

Imagine the Apple Thunderbolt Display… without the display - ukdm
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/90894-imagine-the-apple-thunderbolt-display-without-the-display

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dkarl
For your next trick, Steve, please invent a tablet that is a docking station
for an iPhone. One device, multiple form factors. I'd love to snap my iPhone
into the back of a 10" screen so I can watch a move or read the paper. When I
didn't feel like carrying the 10" screen around, I'd just take the phone out
and leave the screen behind. When I felt like doing some work on the road, I
could carry the 10" screen _and_ a bluetooth keyboard. At home, I'd connect my
phone to a big beautiful monitor and a full-size keyboard. Concrete steps
toward that vision is your best bet for keeping me buying Apple hardware now
that there are good Android phones available and good Android tablets, too (if
not now then soon).

One device, multiple form factors. One device to manage content and
applications on, one device to sync, one device to always have with me. Any
form factor I want. Sounds like a perfect way to spend the dividends of
Moore's Law.

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avdempsey
That's actually the whole point of iCloud. You'll have separate devices--
screens with an SOC--but they'll all behave just as you describe. Each device
pushes your data up to the cloud where it bounces back to the rest. Three
reasons why Apple will go this way rather than your transformer approach: -The
utility is exactly the same -Each device's hardware will be designed to be
itself, rather than a compromisotron -Apple gets to sell more devices

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dkarl
_Apple gets to sell more devices_

This is Apple's top priority, so you're probably right. It assumes way too
much about having a working internet connection, though[+]. When I'm reading a
book or a movie and decide to switch to a different form factor, I don't want
it to take a bunch of fiddling just to get back to where I was. Nor do I want
to be stuck without a wireless connection and be stuck unable to download the
app or data from one device to another. Without guaranteed communication
between devices, they really will be _different_ devices, with all the
inconvenience and mental overhead that entails. Apple will have to implement
peer-to-peer syncing over bluetooth or over a cable instead of depending on
iCloud.

[+] I took a trip to Chicago over the weekend, and my 3G connection only
worked a handful of times over four days. Coming from a city where AT&T
provides excellent 3G service, it was a real shock to be reminded that you
can't take connectivity for granted.

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kemiller
I love that _mini_ display port is now considered "chubby".

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glhaynes
It wasn't too many years ago that I heard that they were working on standards
for flash storage cards that were smaller than CompactFlash and I thought to
myself: "What in the world is the point? CF is really small already!"

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sudont
I expect Matrox would be up for building it since they already have an
established base for video switching.

However, I've always suspected that the iMac is the real successor to the
Cinema Display line: Thunderbolt pass-through, internal video card. It'd take
some engineering, but if anyone could do it, Apple could.

Plus, Apple's always interested in consolidating product lines with value-
adds.

~~~
sandipc
As far as I know, the 27" iMac already does video pass-through over mini-
displayport/thunderbolt. I think it has to be turned on, though.

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sudont
It does DisplayPort, which is a terminal connection. I'm thinking the new ones
could use the thunderbolt bus to both initialize the internal video card, as
well as pass through DisplayPort to another monitor.

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haberman
Wouldn't it be nice if the Thunderbolt Display had an optical drive? Lack of
an optical drive is one of the few things that makes me nervous about going
the MacBook air route anytime soon.

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ugh
Can’t you just buy some cheapo external USB drive† and stow it away for disc-
related emergencies? For me just knowing that drives like that exist is
enough, I know I can order them from Amazon and have them the next day.
(Nowadays I only really use my optical drive to rip music I can’t get any
other way. That happens maybe once a year or so.)

If you like watching DVDs while you are mobile I would definitely not
recommend getting a PC without optical drive anytime soon – for obvious
reasons. If you don’t, I really see no reason not to ditch the optical drive.
All other use cases seem to be handled well enough by emergency external
drives.

—

† Like this one: [http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-External-Optical-
SE-S084D-TSBS...](http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-External-Optical-
SE-S084D-TSBS/dp/B0044DEDBG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1311612504&sr=8-1)

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michaelbuckbee
Even if you like watching DVDs on your laptop you'd likely still be better off
with a removable optical drive. Rip the discs to the hard drive and run them
from there.

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pornel
Highly recommended. I use this method exclusively, even though I have working
DVD drive: scratched discs don't cause nasty surprises during the movie, and
the drive doesn't make noise during playback.

With RipIt.app set to auto-rip every inserted DVD and eject it it's no hassle.

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Unregistered
Why thunderbolt interconnect, and not wireless thunderbolt interconnect? We
already have Wireless HDMI.

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masklinn
> Why thunderbolt interconnect, and not wireless thunderbolt interconnect?

20Gb each way over the air? Good luck with that one. And the latencies are
going to be ignominious.

> We already have Wireless HDMI.

WHDMI is not a 2-way data communication, latency matters far less when you're
just streaming A/V to your television.

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Unregistered
The article was meant to be forward looking -

"You see, we are almost certainly moving towards"

I don't think the vision is practical if you have to continuously plug/unplug
your devices. The wirelessHD spec has theoretical data rates up to 25Gb.

Latency matters for user input ( keyboard/mouse) which is already accommodated
at much lower bitrates, so I wouldn't expect it to be much of an issue.

