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

[Small White Car]

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 ?

So someone else doesn't trademark it.

Basically Apple can choose to do something stupid or something smart. They've done the stupid thing before. It diddn't work. You're asking me to believe that they'll repeat that mistake.

Ok, maybe they will. But I'll need more proof to believe something odd like that. I don't have any yet.

 

[k2director]

You can pipe USB 3 through ThunderBolt.

I've heard you can't. Are you sure? Strange that I've seen companies like Sonnet announce (not ship of course!) Thunderbolt adapters for FireWire 800 and Gigabit Ethernet, but no USB3 variant. You'd think USB3 would be the first one they'd support.

 

[ciTiger]

I really do hope it is not true...
Just settle on one connector and go with it...

 

[KnightWRX]

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.

Do you sleep well at night knowing you don't know what you are talking about ? Again, Apple is the one that forced Sony to use a different name back in the 90s. Apple was preventing everyone from using Firewire.

 

[coldmack]

Who cares about Thunderbolt nobody's gonna use it anyway.

Exactly, specially since iOS and ARM will be king one day.

 

[asdf542]

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.

That demo was on a torn apart Mac Pro, not a Hackintosh.

 

[KPOM]

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.

However, one argument is that mDP isn't widely used except for Apple, anyway, so for all intents and purposes, it is a "new" port. As for the USB solution, while there are merits to it, supposedly Apple and Intel were told not to use it, so either the USB Implementation Forum changed its mind, Sony got the USB IF's permission, Sony decided to heck with the USB IF, or someone's story isn't straight.

Either way, mDP isn't proprietary to Apple, so there's no reason that Sony couldn't have used it for Thunderbolt alongside HDMI, VGA, or whatever other video ports that it wants to include on its notebook PCs.

Do you sleep well at night knowing you don't know what you are talking about ? Again, Apple is the one that forced Sony to use a different name back in the 90s. Apple was preventing everyone from using Firewire.

Sony could have used IEEE 1394 like everyone else. Also, I don't think Apple prevented Sony from using the standard port design.

 

[KPOM]

To the point of the headline, if Engadget is right then, yes, it would be Sony, not Apple, who is fragmenting the standard. Apple came out with it first, and there is no indication that they are preventing or discouraging anyone else from using the mini DisplayPort for Thunderbolt applications.

 

[NewProduct]

My MBA is not a post PC device. And I don't really see your point. I don't want to unplug my external monitor from my MBA to plug in an HDD.

The comma was supposed to imply OR

Well now you can plug all of your hard drives and even a tertiary display into your first display; your MBA only needs only one port, Thunderbolt. I suppose there is minimal advantage for larger machines. We'll see what happens, but I think this ability is what Apple is after.

 

[Small White Car]

Again, Apple is the one that forced Sony to use a different name back in the 90s. Apple was preventing everyone from using Firewire.

Then why did HP and Dell use '1394?'

How is it that ALL the Windows-PC makers used one single term and Sony was the only odd one out? Apple forced them to do that?

The problem we're complainging about is the fact that Sony always does their own thing. In that case 'their own thing' was not using the 1394 name like every other PC maker did.

You're not addressing the real complaint people are making.

 

[cube]

Any Apple fan disliking USB should be happy that it's USB that might have issues because of merging with Thunderbolt and not DisplayPort, which should be left alone.

 

[QuarterSwede]

So someone else doesn't trademark it.

Hadn't thought of that.

Basically Apple can choose to do something stupid or something smart. They've done the stupid thing before. It didn't work. You're asking me to believe that they'll repeat that mistake.

Ok, maybe they will. But I'll need more proof to believe something odd like that. I don't have any yet.

Good point. We'll see.

I've heard you can't. Are you sure? Strange that I've seen companies like Sonnet announce (not ship of course!) Thunderbolt adapters for FireWire 800 and Gigabit Ethernet, but no USB3 variant. You'd think USB3 would be the first one they'd support.

You can pipe anything through ThunderBolt. It's protocol agnostic. That's what makes it so appealing.

 

[rodriguise]

Well, I'd say no because Apple launched with it first, anyone who then chooses to make it different, are the ones fragmenting it.

But I believe that having a USB connector helps a lot, as you can then plug any USB device into it. I have a Esata port on my laptop and it comes in handy if I want to use it for a USB instead.




Have you ever looked into a USB port? Its very clear which way it's meant to go. Incase you didnt look inside, most USB products have the USB symbol on the top side so you know which way to stick it in.

Image​

Make sure the gap in the socket lines up with the block in the port.

Thank you captain obvious. Of course if you are reaching behind a rack through a forest of cat-5 cables in poorly lighted datacenter, its still a pain in the butt. Think before you speak.

