Rumor: Macbooks to Feature Light Peak

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Hardware community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Status
Not open for further replies.
[citation][nom]firebee1991[/nom]Call me crazy, but I'd rather have an optical drive than light peak. USB 3.0 is plenty fast for now.[/citation]

Using the same argument I guess the current processors use are plenty fast for now (for some people)
 
It's never going to get off the ground at this rate. How many "awesome" technologies from the 80s and 90s went from cradle to grave in a hurry because the only machines to use them were overpriced and had comparatively insignificant marketshare?

And how is removing optical drives "forward thinking"? My 2 year old netbook has no optical drive, and it sure is irritating for the few times a month when I need one. But don't worry Apple has a solution: buy their $100 chromed aluminum Apple approved external optical drive; complete with fairy dust.
 
Stop complaining about apple including this tech before everyone else. This is merely a rumor - and a seemingly unlikely one at that. But on the assumption that it IS true, we can only come out on top. whether we like it or not, macs are pretty popular. Manufacturers have no reason to make light peak devices unless there is a market for them. If the rumors are true, apple may just create that market, giving motherboard manufacturers reasons to make light peak compatible boards for PCs. If we don't buy them, we win no matter what.

And on a side note: even if apple does integrate Light Peak into their devices, I seriously doubt it would increase mac prices. They probably wouldn't change at all. Apple doesn't often create a global price increase to their macbook pros... in fact they have gone down in price over the last couple of years (granted they were pretty damn pricy to begin with). Apple laptops have been selling in larger and larger volumes over the past few years and I doubt they would increase prices and jeopardize their recent goldmine. My point is that this little statement is very unlikely.
Macbook w/o Light Peak: $ 3000
Macbook with Light Peak: $ 5000
Click to expand...
 
Like most new technology, it appears first in Apple products, then trickles down. All the PeeCee makers are in a race to the bottom, who can sell it the cheapest. Apple on the other hand, entices its customers with technology, rather than wal-mart pricing. As for Light Peak inflating the MSRP of the new MacBook Pro's, I highly doubt that - the MBP has been getting *less* expensive with each successive generation. Generally by several hundred dollars. Look at the 17" model for example. It went from $2799 to $2599 to $2299 as the introductory pricing for the prior three generations.
 
[citation][nom]iamtheking123[/nom]My 2 year old netbook has no optical drive, and it sure is irritating for the few times a month when I need one. But don't worry Apple has a solution: buy their $100 chromed aluminum Apple approved external optical drive; complete with fairy dust.[/citation]
Why can't you use a standard USB optical drive with your netbook? Your "Apple approved" argument is completely false. As with ALL of Apple's laptops, you don't need to buy their accessories. Literally *any* external DVD or BluRay (USB or Firewire or eSata) is plug-n-play compatible. Same with monitors, keyboards, mouses, speakers, etc. Absolutely no different from a Windows PC in that regard.... oh wait - with a Windows peecee, you need special Microsoft approved hardware that has proprietary Microsoft "signed" drivers, that might work with 64 bit Windows... or they might not. Lol.
 
[citation][nom]wotan31[/nom]Why can't you use a standard USB optical drive with your netbook? Your "Apple approved" argument is completely false. As with ALL of Apple's laptops, you don't need to buy their accessories. Literally *any* external DVD or BluRay (USB or Firewire or eSata) is plug-n-play compatible. Same with monitors, keyboards, mouses, speakers, etc. Absolutely no different from a Windows PC in that regard.... oh wait - with a Windows peecee, you need special Microsoft approved hardware that has proprietary Microsoft "signed" drivers, that might work with 64 bit Windows... or they might not. Lol.[/citation]
Well duh. Except most Apple users don't care enough to realize this and just sheep into the Apple store and buy whatever is on the shelves at full MSRP + Apple Tax. For instance, how many people still use the crappy earbuds (to even an amateur ear) that come with ipods? And you don't need signed drivers in Windows. If you go to install an unsigned driver you get a prompt asking for confirmation and that's it. And that prompt can be disabled with 4 clicks. 64 bit isn't really relevant to the argument, but nowadays it's pretty common to see x86 and x64 drivers for Win7 (only major drivers ever bother with the unpopular XP x64).

And you're stepping a bit to far saying stuff is "plug and play" with Macs. I can point out dozens of Amazon reviews for products that are 1 star because the device doesn't have Mac support. Can't blame the manufacturer since it costs a lot to write a driver, and it's hardly worth it for a 10% marketshare.
 
