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Apple to Introduce Light Peak (High Speed Connection Technology) Soon?
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backwards compatibility?
I don't know if the picture is real or not, but it appears that light peak is in the shape of a standard USB port. So eventually the USB ports on current models could be replaced with lightpeak ports that are backwards compatible with USB 3.0 & 2.0. I'm thinking it would kind of be like how the 1/8" headphone jack on current MBPs also supports optical output: you can use regular headphones or a mini-TOSlink cable in the same port. In a similar way, you could plug in lightpeak devices or USB devices into the same port. That way the consumer wouldn't ever have to think about it but would experience better performance.
What do you guys think?
I don't know if the picture is real or not, but it appears that light peak is in the shape of a standard USB port. So eventually the USB ports on current models could be replaced with lightpeak ports that are backwards compatible with USB 3.0 & 2.0. I'm thinking it would kind of be like how the 1/8" headphone jack on current MBPs also supports optical output: you can use regular headphones or a mini-TOSlink cable in the same port. In a similar way, you could plug in lightpeak devices or USB devices into the same port. That way the consumer wouldn't ever have to think about it but would experience better performance.
What do you guys think?
I'm just confused...are you talking about having one cable split connections to everything? Because otherwise, how is it not easier to have one cable, so if you break one you can replace it with another one you're not currently using. But right now, if you break your Display Port, HDMI, FireWire, or USB cable, you can't mix and match. Having so many different technologies do the same thing is ridiculous. Connecting everything the same way will make everything so much easier.
And seriously, it's hard to break a cable, that should be the least of your worries.
This technology will require (at least) a 5 year transition period.
Apple might add this technology in addition to USB, but it wouldn't surprise me if it took a decade to actually replace USB.
Windows computers are just now beginning to ship with USB 3.0, and even that technology will still take a couple of years to settle in.
There has to be compatibility between Windows and Mac, like it or not. I don't think any of us want to use an adapter each time we connect a usb flash drive.
Bottom Line: I doubt this will show up on any Apple product this year. Next year, maybe. But I think we will see USB ports on MACs for at least another 5 years.
Apple might add this technology in addition to USB, but it wouldn't surprise me if it took a decade to actually replace USB.
Windows computers are just now beginning to ship with USB 3.0, and even that technology will still take a couple of years to settle in.
There has to be compatibility between Windows and Mac, like it or not. I don't think any of us want to use an adapter each time we connect a usb flash drive.
Bottom Line: I doubt this will show up on any Apple product this year. Next year, maybe. But I think we will see USB ports on MACs for at least another 5 years.
For certain peripherals this makes no sense. Display technology like Display Port and HDMI is something like at least 5gbps. Not to mention putting in wireless technology in a display or an external hard drive seems ridiculous. For the hard drive, you still would have to plug it in the wall then. Wireless is good for a lot of things, but wired technology is still important.
Hmm, don't get too excited guys: it says first half, not next update. I think they'll do this on the desktop Mac Pros first, which aren't quite yet due for an update for a few months to come. Then whenever they decide to upgrade to Ivy Bridge maybe we'll see it on consumer level products.
You won't only have one lightpeak cable if that's what you're getting at. You'll probably have to daisy chain the devices together with multiple lightpeak cables, just like you would with Firewire or old SCSI devices. Pendent on what materials they use to create the stuff, it'd not cost much more than replacing one of the standard cables hopefully. I'd use TOSlink cables for predictive purposes, since they're a sort of optical digital connection and could operate on similar principals. They don't have any copper in them though so perhaps it'd be a little higher.
If you're talking about the connector, just because you can Daisy Chain, hopefully doesn't mean you have to. There are several rarely used or nonstandard connectors Apple could replace with Lightpeak technology. If they have enough room for multiple lightpeak connectors you might be better off with a Lightpeak connector because if the only minidisplay port inside your computer breaks, you can't use any external monitors until you take it in to be fixed. Whereas if you have two Lightpeak connectors, you could just plug your monitor into the other possibly still functional port.
