a Windows site.

Thank you - very pertinent, and well stated.

 

[rajbonham]

Brilliant. Well said!

What he said.

 

[AidenShaw]

Is the need to force why Microsoft is forcing HTML5 on customers? Why is Microsoft using better security by design? Forcing customers to catch up with the times?

HTML5 allows for transparent fallback in the case of older browsers - but a LightPeak socket won't accept a USB plug or an eSATA plug. That's a big difference. Also, since Microsoft is supporting IE6 until April 2014, I find it hard to use the word "force" in this context.

For the most part, better security also is transparent to the user. Where it's not transparent, Microsoft has allowed individual applications to be exempted from the new security policy - or even allowed the system-wide security policy to be relaxed. In other words, even the security policy changes have a multi-year transition built into the change.

The point is for a transition period between standards. The PC world allows for multi-year transitions, especially for hardware port issues. Apple decides to suddenly switch to a completely incompatible design. (Did you depend on PCI audio/video cards when one day the Mac Pro only had PCI-X slots, and the next day only had PCIexpress slots?)

Change happens everywhere, but Apple seems to be about the only company with a "throw the baby out with the bathwater" approach to transitions.

 

[snberk103]

The logic behind that statement is just too twisted for me. If a new connection has value for customers, the customers will demand it. There's little value to customers in "forcing" them prematurely to move, and orphaning the peripherals that customers currently have.

....

Wasn't it Ford who said something along the lines that if he built what his customers said they wanted he would still be making horse drawn buggies? Also, that you could have a car built in any colour you wanted - as long as it was black?

....
The point is for a transition period between standards. The PC world allows for multi-year transitions, especially for hardware port issues. Apple decides to suddenly switch to a completely incompatible design. (Did you depend on PCI audio/video cards when one day the Mac Pro only had PCI-X slots, and the next day only had PCIexpress slots?)

Change happens everywhere, but Apple seems to be about the only company with a "throw the baby out with the bathwater" approach to transitions.

I don't disagree with you.... but I know why Apple likes to dump an old standard entirely instead of maintaining it during a transition. It makes for a more complex system to have both standards, and a complex system can have more things go wrong. Apple simplicity (not just for the money saving aspect, but also for their customers) and Apple wants as few things as possible to go wrong. They are trying the sell the "Just Works" as an experience worth paying for. Complex systems are prone to Not Working more often.

I think that is where Microsoft got into trouble. They were so busy making sure that Windows worked with everything, and with legacy things, that the system got so complex it became significantly easier to introduce instabilities. I don't believe that the majority of Windows installations are unstable.... but people believe Windows is unstable because enough installations are.

Here is an irony. This is just a pet theory. I believe that a large number of Windows switchers to OS X are doing so because their Windows setup keeps crashing. I think that the reason their Windows setup crashes is because they like adding "add-on" and "optimizers", and basically mucking about under the hood. When you start mucking up an OS, any OS, you can make unstable. Now they are migrating to OS X because of it's reputed stability. What's the first thing they start doing? Adding extensions, and optimizers, and file/cache cleaning apps, and basically mucking about under the hood. I would lay odds that if we could look at every poster who posts here about their crashing Mac we would find a large majority had added bunch of things that mess around with the OS. The question is, what is Apple going to do about it? They like the image of a stable OS - so how do they maintain that reputation if people keeping crashing the kernel?

 

[AidenShaw]

I don't disagree with you.... but I know why Apple likes to dump an old standard entirely instead of maintaining it during a transition. It makes for a more complex system to have both standards, and a complex system can have more things go wrong.

On the other hand, that needs to be balanced against the real value to customers of not obseleting (or having to buy expensive adaptors for) their existing peripherals.

In some cases the complexity is quite minor (for example, PCIe was software compatible with PCI - the same driver could be used with both the PCI version of a card and the PCIe version).

I'm not saying to carry legacy ports forever, of course. Once a model cycle or two passes, then drop the old.

What will people say if Apple introduces a new MBA this month that has WiFi and one LightPeak port as its only interconnects?

It won't be "thank you, turtle-necked one, for giving us this superior new connector"!

 

[snberk103]

On the other hand, that needs to be balanced against the real value to customers of not obseleting (or having to buy expensive adaptors for) their existing peripherals.

I think, from a company's point of view, a lot depends on whether you are selling 'em as fast as you can make them, or having to find ways to push customer into buying your product. At the moment Apple can't make computers as fast as they can sell them ... gives them lots of room to work with. They can actually afford roll out a whole new technology and alienate a fair number of existing customers if in exchange the new technology bring in more new customers - in time. Not good for those of us with old tech, admittedly. But Apple (any big company) makes their decisions based on what is good for them. The risk of course is that the new technology doesn't bring in the new customers, and all they have done is alienate the existing customers. But that is where Apple has the wiggle room - they could scrap the whole new line, and start again and still be a big healthy company.

