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WDC My Book Thunderbolt Duo Drive Pricing and Shipping Announced
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You'd need to declare 'i' as an int inside the for loop and you will only output 29 lines instead of 30 as you ++i instead of i++.
It also doesn't really matter what the reason is for the price premium (here's a hint; it has more to do with supply and demand than licensing). Apple chose to ship a product with this port and without USB3 last year and it is now paying the price in that regard. Some of us brought up these shortcomings when it came out but we were laughed and voted down like crazy by the fanatics on here who bragged and bragged about how WONDERFUL Thunderbolt is and how crappy USB3 is.
Now these same users are getting an eye full of just what it means to roll out a product that has almost no support and hardly any users. We pointed out Firewire drive price premiums, but they laughed at that and said Thunderbolt will replace USB3 since it's better. We pointed out that Firewire was significantly better than USB2 even in its 400 form, let alone FW800, but it STILL got little support and had huge price premiums on the order of about $200 over the same drive for USB2 (and later USB3, which out-performs FW800 by a long margin and costs no more than USB2 devices).
All I can say is these forums deserve any such repeats thousands of times over because it can't be said enough how ignorant the average Mac user is about technology and prices in the real world. They think just because they use an Iphone they know everything there is to know.
Thunderbolt is a nice addition for professional users who need as much bandwidth as possible and a limited set of devices that might actually use that bandwidth. It is not a replacement for USB3, which has backwards-compatibility, mass marketing and therefore cheap pricing on its side and at the present time more than exceeds normal consumer device bandwidth needs. By delaying the addition of USB3 to its products, Apple is only proving once again that it is NOT a game leader anymore. They still don't offer (and never will) Blu-Ray compatibility (not even at a pro level with an added license for those that could really use it in the industry) and they have no conception of home computer gaming (and therefore do not offer products that support it either in hardware offerings or drivers or the OpenGL back-end.
Apple is a CONSUMER company that oddly sometimes doesn't seem to 'get' its own consumerism by leaving out stuff that consumers WANT (from USB3 to Blu-Ray to USB2 originally to even standard printer connections back in the day). A "Pro" oriented company could use its focus as an excuse, but Apple's excuse seems to amount to a desire for market dominance and control (and thus licensing fees and hardware sales of items that only Apple makes). This lets them sell dongles, converters and back in the day even printers because the standard stuff simply didn't work by itself. And yet people CHEER Apple on not matter what they do like lemmings jumping off a cliff.
[rant edited]
We'll see USB3 ports in Macs when Intel adds native support in their Ivy Bridge chipsets later this Spring.
I'm not sure what the point is with your backward-compatibility argument. You can plug any USB3 drive into a computer with a USB2 port (including any currently supported Mac) and get USB2 speeds.
We'll see USB3 ports in Macs when Intel adds native support in their Ivy Bridge chipsets later this Spring.
I am not entirely sure what the point of your rant is.. Thunderbolt is going to get plenty of support and plenty of users, since it's going to be baked into all Apple Mac products starting from 2011. If you're connecting latest Apple display to a Mac - guess what? You are a Thunderbolt user. In effect, Apple is giving this to you for free.
And you don't have to purchase any high-end Thunderbolt storage solutions if you don't need the performance and aren't willing to pay the premium. In fact, if you prefer to use FW800 storage - Thunderbolt now enables the Macs without Firewire ports (MacBook Air) to do that.
USB3 and Thunderbolt aren't mutually exclusive, and in fact they have completely different architectures. Thunderbolt is in effect an extended PCI bus, so it can support wide variety if things (Displays, external GPUs), that you won't see with USB.
My basic points are:
1> Apple COULD have had USB3 last year and I know that I would have bought a Mac Mini to replace my aging PowerMac by now to use as a server (Thunderbolt has been useless here as there have been no devices until recently to connect to it while I already had a USB3 external 3TB drive for well over a year now). I refuse to buy limited equipment NOW knowing it's already out of date at the day of sale (i.e. no USB3). Oddly, I can add a USB3 card to my 2008 MBP through its expansion port, but if I bought a MBP last year, I'd be SOL and stuck paying some HUGE premium for some still non-existent adapter just to use $160 drives I already own (3TB USB3 drives) at the speeds they're meant to be used.
2> Arguments by Thunderbolt fans went as far originally as to suggest Apple never needs to add USB3. This is utterly ridiculous just from a usability standpoint the same way not adding USB2 right away was in the past. They clearly wanted to push Thunderbolt, but this won't work due to economies of scale. The $200 premium here won't just go away overnight and that difference will encourage people to buy USB3 drives instead once it becomes available because there is NO POINT in paying $200 more for something that runs at the same speed. Just to say you did it is a POOR POOR reason.
So what if all Apple products have Thunderbolt? They constitute a tiny minority of total PC sales (around 10%, give or take) and most Apple users don't add anything to their Macs. They just buy a new one every other year so just how many Thunderbolt devices are going to be sold when USB3 devices ALREADY cost no more than USB2 devices and are STANDARD for external drives now (as in they virtually ALL support it) while Thunderbolt will cost a premium ($200 it seems over USB3) to get the same exact speed in most cases since your average consumer drive cannot saturate USB3.