[citation][nom]kingssman[/nom]Like it or not Apple always seems to push component technology ahead of other manufacturers. They pushed USB2.0 when everyone was on USB1.0, they pushed Gigabit when everyone was on 100mps, DVI output on their notebooks, when the competition used vga. they even pushed firewire and firewire800. Its no surprise apple will make a bottom line standard that everything will either be usb3.0 or have lightpeak in their next line up. its just the way they are.I do know the makers of Lightpeak will be happy that a manufacture has embraced the technology on all their products. Its a good thing..[/citation]

Did you just make that stuff up? I had a Gigabyte board with USB 2.0 many months before Apple added it. I had a gigabit NIC for more than a year before Apple added it to its line. DVI was available for IMB/Compatible PCs since the 80's. Apple was really late to the game on this one.

Firewire is the only tech you listed that Apple pushed to market before PC.

Also, why would you ever want a laptop without a disc drive? I have a blu-ray drive on my laptop, and I love watching movies on it. Until I can download or stream blu-ray content to my laptop in an easier method than popping in a disc, why would I ever give it up?

Also, Apple was not the first line of laptops to have SSDs. Even then, sometimes people prefer storage on their laptops and a magnetic hard drive still beats an SSD for storage period. In fact, I absolutely love my 64GB SSD combined with a 500GB mechanical. Best of both worlds.
 
great. all this means is less USB ports for when you will actually need to plug in something important and get work done. 🙁

optimum light peak? no thanx. usb 3.0 is more space efficient.
 
[citation][nom]kingssman[/nom]Like it or not Apple always seems to push component technology ahead of other manufacturers. They pushed USB2.0 when everyone was on USB1.0, they pushed Gigabit when everyone was on 100mps, DVI output on their notebooks, when the competition used vga. they even pushed firewire and firewire800. Its no surprise apple will make a bottom line standard that everything will either be usb3.0 or have lightpeak in their next line up. its just the way they are.I do know the makers of Lightpeak will be happy that a manufacture has embraced the technology on all their products. Its a good thing..[/citation]

I'm not too sure where you got this info from, because it's almost completely wrong.


Anyways, like most people have been saying, Light Peak is just an excuse for Apple to sell accessories with ungodly margin until more than two Light Peak products exist. And while a 512GB SSD sounds fantastic, the cost of that alone is enough to build a pretty solid gaming desktop...

el sigh.

/rant
 
whether it has light peak or not some people are going to buy it and Apple will again create milestone with sales. For Apple its all about existing fans who no matter what gona buy there product no matter how costly or overpriced it is.
For me all that matters is a new tech in development that will sooner or later will become a market standard and affordable.
 
[citation][nom]kingssman[/nom]Like it or not Apple always seems to push component technology ahead of other manufacturers. They pushed USB2.0 when everyone was on USB1.0, they pushed Gigabit when everyone was on 100mps, DVI output on their notebooks, when the competition used vga.[/citation]
What about other laptop/desktop manufacturers that used gigabit network, usb 2.0 and dvi long before apple did like for example ASUS? And they aren't the only ones that preceded Apple with these technologies. Also Apple got beaten to USB 3.0, wireless n, blutooth, hdmi,... by other manufacturers.

They only beaten others to firewire. Still they were the first to stop using it.
 
[citation][nom]wotan31[/nom]Like most new technology, it appears first in Apple products, then trickles down. All the PeeCee makers are in a race to the bottom, who can sell it the cheapest. Apple on the other hand, entices its customers with technology, rather than wal-mart pricing. As for Light Peak inflating the MSRP of the new MacBook Pro's, I highly doubt that - the MBP has been getting *less* expensive with each successive generation. Generally by several hundred dollars. Look at the 17" model for example. It went from $2799 to $2599 to $2299 as the introductory pricing for the prior three generations.[/citation]
Please state the new technologies, besides firewire, that appeared on the mac before other manufacturers?
 
Great, i love development of new ideas/technologies and love it even more when apple Fanbois and bare the brunt of paying those engineers developing the technology. If this tech is truely as fast as it claims and scales even fractionally as much as they claim it will be worth the move to unlike Firewire which ultimately ended up with the majority of uses Mac only (yes i have firewire ports and external HDDs with Firewire/USB but i prefer the USB)
 
[citation][nom]Vladislaus[/nom]Please state the new technologies, besides firewire, that appeared on the mac before other manufacturers?[/citation]
Besides Firewire, we have EFI firmware. EFI has been standard on all Mac's since 2006. Here we are, almost 2011 now, and the Peecee still uses legacy BIOS (one of the reasons you can't use a hard drive larger than 2 TB on a pc). Lets see, what else. Ethernet. All Mac's had Ethernet built-in to all their laptops starting in 1994. PC laptops couldn't use Ethernet unless you bought a PCMCIA expansion card. Today we have aluminum unibody enclosures and glass trackpads, which no other manufacturer uses yet.

It's silly to discuss things like CPU's Memory, and GPU's, since these are commodity parts from Intel, AMD, and Nvidia, and when they appear in a vendor's product usually has more to do with that product's refresh cycle, than anything else. Even so, Apple was the first and only manufacturer (by almost a year) to receive intel's Ultra Low Voltage CPU's as used in the Macbook Air and iMac. Also since Apple stuck with C2D for so long, intel made custom C2D chips just for Apple that have a faster 1066 Mhz FSB speed.

