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

Mini display port is a failure

Apple will no doubt sell $40 dongles for the USB thunderbolt to display port adapter AND your sound won't work lol

Humorous how apple makes things messy
 
Small White Car said:
-snip-
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.
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I assumed that mini-display ports would not require TB implementation and that this would be true for such USB shaped implementations as well. Does anyone know if TB ports are TB-only? That would be crazy and I think we would have heard more of that by now.

0815 said:
Honestly, this is what Apple/Intel wanted to do - but they were not allowed to use the USB connector for this.
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THat's what the rumor says...
 
FuNGi said:
I assumed that mini-display ports would not require TB implementation and that this would be true for such USB shaped implementations as well. Does anyone know if TB ports are TB-only? That would be crazy and I think we would have heard more of that by now.



THat's what the rumor says...
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You can use a mini display port device in a thunderbolt port but not vice versa obviously
 
Sony, this is stupid.

Apple and Intel already established that it would use a formerly Mini DisplayPort. To hijack the USB standard, which the USB consortium already said they could not do, means adoption will be slowed. ThunderBolt is the port to rule them all; adhere to the standard and make that happen.
 
Small White Car said:
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.
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Well obviously you remember which way the ports are oriented on each device. Why dont you spend 2 seconds to look at the connector to make sure its facing the right direction?
 
FuNGi said:
Does anyone know if TB ports are TB-only? That would be crazy and I think we would have heard more of that by now.
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I'm not talking about TB ports. I'm talking about normal USB 2 ports.

You buy a thunderbolt drive and plug it into a normal USB 2 port? What happens? Either it doesn't work and consumers get frustrated or, even worse, it just works in USB 2 mode and so you end up with thousands of thunderbold drives (I'm sure) working at slower than advertised speeds.

It'll be like people who hook up a DVD player to an HDTV withe a composite cable. And I bet it'll happen a LOT.

Dbrown said:
Well obviously you remember which way the ports are oriented on each device. Why dont you spend 2 seconds to look at the connector to make sure its facing the right direction?
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I'm supposed to memorize every computer in the world? When I go up to someone's desk I don't know what their computer will be like. The point is that you have to get down there and check. That kind of sucks.
 
Small White Car said:
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?
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Sony named it i.Link because Apple trademarked Firewire. Everybody else called it IEEE 1394, because Apple trademarked Firewire. Is Apple doing the same thing here ? (ie, trademarking Thunderbolt like they trademarked Firewire, forcing everyone else into different branding).
 
Farthen said:
USB connectors suck. You can't tell their direction by looking on them from the side and you always plug them the wrong way first (at least I do).

But in the end there will be $30 adapters and everyone will be happy (not).
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You plug it in if it doesnt fit you flip it over. How hard is that?
 
KnightWRX said:
Sony named it i.Link because Apple trademarked Firewire. Everybody else called it IEEE 1394, because Apple trademarked Firewire. Is Apple doing the same thing here ? (ie, trademarking Thunderbolt like they trademarked Firewire, forcing everyone else into different branding).
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I dunno, do you think they'll treat it like Firewire in 1995 or like Firewire in 2011?

Any particular reason you pick 1995?

I really don't know either, just wondering what your reasoning was.
 
KnightWRX said:
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.
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I think the whole idea is to have a single port that consolidates video as well as general device IO; the ability to chain devices, to be able to plug your hard drive into your display. Regardless of it's raw throughput, Thunderbolt is still able to push enough pixels for any of Apple's displays and still have enough bandwidth remaining for several storage devices. I suppose if you hooked up several 30 inch displays then it would be inadequate.

Also, just like HDMI, DP, USB, FireWire and many others, improvements will come in the future!
 
And yet another sign that Thunderbolt is stumbling barely out of the gate.

I would be fine with Thunderbolt if it didn't prevent Apple from supporting USB3 right now. But of course, Apple's vision of purity can't allow an inferior port like USB 3 -- which is already very fast and already has good support from third-party peripherals *today* -- to take anything away from a new port that will probably have no credible peripheral community for at least two years.

Who loses? Apple's customer, who hasn't gotten a high-speed port upgrade since FireWire 800's introduction in 2003! That's 8 bloody years. Apple skipped eSATA entirely, and now it's skipping USB 3 while Thunderbolt creeps along at a snail's pace, watered down by its exclusivity in Apple products, incompatible connectors, non-existent peripherals, and the fact that you can't add Thunderbolt support to existing desktop computers via add-in cards.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.
 