Frankly, I'm STILL waiting to see ANY USB3 support from Apple. I already own TWO 3TB USB3 drives (yeah, using them at 25-30MB/sec with USB2 on a Mac SUCKS when they can easily do 135-140). I'm sure once IvyBridge gets here (assuming Apple doesn't do something asinine like defeat USB3 mode just to keep pushing Thunderbolt), it'll be months further until they update the Mac Mini, which is the primary one I'd like to use to replace my server with. I'm planning on building a Hackintosh, but it'll probably see more Windows use than Mac at this point given the lack of OpenGL/Driver updates (i.e. gaming is still best in Windows) and with the direction Apple seems to be heading with OSX, I'm not entirely sure I'll have any interest within a few years other than a browser to avoid malware while banking, shopping, etc.
I simply wish Apple would let a real computer geek head up the Mac division. They can play consumer games all the want with the iPad and iPhone, but the Mac should be first rate and have professional models with the latest and greatest available, not 3rd rate consumer garbage where standards and drivers are years behind Windows/PC models.
It seems Apple is more interested in pushing Thunderbolt by eliminating ALL other standards on their monitors (completely ridiculous, especially considering Apple's own models from just a few years ago still used DVI) while everyone else works hard to support as many as possible. Think I want an Apple monitor with glass reflections when I can get a larger selection from other suppliers with matte screens and multiple input options (including HDMI which is needed to run most cable boxes, etc. directly without an adapter).
1> Apple COULD have had USB3 last year and I know that I would have bought a Mac Mini to replace my aging PowerMac by now to use as a server (Thunderbolt has been useless here as there have been no devices until recently to connect to it while I already had a USB3 external 3TB drive for well over a year now). I refuse to buy limited equipment NOW knowing it's already out of date at the day of sale (i.e. no USB3). Oddly, I can add a USB3 card to my 2008 MBP through its expansion port, but if I bought a MBP last year, I'd be SOL and stuck paying some HUGE premium for some still non-existent adapter just to use $160 drives I already own (3TB USB3 drives) at the speeds they're meant to be used.
2> Arguments by Thunderbolt fans went as far originally as to suggest Apple never needs to add USB3. This is utterly ridiculous just from a usability standpoint the same way not adding USB2 right away was in the past. They clearly wanted to push Thunderbolt, but this won't work due to economies of scale. The $200 premium here won't just go away overnight and that difference will encourage people to buy USB3 drives instead once it becomes available because there is NO POINT in paying $200 more for something that runs at the same speed. Just to say you did it is a POOR POOR reason.
So what if all Apple products have Thunderbolt? They constitute a tiny minority of total PC sales (around 10%, give or take) and most Apple users don't add anything to their Macs. They just buy a new one every other year so just how many Thunderbolt devices are going to be sold when USB3 devices ALREADY cost no more than USB2 devices and are STANDARD for external drives now (as in they virtually ALL support it) while Thunderbolt will cost a premium ($200 it seems over USB3) to get the same exact speed in most cases since your average consumer drive cannot saturate USB3.
Frankly, I'm STILL waiting to see ANY USB3 support from Apple. I already own TWO 3TB USB3 drives (yeah, using them at 25-30MB/sec with USB2 on a Mac SUCKS when they can easily do 135-140). I'm sure once IvyBridge gets here (assuming Apple doesn't do something asinine like defeat USB3 mode just to keep pushing Thunderbolt), it'll be months further until they update the Mac Mini, which is the primary one I'd like to use to replace my server with. I'm planning on building a Hackintosh, but it'll probably see more Windows use than Mac at this point given the lack of OpenGL/Driver updates (i.e. gaming is still best in Windows) and with the direction Apple seems to be heading with OSX, I'm not entirely sure I'll have any interest within a few years other than a browser to avoid malware while banking, shopping, etc.
I simply wish Apple would let a real computer geek head up the Mac division. They can play consumer games all the want with the iPad and iPhone, but the Mac should be first rate and have professional models with the latest and greatest available, not 3rd rate consumer garbage where standards and drivers are years behind Windows/PC models.
It seems Apple is more interested in pushing Thunderbolt by eliminating ALL other standards on their monitors (completely ridiculous, especially considering Apple's own models from just a few years ago still used DVI) while everyone else works hard to support as many as possible. Think I want an Apple monitor with glass reflections when I can get a larger selection from other suppliers with matte screens and multiple input options (including HDMI which is needed to run most cable boxes, etc. directly without an adapter).
Let me preface this by saying that I don't think many folks would have complained if Apple had included USB 3.0 ports in the 2011 Macs, but for various reasons they didn't. I too have a MBP with an ExpressCard slot, and as soon as Apple introduces driver support for USB 3.0 to Mac OS X, I'll be happy to slap a $35 adapter in there and enjoy connecting cheap external HDD's with virtually zero performance loss.
