Apple Still Considering USB 3.0 in Addition to Thunderbolt?

[shawnce]

I dont think anyone is saying its the greater interconnect in that regard to connecting multiple devices and daisy chaining.

/me points at "Can you connect 8 devices to a TBolt port? Advantage -> USB 3.0" ...the answer is OF COURSE YOU F'N can and a lot more with TB.

TB will become the primary fanout port and display connection in the Mac ecosystem and it will likely make headway in other ecosystems as Intel incorporates it into standard chipsets.

It isn't an either or situation with USB. You will see USB used as much it is currently used today with more high-end devices using TB directly.

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Now, Apple could implement USB 3.0 support through the Thunderbolt port, but I'd like to know what adapter you need to plug in to get that type of support.

How about a cable with TB on one end and USB 3.0 on the other with a little bulge at one end for the TB-PCIe-USB chip or maybe better yet a cable with TB at both ends (female one end, male other end) and next to that female TB port a row of USB ports. ...or a HD case using SATA internally (natively) with TB in and out with a row of USB, a FW port or two, etc. on the back for the fun of it.

Vendors will have a lot of options and things to play with when it comes to TB... it wont be cheap at first of course.

 

[chameleon81]

I am going to say this again and hopefully for the last time. Clearly most of you are too young to remember how long it took for USB 1 products to come out so hold your horses before proclaiming something a disaster as though it is fact.

I said "currently" plus we are talking about very different eras and I hope thunderbolt becomes successful since it offers great functionality

 

[roadbloc]

USB 3 needs to be done. Thunderbolt is DOA, just like FireWire.

 

[ikir]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A5313e Safari/7534.48.3)

That would be nice. I've been using USB 3.0 for a while now on my PC and it's really quite impressive.

Impressive? Thunderbolt or FireWire are impressive. For a normal HD FW800 is enough and you don't have advantages in speed with USB3 if you don't use a raid disk. FireWire and Thunderbolt can plug devices in chains, USB looks fast but it isn't. USB 3 is lame as it is just faster.

If FW800 will be remain on most Macs, no need for USB3 in term of speed of a normal 7200rpm HD. If I plug a SSD or a raid I want to use Thunderbolt not USB3

 

[TMay]

It'll get there. Its too good not to.

Thunderbolt brings so much expandability to a laptop its not even funny. Before too long you will be able to run a 600MB/sec+ RAID, and external full size GPU, an ExpressCard 34 slot and more off a laptop at the same time.
You'll be able to add multiple gigabit ethernet or fibre channel to a MacBook Air or Mac Mini for example.

As for USB 3, I can think of one massive reason why Apple would consider it alongside Thunderbolt: iOS devices. It might be that its cheaper/easier/lower power to add these controllers to iOS devices, particularly with PCs in mind. I think given that most Macs won't get updates until Ivy Bridge which will have USB 3 anyway, iOS is the more likely recipient of a USB 3 controller. iPad 3 with its rumoured retina display will benefit from a quicker way to get HD content onto the device. Thunderbolt would be better but useless on Windows for now. They'll catch on eventually though. Thunderbolt will extend the useful life of many peoples computers by years.

If an iOS device were to have Thunderbolt, it could be plugged into a Thunderbolt display, albeit with a special 30 pin to TB cable. I would like that.

Low latency? Forget USB 3.0.
Faster and better graphics for MBP's? Sure, it's in development.
Road map to 100 Gb/s? That would be TB not USB.

All of the sudden, the Mac Mini looks like the poor man's Mac Pro. Then imagine what a Mac Pro could do with multiple dual displayport graphics cards freeing up the dual TB port bandwidth for everything else.

The fact is, Apple gets to leverage its hardware, software and developer ecosystem with TB far beyond what USB 3.0 allows and gives them an advantage in the marketplace.

From day one, it was obvious that TB went beyond USB 3.0 in both performance and capability and again obvious that USB 3.0 would end up on Apple devices at least by the time of Ivy Bridge.