Going back to an example earlier in the thread - perhaps your example - about USB and PS keyboard plugs coexisting. In the PC sphere, there is so much competition, companies can't afford to alienate customers. It's why Dell puts so many connectors on their displays, probably. As well - back in the days of PS keyboards people were still adopting the idea of having a computer. Most people were trying it out.... seeing if it was too difficult to use. If the PC wouldn't fit the keyboard your brother-in-law gave you, well - maybe you wouldn't buy a computer this month. Now a days most people (in the developed world) feel they "need" a computer - and if they have to buy a new keyboard because all of sudden the plug changed - they will (and complain!) but they will buy it because they feel they need it.

....
What will people say if Apple introduces a new MBA this month that has WiFi and one LightPeak port as its only interconnects?

It won't be "thank you, turtle-necked one, for giving us this superior new connector"!

Oh Heavens - they are going to complain no matter what the TNO gives them. That I can guarantee..... The MBA might be good place to introduce Lightpeak. It is a relatively low volume seller, imo. Gives Apple bragging rights to being the first without having to mess around with their mainstream consumers. The other logical platform is the Mac Pro... we'll see about that in a few days, I guess - eh?

Cheers

 

[MorphingDragon]

HTML5 allows for transparent fallback in the case of older browsers - but a LightPeak socket won't accept a USB plug or an eSATA plug. That's a big difference. Also, since Microsoft is supporting IE6 until April 2014, I find it hard to use the word "force" in this context.

That fallback is only comes of the effort from web designers to do the CSS/DOM hacks. Often, you're left with a unusable webpage.

For the most part, better security also is transparent to the user.

No no, I think being able to buy a computer with *NIX and not have to buy security software isn't transparent to the user.

 

[AidenShaw]

The MBA might be good place to introduce Lightpeak. It is a relatively low volume seller, imo. Gives Apple bragging rights to being the first without having to mess around with their mainstream consumers. The other logical platform is the Mac Pro... we'll see about that in a few days, I guess - eh?

Cheers

Are you suggesting that the already meager number of PCIe slots in the Mac Pro will be replaced by one LightPeak port?

Just kidding of course.

However, imagine if Apple *adds* a LightPeak port to the MBA. And then has an option for a LightPeak docking station with eSATA, DisplayPort, DVI, USB, 1394, LightPeak,... ports.

Make the LightPeak plug or cable carry the charging power as well. (Do this with either a double-ended cable, or a combo plug that has a *standard* LightPeak connector and a separate power connector coming out of a single plug body.)

That would be interesting, because it would make LightPeak useful out of the box - the only LightPeak device you need right away is the docking station.

 

[AidenShaw]

That fallback is only comes of the effort from web designers to do the CSS/DOM hacks. Often, you're left with a unusable webpage.

If the web designer doesn't write the fallback code in his HTML5 page, the page will be unusable to the vast majority of the web.

Web designer fail.

No no, I think being able to buy a computer with *NIX and not have to buy security software isn't transparent to the user.

Like a certain shiny *NIX-based phone that you can take over as root just by sending a PDF file to?

 

[MorphingDragon]

If the web designer doesn't write the fallback code in his HTML5 page, the page will be unusable to the vast majority of the web.

Web designer fail.

The designers shouldn't have to do the hacks, its a major time waster. And they only have to do the hacks for a certain Microsoft Browser series.

Like a certain shiny *NIX-based phone that you can take over as root just by sending a PDF file to?

http://www.computerworld.com/s/arti...DF_file_doesn_t_need_a_software_vulnerability

Can we stop this? The only thing thats going to happen is we get banned.

 

[snberk103]

Are you suggesting that the already meager number of PCIe slots in the Mac Pro will be replaced by one LightPeak port?

No, of course not. I'm suggesting that every single port (all FW, all USB, all audio and video, the display connection, the ethernet ports, heck - even the locking ring) on the Mac Pro is replaced by just two Lightpeak ports!




Just kidding of course. But I wish I could see your face....

However, imagine if Apple *adds* a LightPeak port to the MBA. And then has an option for a LightPeak docking station with eSATA, DisplayPort, DVI, USB, 1394, LightPeak,... ports.

If they do that, I bet they add a USB/LP dongle - either in the box, but perhaps a $59 option. And then they give people the option for a "docking station". What would Apple include with that..... ? USB, ethernet, mini-display-port.... that would likely be about it, unfortunately. They'll let the 3rd party makers fight over the rest of the ports. But they won't pre-release the info to them until the day LP is shipping on the Macs so all the useful docking stations won't ship for month after the first LP enabled Macs.

They won't do the charging thing on the cable. They like the idea of the mag-safe. And you don't really want your data being corrupted because a magnetic LP plug popped out.

...
That would be interesting, because it would make LightPeak useful out of the box - the only LightPeak device you need right away is the docking station.

Lets hope. See, now we've gotten you excited about the potential, eh?