It scares me that people think this would be added, or that there would be any benefits to it. It must be the same people who think any flash is super super fast no matter what its cost.
Look at the site it's from though lol, including graphics and the writing at the top there. The whole thing has a very religious-like iCult feel to it. It's actually bizarre and quite disturbing. The site seems to be made by some truly messed up iCult users that likely have real mental issues.
I'm curious why the sheer size of the port isn't mentioned. Does Thunderbolt require the connectors to be a particular type in order to meet the specifications, or could you connect TB to a 30 pin connector? If the former, I don't see why Apple would ever use it.
If they actually were going to do it; they'd come up with some sort of micro connector; or maybe abuse the existing dock connector so it can tell if it has a dock or TB cable and output the proper signaling to the cable.
All a moot point since TB is years from being relevant in mobile (if ever).
Probably not enough to just re-purpose though (and you'd still need to make the hardware able to tell if it was connected to an FW cable or a TB cable). A pinout for the dock cable shows 8 pins for FW (4 for data, and 4 for power). Thunderbolt has 20 pins, 13 of which are apparently used for data/control signals.
I'm pretty sure they've already repurposed the FW pins for digital video output (HDMI via the Apple Digital AV Adapter) on newer devices. And, as DanNeely points out, you'd need at least 8 pins for TB data (2 sets of send/receive pairs) and although there are 8 pins for FW in the 30-pin connector, the power pins are usually ganged together.
Surely you don't need an Intel processor in both ends for this to work or all the TB compatible devices shown at CES would be unusable. Doesn't the $50 TB cable allow for maximum transfer, something that simply won't be possible on such a device, so a much cheaper cable could be used to negotiate a much slower — yet faster than USB2.0 — speed?
Anand makes a lot of great points as to why this won't happen but I wouldn't think that USB and TB would be mutually exclusive, just like FW and USB weren't. It would also be a way to get TB better traction and we already know that Apple and Intel have a year long deal with the launch of TB.
Also, is that 30-pin connector still holding strong or is it getting long in the tooth after almost decade of service? It doesn't fit flush with the iPad 2 port but I can't imagine a thinner port being more durable than what they currently use.
They just host a PCI-e adaptor, a ordinary storage controller same one you would put on a PCI-e add in board. It's just a PCI-e SATA controller. The cable is just "special" because it transfers two very different signals over it's own protocol and there is already third party cables ready to come out that would probably be a bit cheaper. It's not meant to replace Intel's yes Intel's USB 3.0. It's just that Intel didn't implement it until Ivy Bridge and thus not Apple either. Other SoC-providers have started or will have USB 3 support.
A adaptor cable converting PCI-e to a more communicative and useful protocol like USB 2/3 would be pointless to implement. Also it wouldn't be much point trying to use TB in host mode to use those external devices, it's much easier to do with USB that has mass-storage or MTP or whatever standard. No need for native device drivers for the PCI-e device which also means you don't need any drivers or converts with common drivers to communicate with the iPhone/iPad. Connecting a Thunderbolt cable to a device which not fully supports it is also pointless as it would mean you can not daisy-chain to a further device.
Other devices will just use Micro-USB and MHL. Ordinary micro USB for transfers and MHL-cable for video output. A MHL-adapter is like 25 dollars. Docking seems a bit pointless now days when we just don't have Bluetooth A2DP but also wireless DLNA-streaming and what not. Also NFC and BLE/BT4.0 or whatever.
An ARM-device could host a PCI-e to USB chipset and use thunderbolt to be a device which can accept a Thunderbolt connection to that USB-controller and input a DP signal to the device if they use Intel's controller chips. The other way around is also possible but you wouldn't be able to connect that to your computer. PCI-e to PCI-e doesn't work. Connecting a Thunderbolt HDD to that ARM-device wouldn't work if it aren't possible to run the ARM-device as a host driving the TB, otherwise it would just show up as a TB device on your computer connected into that chain. The Thunderbolt-controller wouldn't fit in a phone though. Certainly not useful in those scenarios even if a slave device can use the TB-chips and hardware as an end device where your computer is the host and is driving it. USB can already act as both Slave and Host in these devices solving those issues.
You could rather see Thunderbolt as way not to have to deal with technologies like ExpressCard, or as a docking cable that can be daisy chained so you can connect to your notebook and get DP, Ethernet, USB, FW, External harddrives, professional hardware and other devices connected via one connection, which of course is very different from how USB 3.0 is used. Doesn't make either useless or redundant. If you like to connect a camera or a drive, or a phone you would probably do that over USB. Having that on board means you don't need to go through your converter, dock or whatever.
