Apple News, Analysis and Podcasts

  Apple has been holding off adding USB 3.0 support to their Macintosh line up. It is not like Apple to hold off adopting a new technology. USB 3.0 is backwards compatible with USB 2.0 and is ten times faster. The data transfer rate for USB 3.0 could be 4.8 Gbps where USB 2.0 is 480 Mbps at best. It does require a new connector for the faster data rate though. So one has to ask why is Apple not adopting USB 3.0? Last last week, Tom Kruk emailed Steve Jobs to ask why. Steve responded by saying “We don’t see USB 3 taking off at this time. No support from Intel, for example”. This could be a possible answer, but I don’t buy it. Apple does not wait for other companies when it comes to new technology. If Apple put USB 3.0 into all of their new Macs, new products would come out almost immediately. Apple leads, others follow.
   I think Apple is not adding USB 3.0 because it is waiting on another better technology, Light Peak. According to CNET, Light Peak could be coming out sometime next year. Light Peak is a new optical cable interface that Apple and Intel have been working on together. It promises 10 Gbps data transfer speeds, which is twice as fast USB 3.0. Since Light Peak uses an optical interface, it has a potential of much greater data transfer rate, up to 100Gbps for 2020. I think Apple will be replacing USB and Firewire with Light Peak in the coming years. Keyboards and mice are already wireless, so they don’t need a USB connector. Light Peak was developed to replaces not only USB and Firewire, but also HDML, PCI express, SATA and SCSI. It would replace all of the connectors in the back of a Mac with one Light Peak connector except for the Ethernet. Light Peak can be daisy chained together, so there is no need to have more than one or two. Light Peak is the direction Apple will be taking, not USB 3.0.

2 Comments

1. Erick ~ November 4, 2010 22:00
   "It is not like Apple to hold off adopting a new technology. [...] Apple does not wait for other companies when it comes to new technology. If Apple put USB 3.0 into all of their new Macs, new products would come out almost immediately." This is simply untrue. Apple was not first to adopt USB 1.1, USB 2.0, FireWire, Serial ATA, or E-SATA. For FireWire and USB 1.1 I agree that they led the industry forward through iMovie and iMac, respectively. However, look at what happened when Apple was first to ship FireWire 800. No new products, just a bunch of multi-interface hard drives. The mini-DisplayPort that Apple created two years ago? There is approximately one company making monitors for that. For the average consumer, USB 3.0 is no more relevant than FireWire 800: the current USB 2.0 is simply "fast enough". Jobs's true talent is not in being the first to install new technology: it is his ability to wait till the technology is ready to explode, while preparing to trigger the explosion at just the right time. Think 802.11, USB, microdrives, iTunes store, solid state, multi-touch, tablets, HTML5.
2. steffenjobbs ~ November 5, 2010 12:47
   I'm still using FireWire 400/800. Good enough for me to use with external harddrives. File transfers are relatively quick for backup. I'm fairly certain I don't need USB 3.0 unless all the external drives ONLY come with USB 3.0 ports. I'll wait for Light Peak when it's ready. I'd hardly think that most consumers are sitting around worry about how fast they can transfer files. I know Apple isn't going to do anything until Steve is good and ready and can make money from doing so. That guy marches to the beat of a different drum and he's doing pretty well so far.

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