USB 3.0 is about faster and compatible. That's a good thing.

TB is all about imagining a future of interconnected and modular computing. That's a better thing.

 

[gnasher729]

Now, Apple could implement USB 3.0 support through the Thunderbolt port, but I'd like to know what adapter you need to plug in to get that type of support.

That's because you don't understand what Thunderbolt is. Thunderbolt is PCI-Express on a cable. Open a Mac Pro and you find several PCI-Express slots where people can buy cards and plug them into their computer. Thunderbolt is exactly the same, except that all the connections are not in that PCI-Express slot but in the Thunderbolt cable. So to build a USB 3.0 connector, you design a USB 3.0 card that would work inside a Mac Pro, then change the physical connection to attach to the Thunderbolt cable, put it into a nice case, and you're done.

 

[Sol]

Now, Apple could implement USB 3.0 support through the Thunderbolt port, but I'd like to know what adapter you need to plug in to get that type of support.

You could combine these two:

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/usb3expresscard34.html

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/echoexpresscard34thunderbolt.html

 

[shawnce]

You could combine these two:
Image
http://www.sonnettech.com/product/echoexpresscard34thunderbolt.html

IMHO that product is only compelling if you have already have an existing set of ExpressCard cards. I would wait for much better designed / priced breakout boxes and/or cables.

 

[potatis]

They will probably hold off until 1013 at least - remember they were absolutely last to adopt USB 2.0, in 2003 or so. That's when people probably started to consider not buying a Mac because the lack of USB 2.0.

 

[AidenShaw]

I should have explicitly said "TBolt devices", not just "devices"

What are you talking about? Thunderbolt devices can be daisy-chained. I don't know what the limit of devices you can daisy-chain is ...

The limit is six TBolt devices. Period. No hubs or switches exist.

And thank you for recognizing that the intent of my comment was the number of TBolt devices in the daisy-chain.

It's amusing that some of the following comments are counting the SATA drives and USB/1394/GbE connections off the PCIe cards and bridges - not the TBolt devices.

There's one reason why Apple may update the USB ports on their iMac, Mac Pro and MacBook Pro models to 3.0 support: there are a LOT of USB 3.0-compatible external hard drives already on the market.

Now, Apple could implement USB 3.0 support through the Thunderbolt port, but I'd like to know what adapter you need to plug in to get that type of support.

An expensive non-existent adaptor. Or, a kludge with two adaptors for $270.

How about a cable with TB on one end and USB 3.0 on the other with a little bulge at one end for the TB-PCIe-USB chip or maybe better yet a cable with TB at both ends (female one end, male other end) and next to that female TB port a row of USB ports. ...or a HD case using SATA internally (natively) with TB in and out with a row of USB, a FW port or two, etc. on the back for the fun of it.

Vendors will have a lot of options and things to play with when it comes to TB... it wont be cheap at first of course.

TBolt devices have to have two TBolt ports for daisy-chaining. That would make a traditional USB hub form factor reasonable - it would have the two TBolt ports, and 2/4/6/8 USB 3.0 ports.

That fact would make a TBolt mouse rather silly - it would need two cables unless it was the end of the chain.

I hope that we see lots of TBolt "docking stations" - boxes with video cards, eSATA, USB 3.0, GbE,... ports.

Apple's TBolt display is a simple start, but it could have been so much more if it only had an internal SATA bay, eSATA ports, and an MXM discrete graphics card (as in the Imac) to drive the video.

How many individual drives are in this picture?

I see 5 TBolt devices in a nearly full daisy-chain.

 

[blackburn]

Sorry apple never saw an thunderbolt product for sale in a store. But I do have usb 3.0 devices since nowadays all external hdds come with usb 3.0.

 

[Lesser Evets]

I have to wonder if we will see support for more things... maybe they won't take such a hard line against things like blu-ray, etc.