That being said, COULD they have had USB 3.0 last year? Which controller would they have used? Renesas was really their only option for a manufacturer, and their production didn't achieve the pace Apple would have required until June of last year when they released their third gen parts (which are likely the only ones produced thus far that Apple would have seriously considered.) Even still, Apple would have required a third to half of the total number of USB 3.0 controllers Renesas has produced to date. All of the 2011 Macs (except the fall MBP refresh) were introduced before the suitable USB 3.0 controllers were available.
Furthermore, I'm not sure what you're complaining about. You have a Mac with an ExpressCard slot, so you can already add a USB 3.0 adapter card at a slight premium from one of the several vendors who took the time to write their own Mac OS drivers for the products they offer. At this point, you could also save a few bucks by just waiting a bit longer until we all get a de facto free driver from Apple. Also, you didn't buy a 2011 Mac, so you avoided the only PC's that might ever be produced with Thunderbolt and no USB 3.0, and the Ivy Bridge Macs are due pretty darn soon anyway. If you had bought a 2011 Mac, all of your USB 3.0 drives would have worked just fine, and the throughput would have been no more limited than on any other Mac ever produced.
Yes. People suggested some silly things. Apple never suggested that Thunderbolt was ever intended to compete with USB, because it isn't. Thunderbolt isn't really for external hard disk drives at all. Before all else, it's a video port, that's why it replaced DisplayPort on the 2011 Macs, not the USB or FireWire ports. In the storage arena, Thunderbolt makes sense only if you are connecting a RAID array, SSD's, or other devices that can actually benefit from Thunderbolt's capabilities, otherwise it simply isn't the interface you seek.
Wow. Get with the times. According even to Meg Whitman, CEO of HP, Apple will most likely become the number one PC manufacturer in the US this year. They are the 800 pound gorilla now, thanks to the rampant success of iOS devices. And Apple customers buy a ****-ton of accessories, especially overpriced and over-hyped ones.
But once again, I reiterate, if you think Thunderbolt is for connecting hard drives, you've missed the point of it entirely.
"defeat USB3 mode", huh? You mean like not actually include USB 3.0 ports, which are electrically distinct from USB 2.0 ones? Now you're treading into tinfoil hat territory if you think Apple would decide that was a wise move.
Fortunately for those of us not unhinged from reality, Apple hires a combination of engineers to head up the Mac department and designers to make them look quite attractive. As far as I can tell, every other PC manufacturer lets the marketers or accountants run the show and hence you end up with Macs being virtually the only alternative to the ugly plastic and sheet metal dreck that constitutes the rest of the PC market. Do you really not see the current trend that is sweeping over the industry of attempting to halt the race to the bottom by copying Apple's designs? I also enjoy the irony that you're arguing Apple is not designing with the pros in mind, when Thunderbolt itself is an interface entirely targeted at pros. What have the other PC and workstation OEM's got at the moment for 20 Gbps, full-duplex I/O for less than $400 per port?
The ATD is a 2560x1440 display. Until version 1.3, HDMI couldn't even drive a display at that resolution because the standard was designed for consumer electronics HDTV applications, thus the vast majority of devices with HDMI outputs cannot support the native resolution of this display. Apple used dual-link DVI on their earlier displays because it was the first digital display interface that could manage resolutions as high as 2560x1600. Once DisplayPort emerged as the successor to DVI, they switched to that, miniaturized it, and extended its functionality considerably with Thunderbolt. Using an ATD with an input other than Thunderbolt would render useless all of the features that added an extra $250 to the price of the display in the first place. Why would you ever connect a $999 high resolution 27" display to a cable box? Go buy a 51" 1920x1080 panel and save yourself a few bucks.
questionable assumption
You're assuming that supply is inelastic, and Renesas would not have been able to contract with foundries for more output if they'd recieved an order from Apple for USB 3.0 controllers.
Clearly Renesas would not have produced chips for which they had no buyers, so saying that the last year's production wouldn't have been enough for Apple is foolish logic.
You're assuming that supply is inelastic, and Renesas would not have been able to contract with foundries for more output if they'd recieved an order from Apple for USB 3.0 controllers.
Clearly Renesas would not have produced chips for which they had no buyers, so saying that the last year's production wouldn't have been enough for Apple is foolish logic.
I'm not assuming that at all. I'm attempting to look at things from a rational perspective. I'm fairly certain that the reason Renesas, the leading supplier of SuperSpeed USB controllers, did not choose to ramp up production of said controllers until the same month as they introduced their new chips is exactly related to what you are referring to. There were simply not as many buyers for technology with serious drawbacks. It's similar to the LTE chipset situation now. Until reasonable yields can be produced on a new process, you can either wait it out, as Apple tends to do, or use chips that are big, potentially buggy and suck power.