And sort of tied to the CPU, Apple was first with pure 64-bit desktop OS (Windows XP-64 was a 32/64 hybrid), and first to completely drop 32-bit OS's from the lineup, in favor of 64-bit only. (Microsoft STILL hasn't done this).

Hmm, all I can think of off the top of my head. :)

 
In a world that lacks peripherals that can fully exploit USB 3, I don't see the need for an even faster and much more pricey standard. Especially not one that's made by a company that has proven it isn't afraid to abuse its dominant position to force customers to do their bidding.
 
@wotan31

i always thought unix was 64bit well before OSx was even conceived (NetBSD if i recall, which i think is the fore bearer of OSx), just like PCs, Macs couldn't not go 64bit till they had a reliable 64bit CPU, for the PC market that was the Athlon 64 (well yeah there was ia-64 but that was a workstation class CPU) P4 before mac could even begin to adopt it (cause cutting edge Apple back then wasn't willing to go cutting edge and back AMD, so much for apple adopting cuttign edge tech) if i recall MS actually tailored a 64bit XP just for the Athlon 64

the mass roll out of Ethernet in a anything was due to the advent cheap all in one IO controller chips nothing to do with the need for a PCMCIA card, and what were you going do with your Ethernet connection on your mac book ? broadband was but a pipe dream in 1994 and it required a degree of finesse to attach your mac book to anything other then a non apple network.

Panasonic toughbooks had unibody construction (albeit it magnesium) well before your mac books, they just weren't small and svelte they were big and durable

but yeah Apple marketed these stuff better then anyone else before them, thats why we have people like you who believe Apple pioneered them
 
I love how many people are bashing Apple for possibly introducing such a technology, yet if it were Microsoft or any other PC related company they would be sitting here screaming "So sweet, can't wait for this technology to come out!"

It's hilarious. 😀
 
[citation][nom]Anomalyx[/nom]If Apple keeps building up the walls like this, they will inadvertently wall their customers out, rather than wall them in. Apple continues to dig its own grave.[/citation]

??? Dig their own grave!? Let's see... AAPL is now $312.12 per share with no signs of dropping below $300. Apple was digging their grave in the 1990s but to think they're doing anything wrong with their business now is just plain ignorance.

I have no idea where Light Peak is headed, or if it's just a concept, but there was very little animosity on Tom's when the news first broke regarding USB 3.0 motherboards without any USB 3.0 devices. As far as firewire goes (aka iLink aka IEEE1394a/b), it's alive and well, now @ 800Mbps, and now included with many brands of computer.

Of course, mass ignorance is to be expected on a site populated with a bunch of gamers too young to remember what the Y2K bug was.
 
erm the cable specs haven't even been finalized let alone the connector standard, they are still struggling with powered/un-powered cable specs and how best to work with passively powered devices, until someone figures out photon logic gates and move everything to optical circuits (rather then electrical based circuits) they going have to plonk some kind of copper connector to supply power whether externally or internally to the light peak cable, apple may well be carrying a beta un-powered lightpeak edition but make no mistake there will be a revision to this that may well not be backward compatible
 
[citation][nom]jmchien[/nom]I'm confused on why people are talking about core2 when the current macbook pros use the i-series processors...[/citation]

Because Tom's is full of a lot of know-it-alls that claim to be on the cutting edge but shout out specs for 3 generation old systems. Anyone could have bought a quad-core i7 MBP laptop long ago. Only the little 13" version has a duo-core option. :kaola:

Anyone else notice how many people are claiming Apple was the first to abandon firewire? I was surprised so I went to Apple's site to see for myself. All models of the Mac Mini, MacBook Pro, iMac, and Mac Pro have firewire 800 as standard. I guess many cutting edge Tom's users don't yet know what today's [backward compatible] FW800 ports look like. It's true, Apple stopped installing the now 10 year old FW400 ports found on many other computer brands long ago.

Of course, in the world of online forums, everyone is an "expert."
 
Non-Apple users will see it eventually- Intel would give up too much for this to be an exclusive (a permanent one, anyway). Sick profits from enterprise customers and the potential to be the final nail in AMD's coffin are things Intel simply will not pass up no matter how much Steve Jobs would want them to.

Way I see it, Apple gets it first, and early Mac adopters get to be the extended beta testers for Light Peak. Sure, everyone else gets it late, but with most (if not all) kinks worked out by then and more devices to choose from.

Light Peak has a ton of potential, but I'll reserve my enthusiasm until there are plenty of usable devices on the standard. As long as they don't get too cocky like Sony did with Beta or IBM did with Microchannel, it will do very well.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom