Apple has just updated its line of MacBook Pros. Usually, this isn't anything to get particularly excited about, but this time around, they've got a genuine treat: Thunderbolt. Apple is the first to use this new connection technology, developed at Intel and believed to be the copper version of Lightpeak. It's pretty impressive.
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2005-07-06
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It's a marketing ploy, and it works. This ensures even more coverage. This is how it works for normal companies:
"Dildo Inc. Refreshes Dildo Pro Line, Adds Accelerometer"
And that's it. This item then gets updated with a first hands-on. So, one item.
Now, this is how it works for special companies (of which there is only one):
13:01 "ZOMG DILDO STORE OFFLINE ZOMG ZOMG!!11!1!ONE!!"
13:02 "DILDO STORE OFFLINE BECAUSE OF REFRESHED DILDO PROS?"
13:15 "DILDO INC. REFRESHES DILDO PRO LINE"
13:15 "REFRESHED DILDO PRO LINE ADDS ACCELEROMETER"
13:16 "DILDO PRO ACCELEROMETER: HOW IT WORKS"
13:25 "FIRST PHOTOS: DILDO PRO 13"
13:26 "FIRST PHOTOS: DILDO PRO 15"
13:27 "FIRST PHOTOS: DILDO PRO 17"
13:31 "FIRST HANDS-ON: DILDO PRO 13"
13:32 "FIRST HANDS-ON: DILDO PRO 15"
13:33 "FIRST HANDS-ON: DILDO PRO 17"
13:54 "FIRST VIDEO HANDS-ON: DILDO PRO 13"
13:56 "FIRST VIDEO HANDS-ON: DILDO PRO 15"
13:57 "FIRST VIDEO HANDS-ON: DILDO PRO 17"
15:01 "REFRESHED DILDO PRO: GAMECHANGER"
It's quite brilliant.
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+1 for excessive dildo.
I do think it's a pretty nifty idea, taking the concept of HDMI (simultaneous HD video and HD audio over a single port) and making it a universal bus like USB, but with much higher bandwidth. I just really hope all the other hardware manufacturers get a clue and start shipping Thunderbolt/Light Peak compatible devices.
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the thing I don't like about Thunderbolt is this
http://www.intel.com/technology/io/thunderbolt/index.htm
"Thunderbolt products require a controller chip supplied by Intel"
so it is a chipset and it isn't a licensable spec, neither free nor with royalties?
Edited 2011-02-24 16:07 UTC
Member since:2005-11-21
http://www.intel.com/technology/io/thunderbolt/index.htm
"Thunderbolt products require a controller chip supplied by Intel"
so it is a chipset and it isn't a licensable spec, neither free nor with royalties?
HyperTransport requires a chipset as well. Your point?
Member since:2006-08-12
HyperTransport can be licensed by anybody from HyperTransport Consortium, anybody can license USB specs, from the wording of the Intel announcement it looks like nobody can build a chipset for Thunderbolt
"Thunderbolt products require a controller chip supplied by Intel"
it does not says
"Thunderbolt products could be built with license from Intel" or something like that
Member since:2006-01-12
And keep mind this is Intel, biggest and worst monopoly in HW industry. They are under investigation by USA, EU and Korea. This is company that can deliver failed hardware and yet make strongest sales figure. Company that can overprice it products and yet sell more than competitors. Didn't AMD needed to call EU officials before whole USB3 fiasco was avoided? Intel is kind a like IBM was back in days, bullying smaller guys by making property HW that it doesn't license, shady supplier deals and creating so called standards without allowing others to use them fairly or say anything.
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I don't have the time to investigate, but if mainboard manufactures have to pay Intel just a few cents for thunderbott then it will go the way of the firewire, which was a little bit more expensive than USB and so never got any real traction besides circles where 400mbit were really needed.
USB3 is cheap for manufactures and well known by the public and let's face it suffiently fast.
Bottom line: This is probably not the future.
But it is a clever replacement for the mini display port and will give iFans a thing to bragg about.