While Apple does have the money to move mountains right now, the pace of development on the USB 3.0 front would have delayed the release of all of the 2011 Macs by 6 months unless they had rewritten the history books. I find it very odd that all the finger pointing is at Apple for not including USB 3.0 in 2011 rather than at Intel for not including it in the 6 series chipsets. Or for that matter at AMD. Even though they did manage to work USB 3.0 into their chipsets, they didn't really bother to show up to the CPU fight, so Intel didn't have to counter their move in order to balance the spec sheets.
By your very logic of supply and demand, once Ivy Bridge drops, the demand for third party USB 3.0 host controllers will fall off dramatically. If Renesas or anyone else wanted to capitalize on the vacuum in the market, they would have done so last year. So either less than 20% of PC buyers really wanted USB 3.0 last year, or the silicon and drivers weren't actually ready yet.
I see what you did here.
*bro hoof*Anyway, I do agree that it's a better bus standard... but without mass consumer adoption, it won't become the de-facto standard. You can't even FIND Thunderbolt enclosures on Newegg, for instance, yet there are hundreds of USB 3.0 ones.
If the next Macs come with USB 3.0, people will just use that instead, and Thunderbolt will founder.
I don't WANT this to happen, but it's just the writing I see on the wall. I hope they can get the pricing down in time to save the standard.
How do you know what i is? Maybe it is an iterator that makes the lights in my house blink as it iterates
And actually this does output 30 lines. Whether you ++i or i++, the entire statement completes before the conditional is evaluated.
Exactly - the value of the third expression ("++i" or "i++") is discarded, so both pre-increment and post-increment produce exactly the same result.
Apple managed to make deals to be the FIRST to offer Intel chips and other items. You're telling me they couldn't have made a deal when USB3.0 was first announced several years ago to be one of the first in line? Bologna. You're painting it like a last-second decision. Apple plans a lot further ahead than that. They didn't WANT USB3. For many ages, Apple has wanted formats that they own the patents for to be used mainstream so they can collect even more barrels of money. This was blatant with Firewire. It's more blatant with iTunes (and the lack of Blu-Ray support) and its not so ridiculous with Light Peak either seeing as they partnered with Intel on it.
Maybe you didn't read very much of my post? I don't use that Mac for my whole house server, which is the Mac I want to replace with something that has USB3. I use an old upgraded PowerMac for that, which was fine when I was using 1.5TB internal Barracuda drives (>100MB/sec even on my PowerMac), but fell short when I needed more space and went to a set of 3TB USB3 drives (no Thunderbolt enclosures existed and I wanted something that I could move to a new computer or even other computers without any hassles). I'd prefer a Mac Mini for this task since it would take up very little desktop space and thus free up one of my desks for something else since I could then use the tower nook for the planned Hackintosh/Gaming PC (old gaming PC would then be moved to MAME arcade cabinet duty).
In other words, I would have liked to have replaced this aging server with a new Mac Mini last year, but the lack of USB3 meant no deal. Meanwhile, I'm getting 25-30MB/sec reads where I should be getting 130+MB/sec.
You say that like it's a good thing. I wanted a new computer last year. I'm still waiting. I refuse to buy equipment that is outdated on arrival and that is exactly what Apple put out last year. Even though Ivy Bridge may appear very soon, the Mac Mini is usually the last machine to get updated by Apple. I wouldn't be 100% shocked if they ditched it altogether (always a constant rumor along with the Mac Pro).
Telling me that they would have worked "fine" is the same as telling me they would have worked just as SLOW as my 2001 PowerMac Digital Audio. Go Apple!
You don't seem to have a freaking CLUE what it's for. It's a general purpose data transfer connection. Intel didn't develop it FOR video for god's sake! It's for anything that can use more bandwidth than USB2 and FW800 allow. The whole mini-DP connector is Apple's handy-work through and through. Others are NOT going to use the Mini-Display Port connector (Sony is using a USB style one). It can and will be used for any device that is relevant. You tell me it's NOT for external hard drives (save raid arrays), yet the ONLY Macs that have it now do not have any other good option for a hard drive. FW800 is already saturated by many consumer drives out there and few offer that interface option anyway. USB3 is the preferred consumer option, but Apple didn't offer it so that leaves those Mac users with the "option" of either using a standard that is both costly and too slow for many newer drives (i.e. FW800) or paying up the big bucks to get a Thunderbolt enclosure. And no, I don't consider a two drive Raid configuration beyond "consumer".
Wow. Being the number one producer in the market when you are the ONLY Mac maker sharing space with a dozen PC makers isn't that hard of math. It doesn't mean the Mac is suddenly going to capture more than 10% of the market, dude. But I'm sure you already knew that.
They buy accessories (headphones, iphone covers, docks, etc.). Most don't buy computer hardware additions. Most don't even know how to backup their drive; that's why Apple had to create "Backups for dummies" in the form of Time Machine. I bet most still don't even know how to use that to restore something.
