Thunderbolt Adoption Reportedly Slowed by Intel's Licensing and Certification, But Improvements Coming
Last July, Ars Technica took a look at the state of the Thunderbolt standard developed by Apple and Intel, noting that adoption remained slow amid high pricing some eighteen months after the standard's introduction. The report did, however, suggest that pricing could begin to improve in 2013 as the next generation of Thunderbolt chips hit the market.
Ars Technica has now published a follow-up report looking at how things have changed over the past six months, pointing to a number of improvements such as slightly lower pricing on Thunderbolt cables from Apple, the introduction of the first wave of optical cables supporting the standard, and the launch of new docking stations and other peripherals taking advantage of Thunderbolt.
The report indicates that the biggest holdup to wider adoption of Thunderbolt appears to be Intel's licensing and certification process, with the company dedicating only limited resources to helping third-party vendors bring their Thunderbolt products to market.
Several vendors we have spoke to over the past year have claimed that Intel was holding up the process, cherry picking which vendors it worked with.
Though Intel had effectively denied this characterization in the past, the company explained the situation a bit differently when we spoke at CES last week. Jason Ziller, Director of Thunderbolt Marketing & Planning at Intel, told Ars that Intel has "worked closely" with vendors it felt could "offer the best products" and could meet its stringent "certification requirements." The subtext seemed to be that Intel had limited resources to support and certify new products, and so it gave priority to devices that were perhaps more novel than those proposed by other makers.
Ziller indicated that Intel would be broadening its efforts this year, suggesting that more Thunderbolt products may be able to make their way into consumers' hands. Combining those efforts with continued cost drops and the first moves into Windows machines, Apple and Intel are undoubtedly hoping that 2013 will finally see Thunderbolt turn the corner.
Popular Stories
While past rumors have indicated the upcoming second-generation AirPods Pro will feature a built-in heart rate and body temperature sensor, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has cast doubt on those rumors turning out to be true, saying instead such a feature is unlikely to come anytime soon.
"Over the past few months, there have been rumors about this year's model gaining the ability to determine a...
The M2 MacBook Pro has started making its way into customers' hands and we're learning more about how it performs in a variety of situations, but all eyes are really on the upcoming M2 MacBook Air which has seen a complete redesign and should be arriving in a couple of weeks.
Other top stories this week included a host of product rumors including additional M2 and even M3 Macs, an updated...
Apple is working on an Apple Watch Series 8 model with a larger display, according to DSCC's Ross Young and Haitong International Securities's Jeff Pu.
In October last year, Young suggested that the Apple Watch Series 8 could come in three display sizes. Now, responding to a query about the rumor on Twitter, Young claims that the additional display size joining the Apple Watch lineup will be ...
The upcoming launch of Apple's redesigned MacBook Air with the M2 chip has some Windows laptop manufacturers "worried" that sales of Intel-based laptops will be negatively affected, according to industry sources cited by DigiTimes.
"A Wintel brand vendor pointed out that at a price point of US$1,000-$1,500, the MacBook Air will crowd out other high-end notebooks," the report claims, with...
The upcoming Apple Watch Series 8 will be able to tell a wearer if it believes they have a fever due to a higher than normal body temperature thanks to a new built-in sensor, according to Bloomberg's reliable Mark Gurman.
Writing in the latest edition of his Power On newsletter, Gurman says that the Apple Watch Series 8 will feature a new body temperature sensor, given that the sensor passes ...
The redesigned MacBook Air with the all-new M2 Apple silicon chip will be available for customers starting Friday, July 15, MacRumors has learned from a retail source. The new MacBook Air was announced and previewed during WWDC earlier this month, with Apple stating availability will begin in July. The MacBook Air features a redesigned body that is thinner and lighter than the previous...
European Union lawmakers have approved landmark legislation to heavily regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other big tech firms.
The Digital Markets Act (DMA) and Digital Services Act (DSA) were proposed by the European Commission in December 2020. Now, collected in a "Digital Services Package," the legislation has been formally adopted by the European Parliament and seeks to address...
Top Rated Comments
I'm not buying new peripherals, I'll stick to USB.
Thanks to FW the original iPod loaded music at least 10 times as fast as USB1, and was able to charge the battery in no-time.
Thanks to FW external harddrives have been constantly at least twice as fast as their contemporary USB counterparts, until the adoptation of extrnal SSDs attached to USB3.
Thanks to FW there's been bus powered external harddrives, many many years before USB could handle that.
Thanks to FW we could hook up digital videocameras years before those with USB.
Thanks to low latency FW with priority traffic FW enabled audio and video hardware that could never be attached to anything USB.
Thanks to FW we could daisy chain external units like harddrives, CD/DVD-burners, videocameras and a whole world of audio and video gear that USB users to this day can only dream of.
Thanks to FW we can target boot our Macs. That's something that USB will never be able to do.
Thanks to FW we could have our peripherals in another room, supporting cable lenghts of 100s of feet far beyond the range of USB.
Most of these features are replicated with Thunderbolt but not challenged by USB3 like much longer cable length, much higher bandwidth, lower latency, daisy chaining and target mode, and more electrical power. And Thunderbolt adds a lot of features to FireWire that's not supported by USB3, like monitor support, external PCIe expansion and protocol agnosticity.
Stuff we'll never see on USB are 4K (aka Retina) displays, 10 Gb Ethernet-ports (or multiple Gbit Eth) and bidirectional 10 Gb links is just the _first_ implementation of Thunderbolt. This technology is actually designed for 100 Gbps so it has room to grow.
So, no, it's just not designed to support the stuff like external harddrives so if that's your narrow scope of problems, USB is the solution.
Intel licensing and certification increases the price?