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is thunderbolt dead!!
- Thread starter kiteflyer
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Its amazing how many Mac users own USB3 drives and are unable to take advantage of it because Apple is pushing a future port so hard that they intentionally chose not to support a current one.
I dont agree that TB won't be a success because it does have some very promising potential (and Apple has proven with "natural scrolling" that a large facet of their user base will gobble up anything Apple feeds them
). But in Oct 2010 when Thunderbolt was first announced then I don't think anyone could predict that "10months from now the only available Thunderbolt device will be a $1000 monitor".Apple really needs to throw us a few dongles because its really tough to be limited to USB2 only.
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Thunderbolt is such a leap ahead. Unfortunately I can't see myself using it for it's true purpose
ah HAAA!-- its a PROFIT DEAL!!!
That may be the truth though. The fact that Apple omitted USB3 means they want to push ThunderBolt pretty hard. And that can easily mean that we get completely shelled with pricing on two fronts. Not only did we pay extra to get FireWire on our current hard drives, we'll also have to pay extra for the ability to use those drives on our Macbook Air thunderbolt port.
I was under the impression that TB would:
1) be super fast. (great for external Hard drive video editing with Macair) and
2) a move toward a single cable patch to the computer that would be able to connect multiple devices (server, monitor, hard drives)
thus making a laptop a best of both worlds:
portability of laptop and a very powerful and convenient replacement for a desktop.
that said the name Thunderbolt always did strike me as gimmicky.
1) be super fast. (great for external Hard drive video editing with Macair) and
2) a move toward a single cable patch to the computer that would be able to connect multiple devices (server, monitor, hard drives)
thus making a laptop a best of both worlds:
portability of laptop and a very powerful and convenient replacement for a desktop.
that said the name Thunderbolt always did strike me as gimmicky.
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Hard to say.
I believe that Apples reasoning is that for TB to have any chance at success it needs to handle video. As they have already made miniDP their standard port for video it makes sense that TB adopts the same port. I believe Sony may be taking a different tact by using the USB port.
stevensr123 said:
Hard to say.
I believe that Apples reasoning is that for TB to have any chance at success it needs to handle video. As they have already made miniDP their standard port for video it makes sense that TB adopts the same port. I believe Sony may be taking a different tact by using the USB port.
Intel's Ivy Bridge platform will support USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt natively. My guess is that means the 2012 MacBook Air will add USB 3.0 support, and next year's "Ultrabooks" will have Thunderbolt support. I don't expect that the early Ultrabooks will have Thunderbolt, though.
Ya its quite a blunder on apples part in my mind...they should have made it a priority to team up with a company and come out with a thunderbolt external hard drive. Theres nothing as of yet and its becoming a joke...they say it is that much better than usb 3.0 and yes it probably is, but thats useless if you can't use it for anything. I know they say by the end of the year we'll have an external hard drive but really it should have been released with the MBPs thats poor planning. Im sorry to say it but its probably going to go the way of firewire. USB 3.0 already has a tone of support and the average consumer either doesn't know about thunderbolt, has no clue how much better it is, or just simply doesn't care about the speeds.
I agree a thunderbolt->usb 3.0 adapter would be great. That being said I am considering buying a seagate portable hard drive as they say they will have one of their connectors available but the end of the year for thunderbolt.
I agree. It also seems more Apple-ish for them to push a new standard that does many things rather than a single standard that does only one or two. In other words, Thunderbolt is more in line with Apple's tendency to find the most basic solution to every problem, even if that means making extreme compromises. IE the iPhone eschewed a physical keyboard in favor of a nearly buttonless interface in order to make it as simple as possible. In their eyes blu-ray and USB 3.0 would be much like a physical keyboard on a smartphone.
correct me if i'm wrong, but didn't apple have a one year exclusive deal with intel for the thunderbolt port? Thats why there aren't products, or non apple systems with thunder bolt
Hopefully, drive makers will start making drives with both TB and USB 3 connections on them. I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for dual connectors, but right now the only thing in the pipeline seems to be very expensive business drives.
The technology is great, but what good is it when Apple's 2011 lineup have a TB ports that gets no use?
The technology is great, but what good is it when Apple's 2011 lineup have a TB ports that gets no use?
If this is true then it is funny that that year exclusive is being pissed away with only two overpriced peripherals.