 

[QuarterSwede]

Thank you captain obvious. Of course if you are reaching behind a rack through a forest of cat-5 cables in poorly lighted datacenter, its still a pain in the butt. Think before you speak.

Everyone I know thinks it's a crappy design and has for years. There is almost nothing worse after a bad day at work to fumble with a USB connector because every bloody time you plug it in it's freaking upside down! It's the same annoyance as always hitting red lights. It may not be true but it sure feels like it.

 

[ThisIsNotMe]

Its really sad what Apple has been doing in recent years.

Instead of telling the USB consortium to shove it like Sony will, Apply played by the rules and will now get beaten in the market.

Same thing happened with the MPAA. Google and Amazon told them to shove it and released their streaming services. Apple on the other hand went about it the "proper" way and got beaten to the market.

Apple needs to be more aggressive. Their competitors are doing what they want when they want so there is no reason Apple should handicap themselves.

 

[res1233]

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.

Agreed. The only real safe implementation of MagSafe is the current one. The power cable for laptops, and laptops only. Desktops being unplugged would have even more negatives than a data cable, since they don't have a battery to take over.

 

[ThisIsNotMe]

My MBA is not a post PC device. And I don't really see your point. I don't want to unplug my external monitor from my MBA to plug in an HDD.

Unlike USB, thunderbolt is easily daisychainable.

 

[Val-kyrie]

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.

I am not so certain that Apple is skipping USB 3 or that Apple will forego USB 3 for Thunderbolt. Actually, it is more likely that Apple did not want to deal with using a third party controller to enable USB 3 on current motherboards and decided to wait until Intel implements USB 3 natively. Intel's native support of USB 3 is purportedly coming with Ivy Bridge.

 

[QuarterSwede]

I am not so certain that Apple is skipping USB 3 or that Apple will forego USB 3 for Thunderbolt. Actually, it is more likely that Apple did not want to deal with using a third party controller to enable USB 3 on current motherboards and decided to wait until Intel implements USB 3 natively. Intel's native support of USB 3 is purportedly coming with Ivy Bridge.

That's the most likely theory. It makes sense and is in line with what Apple generally does (smaller, thinner lighter requiring as much on one chip as possible).

 

[rodriguise]

Slow rumor day I guess.

 

[cube]

Unlike USB, thunderbolt is easily daisychainable.

You just need a USB hub in the device. Even my old CRT has one.

 

[seanmolin]

That's what's great about Thunderbolt. You'll (in theory) be able to get a USB 3.0 hub (or straight up adaptor) with a Thunderbolt/MDP end on it, and ta-da you have USB 3.0.

 

[KnightWRX]

Well now you can plug all of your hard drives and even a tertiary display into your first display

Not with any current existing displays I can't. The display needs to the be last leg on the chain.

Unlike USB, thunderbolt is easily daisychainable.

So is DP 1.2. Except it has twice the bandwidth of TB, meaning it can drive more monitors at higher resolutions and better refresh rates.

Apple did not want to deal with using a third party controller to enable USB 3 on current motherboards

But they wanted to deal with using a seperate TB controller that's about 4 times bigger than any USB3 controller and generates more heat ?

Makes sense.

That's the most likely theory. It makes sense and is in line with what Apple generally does (smaller, thinner lighter requiring as much on one chip as possible).

Except in this case, where they went with the thicker, larger solution.

 

[coldmack]

Its really sad what Apple has been doing in recent years.

Instead of telling the USB consortium to shove it like Sony will, Apply played by the rules and will now get beaten in the market.

Same thing happened with the MPAA. Google and Amazon told them to shove it and released their streaming services. Apple on the other hand went about it the "proper" way and got beaten to the market.

Apple needs to be more aggressive. Their competitors are doing what they want when they want so there is no reason Apple should handicap themselves.

Fact is Intel is holding them back and keeping them from being truly first. They need to drop intel like a bad hat and then we will see Apple littler take the market away from others.

 

[xxBURT0Nxx]

this story is FUD imo until we actually see these sony laptops or sony confirms that they will use a USB connector when they implement thunderbolt.

Sony also has a tendency to be proprietary (memory stick, mini disc, etc.) so I wouldn't hold out that perhaps they will be the odd ones out? I guess we will see soon enough, but since all known thunderbolt accessories announced to this point (afaik) are going to have mDP connectors, not USB, so it would be quite stupid of sony to change the connector on their computers. Now we are going to have TBmDP accessories and TBUSB accessories? STUPID, and most consumers will end up getting so confused/frustrated with not knowing which is which and what adapters they need now that if this is the case I think TB will become a niche market of accessories.