I reiterate you don't know WTF you're talking about. I use FW Audio, Midi, etc. Most people do NOT use them and WILL NOT use them. The average Mac users just wants a fast hard drive to backup or add storage with. You admit yourself Thunderbolt is not a good option here. Hence, my WHOLE DARN POINT that USB3 should have been FIRST one Apple if Apple is supposed to be ahead of the pack technology-wise, not years behind (USB3, Blu-Ray, etc.) First with Thunderbolt didn't mean much when there wasn't a SINGLE Thunderbolt device to connect to it. They might as well have waited another year and put it and USB3 on at the same time. Oh wait, that would have screwed people buying a computer in 2011 since they wouldn't have Thunderbolt to use THIS year...kind of like my whole point about USB3.
I think Apple CAN and HAS done that sort of thing including shipping 802.11N chips in iOS devices that are artificially forced to run at 802.11G speeds.
It's not that far fetched for Apple to simply disable the drivers to run at USB 2.0 speeds. They've purposely disabled or slowed hardware in the past and then even charged to enable it later. You give Apple way too much credit to be fair and reasonable. I know better.
Dude, who gives a flying expletive about the stupid case? Do you need fashion high heel shoes and a $10k purse to go with your notebook? You must since fashion appears to be more important to you than actual technological features like USB3. You seem out of touch with reality in terms of what REAL COMPUTER USERS WANT, not trendy modern-day yuppies (I think they're called "hipsters" now and frankly Pabst Blue Ribbon beer is not that great (the drink equivalent of needing to look different from the pack...but who cares about taste?
).You don't even comprehend the definition of the word professional, guy, so spare me the uppity arrogant nonsense. One feature does not a professional computer make and ironically, the ONE model that is SUPPOSED to be still be for TRUE Professionals, (the Mac Pro) DOESN'T OFFER Thunderbolt currently. There goes your professional line of BS right out the freaking window.
Apple doesn't care about the professional market anymore. I maintain Thunderbolt was a "neat-o" technology that attracted Steve Jobs eye and like many decisions before, he was more concerned about what he thought was "cool" than what the actual consumer would want here and now.
Forget about whether it's affordable or even has a realistic chance to take over the market. Forget that it was originally hinted to be a cheap and easy high speed connection for the iPhone or iPad. It doesn't and CAN'T work that way and there's NO POINT for it to because you aren't allowed access to those devices file system unless you hack them. This is from the man that thought Blu-Ray was a "bag of hurt" (yet his own DRM infested iTunes junk that NO ONE ELSE was allowed to decode for fear of the end of Western Civilization all those years wasn't a bag of hurt? Give me a break!) Steve offered low-end 720p on his own product without so much as DTS audio that DVDs had for over a decade before! Instead of offering state-of-the-art 1080p, Apple offered 720p ONLY on AppleTV for several years (they couldn't manage HDCP on their old connectors and didn't want to offer a connector they didn't hold the patent to (i.e. HDMI) even as a second port on a Mac that was BEGGING to be a media PC (the Mac Mini). Apple has made some DUMB ARSE decisions over the past decade and people seem to forget all about them because the iPhone/iPad/Ipod were popular. Sadly, that doesn't make the asinine decisions any less asinine in my book.
If Apple wanted to give most logical and costeffective fast connection to hdd's they would have given us eSata(P) five years ago.
What would be more suitable connecion than the native one?
If Apple wanted to give us most costeffective fast universal peripheral connection they would have given us usb3 two years ago (both NEC and TI had them available).
Instead they gave us TB which is meaningless for 90% of their customers and 9% uses it only to connect ATD. Maybe TB doubles its customers to 2% in five years, maybe not.
At the same time the whole world uses usb3, which speed is not saturated by mainstream storage for next 5 years. After that there will be usb4...
What would be more suitable connecion than the native one?
If Apple wanted to give us most costeffective fast universal peripheral connection they would have given us usb3 two years ago (both NEC and TI had them available).
Instead they gave us TB which is meaningless for 90% of their customers and 9% uses it only to connect ATD. Maybe TB doubles its customers to 2% in five years, maybe not.
At the same time the whole world uses usb3, which speed is not saturated by mainstream storage for next 5 years. After that there will be usb4...
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In this case, ++i or i++ gives the same result as it's a stand alone instruction. He doesn't need to declare i inside the for loop at all either. i can be declared earlier.
Code:
$ cat test.c
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int main(int argc, char ** argv)
{
int i;
for(i = 0; i < 30; ++i)
printf("%d ", i);
printf("\n");
for(i = 0; i < 30; i++)
printf("%d ", i);
return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}
$ gcc -Wall -o test test.c
$ ./test
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29Where did you learn to code in C ? Might want to revisit some of those references... At least before you trying being a smart alec on a forum about someone else's pseudo code joke post.
I read through it a few times. And I do understand the frustration with wanting a device with certain features to use for a particular application, and that device simply not being available in the market. I also understand that it's all the more frustrating when your list of requirements is in no way unique, and there is a device such as the 2011 mini that comes so close but just lacks that one feature you need, and there is no expansion option which would allow you to simply add it on. Waiting it out is never fun, and with the apparent delay of Ivy Bridge it's becoming even more painful. I never meant to attack that sentiment of your initial post, I just cringe when I read posts where the tone comes across like that of a spoiled child complaining, "But that's not the toy I wanted!"