Edited 2011-02-25 04:20 UTC
Member since:2009-04-22
You seem to have missed the point. Using the correct cables (or adapters), thunderbolt is (or will be in the future) compatible with USB (including USB 3.0), Firewire, SATA, SCSI, Fibre Channel, HDMI, DVI, VGA, Ethernet and even PCIe. One port to rule them all, just select the correct cable.
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??? I think you really don't get my point.
Why does the ability to plug a adapter into a thunderbolt port make the thing free for MANUFACTURES?
That is my point. If mainboards with TB are more expensive like those with Firewire were, because it cost licenses. USB does not cost license fees. If TB does it is doomed.
Also it seems to be a security risk:
http://erratasec.blogspot.com/2011/02/thunderbolt-introducing-new-w...
Member since:2010-12-08
I think there's a problem with your analogy that you're not seeing though. Firewire was just Firewire, where as Thunderbolt is Thunderbolt + USB + Firewire + whatever else. So the technology wars aren't comparable
Plus you're ignoring the most important aspect of this: 15 years ago, Apple was in dire trouble. Today, Apple is the wunderkind of tech companies and whatever they do, everyone else wants to do too
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I think the reason they say it requires a controller chip from Intel is that only Intel makes such a chip.
mini DP is an Apple tech, which they have freely licensed. PCIe is owned by PCI-SIG. Daisy chaining is a technique used by many bus interfaces before.
So, if all Intel did was put it all in one controller chip and pipe it through a single cable, do they have the rights to license it?
Member since:2006-03-02
Copper wire is a noisy medium, requiring sophisticated forward error correction to get good throughput. The logical protocol may be PCIe, but the physical signal encoding is probably something proprietary to Intel. Sure, it's probably BCH codes on top of trellis modulation, just like broadcast HDTV and similar to Gigabit Ethernet, but there are probably some Intel tweaks they feel are patentable.
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I don't think exporting PCI-express over a copper-line several meters is in the category of something you "just do". In fact it is probably the one of most difficult parts of all the technologies involved.
Then there is ofcourse the question of whether they have added something on top of PCI-express to secure it. It would suck if ThunderBolt like FireWire before it provides unrestricted access to read and write physical memory. Business laptops should be the last place you would want hotpluggable security holes.
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13.3" only has 1280x800
15.4" only has 1400x900
1280x800 looked good on a 12.1" Dell that my girlfriend had, not a 13.3"
For a 15.4", I have a Dell with 1920x1200.
This shit is absurd. With the graphics cards they're putting into these notebooks and with that "resolution independence" that was promised with Leopard, they really need to up the res on these displays.
Give us the pixel density of your "retna display" on the notebooks please
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Well apparently it talks either PCI-Express or DisplayPort, so I am guessing monitors would appear as they do now, other devices would appear as internal devices similar to expanding with new PCI-Express cards (if that has even been possible in OSX before).
What can you get with PCI-Express? New external graphics-cards? Ethernet?? Embedded flash-drives??? Only the last one makes any sense.
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"props to Apple for having the balls to take the plunge."
I don't know about that, since all they really did was extend the mini DisplayPort connector they already would have had with additional functionality.
It's like saying the first company that delivered a combined USB/eSATA port had balls to take that plunge.
Sure, Thunderbolt requires a special chip, so it cost Apple more money to include it than if they would have just sticked with a regular mini DisplayPort. But the connector itself is no gamble, since they have already used it on every laptop in the previous lineup.
And since Apple products cost alot more than regular PC hardware, the additional cost is a non-issue.
Edit:
That said, I _do_ think the technology itself looks promising and I really don't mind the fact that _someone_ took the plunge to start using it. 
Edited 2011-02-24 18:53 UTC
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESATA/USB
Check the links at the bottom for some examples. The first link from Gigabyte has pictures of it.
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There's nothing in that webpage from Intel (or in Apple's laptop announcement) indicating that HTC has been granted permission to use the "Thunderbolt" name, or the other way around. So like I said, there's this smell of lawsuit around. Who should sue who, or who should win depends on who applied for the trademark first.
