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Closer Look Photo of Thunderbolt (Light Peak) Port

I think, using the DisplayPort (as well as one USB port) with Bolty is just for transition. In time, there will be one connector just for Light, but until then, just enhance the current ports.

PS: I just hope, they do not set high license costs to this technology, otherwise, it will fade as ZFS has. :(
 
bpaluzzi said:
The LightPeak standard supports daisy chaining, like Firewire. Plug your monitor in, plug your peripherals into it.

And why would the thunderbolt logo be on the MDP-shaped port?

The "pin hole" is just a camera glitch or a bit of weirdness from the cellophane wrapper over the computer. It can't be a physical change, as in addition to the "hole" in the white part of the USB port is a "peg" above, in the shadow. If this were a real physical change, that would prevent any USB cables from being inserted.

And "Thunderthighs"...really? Are we in junior high?
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hey numpty, the mini display port currently supports one monitor which i paid a shed load of money for, The apple LED cinema display. the LED cinema display has no thunder thigh ports at the back only USB. So unless I buy anither brand new LED cinema display i cannot use any thunder thigh products. It woudl be far better to remove one USB port and use that for daisy chaining or use the LED ceineam dispaly for daisy chaining. YOU CANNOT DAISY CHAIN a light peak device if you ar eusing a display supporitng the mini display port becuase the only one that exists has USB ports
 
paradox00 said:
Nothing exists until tomorrow.Try not to use such flimsy straw man arguments.

A mini DisplayPort/Thunderbolt hybrid port could support monitor docks, standalone docks and daisy chaining devices between your computer and your existing monitor.

There isn't a problem with it being shared with the monitor port if you understand the technology in the slightest. I'd love it on USB ports too, but it's not a necessity.
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have you looked at the back of the ONLY monitor that supports the apple mini display port standard? it only has USB ports at the back. so how can you daisy chain to light peak devices if the light peak is built in to the display port? I dont want to shell out on a new cinema display with updated light peak ports on the back. It would be better to provide a stand alone light peak port to whihc i can daisy chain too.
 
dbassett said:
I think that's more like the old KISS logo
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blot3.gif


This one looks like a Nazi… or a butterfly… or a deer… I can't tell :p
 
Thunderbolt is gonna be great

Not sure how some people are viewing this as a negative because of the port used and saying it wont matter because of a lack of peripherals. I think some people aren't getting what this port is or can do.

It doesn't matter what shape or form the thunderbolt port takes on the Apple Hardware side of the equation. Most everything will be able to connect via a breakout box/adapter. As far as the idea that you'll need new peripherals, most EXISTING peripherals will work, so long as Lightpeak/Thunderbolt supports the spec.

For example, there is currently no way to hook up an eSata external hard drive for high-speed external storage to the MBP. Tomorrow, that changes. Get a little breakout box/adapter with eSata input and Apple Thunderbolt output and voila!

Thunderbolt/Lightpeak supports a lot of standards for I/O, so you can have a breakout box that has several commonly used ports, or an adapter or two for the ports that you find the machine to be lacking.

Thunderbolt allows you to basically add ANY port to the machine you want, via a small adapter. Want to add another Firewire 800 port? Sure. A couple more USB 2.0? Yep. How bout USB 3.0? That too, as Thunderbolt is compatible with USB 3 (and faster than it, so it has headroom for a USB 3 input plus more). Want to add them all, order a little breakout box from Monoprice that has USB 3/2 and FW 800 inputs, and a Thunderbolt output. (And no, they don't sell those today, but you can expect all sorts of these adapters soon.)

This port is great news, and now I finally have a way to use my eSata drives, which I'm sure a good amount of others will find helpful too. And yes, you can still use the port at the same time to connect to the external display of your choice.
 
I vote positive on this one.

Better/faster ports are welcome on my machine anytime.

I wonder if the ACD will receive an update shortly too?
 
Stupid name and this whole thing smells like a kludge until they work the whole thing out. I'll wait for them to fully migrate, peripherals to support it, hopefully make the connector mag-safe, and get the port into a MacBook Air, which these days is a far more interesting machine to me than the MBP starting at 4.5 lbs.
 
HobeSoundDarryl said:
I'm also calling this fake. Why would Apple believing that "all laptops are going this way" (referring to the ultra-thin Air design) choose a non-standard jack that is so (relatively) thick/tall? If lightpeak is optical, optical can be pushed through a frighteningly tiny amount of space (meaning the port could be relatively tiny, even if you run some copper along side the optical to cover the need for powering peripherals). Optical can be vertically thinner than the relatively thin port sizes such as USB.

The port for "thunderbolt" (lightpeak) in that image looks like it could be as vertically fat as full size USB port, which doesn't seem to be compatible with the drive to make everything ever-thinner at Apple. It seems like it would only be a short time until the thunderbolt port could not fit on the side of the laptop case anymore (too thick). And if this port is going to be the "everything" port, how do you make it fit onto an iPhone, iPod, iPad, etc (and with the idevices, note that Apple chose the current thin & wide port design for a reason that this speculated port seems to forget)

My perception would be that if Apple is going to drive the design of the port itself, they would choose to make it very (vertically) thin (and wider if necessary to accommodate a thin vertical profile). I would expect something more like mini-usb or micro-usb (even SD media card slot thicknesses) rather than something that is as vertically fat as mini-display port. I would imagine measurements of just a millimeter or three max, not something close to a centimeter+.