Hate to splash cold reality on you, but Blu-Ray is a peaking technology that will phase out within 5 years. One proviso: unless Blu-Ray can expand memory a lot further while harddrives and memory chips for flash-drives become more expensive (not likely, not even close to probable). If Apple didn't accommodate Blu-ray in the last 5 years since it became marketable, they won't bend to it in the last 5 years of its worth.

The future of media is the flash-drive-type device, and by 2015 you will see them emerge all over retail because a movie-sized flash-drive will be pennies to manufacture. Mechanical devices are going to vanish from computing very soon, and good riddance I say.

 

[maroontiger2k9]

it would be great to have usb 3.0 but as long as i get Intel Thunderbolt Motherboards by early 2012, im good

custom built thunderbolt NAS FTW ...unless the motherboard is gonna be like $450

 

[samcraig]

Smart move period. Other than ego - there's no reason not to have a USB 3 port and give users the biggest variety of peripherals to choose from and have backwards compatibility.

 

[KnightWRX]

USB 3.0
Final Cut Studio 7.0

Is Apple suddenly pro-options/choice ? I'm liking this stuff a lot. This was one of my beefs against Apple's philosophy, the lack of choice/options in most of their products, the "We don't think you need this" attitude.

This is quite refreshing.

 

[manu chao]

USB 3 is more practical for 99.99% of computer users. There are hundreds of millions of USB devices in service and about 3 Thunderbolt devices.

And 99.999% of those 'hundreds of millions of USB devices in service' are USB 2 only (though that is changing) and USB 2 is there on all Macs and not going away.

The ability of USB 3 ports to serve the massive amount of existing USB (mainly 2) devices is not really an advantage since TB ports do not take away any existing USB ports (since they piggyback on the mDP socket).

Of course, USB 3 is massively cheaper than TB and TB only has the niches of maximum speed, daisy chaining, target disk mode, and 'universal' Dock connection. The key question here is are these niches large enough to generate enough volume to bring the prices down to make the niches large enough to bring the prices down to make the niches large enough ... (and so on).

IMHO that product is only compelling if you have already have an existing set of ExpressCard cards. I would wait for much better designed / priced breakout boxes and/or cables.

In a sense, TB is bringing back ExpressCard slots to Macs that don't have them (anymore). Sure, it is only a small niche that needs ExpressCards, but alone for that adding TB to the mDP port is a net positive.

USB 3 needs to be done. Thunderbolt is DOA, just like FireWire.

Firewire has sold tons of devices for being dead since its inception.

 

[Skika]

I just really hope they dont drop FireWire 800 in the new redesigned MacBook Pros.

 

[G4er?]

If Apple really wants people to switch then it needs to offer as much compatibility and cross use as possible. Hard to get people to switch if the switch means losing something they had. Moving to Apple is supposed to be because you gain something from the Apple experience.

 

[OllyW]

The ability of USB 3 ports to serve the massive amount of existing USB (mainly 2) devices is not really an advantage since TB ports do not take away any existing USB ports (since they piggyback on the mDP socket).

You gain the advantage by replacing the USB 2.0 ports with USB 3.0.

 

[MacSince1990]

It's about time. USB 2.0 is absolutely awful, and has been for about the last eight years. When it came OUT, it barely had any headroom; a 35 MB/s real-world transfer rate was about where the fastest consumer hard drives were. Fastforward two years and it's offering about half the bandwidth required to let drives run at their full speed... fastforward too now, 1/4 (or less, if we're talking SSD).

I honestly doubt TB is going to go anywhere. Maybe it'll catch on the way FireWire did, a semi-niche market, but I think it might also go the way of a lot of Apple's other proprietary connectors.. ADC, PERCH, Apple VGA, etc.

 

[till213]

He's been gone for a less than 2 weeks...

Who was that Steve again you mentioned?



Cheers

 

[Razeus]

Thunderbolt was a bone head move by Apple. USB 3 is where it's at. It's BC with all the stuff I already have so it's not like it's any more work to replace my drives. I have a 2010 iMac. I won't be upgrading until Apple puts USB 3 in.