You can rest assured that Apple was the first in line for Intel 7-series chipsets with USB 3.0. I'm guessing that they didn't want to source early silicon from multiple third parties, ensure driver compatibility with all of them and then provide support for the next several years for 17 million Macs containing those chips. Please provide a single reliable source that indicates that Apple has in any way intentionally delayed the introduction of USB 3.0 because they have issues with the standard.
iTunes does not even play DVD's, why would it have anything to do with Blu-ray's? Incidentally, you can add a Blu-ray player to a Mac and use it for authoring and playback of non-DRM'ed sources. For a good read on the specific "bag of hurt" that Steve Jobs alluded to in regards to Blu-ray, check out this recent article: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5693/...top-worrying-and-love-blurays-selfdestruction The bottom line is that Apple took a stance, for better or worse, that they would not support a format that stacked the deck entirely in favor of Big Content and the DRM providers and placed all of the burden squarely on the shoulders of OEM's and end-users. Ultimately, was that the best decision for consumers? Who knows.
By all indications, the Light Ridge Thunderbolt controller contains 4 protocol adapters—3 for Displayport and 1 for PCIe. Three quarters of that chip's capabilities are focused on DisplayPort. DP is at the heart of Thunderbolt. Sony's use of a USB style port as opposed to the mini-DP style has been publicly criticized by both Intel and the USB-IF. Intel has made it very clear that there is only one connector (the mini-DP one) approved for Thunderbolt devices. Thunderbolt is Apple's solution for providing a replacement for the ExpressCard slot on top of an existing digital display interface, which provides the potential for some rather unique products. Instead of comparing the PCIe aspects of Thunderbolt to USB 3.0 or FireWire, people should be comparing them to ExpressCard. While ExpressCard and Thunderbolt can both be used for external storage solutions, that is not their raison d'être.
You say that USB 3.0 is the preferred consumer option for external storage, and while this statement will no doubt be true in the near future, it is not the case today. USB 3.0 storage sales are growing rapidly, yet they still account for a relatively small percentage of total sales. If you mean that for the savvy consumer, USB 3.0 will most likely provide the best price/performance ratio today and for some time to come, then I agree.
Wow. Being the number one producer in the market when you are the ONLY Mac maker sharing space with a dozen PC makers isn't that hard of math. It doesn't mean the Mac is suddenly going to capture more than 10% of the market, dude. But I'm sure you already knew that.
Apple has, aside from some minor forays into licensing, always been the sole producer of Macs. While this makes their OS marketshare equivalent to their hardware marketshare, that's not the point. In '91-'92, Apple managed to eke out a global marketshare of over 10%, but then Microsoft released Windows 3.1 and Apple was relegated to single digits for the next 20 years. However, for at least the last 3 years, Apple's sales have consistently outpaced their competitors. In 2011 Apple did capture more than 10% of the US market. And if you are only looking at Macs, they clinched more than 5% of the global market. What has Apple's competitors particularly worried is what the charts look like when you include tablets in the overall PC numbers, which is a very legitimate thing to do. This graphic in particular is what Meg Whitman's statement was alluding to, and these numbers are for global marketshare:
Unless you can provide legitimate evidence that supports your statement, then all you are doing here is insulting a general group of people to which we both belong.
I think Apple CAN and HAS done that sort of thing including shipping 802.11N chips in iOS devices that are artificially forced to run at 802.11G speeds.
It's not that far fetched for Apple to simply disable the drivers to run at USB 2.0 speeds. They've purposely disabled or slowed hardware in the past and then even charged to enable it later. You give Apple way too much credit to be fair and reasonable. I know better.
There are no ARM based mobile devices that I am aware of that support a WiFi link rate greater than 72 Mbps despite being paired with more capable air interfaces. This is because the wireless chipset is connected to the CPU via an SDIO interface that supports a maximum throughput of less than 100 Mbps.
What I was referring to in regards to USB 3.0 on Ivy Bridge is that the 7-series chipsets provide connections for 4 SuperSpeed USB ports in addition to the 14 USB 2.0 ports included in previous chipsets. There is no requirement to connect anything to the USB 3.0 pads on the southbridge, or to provide any SuperSpeed capable ports which are electrically distinct from USB 2.0 ports (they contain 5 additional pins.) If Apple wanted to avoid USB 3.0 while adopting Ivy Bridge, all they would have to do is not complete those connections.
My point with both of these rebuttals is that the conspiracy theories you are propagating are the result of an incomplete understanding of the underlying technology.
The only occasion I am aware of that Apple charged after the fact to unlock the potential of hardware they had already shipped was the case of the $1.99 AirPort Extreme 802.11n enabler, which they were forced to charge for due to an arcane legal situation that only allowed them to bundle it for free with new hardware purchases.