Small White Car said:
I dunno, do you think they'll treat it like Firewire in 1995 or like Firewire in 2011?

Any particular reason you pick 1995?

I really don't know either, just wondering what your reasoning was.
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Uh ? My reasoning was this is what they (Apple) did with Firewire (trademarking the term, causing other OEMs to go for different branding, causing consumer confusion), and this is basically what killed Firewire.

What's so hard to grasp here ? I'm drawing a parallele.

NewProduct said:
I think the whole idea is to have a single port that consolidates video as well as general device IO; the ability to chain devices, to be able to plug your hard drive into your display. Regardless of it's raw throughput, Thunderbolt is still able to push enough pixels for any of Apple's displays and still have enough bandwidth remaining for several storage devices. I suppose if you hooked up several 30 inch displays then it would be inadequate.
Click to expand...

I can already do that, most monitors have USB hubs built-in. The bandwidth to my display should be dedicated and I shouldn't have to unplug my monitor to add to the chain.

NewProduct said:
Also, just like HDMI, DP, USB, FireWire and many others, improvements will come in the future!
Click to expand...

Except the improvements in DP and HDMI are here today. By the time TB catches up to DP 1.2/HDMI 1.4, both of those will have improved again, leaving TB behind on bandwidth, again.

Apple should've gone for a dedicated new port or this USB solution. mDP does not make any sense.
 
KnightWRX said:
Uh ? My reasoning was this is what they (Apple) did with Firewire (trademarking the term, causing other OEMs to go for different branding, causing consumer confusion), and this is basically what killed Firewire.

What's so hard to grasp here ? I'm drawing a parallele.
Click to expand...

And then they let everyone use the name and firewire became more popular.

So I'm asking, why do you think they'll copy the thing they did that didn't work rather than copy the thing that did work?
 
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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But Apple and Intel's line was that they were strongly discouraged by the USB Implementation Forum against using the USB port. If Sony is doing this, then not only are they fragmenting Thunderbolt, but they are also infringing on USB.
 
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?
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I think Intel was thinking "F'U USB implementers forum"
First they got bowled out of making USB3 a worth while up date.
Then they get told the USB port is our's now and you can't use it for your USB3 alternative.

Remembering that there was no talk of Lightpeak.
All the optical demo early on were Intel's demo of USB3 optical.
After that got rejected the same research turns up as Lightpeak demo'd on Hackintosh.
 
Small White Car said:
And then they let everyone use the name and firewire became more popular.
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Too little, too late, too irrelevant.

Small White Car said:
So I'm asking, why do you think they'll copy the thing they did that didn't work rather than copy the thing that did work?
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Because right now there's indication that they are trademarking the term. There is no indication they will give away a free license. Anyway, why bother to trademark it if you're going to give away the name ?
 
k2director said:
And yet another sign that Thunderbolt is stumbling barely out of the gate.

I would be fine with Thunderbolt if it didn't prevent Apple from supporting USB3 right now. But of course, Apple's vision of purity can't allow an inferior port like USB 3 -- which is already very fast and already has good support from third-party peripherals *today* -- to take anything away from a new port that will probably have no credible peripheral community for at least two years.

Who loses? Apple's customer, who hasn't gotten a high-speed port upgrade since FireWire 800's introduction in 2003! That's 8 bloody years. Apple skipped eSATA entirely, and now it's skipping USB 3 while Thunderbolt creeps along at a snail's pace, watered down by its exclusivity in Apple products, incompatible connectors, non-existent peripherals, and the fact that you can't add Thunderbolt support to existing desktop computers via add-in cards.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Click to expand...
You can pipe USB 3 through ThunderBolt.
 
I just want to know when manufacturers are going to bring back LPT and COM ports to laptops. This is complete BS that they removed them.
 
It's consistent with who they are. Sony is the company that renamed the firewire standard ibeam or ilink or some other such rubbish, basically just to spite Apple. My 2cents...Apple should have bought Sony a couple of years ago and could do it easily today. Apple needs to just move full speed ahead into consumer electronics anyway. Apple should also merge with Oracle so they can solidify some control of the internet/intranet back-end that their devices are dependent on.
 
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