We don't need such a deep analysis. The claim that TB was coming to iPhone soon was always insane. All we need is the obvious observation that the write speed of iPhone flash is currently 20MB/s --- ie easily served by USB2. If we are lucky, this will be the year that iPad and iPhone get their flash upgraded, but if that upgrade is to 40MB/s, it's still basically USB2 speed. Meanwhile I imagine this year's Mac lineup will all ship with USB3, and in time iPhone/iPad will migrate to that.
Let's not forget, apart from anything else, that Apple is not in the business of selling iPads and iPhones that won't work with either older macs or the Windows installed base. and it's not like phones have so much space in them that "vanity" connectors, especially connections costing, what, an extra $25 or so, can be thrown in just to make some "political" point.
Having said the above, THIS: "With 802.11ac we'll likely be able to exceed the performance of NAND, even as ONFI 3.x based NAND arrives later this year and in 2013. Apple has already implemented AirPlay on the iPad and iPhone 4S, enabling some form of wireless display support. " is ALSO a pretty dubious statement.
As far as I know, not a single phone vendor supports either MIMO or 40MHz bands for WiFi, meaning they are capped at 72Mbps bit encoding, and so about 5MB/s best case speeds (after MAC effects). To get to anything close to flash we'd need to first 40MHz support, then MIMO support --- and that's for a spec that's been out for what, six(?) years? I think talk of the glories of low-power phone-appropriate silicon for a spec that isn't even finalized yet are a little premature.
Lots of people (namely, Appleinsider readers and some other sites like that) seem to think that a thunderbolt connection would magically make the iProducts faster. The flash write speed limits them way before even the USB 2 bottleneck. And besides, Apple is moving to wire-free transfers.
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stubeck - Saturday, January 14, 2012 - link
It scares me that people think this would be added, or that there would be any benefits to it. It must be the same people who think any flash is super super fast no matter what its cost.B3an - Sunday, January 15, 2012 - link
Look at the site it's from though lol, including graphics and the writing at the top there. The whole thing has a very religious-like iCult feel to it. It's actually bizarre and quite disturbing. The site seems to be made by some truly messed up iCult users that likely have real mental issues.secretmanofagent - Saturday, January 14, 2012 - link
I'm curious why the sheer size of the port isn't mentioned. Does Thunderbolt require the connectors to be a particular type in order to meet the specifications, or could you connect TB to a 30 pin connector? If the former, I don't see why Apple would ever use it.DanNeely - Saturday, January 14, 2012 - link
If they actually were going to do it; they'd come up with some sort of micro connector; or maybe abuse the existing dock connector so it can tell if it has a dock or TB cable and output the proper signaling to the cable.All a moot point since TB is years from being relevant in mobile (if ever).
solipsism - Saturday, January 14, 2012 - link
There are FW pins currently unused in the 30-pin connector.DanNeely - Sunday, January 15, 2012 - link
Probably not enough to just re-purpose though (and you'd still need to make the hardware able to tell if it was connected to an FW cable or a TB cable). A pinout for the dock cable shows 8 pins for FW (4 for data, and 4 for power). Thunderbolt has 20 pins, 13 of which are apparently used for data/control signals.repoman27 - Tuesday, January 17, 2012 - link
I'm pretty sure they've already repurposed the FW pins for digital video output (HDMI via the Apple Digital AV Adapter) on newer devices. And, as DanNeely points out, you'd need at least 8 pins for TB data (2 sets of send/receive pairs) and although there are 8 pins for FW in the 30-pin connector, the power pins are usually ganged together.solipsism - Saturday, January 14, 2012 - link
Surely you don't need an Intel processor in both ends for this to work or all the TB compatible devices shown at CES would be unusable. Doesn't the $50 TB cable allow for maximum transfer, something that simply won't be possible on such a device, so a much cheaper cable could be used to negotiate a much slower — yet faster than USB2.0 — speed?Anand makes a lot of great points as to why this won't happen but I wouldn't think that USB and TB would be mutually exclusive, just like FW and USB weren't. It would also be a way to get TB better traction and we already know that Apple and Intel have a year long deal with the launch of TB.
Also, is that 30-pin connector still holding strong or is it getting long in the tooth after almost decade of service? It doesn't fit flush with the iPad 2 port but I can't imagine a thinner port being more durable than what they currently use.
