Light Peak / Thunderbolt: It makes sense now!

[newagemac]

Does it not make you laugh reading this thread.

Again and again over the last months as soon as anyone mentions that a Honeycomb tablet has a better technical spec than something Apple offers, people are shouted down, saying specs don't matter, it's only tech nerds that go on about such things. It's only the user experience that matters.

Yet as soon as Apple offers something, or may be offering something with a higher spec, that, let's be honest, the man in the street is probably not going to really understand, it's suddenly different now.

Now it's said people need to move forward to new better technologies, and Apple will lead the way and others will follow.

Funny how rules change isn't it?

Can't help feeling if Apple had USB 2 and Xoom had Light peak, it would be a case of Light peak is pointless in a tablet, USB 2 is fine for what it needs to do, and specs like this are only for nerds to worry about.

The difference is that Apple usually focuses on specs/technology that actually makes a difference. Not tech just to fill a spec sheet and boast about a higher number as if that makes the experience significantly better. These new tablets are spouting dual core processors as the latest spec sheet filler. If there is one thing people absolutely love about the iPad is how fast it is. There is no virtually lag on the iPad. So when competitors talk up dual core processors, iPad owners are like "meh".

But there is something that could be improved significantly and that is syncing. Syncing takes a loooooooong time for many people compared to anything else they might do with their iPad. It's probably the single least enjoyable experience. Since thunderbolt/light peak can drastically reduce the time it takes to sync your 64GB ipad, then that is a significant technology "spec" worth talking and getting excited about.

 

[hitekalex]

Very good point! Makes me want the new iPad THAT much more...ugh is it Wednesday already?

How the heck do you physically fit in the mini-DP sized connector on an iPad? And what about iPhone/iPod Touch?

The only way to do this would be if Apple fit Thunderbolt standard into the same 30-pin dock connector format.. Assuming this is even technically possible, given Thunderbolt undoubtedly higher interface power/processing requirements..

Don't see this happening. Apple will not be dropping the existing 30-pin dock connector on its mobile devices.

 

[dfreems]

The more that I've read about Thunderbolt, the more impressed I am by it. I think there are tremendous possibilities for it, and although somewhat annoying to start another standard of connectivity I am for it.

The one fault I think that Apple made was not putting USB 3.0 in the new MBPs. Yes, Thunderbolt is faster, but for those of us that have USB 3.0 drives, it would've been nice to make use of those without the use of an adapter to plug into the Thunderbolt port, and be able to use them with the MBP out of the box.

Secondly, will the Thunderbolt port to HDMI connection handle audio as well as video? I believe the DP>HDMI adapter on the lastest MB supported both.

 

[acastic]

How the heck do you physically fit in the mini-DP sized connector on an iPad? And what about iPhone/iPod Touch?

The only way to do this would be if Apple fit Thunderbolt standard into the same 30-pin dock connector format.. Assuming this is even technically possible, given Thunderbolt undoubtedly higher interface power/processing requirements..

Don't see this happening. Apple will not be dropping the existing 30-pin dock connector on its mobile devices.

Exactly. I'd love to see Thunderbolt on the new iPad 2, but I'm not sure how they'd be able to squeeze the port on the bottom, especially if the iPad 2 is thinner...

 

[baummer]

I'm not so sure we'll see a Thunderbolt port on the iPad 2, as I don't think the iPad 2 is beefy enough to power such a port...yet. But who knows, if anyone can figure it out, it's the engineers at Apple.

 

[Pressure]

DisplayPort is not bidirectional, though. Light Peak currently offers 10Gb/sec each direction, simultaneously.

Yeah, that's what bidirectional means.

 

[gloss]

Yeah, that's what bidirectional means.

I realize that. You made it sound as if Light Peak was capable of pushing only half as much bandwidth as DisplayPort (which can push a maximum of 17.3Gb/s one way) , when in fact it's pushing slightly more (taking both directions into account). I suppose slightly more than half if all that's in question is one-way traffic.

 

[kultschar]

So if the iPad 2 does indeed support Thunderbolt.

does that mean it will take 6 and a half seconds to fill a 64GB iPad from empty to full capacity (to the brim full of apps, films and music)

Now that would be cool!!!!!

 

[Piggie]

So if the iPad 2 does indeed support Thunderbolt.

does that mean it will take 6 and a half seconds to fill a 64GB iPad from empty to full capacity (to the brim full of apps, films and music)

Now that would be cool!!!!!

No, it's like installing a wool delivery system that can pass 100 yards a minute, but it's being used by your grandmother knitting by hand at the other end

 

[gloss]

No, it's like installing a wool delivery system that can pass 100 yards a minute, but it's being used by your grandmother knitting by hand at the other end

Well, the iPad's SSD likely has a higher write speed than the current USB 2.0 connection allows. Unless you're referring to the source.