Basically if Apple has any good sense, there's nothing more to worry about on the breakage front than you would have with any other wired connection.
Is it USB compatible or without an adapter? I have slight concerns about the possible light to copper conversion processing time since I play games and have input lag concerns with both the USB joysticks. (HDMI kinda kinda concerns me too for similar reasons, esp since I just bought a new TV. I was hoping the last mac mini Update was a sign of things to come. It probably can't be helped though I guess and I can always play on the built in screen or an external monitor as par usual.)
Aside from personal concerns adapters get costly if you have to purchase too many of them and create the sort of unslightly inconvenient mess that iMac users usually try to dodge. Hopefully they'd have both lightpeak and USB at first, otherwise our niche computers could be locked out of the large majority of peripherals since the battle hasn't even started and USB got a huge head start.
You won't only have one lightpeak cable if that's what you're getting at. You'll probably have to daisy chain the devices together with multiple lightpeak cables, just like you would with Firewire or old SCSI devices. Pendent on what materials they use to create the stuff, it'd not cost much more than replacing one of the standard cables hopefully. I'd use TOSlink cables for predictive purposes, since they're a sort of optical digital connection and could operate on similar principals. They don't have any copper in them though so perhaps it'd be a little higher.
If you're talking about the connector, just because you can Daisy Chain, hopefully doesn't mean you have to. There are several rarely used or nonstandard connectors Apple could replace with Lightpeak technology. If they have enough room for multiple lightpeak connectors you might be better off with a Lightpeak connector because if the only minidisplay port inside your computer breaks, you can't use any external monitors until you take it in to be fixed. Whereas if you have two Lightpeak connectors, you could just plug your monitor into the other possibly still functional port.
Basically if Apple has any good sense, there's nothing more to worry about on the breakage front than you would have with any other wired connection.
Is it USB compatible or without an adapter? I have slight concerns about the possible light to copper conversion processing time since I play games and have input lag concerns with both the USB joysticks. (HDMI kinda kinda concerns me too for similar reasons, esp since I just bought a new TV. I was hoping the last mac mini Update was a sign of things to come. It probably can't be helped though I guess and I can always play on the built in screen or an external monitor as par usual.)
Aside from personal concerns adapters get costly if you have to purchase too many of them and create the sort of unslightly inconvenient mess that iMac users usually try to dodge. Hopefully they'd have both lightpeak and USB at first, otherwise our niche computers could be locked out of the large majority of peripherals since the battle hasn't even started and USB got a huge head start.
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At some point if a MBP comes without an OD and they want to make it thinner, they're going to need to go this route bc the ethernet port will be too big to fit on it lol.
Get an external CD drive. I'm sure Apple would be happy to sell you one for $79, or you can get cheaper ones elsewhere.
Dude, why are you such a hater on non-iOS or wireless tech? Like it or not, you'll never be able to do anything other than hobby work on handheld devices with 4 inch multi-touch displays. Some people need professional grade performance and not just professionals. It's not that we wouldn't necessarily like it all to be completely wireless but the tech is simply not there yet. Don't try to hold all of us back because your content getting your angry birds update over the air.
Actually I'm thinking quite the opposite. What if apple replaces basically all the ports with lightpeak ports and includes the proper cables to make them function with everything. They could do this if they are backward compatible with USB 2 and 3. It's great! For whatever device you need there is a LightPeak cable for it.
Monitor? DVI to LP cable. DisplayPort to LP cable. VGA to LP cable. HDMI to LP cable. Etc.
Network? Ethernet to LP cable.
Storage? If it's USB2.0 or 3.0 just plug it in with your current cable! If it's firewire, use the Firewire to LP cord.
It's port nirvana!
Attachments
Too thick?
I thought the whole idea was to create a new all in one connection for all your needs. That is a great idea but it has to be smaller in size than USB, in my opinion. Think about the 1/8" stereo jack. 1/8" is so big that the ipod shuffle can't be thinner than what will fit 1/8" stereo connection. I think light peak will be razor thin to support our smaller and smaller devices.
