I guess you're not getting it, most of us angry about this whole Tbolt debacle are the one's who bought last years models which only have tbolt and no usb 3.0 ports. We're just pissed that whilst PC manufacturers were busy putting USB 3.0 even in $350 laptops, Apple cheaps out and only offers with Tbolt with the promise of widespread adoption. I use 750gb 2.5" 7200rpm hard drives and SSDs for my MBP/MBA backups and they're more than capable of exceeding FW800 max speeds. With these crazy Tbolt peripherals and tbolt to USB 3.0 hub prices, it's more cost effective to just dump your 2011 machine and get a 2012 model which is ludicrous financially.
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Third-Party Thunderbolt Docking Stations Remain Vaporware as Shipping Dates Pushed Back
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I guess you're not getting it, most of us angry about this whole Tbolt debacle are the one's who bought last years models which only have tbolt and no usb 3.0 ports. We're just pissed that whilst PC manufacturers were busy putting USB 3.0 even in $350 laptops, Apple cheaps out and only offers with Tbolt with the promise of widespread adoption. I use 750gb 2.5" 7200rpm hard drives and SSDs for my MBP/MBA backups and they're more than capable of exceeding FW800 max speeds. With these crazy Tbolt peripherals and tbolt to USB 3.0 hub prices, it's more cost effective to just dump your 2011 machine and get a 2012 model which is ludicrous financially.
Thunderbolt is progressing just fine.
We're on second generation chipsets (Cactus and Pine Ridge I believe) and pricing is coming down. Was just looking at the Lacie Rugged TB drives.
By this time next year the premium of TB over FW800/USB 3.0 will be fairly small.
Reports of Thunderbolt's demise have been greatly exaggerated.
We're on second generation chipsets (Cactus and Pine Ridge I believe) and pricing is coming down. Was just looking at the Lacie Rugged TB drives.
By this time next year the premium of TB over FW800/USB 3.0 will be fairly small.
Reports of Thunderbolt's demise have been greatly exaggerated.
Maps did actually ship tho... And it does work. Maybe not 100% as expected, but it shipped and it works.
Not sure if this has already come up in this thread... But where the heck are the Thunderbolt ViDocks (external GPU) we were promised??
I'd drop some serious cash on a COMPLETE thunderbolt docking station with full size graphics card support and all the normal stuff... Would turn any laptop PC or Mac into a very powerful and capable desktop workstation instantly.
I'd love to embrace and make use of thunderbolt's potential but wow what a bummer. For whatever reason it seems getting the licensing or compatibility for it is horrendous.
I'd drop some serious cash on a COMPLETE thunderbolt docking station with full size graphics card support and all the normal stuff... Would turn any laptop PC or Mac into a very powerful and capable desktop workstation instantly.
I'd love to embrace and make use of thunderbolt's potential but wow what a bummer. For whatever reason it seems getting the licensing or compatibility for it is horrendous.
What I mean is that tech like this is getting more and more complicated and expensive If you wanted to do something like this a few years ago, at speeds that were considered this fast at the time, you didn't have to pay this much.
Tech prices tend to stay the same over the years, this is a huge exception...
If you want to make this about what has shipped and what hasn't - that's fine. I was referencing Apple promoting a product of theirs one way and then changing it after it's already been released.
Further - it was pretty dodgy/bad research to refer to the iPhone as the thinnest smartphone in the world. Something someone must have informed them during the keynote because only at the end did they "get the memo" and change their reference on stage and on their website as "the thinnest iPhone yet"
I think you've highlighted the most popular misconception about Thunderbolt, i.e. that it is overpriced relative to its performance.
Throughout the history of computers, you could always go a certain amount faster if you were willing to throw a bit more money at the problem. This caused things to striate out into tiers: personal computers, professional workstations, enterprise servers, etc. Thunderbolt is really a technology that is too advanced and too expensive at this point for most personal computer users, yet Apple decided to add the capability across the Mac range because it allowed them to uniquely solve certain problems.
