Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Apple to Introduce Light Peak (High Speed Connection Technology) Soon?

PinkyMacGodess said:
Apple would likely have to lose a port or two to make room for the light/copper peak port and supporting hardware. Would they dump USB? DisplayPort? SD card slot? Hmm...
Click to expand...

I'm not sure this is true, In reading up about Light Peak, the move to copper allowed them to shrink it down considerably. It's possible that the move to LP could in fact give them more room, not less.
 
mjay2k said:
Light Peak is probably going to be introduced as something that makes more since to call "Copper Peak", because, well it will have nothing to do with light, as it won't be using fiber optics. The fiber optic technology just isn't there yet, and it's also quite expensive.

That isn't the worst thing though, as Intel has Light Peak using copper going at speeds of 10Gbs, or about 1.2 GB per second! Pretty fast! Still, it's no where near what they wanted to introduce a true Light Peak at: 50Gbs, 5 times faster, and later ramping up to 100GBs.

Still, at 10Gbs I'd be happy to upgrade 🙂 You can fill up a Tera-byte HD in about 13 mins with that kind of power.

Supposedly USB3.0 should max out at 5 Gbs, or 640 MB/s, but we aren't seeing anything near that yet.

So, this "Copper Peak" we are bout to witness is theoretically twice as fast as USB3.0 but.. once it makes the jump to true fiber optics it would blow USB3.0 out of the water, of course by then I'm sure we'd see USB4.0.
Click to expand...

Everything that I've read says that copper peak will only be marginally faster than USB 3. Copper peak also appears to be an 'appetizer' for the light peak to be coming around the corner... Going to it won't make much sense in the short or long term...
 
PinkyMacGodess said:
Everything that I've read says that copper peak will only be marginally faster than USB 3. Copper peak also appears to be an 'appetizer' for the light peak to be coming around the corner... Going to it won't make much sense in the short or long term...
Click to expand...

There are still other benefit, as for more room on the logic board and compatibility with other I/O.
 
PinkyMacGodess said:
Everything that I've read says that copper peak will only be marginally faster than USB 3. Copper peak also appears to be an 'appetizer' for the light peak to be coming around the corner... Going to it won't make much sense in the short or long term...
Click to expand...

It would make a lot of since for long term wouldn't it? If it IS faster then USB3.0 that is good for consumers. Not to mention the benefits of the supposed ability for it to interface with everything.
 
Doubt this will be in next MBP update because MBP is getting update like in a matter of weeks. This kind of technology is something that apple will hold a press event for.

Time to wait for next update. Glad I have my MBA 11.6 inch to hold me over. I need a new MBP, but I can wait until end of this year.
 
miles01110 said:
Not to the average consumer. Sending a word document to a laser printer will not save you any time whether it's Light Peak or USB 1.0. Existing technology on the wired side is more than adequate for Apple's target market.
Click to expand...

Exactly, there simply isn't any consumer demand for higher speed peripheral connections. SSDs have just barely started to exceed SATA II speeds, but SATA III and USB 3.0 offer plenty of headroom for that already and at least for a couple of years, using cheap, backwards compatible hardware and connections. Besides that, wireless peripherals are on fire - its the only kind of kb and mouse Apple ships with their iMacs - even Time Capsule, which handles multiple backups of entire systems,is wireless.

I don't really understand why anyone would want to invest in new, expensive hardware for higher speeds and leapfrog proven, legacy-compatible alternatives which have over a year on the market and already supported and matured?

If Apple delivers MacBooks with Lightspeed rather than USB 3.0, they are just going to make users pay ridiculous prices for connectors and cables no one in the PC world uses, like they did to Mac users with Firewire and DisplayPort,and skip the practical, cheap workhorse ports PC users get value from everyday - eSATA, USB 3.0, HDMI, DVI-D.
 
gco212 said:
And how would you power said devices? WiMax isn't going to be powering anything, and if you're going to have a cord running, it might as well provide the fastest speeds.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, fibre optic cables don't provide power either. The technology itself it based on light.

CopperPeak itself wouldn't be faster then USB3. So basically there's no point in introducing this technology now. This will remain a rumor.

Also wireless will never be the dominant. it's an IE vs Firefox comparison. Even though none of us use IE anymore, companies will stick to it. The same goes for wireless. Most companies have both just for those with laptops. it's definitely not going to replace wired tech anytime soon. Especially since light speak can be used with all these standards. HDMI, Mini-display, Even ethernet would be plausible.
 
mjay2k said:
It would make a lot of since for long term wouldn't it? If it IS faster then USB3.0 that is good for consumers. Not to mention the benefits of the supposed ability for it to interface with everything.
Click to expand...

Then I guess sit comes down to how long Intel supports copper peak. If it's true that Copper peak is an appetizer than I'd predict that many vendors will probably want to wait it out for the full light peak to start shipping before adopting the technology. It almost appears to me that 'copper' light peak might be stillborn technology. An afterthought... (Remember the CNA (?) Slot Intel invented that went just about nowhere. (I still have most of a box of NICs for the CNA slot))

But who knows until it ships...