You don't even comprehend the definition of the word professional, guy, so spare me the uppity arrogant nonsense. One feature does not a professional computer make and ironically, the ONE model that is SUPPOSED to be still be for TRUE Professionals, (the Mac Pro) DOESN'T OFFER Thunderbolt currently. There goes your professional line of BS right out the freaking window.
There was no 2011 Mac Pro refresh because the Sandy Bridge-E Xeons were delayed 6 months. If Apple does not release a Mac Pro with Thunderbolt in 2012, your argument might hold some water, but as it stands, it is based on a fallacy.
Aside from Apple mentioning mobile devices in a Thunderbolt patent application, which as far as I can tell was little more than a red herring, there is no indication that Thunderbolt will be used any time in the near future for directly connecting iPhones or iPads.
As soon as the iTunes store had established itself as the leading retailer of music, Apple eliminated DRM on all audio tracks offered. This points pretty clearly to DRM being a condition initially imposed by the content providers, and dropped during renegotiations as soon as Apple held the upper hand. HDCP has been supported since inception by DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort. The Mac mini added an HDMI port as soon as they started using a GPU that supported HDMI output. Prior to that, inexpensive mini-DP or DVI to HDMI adapters were available. Your arguments are pretty much all bunk, except for Apple being slow to adopt 1080p content or additional audio stream formats on the iTunes store.
A more suitable connection than eSATA for a consumer PC would be one that is not solely limited to SATA storage devices, allows for cables that are not limited to 2m and are more flexible, better shielded, provide power, and have connectors that are more user friendly, smaller and rated for more mating cycles.
edit: I see now that you included a 'p' after eSATA in your post, which does mitigate several of my points, but even though the SATA-IO acknowledged eSATAp back in 2008 with the launch of their Power Over eSATA initiative, no actual standard has resulted from it. I'm not even sure if eSATA 6Gb/s has been ratified yet—it was supposed to be part of the SATA Revision 3.1 Specification which was released in July of 2011, but I haven't been able to confirm that it's really in there. It sucks that the SATA II Working Group really just phoned it in when it came to eSATA. The transition from PATA to SATA gave them the opportunity to create a super trick external storage interface and they just completely blew it.
At the same time, less than 5.7% of PC's currently in use have USB 3.0 ports. (Unlike your made up numbers, this is a real estimate, and one that errs very much on the high side.) 5.7% != 100%. Although I don't doubt we'll get there, it will be a few years before the whole world is using USB 3.0. Plus, USB 3.0 is already saturated by a single $80 SSD, 26 months after the first certified device shipped and still prior to mass adoption.
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How would you know what I am looking for???
I am looking for speed!
When l transfer large files, I want it to be done quickly.
Fall, but will still be more expensive than USB 3.0.
Every T-Bolt device needs a T-Bolt controller, a PCIe controller, two connectors, and most likely a power brick (in part because with daisy-chaining the 10 watts from the host are shared with all chained devices).
And I wouldn't be surprised to see that T-Bolt isn't that widely adopted by other vendors. It's a good solution for a docking station for a higher end laptop, but not as useful for a desktop which has internal expansion and PCIe slots.
...and then there's the issue of $50 cables!
Allow me to out one of Thunderbolt's drawbacks that hasn't received a ton of attention yetonly the first device in a chain can be bus powered.
Quoted from http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.7/en/mh35952.html
10W should be enough for a single 3.5" HDD or dual 2.5" devices, but thus far we haven't really seen that in action, which may point to the first gen Thunderbolt controllers and ancillary silicon drawing a fair amount of juice.
You can currently make a much lower cost Thunderbolt device by using Eagle Ridge instead of Light Ridge. The chip itself costs less, and by only having a single Thunderbolt port, you don't have to include 10 extra chips to deal with the possibility of having to output a DP++ signal to a connected device. Although it precludes further daisy chaining, it should reduce the premium for Thunderbolt to somewhere in the ballpark of around $85... plus a $49 cable.
While I agree that OEMs may not rush to include Thunderbolt on desktop motherboards that already provide PCIe slots and are designed for discrete GPUs, the market for notebook, ultrabook, SFF, USFF and all-in-one designs is where a lot of the action is right now anyway. Also, I'm not sure that what Thunderbolt needs in order to come down in price is more customers. Right now I think pressures on supply are actually keeping prices high. That, and the fact that Light Ridge is simply a big chip at this point. If/when Thunderbolt makes it to 22nm, we should be looking at a very reasonable ~$5 controller.
Nevertheless TB crippled DP by limiting the bandwidth.
Just by the bandwidth numbers, I think Sony's approach makes more sense. We can't get rid of legacy (usb & dp), so we need 2 kind of connectors and if you need to divide computer i/o by 2, shares are more even when you give displays the other half and "all the rest" to the other. Sony gives about 20Gbit/s to each, Apple gives 20Gbit/s to the other (tb) and 0,5Gbit/s to the other (usb2).