 

[CAWjr]

As someone who is still running a circa 2007 MBP, I do have a fear that we are moving towards an "upgrade or else" stake in the ground. If the next i-devices start to require Thunderbolt to sync, Apple has you by the short & curlys to force you into the store to unnecessairily upgrade all your gear just so you can get your music on your portable device.

Remember when the original iPods were all Firewire? Apple abandoned that & went to USB rendering all FW accessories useless.

It won't happen overnight, but it would not surprise me to see a i-device in the near future with an error message that reads "this device does not support USB, please connect via Thundbolt connector"

 

[Tailpike1153]

how so? More PCs were sold than Macs when USB was introduced. PCs made USB mainstream. Apple tried forcing FW800 to the masses... didn't work out quite so well. Only a fraction of FW external devices were sold compared to USB.

Gotta love fanboy claims.

I'm still waiting for the PC market to have faith that USB isn't a fad. I've got a new HP Elite 8000 SFF workstation at my desk with legacy ports. I still have PS, serial and parallel ports. Sure I have 10 USB ports but come on. 1994 to 2011. 17 years and counting, the fad has died quite yet.

 

[Piggie]

I'm still waiting for the PC market to have faith that USB isn't a fad. I've got a new HP Elite 8000 SFF workstation at my desk with legacy ports. I still have PS, serial and parallel ports. Sure I have 10 USB ports but come on. 1994 to 2011. 17 years and counting, the fad has died quite yet.

This is because, in general, unlike Apple, PC's don't tell you what you can and cannot do, or what you are and are not allowed.

They offer you as much choice as possible and it's up to you to select which options you go with.

Like at work, we have new PC's, but also some CNC machinery uses floppy disks, and some other have serial ports to transfer programs in from CNC code written on a laptop.

These are $100,000 / $200,000 machines.

But as our PC's still have these ports on them for those who need them we are fine.

Not every industry throws all it's equipment out each year.
And often business stuff, custom made does not keep up with cutting edge IT.

For home I'm all USB / DVI now as are many people. In real work scenarios, perhaps with custom made circuit boards/projects, things can be a little different to the "Apple Lifestyle" scenario.

 

[tonyunreal]

As someone who is still running a circa 2007 MBP, I do have a fear that we are moving towards an "upgrade or else" stake in the ground. If the next i-devices start to require Thunderbolt to sync, Apple has you by the short & curlys to force you into the store to unnecessairily upgrade all your gear just so you can get your music on your portable device.

Remember when the original iPods were all Firewire? Apple abandoned that & went to USB rendering all FW accessories useless.

It won't happen overnight, but it would not surprise me to see a i-device in the near future with an error message that reads "this device does not support USB, please connect via Thundbolt connector"

If the industry moves on to Thunderbolt, that is actually a quite good thing if you think about it in an optimistic way.

There are tens of millions of people who use their iDevices on computers running Windows, if Thunderbolt/LightPeak is popular enough for Apple to make the switch then it definitely is a good change. Until we are close to that situation I can say we're safe to assume Apple won't make Thunderbolt mandatory, there must be a USB fallback solution.

 

[LAnMarc]

The "upgrade or else" argument is no different for Thunderbolt as it is for HDMI.
When I went from a 4 year old plasma to a current LED LCD television, I had no choice but to replace some equipment as the new TV had plenty of HDMI ports but only 1 composite and 1 component connection.
I had 4 pieces of video equipment to connect and only 1 had HDMI.

If you do not want to upgrade your USB devices, don't upgrade your PC/Mac.
Of course, someday you will just have to.

Incidentally, I remember when PC's first came with USB ports.
It was almost 2 years before I could find anything to plug into them.

 

[hss1]

Thunderbolt V HDMI

HDMI is designed just to carry video data, Thunderbolt is designed to carry different protocols across its cable.

FYI Thunder bolt is actually 20 Gbps with 10 Gbps each way

Intels Thunderbolt site:

http://www.intel.com/technology/io/thunderbolt/index.htm

HDMI is HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) is a compact audio/video interface for transmitting uncompressed digital data.[1] It is a digital alternative to consumer analog standards, such as radio frequency (RF) coaxial cable, composite video, S-Video, SCART, component video, D-Terminal, or VGA.

Hate to sound like a complete noob here, but...why is Thunderbolt / Lightpeak so impressive?

I mean...I already have HDMI 1.4, which is above 10 gbps, in my TV, surround sound receiver, and Blu-ray player. Thunderbolt actually has a lower thoroughput (barely) and in practice the same capacity. And HDMI 1.4 is two-way, and can carry a 3D 1080p stream along with 7.1 surround sound and network data...I think that's in line with the best Light Peak demo I've seen.