I'd prefer that the MBP 'enhancement' would be BluRay, or even a built-in cellular modem...
 
stationstops said:
Exactly, there simply isn't any consumer demand for higher speed peripheral connections. SSDs have just barely started to exceed SATA II speeds, but SATA III and USB 3.0 offer plenty of headroom for that already and at least for a couple of years, using cheap, backwards compatible hardware and connections. Besides that, wireless peripherals are on fire - its the only kind of kb and mouse Apple ships with their iMacs - even Time Capsule, which handles multiple backups of entire systems,is wireless.

I don't really understand why anyone would want to invest in new, expensive hardware for higher speeds and leapfrog proven, legacy-compatible alternatives which have over a year on the market and already supported and matured?

If Apple delivers MacBooks with Lightspeed rather than USB 3.0, they are just going to make users pay ridiculous prices for connectors and cables no one in the PC world uses, like they did to Mac users with Firewire and DisplayPort,and skip the practical, cheap workhorse ports PC users get value from everyday - eSATA, USB 3.0, HDMI, DVI-D.
Click to expand...

There is a consumer demand for not having 5 different ports which you need 5 different cables.

There is enhancement for having more space on the logic board.

Having LP is the opposite of skipping praticality. Concerned with eSATA, USB 3.0 and HDMI? You use LP with it.

As you spelled LightPeak wrong as well, I assume you still have no understanding of what LP is about. Is not about the speed.
 
Last edited:
gco212 said:
And how would you power said devices? WiMax isn't going to be powering anything, and if you're going to have a cord running, it might as well provide the fastest speeds.
Click to expand...

Copper peak still power, according to a few articles that I read, isn't a 'done deal'. There is wide consensus that there will be something like the power from a typical USB connector currently in use however there is nothing firmed evidently on how much power could be available.

Yes, light peak will not be able to provide power to devices which will complicate things a little bit plus the added draw for the LED's and such...

Still, light peak could be the technology that drives fiber to the desktop. I'm excited...
 
Either way I hope LP will be ready for when there will be the Ivy Bridge MBA 😀 so I can buy one.
 
iMikeT said:
It seems like you're suffering from the same ID-10-T error as the guy you quoted from.

No one uses Firewire... 🙄

If you want to be cheap and have something that looks like it works with everything else, stick to you beige box and save yourself the time to type on an Apple forum.
Click to expand...

There still are people that depend on firewire. My video camera uses firewire. So it's OK to crap on older technology but if Apple totally drops firewire then they will be having people that depend on it migrating to computers that support it. Plain and simple.

Apple isn't going to win friends by forcing their users to dump their sizable investments in firewire devices just to be able to upgrade or replace an older Apple product.

Just because you don't use it doesn't mean that no one else does.
 
LP cables for $1?

Yeah, the same way that USB cables are $1...

If they are fiber, they are going to be expensive. Try something like $1 per quarter inch...
 
PinkyMacGodess said:
I believe that you are mistaken. Wimax isn't a cell phone technology.

Sprint may use Wimax for backhaul, but not for their cell phone devices.
Click to expand...

Actually it is you who are mistaken, PinkyMacGodess:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deployed_WiMAX_networks#U

Sprint/Clearwire is most definitely WiMax. Any Sprint phone or USB modem that connects to their "4G" network is, in fact, a WiMax device. Voice is not transmitted via WiMax, at this point. But the data connection is mos' def' WiMax.
 
ModestForumName said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

Looks like I'm upgrading soon =D

Edit: what are the transfer speeds like with lightpeak?
Click to expand...

Simultaneous 10Gbps up and down with the possibility of increasing to 100Gbps over the next decade. Initially, it may not hit the 10Gbps and depends on a few factors.

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

What I find exciting is the possibility it offers of simplification to just one type of cable to connect printers, monitors, speakers, storage drives, etc. Of course, that's a ways off.
 
stationstops said:
I don't really understand why anyone would want to invest in new, expensive hardware for higher speeds and leapfrog proven, legacy-compatible alternatives which have over a year on the market and already supported and matured?
Click to expand...

one cable to replace all cables (DVI, HDMI, Displayport, Ethernet, USB, Firewire) why not?

ADB was matured too, Apple also dropped it for USB. You know they pissed off how many mac faithfuls just because of that?
 
koobcamuk said:
People would buy a camera or video recorder for wireless transfers. Apple is a consumer company now, not for pro-end media.
Click to expand...

So I guess we don't have any Apple computers in our recording studio then?...
Funny... Because all of them seem to be macs.
 
100 posts in this thread, and no one has brought up the patent that was the headline just a few days ago.

magdata.jpg


If Apple was to name the port something other than "Light Peak", why would it look like what is pictured in the first post? A USB-like connecter is something Apple would have considered no later than 2005. It's 2011. Apple's next connector will be magnetic based.
 
alexbates said:
100 posts in this thread, and no one has brought up the patent that was the headline just a few days ago.

magdata.jpg


If Apple was to name the port something other than "Light Peak", why would it look like what is pictured in the first post? A USB-like connecter is something Apple would have considered no later than 2005. It's 2011. Apple's next connector will be magnetic based.
Click to expand...

HAHA! You beat me by 3 minutes as I was typing mine! 😛
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back