There has never been anything like a 10.3125 GBaud serial connection on a personal computer. Even PCIe 3.0 only runs at 8 GBaud, and it certainly can't support a chain of devices that could potentially extend 30 feet from the host. 10.3125 GBaud is very common in the datacenter though, yet the cost per port there is way higher than even Thunderbolt.
For many, Thunderbolt will continue to be considered a solution looking for a problem, but for those that can actually utilize its advantages, it's pretty awesome.
But there's almost nothing to plug into the Thunderbolt port! So it's awesome being unused?
Not the whole Mac range. Poor old Mac Pro, used by people who could actually afford Chunderbolt devices, doesn't have it. Still.
But there's almost nothing to plug into the Thunderbolt port! So it's awesome being unused?
Even if you only had one device and used it occasionally, it would not be unused. I can also guarantee you that there are people out there that use the ATD on the daily and find it pretty awesome. Same goes for the Pegasus RAID devices, or any of the items listed here that you seem to be unaware of. I think there's about 50 (not counting variants, host devices or cables) actual shipping Thunderbolt accessories at this point.
It still does have real PCIe slots though. But the Mac Pro is also lacking in many more ways than just Thunderbolt.
Apple should have made some of their own macbook air TB accessoires to keep it alive. Thunderbolt sofar has been one big FAIL. Nobody is waiting on a 250$ hard disk enclosure, without disk. Thank God I have USB 3 on my MBP retina.
Apple and Intel should seriously get their act together on this front.
Apple and Intel should seriously get their act together on this front.
"Alive" ??? Fail? Under what metric? Those that need the speed or flexibility of Thunderbolt enjoy it. If your needs are handled by USB 3.0 that's great but there are no companies that I know of going out of business because their Thunderbolt products didn't sell enough.
Haven't you read this thread? Macbook AIR users out their have their macbook for over a year without any thunderbolt products to connect to. Those handful of products that are out there are way overpriced. Thunderbolt would be nice if the market adoption rate would have been higher. For now, I am happily enjoying fairly priced USB3 peripherals, thank you very much.
I've got a 2011 Air and I could have purchased a Thunderbolt product the day I bought it. Just because my budget said no doesn't mean the next guy or gal's budget is telling the the same thing.
Pricing is always relative. The people buying Thunderbolt today can afford it and the ones that aren't buying either cannot or will not pay today's pricing. I'm glad you're enjoying USB 3.0 but there are plenty of Professionals and enthusiasts enjoying Thunderbolt as well.
Why would 3rd party vendors spend their hard earned money making something for an interface they don't know if anyone will want? A small few will tread in those waters and reap the rewards or lose their shirt. They pave the way for others to follow. That's just the way the economy, capitalism, marketing, works.
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This thread is just like all the other threads about Thunderbolt. Lots of folks who don't understand the technology complaining that things they don't need cost more than they can afford and thus declaring Thunderbolt a failure, DOA and a "bag of hurt."
I'm not sure what beef would be specific to MacBook Air owners, but regardless, there are Thunderbolt products out there, so your statement isn't true. The Apple Thunderbolt to FireWire and Gigabit Ethernet adapters are both $29 and very useful, especially if you own an Air. The Apple Thunderbolt Display and Pegasus R4/R6 might be considered expensive, but they are not "overpriced".
Then you hit on the other great misconception about Thunderbolt, that if only the adoption rate had been higher, everything would be as cheap as USB 3.0. Thunderbolt will never be a cheap technology compared to USB or even FireWire. The dual port DSL3510L Cactus Ridge controller costs $30. That's $30 to the manufacturer of a Thunderbolt device, which in turn adds considerably more than that to the retail price. This chip is not expensive because demand is low. It's expensive because it's a big honkin' 144 mm^2 piece of silicon. A die shrink or two will do wonders for both the cost of the controller and its power consumption, but that is years down the road from now. The biggest gains Thunderbolt can make in the near term is to work on improving and further integrating more of the technologies around the edges, i.e. the power management, DisplayPort re-drivers, transceivers, etc.