How many generations of the "Air" are we from ports like mini-display port and ethernet being too (vertically) thick to fit anywhere on the sides of the case?
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I think the point of thunderbolt is, we'll have to wait for intel to confirm, that it's a update to displayport only to give it an much higher bandwidth data connection instead of USB. Which then mean monitor makers including Apple Cinema displays can then offer a decent range of break out ports on the displays. It also means that Apple are committing to a wired display connection on all laptops for the foreseeable future.

Then wait for true lightpeak when it can go optical only and upgrade other ports.

Still once the Air gets to thin Apple will have magsafe thunderbolt up and running.
 
"Hey dude, got you the latest season of some Linux distro in .mkv format. It's right here on my Light Peak hard drive."

"Cool. I'll plug it in."

"What happened to your monitor?"

"Oh, don't worry about that. Macs can't use peripherals and a monitor at the same time now."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

That aside, does Light Peak have a standard port yet? Or will Apple use the Mini DisplayPort form factor while everyone else uses the USB (or some other) style?

As soon as we have two or more different types of machine end sockets for this technology, it's whole aim of a single port for everything is a major epic fail.
 
Mini display port????

I may be being REALLY stupid, but to me that port looks exactly the same as the mini displayport.:confused::apple:
 

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iEdd said:
"Hey dude, got you the latest season of some Linux distro in .mkv format. It's right here on my Light Peak hard drive."

"Cool. I'll plug it in."

"What happened to your monitor?"

"Oh, don't worry about that. Macs can't use peripherals and a monitor at the same time now."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
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Jeez what part of daisy chain don't you people understand? A peripheral HDD with a Thunderbolt connection will also be a small hub that that can be chained off. You can plug your monitor into that. Future monitors will also be thunderbolt hubs. This isn't rocket science people, it isn't even a new concept. It's how Firewire and SCSI before it also worked.

Take 10 minutes to get your head around it before posting this nonsense.
 
tslewis said:
hey numpty, the mini display port currently supports one monitor which i paid a shed load of money for, The apple LED cinema display. the LED cinema display has no thunder thigh ports at the back only USB. So unless I buy anither brand new LED cinema display i cannot use any thunder thigh products. It woudl be far better to remove one USB port and use that for daisy chaining or use the LED ceineam dispaly for daisy chaining. YOU CANNOT DAISY CHAIN a light peak device if you ar eusing a display supporitng the mini display port becuase the only one that exists has USB ports
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Really? You're surprised that you can't get the latest functionality with an old display?

I have no idea what the middle/end part of your reply meant, but you clearly _don't_ know what daisy chaining means.
 
puppyflightclub said:
WAIT A SECOND! WAIT ONE SECOND!

how is it these places have pics of the box but cant produce reviews or images of the system itself?
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BECAUSE IT'S FAKE.

Everyone sits around asking obvious questions (why can't we see another angle) but because they are so blinded by TEMPORARY INSANITY they would rather take a fake and believe it than to step back and see what it is.

The reason you can't see the rest of the machine is because then you would realize that it's just the old 13inch with a high voltage sign on the mini display port.
 
My dad works for apple so I get everything before the public launch. Only by a day though.
 

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candyapplekid said:
Not sure how some people are viewing this as a negative because of the port used and saying it wont matter because of a lack of peripherals. I think some people aren't getting what this port is or can do.

It doesn't matter what shape or form the thunderbolt port takes on the Apple Hardware side of the equation. Most everything will be able to connect via a breakout box/adapter. As far as the idea that you'll need new peripherals, most EXISTING peripherals will work, so long as Lightpeak/Thunderbolt supports the spec.

...

Thunderbolt allows you to basically add ANY port to the machine you want, via a small adapter.
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I hope you're right. However, you're assuming that full LightPeak functionality is present in this alleged new "Thunderbolt" port. I am not convinced just yet that this will be the case. I can easily imagine that the Thunderbolt implementation of LightPeak will be limited in some way, only able to use certain protocols or connect to certain devices. After all, we don't know that Thunderbolt is LightPeak yet. (Do we?) Wouldn't surprise me at all if Apple's version wasn't complete somehow, though I do hope you're right.

Cheers, A.
 
i think akwasi just cleverly shopped the pic as sarcasm because all of us a re speculating on a picture that is more than likely fake. Given the correct lighting, you cna make photoshop adjustments to the box realistic.
 
Does anyone else find it kind of ironic that this new technology that's supposed to use light to transfer data because its must faster than using electricity is called Thunderbolt?
 
dernhelm said:
Jeez what part of daisy chain don't you people understand?
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It was a joke. Also, not all devices have a second port to daisy chain. Apple monitors, for example, do not. Mini/portable hard drives do not. Flash drives do not. You can only have one device without a daisy chain if you want to connect everything, and that's already used by the monitor.

Btw, the double space after a full stop is an archaic habit that came from typewriters only doing monospace fonts, sometimes with the dot in the middle. What part about the modern space button handling it for you don't you people understand? Jeez. :p
 
RJP31484 said:
nice... you shouldve made the lightning bolts not so dark though, to better match the other labels on the other ports.
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Haha i'm tempted to fix the thunder bolts and add another 6 ports to the side.

Then i'll leak the image to a french mac rumours


I'd just like to add.. thunder is slower than light

which confuses me why apple would call it thunderport or whatever instead of light whatever
 
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