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Is Sony Fragmenting Thunderbolt? Apple, not Intel, Applies for Thunderbolt Trademark

TheSideshow said:
Because everywhere still uses VGA adapters for projectors.
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I get that but it's ancient technology it needs to be phased out at this point.

In any case, I'd honestly rather see Apple use more magsafe technology with their ports than mini displayport. A magnetic port for storage drives would be awesome. Not that they will...
 
Farthen said:
You could just put your devices *behind* your monitor. (Assuming there will be TB monitors soon that support daisy chaining).
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Thunderbolt is an inferior display transport. 10 Gbps is lower than both DP 1.2 and HDMI 1.4 specifications. Why anyone would want to use pure Thunderbolt for display signal transport baffles the mind.
 
Rodimus Prime said:
I say Apple more of hte fragmenting problem. Not Sony. Sony is going with a standard already used. We already combined USB with Esata ports. Why put a VERY VERY limited use port on the limited space of laptop when you could just combine it very heavily used port so it is not a waste.
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Mini Displayport is also a standard already used.
 
Rodimus Prime said:
I say Apple more of hte fragmenting problem. Not Sony. Sony is going with a standard already used. We already combined USB with Esata ports. Why put a VERY VERY limited use port on the limited space of laptop when you could just combine it very heavily used port so it is not a waste.
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Because USB is a bad port design to begin with, as 50% of the time you're going to put it in the wrong way if you aren't looking at it. There's no tactile feedback based on the edges of the connector.

Plus, different ports are used so you get different expectations from them.
 
About the trademark part. Is Apple doing the same "Firewire" stuff they pulled in the 90s ? That sure didn't help fragmentation (i.Link, IEEE 1394, firewire... hello consumer confusion).
 
haibane-rakka said:
I get that but it's ancient technology it needs to be phased out at this point.

In any case, I'd honestly rather see Apple use more magsafe technology with their ports than mini displayport. A magnetic port for storage drives would be awesome. Not that they will...
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Old tech that still works perfectly. Much like mice, printers, thin displays. I mean heck, wheres my holographic 3D display? And why does my brand new 27" iMac have a kettle plug, weren't electric kettles invented in like, the 50's?
 
Who cares what Sony (substitute HP, Acer, Dell, it makes no difference) does to their Windows boxes. Big deal.
 
Although Apple's solution using the mini displayport is technically superior, because it uses less space and you are less likely to plug it the wrong way around (like I always do with usb), Sony's solution will be more consumer friendly, since you'll be able to plug in your older USB devices as well as newer Thunderbolt ones into the same port.
 
KnightWRX said:
About the trademark part. Is Apple doing the same "Firewire" stuff they pulled in the 90s ? That sure didn't help fragmentation (i.Link, IEEE 1394, firewire... hello consumer confusion).
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Funny how you mention the last time Sony took someone else's tech and made it more confusing. (They're the ones that invented the term 'iLink' for no real reason.)

So how does your little Sony-history story translate into "Is Apple doing" as your question?

pepitko said:
Sony's solution will be more consumer friendly, since you'll be able to plug in your older USB devices as well as newer Thunderbolt ones into the same port.
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Yeah, and plugging your Thunderbolt device into dozens of USB ports that don't support Thunderbolt and getting confused and angry is really consumer-friendly.
 
Small White Car said:
The point is that getting down on the floor to look inside the USB port is slower than just trying it both ways. I always randomly guess too which means I only get it right half the time.
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USB ports on a advice are always oriented the same way. So when you plug in the cable you will always plug in the connector with the USB logo facing up. If you take 2 seconds to actually look at the connector you wont have to randomly guess.
 
haibane-rakka said:
A magnetic port for storage drives would be awesome.
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No it would not, it would be a disaster. Unplugging cables on mounted drives causes all sorts of bad things. If anything, data cables should be more difficult to unplug. Snug is a good word here.
 
Roll the BRLAWYER script....

Macsavvytech said:
How about this. One mDP thunderbolt and 3X USBs (thunderbolt)?
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MDP is DEAD!

Go Sony. It was stupid to marry a PCIe I/O interface (TBolt) with an old version of a graphics interface (Display Port 1.1) using a mostly proprietary (MDP) video connector.

What was Intel thinking?
 
im not too bothered actually - as long as it's the same interface it's just a matter of getting an adapter (like mini dvi to dvi) rather than having to convert the signal (e.g. hdmi to dvi)
 
Dbrown said:
USB ports on a advice are always oriented the same way. So when you plug in the cable you will always plug in the connector with the USB logo facing up. If you take 2 seconds to actually look at the connector you wont have to randomly guess.
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Just spend 25 seconds under my desk. On my Mac the 'bottom' of the cable faces right. On my Dell the 'bottom' is on the left. So they're exactly the opposite of each other.

Whenever I hear someone say "always" in regards to computers I can be pretty sure they haven't checked many places.
 
AidenShaw said:
MDP is DEAD!

Go Sony. It was stupid to marry a PCIe I/O interface (TBolt) with an old version of a graphics interface (Display Port 1.1) using a mostly proprietary (MDP) video connector.

What was Intel thinking?
Click to expand...
mDP is not proprietary
 
So, Apple is going to trademark the name of what is supposed to be the next connector on a computer. Looks like they officially killed it. Why would HP and Dell pay royalties to Apple for the naming right of a technology that isn't widely used?
 
*LTD* said:
Who cares what Sony (substitute HP, Acer, Dell, it makes no difference) does to their Windows boxes. Big deal.
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Well, at the very least, if the USB-port implementation takes off to the detriment of the miniDisplayPort approach, it means that Apple users will likely have to use a dongle/converter to use 3rd party devices (read external hard drives, etc), since the OEMs of such devices will clearly cater to the majority of users, not just to Apple.

Thus, it does matter, because, as Apple users, we may have connectivity issues if we forget our magical adapters...
 
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