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Unlikely - HTC use the name for a model of phone, Intel use the name for a device controller. Trademarks apply only to the niche the name is used in, so there's not much grounds for claiming a conflict...
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Thats a big yes, Apple computer has been the target of trademark suits from Apple corps since way back in 1978. And they didn't really bury the hacket until 2007. So there is a long history here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v_Apple_Computer
The HTC Thunderbolt phone and the Intel Thunderbolt connector might be different enough to coexist. I don't think confusion is very likely at least, but good lawyer might be able to argue equally well that it would. I would think HTC would have the upper hand in any case. The phone was called Thunderbolt long before light peak was called Thunderbolt and being first counts a lot in trademark cases its Intel that would have to worry.
Acutally looking at the trademark application Verizon own the Thunderbolt trademark, so they would be the ones fighting Intel, not HTC
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IOS and iOS are both Operating Systems, albeit in different OS market segments. That is likely enough of a similarity that Cisco would win a trademark suite by a landslide, considering its use of IOS was much earlier than Apple's.
Thunderbolt is a phone and a computer interface, those are probably a bit more segmented to trademark law than operating systems designed for different purposes.
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2009-02-19
"With smartphones becoming ever more powerful, the moment where you can just plug your smartphone in a dock somewhere and have it connected to a high-resolution display and several input and storage devices is coming ever closer."
I'd like a faster version of Bluetooth to do this - I want to be able to walk into the office, and as soon as I sit down at my desk, my keyboard, mouse and monitor will wirelessly connect to my phone. Oh, need I need to be able to run Windows in a VM on my phone - not much chance of that with Apple's licensing.
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2006-08-18
Well, on the connection itself, it seems like awesome sauce...
Is each daisy-chained device semi-independent, i.e. you could simply `twin` a video stream to both display on a DisplayPort monitor (or be processed live on computer) and be recorded simultaneously with 0 overhead? (or chain-processed thru multiple computers)
I DON`T like the possiblity of Intel not freely licencing it (I don`t care if they charged a reasonable fee, but it would have to be open-access, and transparent to their own chipsets). They certainly seem to have close to a monopoly in desktop/laptop PC chipsets, so NOT going this way could bring them trouble... Hopefully they just do the right thing.
Apple`s `Icon` for Thunderbolt is absolutely atrocius...
I would assume that is either power-charging port, an interface to a wireless interface (?), or both (wireless power). I would have a small circle with dot in middle (for cable) with multiple `energy bolt` radiating out to represent the multiple connections/usages.
EDIT: Nevermind, it seems to be Intel`s choice... Though Apple probably could have gotten Intel to change it if they actually tried to.
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Apple`s line-up is of course completely absurd, you can`t get a 15¨ screen for less than $1700 US, and many countries have huge taxes on top of this... While 15¨ and 17¨ are routinely available for sub-$1000 with DECENT processors for the vast majority of people`s needs... But don`t worry, Apple`s still includig a meh graphics processor that ROCKS at World of Warcraft.
Honestly, I don`t expect Apple with do anything interesting with their line-up at/around/below $1000 until they are ready to ship an ARM `iBook` (and would actually synergize with bringing back the name, given the similarity with iPad/Tablet/Phone). Dual/Quad Apple-optimized ARM9 Cores with sufficient graphics and sufficent RAM would be hitting THE consumer laptop price-point. The different processor architecture (for desktop apps) of course would easily give another kick-start to Apple`s MacOS AppStore efforts...
Edited 2011-02-25 02:23 UTC
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2011-03-01
The brand new MacBook Pro 2011 was introduced by Apple on Jobs' 56th birthday, Feb. 24. I read this here: http://personalmoneystore.com/moneyblog/2011/02/24/macbook-pro-2011... The hype surrounding the MacBook Pro 2011 is concentrated on a brand new I/O technology by Intel called Light Peak. As the first business to implement Light Peak, Apple has taken the liberty to rebrand the interface as ThunderBolt.
Edited 2011-03-01 08:02 UTC