 

[fpnc]

...FYI Thunder bolt is actually 20 Gbps with 10 Gbps each way...

Thunderbolt carries TWO channels of 10Gbps, bi-directional data so the total bandwidth for the port on the new MacBooks is 40Gbps (or 20Gbps on each channel).

In any case, I don't expect to see Thunderbolt on the next iPad because other than for HD video out there is no reason to have a Thunderbolt port on an iPad. The only reason you'd want HD video output is to watch video on an HDTV and HDTVs don't have Thunderbolt/DisplayPort connections. True, you could use an HDMI adapter with the Thunderbolt port but why would Apple put a port on a device that you couldn't even use without an adapter?

If you want HD video out from your iPad Apple wants you to use AirPlay, not wired HDMI or DisplayPort.

Also, that 10Gbps data output from Thunderbolt would have no purpose on the iPad or any other iOS device since the primary storage in an iPad is made up of S-L-O-W flash memory that probably can't even keep up with USB2 speeds. Let's face it, no one is going to be hooking up a multi-disk RAID to the iPad.

 

[mat25]

as soon as I saw the leaks I thought the same thing, especially when the unknown port in the case designs was rumoured to be a mini display port.

 

[kuebby]

Remember when the original iPods were all Firewire? Apple abandoned that & went to USB rendering all FW accessories useless.

It won't happen overnight, but it would not surprise me to see a i-device in the near future with an error message that reads "this device does not support USB, please connect via Thundbolt connector"

That's not a fair comparison nor does it really make sense. iPods started using USB in 2004 (I believe), and though the first iPods to only use USB were released in 2005 the only FW accessories that no longer worked were FW cables for syncing (they still work for charging) which is because beginning in 2003 with the 3rd gen iPod 'Dock Connector' was the real standard, not FW or USB. (ie, FW disappeared when iPod went big among Windows users, since they didn't have FW to begin with, and they were able to reduce the size of the iPod by removing FW capability.)

I don't think you'll ever see that you HAVE to use Thunderbolt to sync your iPhone/Pad, especially since, as others have already pointed out, a Thunderbolt port won't even fit on any of Apple's portable devices. We're going to be using Dock Connector for a long time; and while they may start making Dock Connector -> Thunderbolt cables you won't be seeing USB capability disappearing for a long time.

 

[fpnc]

Well, the iPad's SSD likely has a higher write speed than the current USB 2.0 connection allows. Unless you're referring to the source.

The iPad doesn't use an SSD. The iPad uses relatively slow, relatively cheap, NAND flash chips (similar to what you'd find in a USB thumb drive). If you want high-speed flash storage you've got to expect to pay a fairly high premium and that's one of the reasons why SSDs are so expensive (or just check out prices for high-speed CompactFlash or SD cards). The reason why SSDs are fast is that they use multiple banks of high-performance flash memory that are accessed though a controller chip specifically designed for use in SSDs. The flash storage that is used in the iPad has neither of those two features.

I suspect that the flash memory used in the iPads can't even transfer data at 20MBps and for that you don't need a Thunderbolt port that can transfer at something like 1250MBps (10Gbps/8b).

 

[urkel]

Heck even USb 3.0 would be a better choice. Backwards compatiable with USB 2.0 and 1.1 without the need for any extra connectors. While still getting excellent speeds for the average consumer.

Exactly. I'm a big fan of LightPeak and even bought a 2TB Seagate Flex drive because they promise a ThunderBolt base this year. But introducing a new port is such a difficult task that goes beyond people screaming "Well, its so much better than USB".

USB 3.0 and Firewire 800 aren't hugely popular but their adoption rate is high because theyre backward compatible. But LightPeak has a much harder road because of whats involved in using, and more importantly, understanding how this new port works.

- Lightpeak is fiber optic. Thunderbolt is copper
- Thunderbolt on Mac has a limit to 6 devices daisy chained
- Thunderbolt only works on a TB native machine because it wont work as an add-on card
- The Thunderbolt name is used by Apple but since it isn't due to appear anywhere else for a while then it's unknown if the name will stick.
's version which may or may not

There's a lot of info that needs to be clarified to potential users and if you've worked with the average end user then you know that is a tough task. So as much as I like what Thunderbolt "can" do, I'd much prefer Apple went with USB 3 as a standard because whether we're talking about Hard Drives or iPods then it would work on current and previous gen devices.

 

[fpnc]

...The Thunderbolt name is used by Apple but since it isn't due to appear anywhere else for a while then it's unknown if the name will stick...

The name "Thunderbolt" is Intel's own trademark for the technology, it's not just "used by Apple." In fact, below is a footnote taken from Intel's technology brief on Thunderbolt:

Thunderbolt, and the Thunderbolt logo are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and other countries.