iPod Ethernet Connectivity?

[taylorwilsdon]

I was transferring music from my ultraportable to my new iMac today and I had the most wonderful experience. I used a crossover ethernet cable for gigabit connection and I moved my entire 20GB music library in less then 5 minutes.

When I sync'd my iPhone with the new computer and re-loaded the library (and it only took 8GB, not even the whole amount!) I sat there watching the bar move for more then 20 minutes.

Now, the actual pin-out on an ethernet cable is tiny. Much smaller then Apple's enormous proprietary -> usb cable, and about 10X faster in real word (sustained ) performance. Yes, you can't charge over ethernet. Still, it would be so easy to integrate a very widely used technology into a high tech device like the iPod or the iPhone and it would make our lives all a little easier.

Does anybody think that something like this could come to reality? Gigabit ethernet is basically the fastest connection on any computer (FW800 is close, but its limited to a select few computers and not very supported). Obviously e-sata and PCI-based input systems (SAS connections, scuzzy hookups) are faster, but again, not common.

Why not?

 

[Markleshark]

Too limiting. As you said, you can't charge over it, so you'd have to plug it in to sync and then plug it is somewhere else to charge it. Also, the port is pretty damn large and numb. It wouldn't be a problem if you had a dock, but plugging straight into the thing would make it thickkkkkkk

I'm sure there are other techy reasons as well, mind you.

 

[Scarlet Fever]

For burst data transfers, USB is fast enough. How often are you going to replace 8GB of data on your iPhone?

 

[Nermal]

Too limiting. As you said, you can't charge over it, so you'd have to plug it in to sync and then plug it is somewhere else to charge it.

For a proprietary device like an iPod, you could use a custom plug that carries Ethernet and power.

 

[taylorwilsdon]

For a proprietary device like an iPod, you could use a custom plug that carries Ethernet and power.

Exarctly

You could mesh them together and have it branch back out into a Y that separates USB and Ethernet at the end (similar to the old FW/USB combo cables from old-gen iPods)

re: For burst data transfers, USB is fast enough. How often are you going to replace 8GB of data on your iPhone?

Frequently. Enough that it bugs me, thats for sure.

 

[Scarlet Fever]

Another point for consideration is the speed of the Ethernet port. Your iMac (and every other current Mac) has gigabit ethernet, while most PCs only have 100mbps Ethernet. In that case, I think USB would be faster than Ethernet.

 

[itickings]

And where exactly would this ethernet connector be plugged in? Most computers have several USB ports, but at most one ethernet port. One port which is usually already occupied...

Besides, for iPods and iPhones, the limiting factor is most likely the tiny harddrive/flash memory or the raw processing power, not the USB bandwidth.

 

[taylorwilsdon]

Another point for consideration is the speed of the Ethernet port. Your iMac (and every other current Mac) has gigabit ethernet, while most PCs only have 100mbps Ethernet. In that case, I think USB would be faster than Ethernet.

That won't be true in a few years though, and think of it this way - original iPods only offered firewire, which has MUCH less penetration then gigabit ethernet. Its pioneering

A gigabit card in a whitebox pc costs less then $20 so its a stretch to call it extravagant.

Furthermore, USB2.0 is STILL SLOWER then 100mbps ethernet. Read here:
http://www.lyberty.com/tech/terms/usb.html

:QUOTE
Therefore, actual data transfer rate [of USB 2.0 High-speed] will be lower than 480 mbps (57.2 MB/s).
Our measurement result of data transfer rate with USB 2.0 storage device (HDD) is about 20 - 25 MB/s on average."

While 100mbps ethernet can only push about 12 or 13MB/s, USB cannot sustain the 20-25MB/s speeds and drops to below even slow ethernet speeds during extended transfers.

 

[itickings]

While 100mbps ethernet can only push about 12 or 13MB/s, USB cannot sustain the 20-25MB/s speeds and drops to below even slow ethernet speeds during extended transfers.

Getting maximum theoretical throughput from 100Mbit/s Ethernet is no piece of cake. And even if you do, it is still slower than USB2.

I regularly transfer a number of gigabytes to and from USB2 hard drives, and it won't drop to anywhere near that slow. It stays in the neighbourhood of 20MiB/s or faster, gigabyte after gigabyte, provided that the connected device can read/write that fast.