If you use interfaces such as 10GbE, mini-SAS, Fibre Channel, SDI or AES/EBU in your line of work, you can actually get the job done with a MacBook Air thanks to ThunderBolt. If you own a 2011 Mac and want to attach a cheap USB 3.0 hard drive and use it in SuperSpeed mode, just keep hoping that someone produces a $29 Thunderbolt to USB 3.0 adapter, although I wouldn't hold my breath.
In December 2011 I bought an iMac with thunderbolt, an 8 gig thunderbolt Promise Pegasus RAID, and updated my Matrox MXO2 mini with a thunderbolt adapter.
Today I can also get my standard external drives in thunderbolt from any manufacturer. I can get thunderbolt displays. I can hook up just about any display to a thunderbolt port with an adapter. What is the problem?
The problem with these hubs is they're pointless. I'm not sure what the Matrox one is for. it has USB 2 (already available on any mac with a $4 hub of your choice), an ethernet connection (spend your money on a wireless router instead - duh), and HDMI (huh? why a monitor port? If you're going to drop $250 so you can hook up your $400 crud monitor, why not spend $1000 on an apple 27" best in class thunderbolt monitor and get a better hub to boot?)
The Belkin one is just too crazy expensive. If you need this to get connected up to your macbook air, then you bought the wrong notebook. Sell it and get one with some ports and don't carry this thing around.
No I said I have MBP retina which thankfully has usb 3.0 included. If the cost of the thunderbolt controller is that high, then Apple/Intel should start subsidizing to drive consumer cost down. We are still seeing lots of issues with thunderbolt devices, system lockups/freezes, if you read the revies/forums. That's why I am holding off. If I buy that expensive I want top notch quality. If the manufacturer adoption rate gets higher we will also get better drivers and more stable solutions quicker. It's just slow in coming and what do Apple/Intel do on this front? Not much so it seems.
Apple has done their part and then some. They've shipped over 30 million of those controllers without increasing the retail price of the products to which they were added. Further subsidies would be foolish. 10GBASE-T would probably take off as well if all the OEM's took a bath and included it at no additional charge throughout their line-ups. Have you ever looked at Intel's prices for CPU's? The cheapest Ivy Bridge mobile Core i3 processors list for $225. Intel's looking to raise prices, increase margins and halt the race to the bottom in the PC space. My point was that Thunderbolt is a premium technology from a consumer perspective, full stop. I doubt that will ever change, regardless of adoption rate.
Better validation for Thunderbolt devices does need to happen, but it also takes time. That is no doubt one of the reasons we've seen so many shipping dates rolled back. The Thunderbolt Drobos for instance, where are they?