With all these new macs with TB connections on them (Don't Sonys have them, too?) in the hands of consumers, there's bound to be a lot of stuff on the way.
God knows they'll charge us dearly for them when they arrive.
God knows they'll charge us dearly for them when they arrive.
Honest question. Is Apple intentionally holding back Dongles?
These are all fake numbers but I think the breakdown of external storage preference is probably like this:
90% want USB2 (affordable, don't need speed)
9% want FW or USB3 (slight cost increase but speed is worth it to them)
1% want Thunderbolt (high cost but their pro environment and specific workflow benefits greatly)
Their $1000 monitor proves solutions are possible, but IF the cost of Thunderbolt drives is to be high then by releasing affordable USB3 or FW dongles then Apple is cannibalizing TB sales and preventing it from being "the next industry standard". So Apple is intentionally holding back solutions.
So what do you think? Unless TB simply doesn't work then it seems to be the only explanation for why its been 10mo and there aren't any sort of USB3/FW dongles or hubs to keep us satisfied until Thunderbolt drives are ready.
These are all fake numbers but I think the breakdown of external storage preference is probably like this:
90% want USB2 (affordable, don't need speed)
9% want FW or USB3 (slight cost increase but speed is worth it to them)
1% want Thunderbolt (high cost but their pro environment and specific workflow benefits greatly)
Their $1000 monitor proves solutions are possible, but IF the cost of Thunderbolt drives is to be high then by releasing affordable USB3 or FW dongles then Apple is cannibalizing TB sales and preventing it from being "the next industry standard". So Apple is intentionally holding back solutions.
So what do you think? Unless TB simply doesn't work then it seems to be the only explanation for why its been 10mo and there aren't any sort of USB3/FW dongles or hubs to keep us satisfied until Thunderbolt drives are ready.
I doubt it. Apple isn't discouraging anyone from producing products, and Sonnet will have some adapters later this year (probably in the $70 range if their FireWire adapters are any indication), as well as some smaller-capacity RAID drives. Apple has no interest in making adapters themselves. Most of the ones sold in stores (e.g. mDP to HDMI) are third party. Thunderbolt is just too new to have attracted a large market.
That will change once the Ultrabooks start becoming mainstream next year. Ivy Bridge will have native support for both USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt, so we'll start seeing Apple notebooks with USB 3.0 and Ultrabooks with Thunderbolt ports by this time next year.
I think Thunderbolt is a win. There is one big difference between TB and USB; TB is pretty much PCI-E. It opens a whole new world of possibilities of plugging external hardware to laptops.
The best example is external GPUs. You can do it through ExpressCard (which is also pretty much PCI-E) and you can do it through USB3.0, but doing it through TB is simply the best. Look up new Vaio Z with external GPU through Lightpeak, ViDock Thunderbolt (in the making now) for awesome external GPU/docking station. (note: with EC it works well, with TB it will be proper desktop speed; sure TB is not PCI-E 16x but if you look up scaling tests, you don't loose that much going from 16x to 4x)
Or look up Sonnet Echo Express for an external enclosure for any PCI-E card through TB.
Think about connecting ANY computer hardware to a laptop. Isn't that awesome?
The best example is external GPUs. You can do it through ExpressCard (which is also pretty much PCI-E) and you can do it through USB3.0, but doing it through TB is simply the best. Look up new Vaio Z with external GPU through Lightpeak, ViDock Thunderbolt (in the making now) for awesome external GPU/docking station. (note: with EC it works well, with TB it will be proper desktop speed; sure TB is not PCI-E 16x but if you look up scaling tests, you don't loose that much going from 16x to 4x)
Or look up Sonnet Echo Express for an external enclosure for any PCI-E card through TB.
Think about connecting ANY computer hardware to a laptop. Isn't that awesome?
Actually there's two more big differences.
1) USB3 devices come at little to no added cost on current USB computers/peripherals. Thunderbolt is likely to cost more under the FireWire excuse that "this is new technology and It cost more to manufacture blah blah blah".
2) USB3 is backward compatible with every computer for the last decade+ while Thunderbolt is very limited since it only appears on some products and has no actual peripherals yet.
Don't get me wrong. I want TB to succeed but so far it looks to be more about promises than actual products.