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
At WWDC 2022 last year, Apple previewed the next generation of CarPlay, promising deeper integration with vehicle functions like A/C and FM radio, support for multiple displays across the dashboard, personalization options, and more. Apple said the first vehicles with support for the next-generation CarPlay experience would be announced in late 2023, but it has still not shared any additional...
If you have an iPhone 15 and drive a BMW, it might be best to avoid charging the device with the vehicle's wireless charging pad for now. Over the past week, some BMW owners have complained that their iPhone 15's NFC chip no longer works after charging the device with their vehicle's wireless charging pad, according to comments shared on the MacRumors Forums and X, formerly known as Twitter. ...
Apple plans to release an iOS 17 update to address a bug that may contribute to the reported iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max overheating issue, according to a statement the company shared today with MacRumors and Forbes reporter David Phelan. Apple also says some recent updates to third-party apps have overloaded the system and contributed to the overheating issue. The report notes that...
Significant changes are expected to arrive with Apple's fourth-generation iPhone SE, in terms of both design and hardware, MacRumors has learned. The iPhone SE 4, known internally under the codename Ghost, is expected to receive a new design derived almost entirely from the base model iPhone 14. According to our sources, the iPhone SE 4 will use a modified version of the iPhone 14 chassis...
MacRumors has obtained preliminary information on the weights and dimensions planned for the iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max. The information corroborates previous reports suggesting that the iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max will feature larger displays. iPhone 16 and 16 Plus Current information suggests that the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus will maintain the same...
CarPlay is not working as expected for some iPhone 15 users, an issue that is likely linked to the transition to USB-C. There are multiple complaints from MacRumors readers and Reddit users who are unable to get CarPlay to work with their new devices. Cable type and available port options are a common theme in the CarPlay reports, with many of the functionality problems linked to USB-A to...
Wednesday September 27, 2023 1:57 pm PDT by
Juli CloverJust a week after releasing iOS 17, Apple has seeded the first beta of iOS 17.1 to developers. iOS 17.1 adds some features that Apple promised were coming to iOS 17 in the future, plus it refines and improves some existing features. This guide covers everything new in the first iOS 17.1 beta. Apple Music Favorites You can favorite songs, albums, playlists, and artists in the iOS 17.1...
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?