If you look at the list of available Thunderbolt accessories, you quickly see that almost all of them are for doing work (professionals) rather than entertainment (consumers). And in case anyone's interested, I happen to have such a list:
AJA ioXT
AJA KiStor Dock
AJA T-TAP
Apple Apple Thunderbolt Display
Apple Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter
Apple Thunderbolt to FireWire Adapter
ATTO ThunderLink FC Thunderbolt to 8Gb/s Fibre Channel Desklink
ATTO ThunderLink NS Thunderbolt to 10GbE Desklink (SFP+)
ATTO ThunderLink NT Thunderbolt to 10GbE Desklink (10GBASE-T)
ATTO ThunderLink SH Thunderbolt to 6Gb/s SAS/SATA Desklink
ATTO ThunderStream SC Thunderbolt to 6Gb/s SAS RAID Desklink
Avid Pro Tools|HD Native Thunderbolt Interface
Blackmagic Design Intensity Shuttle for Thunderbolt
Blackmagic Design Intensity Extreme
Blackmagic Design UltraStudio 3D
Blackmagic Design UltraStudio Express
Blackmagic Design UltraStudio Mini Monitor
Blackmagic Design UltraStudio Mini Recorder
Blackmagic Design UltraStudio 4K
Blackmagic Design Blackmagic Cinema Camera EF
Blackmagic Design Teranex 2D Processor
Blackmagic Design Universal Videohub Editing Interface
Buffalo Technology MiniStation Thunderbolt (2 variants)
Elgato Thunderbolt SSD (2 variants)
Freecom Mobile Drive Mg USB 3.0 & Thunderbolt
G-Technology G-RAID with Thunderbolt (3 variants)
LaCie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt (4 variants)
LaCie 2big Thunderbolt (2 variants)
LaCie eSATA Hub Thunderbolt Series
LaCie Rugged USB3 Thunderbolt Series (3 variants)
Matrox MXO2 Thunderbolt adapter
Other World Computing OWC Mercury Helios PCIe Thunderbolt Expansion Chassis (5 variants)
Promise Pegasus R4 (2 variants)
Promise Pegasus R6 (3 variants)
Promise SANLink
Promise Pegasus J2 (2 variants)
Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt Adapter (2 variants)
Seagate GoFlex Desk Thunderbolt Adapter (2 variants)
Sonnet Echo ExpressCard/34 Thunderbolt Adapter
Sonnet Echo Pro ExpressCard/34 Thunderbolt Adapter
Sonnet Echo Express Thunderbolt Expansion Chassis for PCIe Cards
Sonnet Echo Express Pro Thunderbolt Expansion Chassis for PCIe Cards
Sonnet Echo Express SE (3 variants)
Sonnet xMac mini Server
Sound Devices PIX-DOCK
Universal Audio Apollo Thunderbolt Option Card
Western Digital My Book Thunderbolt Duo (2 variants)
Western Digital My Book VelociRaptor Duo
Or Apple should stop being derps and put the dedicated GPU back into the 13" like they've done before.
Yeah well, designing a cpu from the ground up is something else than designing a pc enclosure, is all what Apple does, actually. So Intel wants in on the margin, can't blame them. Macs are already (over)priced at the level of including the latest and greatest tech, so they better include things like thunderbolt without charging additional cost.
I left the only worthy in price TB item in the list above, but it has stability issues, or so I read...
I can see your point in TB being a premium thing, but then they should have shipped USB3 alongside TB in macbook airs, all along.
(sigh)
I did not say FW is dead.
I implied it could be far more prevalent then it is today.
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Who said its dead??
It is excruciatingly slow, evidence by Mac Pro not having TB
What's missing is this:
Apple Thunderbolt to USB 3.0 Adapter for $39
This will silence 95% of the 'too expensive thunderbolt' gripers in this thread. Is it really that hard to make this dang adapter?!!!
Safari for PC was not a fail - to get Windows using web developers to develop and test for WebKit. Now that WebKit is on just about every mobile phone, web developers do that anyway. Surely, you didn't think its purpose was to become a mainstream browser on Windows?
Not sure how you can call Passbook a fail either - it just came out and already has support from many services. Don't know why Newsstand or Siri is considered a failure either.
Well, these hubs, maybe. But not the concept of a thunderbolt hub. Mpst people who use a laptop at a desk and take it home with you every night are dying for a hub that lets you connect all your peripherals and networking with a single cable. A hub that includes another tb port (for daisy chaining), USB 3, firewire, audio, gigE would be perfect. I'd buy one in a second.
Also, you are just plain wrong on wireless being a substitute for gigabit ethernet. If you move large files around, wireless is a poor substitute for gigabit ethernet.
Not only that, Apple's display is fine, but for many people it's overkill, and for many others, it's not good enough. A good hub lets you connect any display you like, be it a $400 display, or a $2000 display, or no display at all.
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