~~~
masklinn
> Latency matters for user input ( keyboard/mouse)

Not really, as long as those latencies stay significantly sub-second they're
invisible to users. These latencies matter for everything _but_ user input.

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Unregistered
" as long as those latencies stay significantly sub-second"

exactly.

You can't really state that something doesn't matter, and then give criteria
under which it doesn't matter. That implies that it does matter, and the
solution needs to be engineered within spec.

I'd also be interested in some examples of the "everything else" cases in
which latency is a big deal ( within the given context).

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georgieporgie
_where is our Thunderbolt-enabled $500 Windows laptop or netbook?_

Uh... The reason you get the Windows laptop for half the price is precisely
because it doesn't have nifty hardware like Thunderbolt.

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napierzaza
So... a laptop docking station. I know those haven't existed for Macs... but
they do exist, right now.

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rauljara
Not sure exactly how long these have been around, but my boss has had one for
four years, at least. <http://www.bookendzdocks.com/>

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allenp
"You see, we are almost certainly moving towards a world where the only
computer we own will be wearable, or simply a smartphone."

I just don't think that's true any time soon. Anyone that needs to type out a
paper for school, for example, might need something more than a smartphone. Or
someone that likes to read on screens larger than 4". Maybe the author is
counting on holographic projection or the like?

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mrsebastian
Read the next few sentences!

The whole point is that Thunderbolt will let you plug your smartphone into a
keyboard (to write that paper), or a projector, video camera (FireWire), or an
external RAID array (eSATA/PCIe) for that matter.

As soon as the Thunderbolt/Light Peak socket gets a little thinner, anyway :)

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glhaynes
But is that really what people want? I don't want my phone being tied up being
a CPU. I want to be able to pick it up (without unhooking any wires) at any
time and make a phone call, walk around, etc. Or check Twitter on it while I'm
working on my big screen. Just because it'll have enough processing
power/storage capacity to be my "computer" doesn't mean I'd want it to - I
still want both form factors.

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mrsebastian
Yes, multiple form factors will exist. As you say in your other comment, there
are different use cases -- you don't want to read a book on a display the size
of a wristwatch, for example :)

I mean, it's impossible to say what we'll be doing in a few years, let alone
10 or 20, but if we still spend a lot of time moving around and interacting
with the physical universe then I think smartphones will beat out tablets. You
might have a tablet at home or at the office, but I suspect it will just be a
dumb display. Admittedly you wouldn't want to use a Thunderbolt cable in that
case -- you'd want a wireless solution of some kind.

There are wireless solutions that support extension of the PCIe bus, though,
like the upcoming WiGig thing:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_Gigabit_Alliance>

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glhaynes
Definitely agree it's impossible to say. :)

Why do you think the tablet would become a dumb display? It's hard for me to
imagine there being much cost savings there - you could remove some smarts but
you'd have to replace them with almost-equivalent-costing smarts because you
still have to handle networking, presentation of remotely-generated video and
audio, receiving and transmitting user inputs, etc. Guess you could save a bit
on flash storage, too. But compared to the extra latency, added dependence,
etc, it doesn't seem a win to me at all.

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mrsebastian
Hrm, good question.

I guess I just don't see us using 10 discrete computers to interact with the
cloud. I don't see us having a TV computer, a tablet computer, a smartphone, a
desktop, an office machine -- I see us having one computer (with a secure link
to the cloud) that then interfaces with our surroundings.

I agree, the cost difference wouldn't be that significant between a normal
tablet and a dumb tablet, but I don't think it will come down to costs. It
will come down to security, flexibility, customizability...

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glhaynes
I expect there'll be options for this, but I also expect they won't become
very popular for a number of reasons.

The biggest that springs to mind is that this puts a _lot_ more strain on the
battery of the phone, the device that you most want to stay charged. No doubt
this will be mitigated by lower-power electronics and better battery
technology, but I think we're still many years from people having tons of
battery capacity to spare on their phones.

Anyway, I hope systems like this will be built, in part because I like to see
all the evolutionary options explored! But I don't see anything functionality-
wise that appeals to me personally from systems like the Atrix, while the
disadvantages seems pretty clear.

EDIT: I should say that there is one clear benefit of an "all-in-one" system:
having all your data with you all the time. But cloud-storage with automatic
push of documents and media allows a similar benefit.

