

Steve Jobs: No USB 3 any time soon - Garbage
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2010/10/30/steve-jobs-no-usb-3-any-time-soon/

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unicornporn
No USB 3, no TRIM for their SSDs and no Blu-ray. Yay.

~~~
Derbasti
Well, TRIM seems to be pretty redundant these days. The latest generation of
SSDs (Intel, Sandforce) work just fine even without TRIM due to intelligent
block management and aggressive garbage collection.

As for Blu-Ray, I don't really see them taking off just yet and honestly don't
see a point in preferring them over digital distribution. AND, I would gladly
dispense with optical drives altogether if I could get a smaller, lighter
laptop instead.

Remember how Steve Jobs said that they would never build a netbook--and now
there is the 11" Air.

~~~
GHFigs
_Remember how Steve Jobs said that they would never build a netbook--and now
there is the 11" Air._

What he actually said was: "We don't know how to build a sub-$500 computer
that is not a piece of junk."[1] Notice also how the Air is not in the same
price bracket as netbooks, does not have the same performance profile as
netbooks, and not referred to by the manufacturer as a netbook.

[1]:[http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_47/b41560003...](http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_47/b4156000345421.htm)

~~~
frou_dh
If only we knew how much it cost Apple to make each Air.

~~~
masklinn
According to very unreliable BOM analysis
([http://www.macworld.co.uk/digitallifestyle/news/index.cfm?ne...](http://www.macworld.co.uk/digitallifestyle/news/index.cfm?newsid=3245509&olo=rss)),
$718

It's unclear whether that's total cost to manufacture or only the price for
the parts. It's also unclear how they estimate things like the unibody shell.

In any case, that strikes out any chance of "sub-500" as it's very likely an
under-estimate.

~~~
frou_dh
Thanks. Sounds too high to me for the small Air, but what do I know!

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metatronscube
Makes sense since Apple has been working with Intel on light peak which would
replace USB3. Apple is just thinking a few steps ahead.

~~~
tomlin
When Apple follows standards they are a few steps ahead, and when they
sidetrack them in favour of an non-standardized tech they are _still_ thinking
a few steps ahead?

Am I the only one who thinks Apple is treated slightly differently when it
comes to... _anything_?

I'm not pro-anything, but sitting on the sidelines, it seems as though Apple
is always right regardless of what they do, how they do it, or reasoning
behind the decisions.

~~~
sjs
They're not always right, but they usually do things for a reason. Like how
they've stuck with Core 2 in the 13" MacBook, 13" MBP, and MacBook Air.

Most other companies throw every new interface and bus in their machines
without much thought. There's a reason most other computers are larger and
have worse battery life.

edit: It also depends on the crowd you're in as well. If you ever read any
overclocking and general hardware enthusiast forums you'll see that Apple is
always wrong and behind. It's all about perspective, and different people care
about different things. I used to want to upgrade everything all the time,
tweak this and that, etc. Now that I want a machine that's more like an
appliance I see more value in Apple products. I'm not going to buy an Apple
desktop to overclock for a gaming rig, but I wouldn't consider any other
notebook at this point in time.

~~~
tomlin
Not to be a dick about it, but: [http://www.thinq.co.uk/2010/11/1/new-macbook-
airs-ridden-bug...](http://www.thinq.co.uk/2010/11/1/new-macbook-airs-ridden-
bugs/)

Infallibility is a dangerous, if not deadly, attribute one could give any
system.

I hope people should understand my point: I'm going to use the Canadian Health
Care system as an example.

If you've watched Sicko (Michael Moore), you'd be under the impression that
our Health Care system is tits. There are no wait times, everyone gets the
transplant they deserve and we have a government that cares about its people
first and foremost. Sadly, this is not quite the case.