I thought the whole idea was to create a new all in one connection for all your needs. That is a great idea but it has to be smaller in size than USB, in my opinion. Think about the 1/8" stereo jack. 1/8" is so big that the ipod shuffle can't be thinner than what will fit 1/8" stereo connection. I think light peak will be razor thin to support our smaller and smaller devices.
You're forgetting that the read/write speed on the flash storage of iDevices is about 2x slower than USB 2.0 transfer rate, so such upgrades would not yield any benefit for this type of transfer.
For the time being it's the best solution so that the ridiculous amount of USB powered devices just continue to work. No way to just kick USB 2.0 out anytime soon.
In a perfect world, it'd be like what mjay2k stated a few posts above me. Make it backwards compatible while the bulk of devices are not run by LP. I feel like if they wanted to make the connector even smaller, however, that this wouldn't really work out. Making it backwards compatible in terms of the connector with USB would essentially lock in that design and it would never get thinner. That said, the USB port is really really thin. For smaller devices they could make it like USB and do like a Micro LP or something. All of our thoughts are just speculation anyway, let's wait and see what happens!
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it's going to be some dumb i name. iWire? I'm not sure why Apple constantly needs to rebrand what other people have done and make it their own. What's wrong with USB 3.0? Is that a big bag of hurt too, $teve Job$? Will the "engineers" be more free to do as they please once Steve is completely out of the picture? Craziness.
One of the problems with wired peripherals is that they are difficult to share unless they are also connected to a wireless network (that is, you don't want to have to run wires between all of your "smart" devices). That kind of negates the speed advantage one would get from such wired peripherals since most of your devices are going to have to access the device over a wireless network anyway. Thus, high-speed wireless devices and interconnects are the future and it won't be that many more years before wireless will be fast enough for the vast majority of consumers.
IMO, Light Peak will never have anything more than a small, niche market (if even that) and USB3 will pretty much provide the bridge to gigabit wireless technology. Wires aren't going away tomorrow or even within the next decade, but their days are probably numbered.
IMO, Light Peak will never have anything more than a small, niche market (if even that) and USB3 will pretty much provide the bridge to gigabit wireless technology. Wires aren't going away tomorrow or even within the next decade, but their days are probably numbered.
Well, some PCs have FireWire, especially ones from when tape camcorders were more prevailant; it's also a standard that Sony was pushing.
Also, Mini DisplayPort is being used by PC companies. Dell, HP, and Toshiba have all started using it on their laptops and newer monitors have standard DisplayPort alongside other legacy connectors.
The latest SSDs are faster than SATA3 now. It's really stupid to go backwards unless you're in the Tea Party. If that's true, then no speed is slow enough to make you feel secure. '-)
Except that it's going to be a heck of a long time before you see high-speed SSDs in an iOS device.
The next wired peripheral interface on iOS devices will be USB3 and beyond that it will probably be all wireless.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)
On a Name:
"FlashWire"
On Speed
You guys don't really grasp just how slow USB is and the fact that USB 3 barely hits a reasonable transfer rate. Beyound that LightPeak is bidirectional. If it works as advertised nothing will come close as the overall performance gap will be huge.
On Ports
I don't think you will see Apple deleting USB ports any time soon. It is a compatibility issue. Besides I suspect Apples goal is a quick way to plugg in a dock for a laptop. In a nut shell your power supply becomes a dock that you connect your stationary hardware to.
On a Name:
"FlashWire"
On Speed
You guys don't really grasp just how slow USB is and the fact that USB 3 barely hits a reasonable transfer rate. Beyound that LightPeak is bidirectional. If it works as advertised nothing will come close as the overall performance gap will be huge.
On Ports
I don't think you will see Apple deleting USB ports any time soon. It is a compatibility issue. Besides I suspect Apples goal is a quick way to plugg in a dock for a laptop. In a nut shell your power supply becomes a dock that you connect your stationary hardware to.
it will be a very pleasant surprise if aapl introduces this soon - though my gut feeling is its gonna be awhile - the speed specs does sound creamy