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Thunderbolt possibilities.
- Thread starter iNickk
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Everyone is going on about thunderbolt (light peak etc), but in reality all that apple has done is give me one more bloody cable that is going to hang off my desk from my macbook.
Yes it is fast. But the appeal of light peak is that it will also replace a whole host of cables.
I dream of the day of hooking up my computer, NAS, monitors etc all with just one cable.
What about the new apple displays and mac pros- just one cable for everything and no power cords, ISB cords and display cords.
The tech is there- let us see some action.
Yes it is fast. But the appeal of light peak is that it will also replace a whole host of cables.
I dream of the day of hooking up my computer, NAS, monitors etc all with just one cable.
What about the new apple displays and mac pros- just one cable for everything and no power cords, ISB cords and display cords.
The tech is there- let us see some action.
You realize that ThunderBolt will be able to do exactly what you just described?
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It's genius. Drivers are unchanged, you're basically just extending the bus.
It's kind of a meta-interface, and it should support anything that hangs off PCIe at the moment (so, everything then!).
It's no longer a case of 'Thunderbolt vs USB3' or 'Thunderbolt vs Firewire'... Thunderbolt essentially owns them all.
iPod cable? You must be joking. 10 Gb/s Light Peak port is for tasks requiring large throughput and low latency. (Think Firewire on Steroids). Real-time video editing on an external RAID array, for example. Not your silly cell phone, lol.
That isn't even possible. The write speed of your device's internal flash memory (or 1.8" HDD if you have an ipod classic) is so pitifully slow, you wouldn't really see much of a speed up at all. Plus the latency is irrelevant when syncing a mobile device, so a bus like USB, with its stupid slow latency, is perfectly fine for that task.
Hence my argument that Light Peak is for more serious devices... ones that can actually put the high bandwidth and low latency to good use.
Amen to that. I had to wipe my 32GB phone a while back. Copying back all the movies/music to FOREVER.
Not that it helps me any, since my desktop machine doesn't have TB...
Apple might go for it, since it allows a large amount of power to be supplied over the connector.
USB2 should only really provide 2.5W - but Apple break the rules by supplying 10W to charge the iPad. Thunderbolt allows 10W as standard.
USB2 does not provide 2.5w. The USB2 spec provides for a maximum of .5w (500 milliwatts).
Firewire, as implemented in Apple notebooks, can do 10x what USB can do. Firewire can deliver 5 watts.
And of course the new LP connector can do 10 watts.
The internal charger of the iPad (and iPhone and other iToys) is intelligent - i.e. it is smart enough to only draw 500 milliwatts when plugged into a computer's USB port, but when used with an AC adapter charger, it can draw more current for faster charging. This is obvious just by feeling the device's temperature while charging, and also timing how long it takes to charge - they get much warmer (and charge quicker) when charging up from AC adapter than from charging via a computer.
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Well hopefully there is some sort of hub or doubler option for this because once people start using this in a professional environment it's going to be a pain to unhook the external display to hook up a thunderbolt device. I understand why they made it the mini display port in this initial release of thunderbolt though as there isn't any devices yet and apple doesn't want a useless port on their product.
Light Peak is not a point to point bus. You can daisy chain devices, just like firewire, or use a hub once they become available.
"A symmetric architecture that supports flexible topologies (star, tree, daisy chaining, etc.) and enables peer-to-peer communication (via software) between devices."
http://www.intel.com/technology/io/thunderbolt/325136-001US_secured.pdf
http://www.intel.com/technology/io/thunderbolt/325136-001US_secured.pdf
Correct me if I'm wrong, but with the iDevices, isn't the device throttling the speed, not the connector (in this case USB 2.0)? So, even if you change it to Light Peak, then the device is still throttling the speed, and it won't make any difference.
Also, Thunderbolt (is "Thunderbolt" capitalised?) possibilities:
Thunderbolt to USB 3.0 --> if you've already got a device that uses USB 3.0.
Thunderbolt to HDMI --> PS3, xbox, blu ray drives, etc. Not really useful for the small screen in an MBP, but on the iMac...
But, I can only hope that Apple will supply Thunderbolt to USB 3.0 and HDMI connectors, and scaling isn't an issue on the iMac (1080p to 1440p).
Also, Thunderbolt (is "Thunderbolt" capitalised?) possibilities:
Thunderbolt to USB 3.0 --> if you've already got a device that uses USB 3.0.
Thunderbolt to HDMI --> PS3, xbox, blu ray drives, etc. Not really useful for the small screen in an MBP, but on the iMac...
But, I can only hope that Apple will supply Thunderbolt to USB 3.0 and HDMI connectors, and scaling isn't an issue on the iMac (1080p to 1440p).
I think though Light Peak also has the potential for neatening up desktops and ease of plugging a laptop in and out of using it like a desktop.
Because you can daisy chain with it and it's perfectly compatible with USB and firewire and others so you can also plug it into a device that plugs into everything else (or even if they make a monitor with connections to everything else).
So instead of plugging your keyboard,iphone,moniter, backup hard drive you can just unplug/plug one thing, and leave the rest sitting on the desk plugged into the one thing you plug into your laptop. A docking situation not requiring a dock that is tailor made to your computer
(basically you don't need some one to make a dock to fit your computer, just some one to make that one hub. And since that hub could be more universal amongst computers and stuff if lightpeak takes off, more appeal for people to make that hub so more chances it will exist vs. a dock tailor made to your specific computer).
Gotta say, the one thing I'm really hoping (is the Intel announcement being streamed anywhere?) is that the connector Apple is using, their Mini DisplayPort one, is going to be the standard for Thunderbolt/Light Peak. Because if it's not, we're looking at a lot more trouble in the future with connectivity. If that's the standard Thunderbolt connector, though, then I'm very excited.
jW
jW