Canadians believe that we have a great health care system, despite continual
cutbacks, ten minute appointments, still a mostly paper-based family patient
system, drug coverage cuts and some of the longest wait times in the world for
cancer treatment. We slip down the "global list" quite often:
<http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html>,
<http://www.thestar.com/article/526494>

When our politicians are under budget pressure, it's our once grand Health
Care System that sees cuts. No one is watching our precious Health Care System
at the ground level.

There will be Canadians to defend it and offer it extreme fandom, ignoring the
obvious decay. Not because we're specifically ignorant, but because a great
Health Care system is part of our identity. We are not concentrating as to why
we identify with it, just that we once did so we should always do so.

In the same way, Apple and Apple products can be apart of one's identity. With
extreme fandom, Apple is less concerned about negative feedback. As an example
of that, one could say that Apple was completely unprepared for the iPhone4
AntennaGate issue - even ignoring internal advisories about it's potential
reception problems.

I hope to convey that, if you love a system, be more critical than you would
be otherwise.

~~~
sjs
I agree wholeheartedly.

The problem with Apple is that people often have extreme opinions about them &
their products, whether they love or hate them. Both sides are crazy.

There definitely are some Apple customers who look at them with a critical
eye, and in my experience they are _very_ critical of Apple. We expect the
best from Apple products and don't hesitate to pipe up when Apple delivers
less. We expect perfection but realize that Apple is still run by humans and
the first revision of every product they ship isn't going to be made of
unicorns and double rainbows. In fact many long time Apple customers never
pick up the first revision of a new product, knowing it's going to have
issues.

I don't think products from other companies are very different in that regard.
But people jump and shout about every tiny detail about Apple products,
whether it's good or bad. You have to take it all with a massive spoonful of
salt, on both sides. It's unfortunate.

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pluies
It's a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem. If everyone else in the industry,
including Apple, was to support USB3 then Intel would probably have to support
it too.

Anyway, it's sad to see Intel holding back on standards because it doesn't fit
their own agenda.

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thewileyone
Steve says, "No USB3 any time soon." " ... but look out for the new Apple BUS,
which allow for fantastical connectivity for any BUS enabled device to plug
into the computer and act like it's a part of the computer. You can add more
things to the BUS and they'll act like part of the computer! Folks this is
thinking differently!"

~~~
easp
You mean "apple desktop bus," which let you attach multiple low speed
peripherals to your Mac as early as 1987, back when the best you could do on a
PC was PS/2 ports? Apple ditched that when they adopted USB 1.

Or are you saying computers should have room for internal expansion, even
though most customers these days won't use it?

Or...

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iwr
So what do you do if you require high speed external storage now and not two
years from now?

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cletus
I listen to Macbreak Weekly. Alex Lindsay (founder of Pixel Corps and a
regular) constantly bemoans the lack of USB3 for professionals and that it's
actually a problem for what he does (as in there are USB3 peripherals he
uses).

But Intel is not supporting it so I think Apple's hands are tied until they
do. It does seem like a strange thing not to support until of course you
factor in Intel pushing their own alternative (Light Peak?).

Intel supports many things long before there's a point to them (eg DDR3 when
it had no tangible benefit over DDR2 (initially) and cost 4x as much).

I used to think that Blu-ray would come to Apple when it was sufficiently
cheap. I've changed my mind on that. I think there's a fair chance it never
will. I can see optical drives disappearing altogether. If you want one, it'll
be a USB peripheral.

Some Macbook owners replace the optical drive with an SSD (or their normal HD
with an SSD and the optical drive with a spindle HD for storage). I would
actually really like to see a Macbook that came as standard with two hard
drives.

As it is, Intel is updating their (excellent) X25 HDs at the end of the year
(or early 2011). My next MBP will probably get one of those (150 or 300GB).

~~~
illumin8
You can purchase a 3rd party USB3 interface, so if you really need it for a
certain peripheral, it's available.

~~~
leoc
Thank goodness for expansion slots, eh?

~~~
tryp
Right. Just plug it into a usb slot.