 

[crazy dave]

Of course Apple should include USB 3.0 and will, either before or after Intel natively supports it on Ivy Bridge. Given that Most of the Mac lineup isn't due for a refresh until after Ivy Bridge we can safely assume most won't be updated to USB 3.0 until then. Thus, the only question remains if the Mac Pro or rumored Mac line gets USB 3.0 with the forthcoming Xeon Sandy-bridge processors.

That said, to all those who say that Thunderbolt is dead because there aren't any products that support it have a rather short memory. You can look back at tech articles claiming USB 3.0 seemed to be dead because no peripherals were out for it and Intel didn't support it natively. That naysaying lasted almost an entire year it seemed.

Truthfully they are complementary products even though Thunderbolt CAN also serve as a USB 3.0 connection. However, most products don't need Thunderbolt speed (or the cost benefit isn't there) and the expense is thus a waste. However, products like displays, external GPUs, long range connections (when optical arrives), etc ... benefit and we can expect to see the inclusion of them as time goes on. Yes, it will be niche compared to USB 3.0, unless (or until) its price drops dramatically, and that's okay. It will serve a purpose and be needed. Personally I'm excited about the future prospect of connecting to external GPUs - maybe in the external display itself - by thunderbolt for ultra-portable laptops.

Also it isn't an Apple proprietary connection. Intel owns it, Apple was merely first to market with it. That's it. It is not an Apple proprietary connection.

So yes, excited for both connection types to be on laptops and desktops.

Seriously also, why do people keep saying every reversal is because Steve retired? Even under Steve, Apple reversed course many a time ... and given the length of product roadmap for something like this, USB 3.0 inclusion is definitely not an indication of any change in the style of Apple leadership or even a reversal since SJ didn't say they wouldn't ever support it (like BD). SJ just said they didn't want to support it before Ivy Bridge, which is coming out in the next year, which is when most of the Mac lineup gets refreshed ...

 

[manu chao]

iPad 3 with its rumoured retina display will benefit from a quicker way to get HD content onto the device.

When I copy movies to my iPad 1, I get sustained speeds of 18 MBs, that is about half the maximum real speed of USB 2. USB 3 will not make the iPad faster at the moment, a faster processor and faster flash storage will make it faster.

As much as I'm passionate about Apple, the reality is they tend to resist mainstream technical advances.

And Intel? Isn't Intel also resisting mainstream technical advances? Why is it only Apple that is getting the beating for it?

Yes, but for example, you can't imagine a computer with only FireWire and no USB, but the opposite is totally fine.

Among Mac users (whose computers have had FW in most machines for the last couple of years), there were always two camps, those who bought USB external disks and those who bought FW external disks. For the former group, a computer with only USB would be 'totally fine', for the latter group, it would definitely not be 'totally fine'.

 

[gorgeousninja]

Where is my FREE Fiber-Optic 100 Gigabit Fiber Internet connection, Apple...Google?? Anyone??? It is is 2011 folks, and we are stuck with the same cable broadband speeds we had in 1997!!! 14 year old technology, you would think our connection speed options would have improved....

In 1997, Macs shipped with 200MHz processors, 32MB of RAM and a 4GB Hard Drive, now we have computers shipping with over 200x as much RAM, are at least 50x as fast and have 500x as much disk space...

But the internet speeds are still the same????

I want my 100 Gigabit Fiber Internet connection....NOW!

We should be able to transfer at least 500 Megabytes of data per second over our Internet connections in major cities....the infrastructure is there, but it is being hoarded by institutions, companies, and Universities, and not allowed for mass-public subscriber access....our only two main options for "semi-fast" Internet are still cable and DSL....FIOS is only on Verizon in "select markets" and it is not a full Fiber connection, at that.

Tell me, are you willing to pay for the absolutely massive infrastructure invesyment that providing this service to everyone would cost? Funnily enough I doubt it. Or do you think they should give it to you and no-one else?