Penti - Sunday, January 15, 2012 - link
They just host a PCI-e adaptor, a ordinary storage controller same one you would put on a PCI-e add in board. It's just a PCI-e SATA controller. The cable is just "special" because it transfers two very different signals over it's own protocol and there is already third party cables ready to come out that would probably be a bit cheaper. It's not meant to replace Intel's yes Intel's USB 3.0. It's just that Intel didn't implement it until Ivy Bridge and thus not Apple either. Other SoC-providers have started or will have USB 3 support.A adaptor cable converting PCI-e to a more communicative and useful protocol like USB 2/3 would be pointless to implement. Also it wouldn't be much point trying to use TB in host mode to use those external devices, it's much easier to do with USB that has mass-storage or MTP or whatever standard. No need for native device drivers for the PCI-e device which also means you don't need any drivers or converts with common drivers to communicate with the iPhone/iPad. Connecting a Thunderbolt cable to a device which not fully supports it is also pointless as it would mean you can not daisy-chain to a further device.
Other devices will just use Micro-USB and MHL. Ordinary micro USB for transfers and MHL-cable for video output. A MHL-adapter is like 25 dollars. Docking seems a bit pointless now days when we just don't have Bluetooth A2DP but also wireless DLNA-streaming and what not. Also NFC and BLE/BT4.0 or whatever.
An ARM-device could host a PCI-e to USB chipset and use thunderbolt to be a device which can accept a Thunderbolt connection to that USB-controller and input a DP signal to the device if they use Intel's controller chips. The other way around is also possible but you wouldn't be able to connect that to your computer. PCI-e to PCI-e doesn't work. Connecting a Thunderbolt HDD to that ARM-device wouldn't work if it aren't possible to run the ARM-device as a host driving the TB, otherwise it would just show up as a TB device on your computer connected into that chain. The Thunderbolt-controller wouldn't fit in a phone though. Certainly not useful in those scenarios even if a slave device can use the TB-chips and hardware as an end device where your computer is the host and is driving it. USB can already act as both Slave and Host in these devices solving those issues.
You could rather see Thunderbolt as way not to have to deal with technologies like ExpressCard, or as a docking cable that can be daisy chained so you can connect to your notebook and get DP, Ethernet, USB, FW, External harddrives, professional hardware and other devices connected via one connection, which of course is very different from how USB 3.0 is used. Doesn't make either useless or redundant. If you like to connect a camera or a drive, or a phone you would probably do that over USB. Having that on board means you don't need to go through your converter, dock or whatever.
twotwotwo - Sunday, January 15, 2012 - link
"Headroom is the enemy of good low power design" -- well put.name99 - Sunday, January 15, 2012 - link
We don't need such a deep analysis.The claim that TB was coming to iPhone soon was always insane.
All we need is the obvious observation that the write speed of iPhone flash is currently 20MB/s --- ie easily served by USB2.
If we are lucky, this will be the year that iPad and iPhone get their flash upgraded, but if that upgrade is to 40MB/s, it's still basically USB2 speed. Meanwhile I imagine this year's Mac lineup will all ship with USB3, and in time iPhone/iPad will migrate to that.
Let's not forget, apart from anything else, that Apple is not in the business of selling iPads and iPhones that won't work with either older macs or the Windows installed base. and it's not like phones have so much space in them that "vanity" connectors, especially connections costing, what, an extra $25 or so, can be thrown in just to make some "political" point.
name99 - Sunday, January 15, 2012 - link
Having said the above, THIS:"With 802.11ac we'll likely be able to exceed the performance of NAND, even as ONFI 3.x based NAND arrives later this year and in 2013. Apple has already implemented AirPlay on the iPad and iPhone 4S, enabling some form of wireless display support. "
is ALSO a pretty dubious statement.
As far as I know, not a single phone vendor supports either MIMO or 40MHz bands for WiFi, meaning they are capped at 72Mbps bit encoding, and so about 5MB/s best case speeds (after MAC effects). To get to anything close to flash we'd need to first 40MHz support, then MIMO support --- and that's for a spec that's been out for what, six(?) years? I think talk of the glories of low-power phone-appropriate silicon for a spec that isn't even finalized yet are a little premature.
tipoo - Monday, January 16, 2012 - link
Lots of people (namely, Appleinsider readers and some other sites like that) seem to think that a thunderbolt connection would magically make the iProducts faster. The flash write speed limits them way before even the USB 2 bottleneck. And besides, Apple is moving to wire-free transfers.