And you said it: there's nothing revolutionary in TB, it's just the replacement for EC. But this raises the question: why TB is important for Apple now, when it abandoned EC almost completely (ruining 3rd party product offerings in mac ecosystems) a few years ago. Did they have a second thought? Has something else changed in the industry? Since Apple has realised that they make most profits by just serving the mainstream, are they changing their course again? Or is TB just for polishing their brand?
Btw, connecting storage is not TB's & EC's only raison d'être, but it is essential part of it. This should be pretty clear, if you look the products available and what people are using.
You said it again: usb3 will provide better p/p-ratio for many years.
Then there will be usb4.
I think iPads should be removed from calculations, if we are talking about TB & other connection methods.
Distributing digital audio compared to digital video is so much different, that analogies from one to the other aren't very believable.
Main global distribution format for audio has always been drm-free.
Musicians make most of their income now from other than selling recorded audio.
Bandwidth needs are so much bigger with video, that you can't be leader without owning the pipes or making very close co-operation with those who own them.
eSATA was the best option when usb3 wasn't available. Apple didn't offer it.
eSATA is still better than usb3, if you want to know your storages health (s.m.a.r.t).
Usb3 is now more versatile than eSATA (or TB), but Apple doesn't offer it.
And you can offer eSATAp and usb3 from the same port, so you can have both and loose nothing, but Apple doesn't care.
If the mighty Apple would have used a tiny amount of their power to eSATA(p), all specs would have been final a lot sooner and mac users would have enjoyed fast, affordable and reliable storage for years.
Now we have had to choose from slow (usb) or expensive & not widespread (fw & tb).
Finally what is the real benefit for average mac user from TB compared to usb3?
Most people use laptops. They usually don't need long cables. Non-portable devices could use 10GbaseT and HDbaseT.
After all, the most used feature of TB is that when you hook up your laptop to your work desk, you only need to connect 2 cables (power & TB) instead of 3 (power & usb3 & dp)?
Hmmm, and that 5.7% is from what year?
Not that it would matter.
My guesses were that 2% of computer users are using TB in 2017 and by that time 100% (or close) are using usb3.
What's your guess?
Most pc's still don't have usb3, because customers aren't savvy enough to ask it.
You can now have a computer with usb3 with less than $500.
Once the word gets around, everybody wants usb3.
And even if you can saturate usb3, average people don't even notice that. When their files are copied with speed of 4Gbit/s, they couldn't be happier.
And with new displaylink chips in their new monitor, they start to use only usb3 and start asking why macbooks have all those strange connectors, that nobody ever use...
Thunderbolt didn't cripple anything. Thunderbolt doesn't support the DisplayPort 1.2 HBR2 link rate, but it does support multiple streams of DisplayPort 1.1a and supplies far more aggregate video bandwidth than any version of HDMI to date. Considering that the first sink device to support DisplayPort 1.2 was only certified on August 22, 2011, and I haven't seen any consumer products that yet require it, I don't believe many folks will notice the lack of DP 1.2 support for some time yet.
The biggest problem with ExpressCard slots is the insane amount of real estate they require. They are enormous by MacBook Air / Ultrabook standards. Apple dropped ExpressCard slots on all but the 17-inch MacBook Pros because there was no way to justify the amount of space they consume in smaller devices, especially once they switched to non-removeable batteries. Thunderbolt provides twice the PCIe bandwidth of, and more data bandwidth altogether than ExpressCard 2.0, which has barely taken off yet. Furthermore, it sits on top of a small and already present port. By also allowing daisy-chaining, Thunderbolt is much more flexible than giving users just a single ExpressCard slot.
The 5.7% figure is based on the total number of USB 3.0 controllers shipped by all foundries to date, and the estimated total number of PC's currently in use in the world today. It is on the high side because there are clearly many motherboards, add-in cards and PC's out there that contain multiple USB 3.0 controllers. Also there are quite a few that were used on Intel boards that were scrapped because of the 6-series SATA bug, and many that are still in the supply chain that aren't being used by anyone yet.
My crystal ball is a bit foggy at this point when it comes to Thunderbolt. I guess I don't see more than a 20-25% attach rate by 2017, and maybe about 10-20% user adoption rate. So yeah, less than 5% for ThunderBolt. I think 100% user adoption rate of USB 3.0 is optimistic though. Many classes of devices will have no need to progress beyond USB 2.0 in the next 5 years. Those users that don't require the types of devices that will inevitably shift to USB 3.0 may be plugging something into a USB 3.0 port, but it won't be a USB 3.0 device. You could argue that anyone who plugs a DisplayPort device into a Thunderbolt port is a Thunderbolt user, in which case usage figures might be much higher.
Many people will no doubt be happy with USB 3.0's 400 MB/s, but there is no avoiding the fact that a Thunderbolt cable can carry more than 5x that much today and with much lower latency. Thunderbolt is what you need when you need more than 400 MB/s. Even if most people don't, for those that do, the choice will be obvious.