Ipad 2 Release

Ahead of the rest of the world?

Like with their displayport shenanigans? We all know how well the industry has adopted that worthless piece of technology over the last 3 years. FireWire was a bit more successful, but they kept going with that long after most consumers adopted USB 2.0.

I have no problem with innovation. I do have a problem with them going against industry standards and not offering the option to use the industry standard. The majority of other $1000 laptops offers HDMI out, why not the MBP? Oh, because Apple is trying to force displayport down our throat.

I won't go there ok not on-this forum and on this thread my comments stand. Let's see what next 10 months produces.

Apple won't just remove USB from their devices, they know how wide-spread it is. However, Intel has been developing a hybrid USB-Lightpeak port, being of similar size as USB, while supporting both technologies, so this seems to be the likely choice for adding Light Peak in new products.

If they have USB 3.0 as well, fine, but the way they have been marketing this LightPeak is as an alternative to USB.

This part copy of a discussion on light peak will help answer some questions about what it is........

First, let’s look a little into Light Peak, how it works and what it can do. Light Peak is an optical cable interface designed by Intel with a bandwidth of 10 Gbps currently, with the potential to ultimately scale to rates of over 100 Gbps over the course of its life. The main benefit of Light Peak is that it provides enough bandwidth to both replace data connectors such as SCSI, USB, SATA and FireWire, while at the same time handling the duties of higher performance ports like eSATA and DisplayPort (or Mini DisplayPort, in the case of Apple computers).

Put simply, Light Peak is designed to cover all the bases. In theory, that means it could allow Thunderbolt (lightpeak) -equipped MacBook Pros to connect to an Apple Cinema Display, for instance, with just one cable, providing both A/V and multiple data stream connections between the two devices simultaneously. It’s the ultimate single-cord solution.

I think that Thunderbolt is the next big standard. Apple has a long history of supporting the best new technology. I remember when they stopped supporting SCSI and serial ports and went to USB before anyone else. And coming out with iMacs with no 3.5 floppy drives had everyone up in arms. It made me mad, not because I thought they were wrong, but because I knew the hundreds of discs I had were now trash. And while Firewire has not been a major success, it is still popular in video applications and has a lot of virtues.

What I wonder is what is the future of USB. I do not think that it is going away anytime soon, I just wonder how long before it becomes an ancient technology. There is still a lot of applications for it, but mostly with devices that would be easily replaced with more capable bluetooth devices and wifi. Future iPads could eventually be completely wireless. Using near field charging and wifi data transmission, they could cut the cord before any other computing device. It may be that the iPhone and iPods will be the first to go that route, but the iPad is a prime application.

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Originally Posted by Seadog

I think that Thunderbolt is the next big standard. Apple has a long history of supporting the best new technology. I remember when they stopped supporting SCSI and serial ports and went to USB before anyone else. And coming out with iMacs with no 3.5 floppy drives had everyone up in arms. It made me mad, not because I thought they were wrong, but because I knew the hundreds of discs I had were now trash. And while Firewire has not been a major success, it is still popular in video applications and has a lot of virtues.

What I wonder is what is the future of USB. I do not think that it is going away anytime soon, I just wonder how long before it becomes an ancient technology. There is still a lot of applications for it, but mostly with devices that would be easily replaced with more capable bluetooth devices and wifi. Future iPads could eventually be completely wireless. Using near field charging and wifi data transmission, they could cut the cord before any other computing device. It may be that the iPhone and iPods will be the first to go that route, but the iPad is a prime application.

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I disagree. Usb3 has the luxury of being backwards compatible and being fast enough for most people and situations. That is why I dont think thunderbolt is gonna take off. The theoretical maximum of usb2.0 was 480mbits/sec. In the real world it hit around 30 MB/s max transfer speed. The theoretical maximum for USB3.0 is 10x USB2.0. Transfer speeds reaching 300MB/s are gonna be plenty for a VAST majority of applications and people, especially until ssd prices fall dramatically. That coupled with backwards compatibility means that USB3.0 wins even though it's an inferior technology. Wouldn't be the first time apple chose to support a port that wasn't popular- mini display port and FireWire come to mind.

Also, web os devices have already gone completely wireless. They have wireless charging and wireless sharing capabilities. You should watch the hp webos keynote, it's pretty awesome.

I find it interesting saying Apple's FireWire (1394eee) was not popular maybe you should tell that to the Publishing companies, Graphic designers, Video and Movie Production houses, Digital Audio engineers, Prepress houses and Architects all whom relied on and needed the high speed transfer that FireWire offered. I agree USB 2 and now USB 3 is now a standard but back in the 90's nothing could provide the transfer rated needed other than FireWire for the above markets. Since Apple has introduced intel's light peak (Thunderbolt) on the new MacBook Pro's which via adapters can support usb3, esata and FireWire one wonders if in fact it will appear on the upcoming iPad if not this version but future versions of the iPad.

Here is what was in an article today by one of the respected journalist in computing.

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A few years ago, during a talk with an Apple executive, he mentioned that Apple's goal is to always stay at least two years ahead of the competition. Since then, I have observed that to do that hundreds of people inside Apple spend thousands of hours doing something that most of its competitors don't do, which is to visualize what customers will want in two to five years and architect every detail of that vision across all of its devices. And the operative word here is details. Apple sweats the details across its entire ecosystem of products to make sure that they fit into this broader vision it has of the future.

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And the notion about USB3 being fast, is humorous since Thunderbolt will be twice as fast as USB3. And I am thinking that is just on copper. If so, the fiberoptics will really fast. And that is part of the issue. We have reached the limits of copper wire transfer speed. We are entering the age of light transfer of data. And it will take more than just adding ports to make everything work. The computers theirselves will need designing to take advantage of the transfer speeds.

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Originally Posted by iVan

It's become clear that iPad is NOT a tablet and will remain an iPod. Now that a tablet market has been established as a certainty by the release of the iPad and the efforts of competition I'm pretty sure that Apple will join in with something more substantial to prove its worth. The iPad was not meant as a tablet but a bigger iPod; ie. a consumption device. At the same time it was used to test the market, to see if anyone would be interested in tablets...

Sent from my iPad using iPF

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WOW!

If by "tablet" you mean what most people thought of as a tablet before the iPad was released... then you need to realize the market soundly rejected them. I don't see that changing any time soon.



Michael