With today's introduction of Thunderbolt by Intel and new MacBook Pros from Apple featuring the technology, long-standing questions regarding how the technology would be implemented are finally coming to rest. Intel just held a media event to provide additional details on the technology, and CNET provided a live blog of the event.
True to recent developments, Thunderbolt is initially being implemented solely over a copper connection, with optical connections set to come later this year. The technology essentially combines PCI Express and DisplayPort into one protocol, allowing displays and other peripherals to be driven off of the same bus.
Other Notes:
- 10 Gbps per channel (bidirectional - that's about 900 MB/s). - 10 W bus power (less than FireWire, but more than USB). According to Intel, bus power will likely not be supported over future optical cables (so no additional copper lines just for bus power) - One bus can drive two DisplayPort displays simultaneously. - Low 8 ns latency over 7 daisy-chained devices. - Maximum single cable length is 3 meters for current copper implementation. - Any DisplayPort 1.1 device needs to be the last in a daisy chain. - In a hands-on demonstration of Thunderbolt, Engadget was able to see a 5 GB file transferred in just a few seconds. The connection was also capable of playing four simultaneous uncompressed HD video streams from a RAID device. - Ars Technica notes that its compact, inexpensive controller combined with Mini DisplayPort makes Thunderbolt well suited for mobile computing. - According to Intel, Apple has a head start of anywhere from several months to a year over the competition when it comes to Thunderbolt.
Vendors who have already committed to producing Thunderbolt devices include Promise (Pegasus RAID) and LaCie (Little Big Disk).
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices.
Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of March 2025:
Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone ...
With the second release candidate of iOS 18.4 that Apple seeded out today, the company finally provided us with release notes that give a full rundown on what to expect.
There's an Apple Vision Pro app, new Apple Intelligence features for notifications and additional language support, plus an Apple News Food feature for Apple News+ subscribers, and several updates that should improve the...
Saturday March 29, 2025 10:15 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple is reportedly working on a new Magic Mouse. Below, we recap what to expect.
The two key rumors for the Magic Mouse 3 so far include a relocated charging port, along with a more ergonomic design.
It was briefly rumored that the Magic Mouse 3 would also feature voice control, but that was misinterpreted information.
Relocated Charging Port
While the Magic Mouse switched from...
Apple's big developer event is a little over two months away, and rumors about what we can expect to see in Apple's next major operating system updates are becoming increasingly frequent.
A public release of iOS 18.4 is also imminent with a number of updates and improvements, although we won't be getting the major Apple Intelligence Siri upgrades that had reportedly been planned for this...
We've been hearing rumors about a foldable iPhone for almost a decade now, but it looks like we might finally see the device come to fruition in 2026. We're going to be waiting many more months for the foldable iPhone, but so far we're hearing good things.
Apple wants to make it creaseless. It's taken Apple multiple years to design a foldable iPhone that it's satisfied with because Apple ...
Multiple sources have claimed that iOS 19 will introduce a new design with more translucent buttons, menus, notification banners, and more, and there is now another clue that points towards this glass-like appearance.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman today said the new design project is codenamed "Solarium" internally. A solarium is a room with glass walls that allow in plenty of sunlight, so this...
Thursday March 27, 2025 1:59 pm PDT by Joe Rossignol
In the mid-to-late 2000s, Facebook was all about staying connected with friends and family. However, as the social media platform added new features and grew over time, that core experience began to get drowned out.
That changes starting now, according to Meta, which today introduced a new feature that will "bring back the joy" of classic Facebook.
Specifically, Meta has redesigned the...
Apple's next-generation iPad Pro models with the M5 chip will "launch this year," according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
In his Power On newsletter today, Gurman said the new iPad Pro models have progressed to an "advanced testing" stage, and he expects mass production of the devices to begin in the second half of this year. If that timeframe is met, the new iPad Pro models could launch...
