Hewlett Packard Not Convinced of the Value of Thunderbolt
PCWorld reports that while Hewlett-Packard (HP) had considered using Thunderbolt in its newest desktop PCs, for now it's sticking with USB 3.0.
“We did look at [Thunderbolt]. We’re still looking into it. Haven't found a value proposition yet,” said Xavier Lauwaert, worldwide marketing manager for desktops at HP.
According to Lauwaert, everone seems to be content with USB 3.0 so they don't see the value of including Thunderbolt in their desktop machines.
Thunderbolt is the high speed interconnect system that was introduced by Intel in February. Apple was the first customer to adopt the new connector with the launch of its early 2011 MacBook Pros. Apple has since released new iMacs also supporting Thunderbolt. Due to the newness of the connector, there is presently little 3rd party support, though Intel is said to be opening up Thunderbolt development this quarter.
HP is notable for being the largest U.S. computer manufacturer accounting for 26% of the market in the 1st quarter 2011.
Popular Stories
Apple has announced it will be holding a special event on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time (10 a.m. Eastern Time), with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and on YouTube as usual. The event invitation has a tagline of "Let Loose" and shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more ...
Apple today released several open source large language models (LLMs) that are designed to run on-device rather than through cloud servers. Called OpenELM (Open-source Efficient Language Models), the LLMs are available on the Hugging Face Hub, a community for sharing AI code. As outlined in a white paper [PDF], there are eight total OpenELM models, four of which were pre-trained using the...
Apple has dropped the number of Vision Pro units that it plans to ship in 2024, going from an expected 700 to 800k units to just 400k to 450k units, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Orders have been scaled back before the Vision Pro has launched in markets outside of the United States, which Kuo says is a sign that demand in the U.S. has "fallen sharply beyond expectations." As a...
Apple is finally planning a Calculator app for the iPad, over 14 years after launching the device, according to a source familiar with the matter. iPadOS 18 will include a built-in Calculator app for all iPad models that are compatible with the software update, which is expected to be unveiled during the opening keynote of Apple's annual developers conference WWDC on June 10. AppleInsider...
The upcoming iOS 17.5 update for the iPhone includes only a few new user-facing features, but hidden code changes reveal some additional possibilities. Below, we have recapped everything new in the iOS 17.5 and iPadOS 17.5 beta so far. Web Distribution Starting with the second beta of iOS 17.5, eligible developers are able to distribute their iOS apps to iPhone users located in the EU...
Top Rated Comments
I have buckets of things that are USB.USB2, the defacto standard, and only 1 thing that was ever firewire, a 8mm video camera.
Don't get me wrong, the faster and higher spec the better, but it's all pointless unless it gets fitted into everything and becomes a standard.
Kinda like having a 12" Diameter penis, Very impressive & you can show it off to people, but useless as it won't fit into anything.
Once again apple will trot out how they are setting an 'industry standard' when hardly anyone else uses it. Here we go again...
It's not Thunderbolt Vs. USB - it's Thunderbolt Vs. USB 3.0
I rather have TB plus USB 2 then Just USB 3.
TB is even a lot faster and more flexible then Express Card.
TB port is roughly half the size of USB port, making it more suitable for portable devices.
TB (20Gbps) is way better than USB 3 (5Gbps) because it's way faster, and can daisy chain. It's a straight tap into PCI-E.
And, Apple may... may... go with TB plus USB 3 in the future, but there may be tech reasons not to (at least in mobiles).
===============================================================
(From Apple)
One small port. One giant leap in possibilities.
Both MacBook Pro and iMac now give you access to a world of high-speed peripherals and high-resolution displays with one compact port.
Thats because Thunderbolt is based on two fundamental technologies: PCI Express and DisplayPort.
PCI Express is the technology that links all the high-performance components in a Mac. And its built into Thunderbolt. Which means you can connect external devices like RAID arrays and video capture solutions directly to MacBook Pro or iMac and get PCI Express performance. Thats a first for any computer.
Thunderbolt also provides 10 watts of power to peripherals, so you can tackle workstation-class projects on the go with MacBook Pro or from your home office with iMac.
With PCI Express technology, you can use existing USB and FireWire peripherals even connect to Gigabit Ethernet and Fibre Channel networks using simple adapters.
And because Thunderbolt is based on DisplayPort technology, the video standard for high-resolution displays, any Mini DisplayPort display plugs right into the Thunderbolt port. To connect a DisplayPort, DVI, HDMI, or VGA display, just use an existing adapter.
I thought that's what LightPeak was supposed to be... one connection that could do anything.
Will there be any TB-USB3 converters or dongles?
It would be a shame if USB3 finally takes off... and Apple sticks with ThunderBolt.
Firewire redux...