The lightning-fast Thunderbolt standard might be confined to 2011 MacBook Pros for now without a lot of accessories to boast of, but just you wait: Intel has announced that they are releasing Thunderbolt development kits that will finally enable every Joe and Jane Manufacturer to make some devices that can capitalize upon the standard’s 10Gbps bi-directional data transfer capabilities.
So here’s the question. Obviously we can expect to see a host of new gadgets soon boasting a Thunderbolt port, including the usual gaggle of hard drives and Blu-Ray drives and printers. When they come, though, will any products eschew USB 3.0 for ThunderBolt entirely, though?
If so, or if not, who will win the upcoming battle between the USB 3.0 and ThunderBolt standards? Let’s just hope Thunderbolt’s not another Firewire.
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
12 responses to “Manufacturers Prepare Faster Accessories As Intel Releases Thunderbolt Dev Kits”
With flash-drives gaining capacity, faster data transfer rates make good sense. I wonder if we will see inexpensive Thunderbolt flash-drives…
My suspicion is that killing USB is going to be even harder than killing optical drives, even when transfer rates are faster on USB 2.0 than what it takes to burn a bloody CD/DVD.
Only time will tell if TB will become an industry standard. Though I’d love to, I doubt it.
When firewire was introduced, Apple was what, 2% of the USA’s computer users? And firewire STILL gained a foothold in the video industry…
Now, Apple is 10% of the USA – ThunderBolt has a fantastic shot at becoming the gold standard of peripherals, especially because it is WAY more versatile than firewire ever was AND will get dramatically faster as it goes from copper to optical AND also because ThunderBolt’s rated charging ability is perfect for the hottest thing on the planet, iPads! If Apple can hitch ThunderBolt’s acceptance rate to the iPad, it’s as close to a sure thing as I can think of…
I HOPE it will be another Firewire. Firewire is great.
If someone comes out with a TB docking station that outputs 4-6 USB 3.0 ports and two video ports (DVI/VGA/Mini-DP) for $99, they will sell a boat load.
It’s better than firewire :)
thunderbolt on iPad
sounds yummy