The United States Patent and Trademark Office published three new Apple patents relating to Thunderbolt today. While there is substantial worry over what Apple’s patents mean for the open availability of Thunderbolt, that isn’t the most interesting aspect of this news. Apparently, Apple thought it was prudent to put in wording that discusses portable media players.
According to Patently Apple:
Before going into the details of this main patent in their series of three, it should be noted that Apple states in their secondary patent application that “the present invention, connection may also be a new type of connection.” For example, “a connection may be provided between a portable media player and a display, a computer and a portable media player, or between other types of devices.”
Obviously, this doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re going to see Thunderbolt-compatible iOS devices right away, but it does show a glimmer of hope. Like serial ports and parallel ports before it, USB 2.0 and FireWire 800 are on their way out. While many vanilla PCs have embraced USB 3.0, Apple is betting heavily on Thunderbolt. Not only do all Macs (Except the outdated Mac Pro, apparently) ship with Thunderbolt ports, but these patents show that Apple is spending engineering resources on the technology as well.
Source: Apple
If Apple does implement Thunderbolt into iOS, we’re looking at syncing speeds that are significantly faster. Provided the SSDs inside of iPhones and iPad are fast enough, we could see a 20x jump in speed compared to USB 2.0. That would be pretty incredible. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.
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I'm want this patent to be realised in iOS devices rather sooner than later, but I have to say that I only see the point for large file transfers and backups on the Mac/PC.
I mostly sync and backup my iPhone via WiFi and the iPad only ever gets hooked up the the Mac if I want to transfer a HD movie.
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LikeInteresting. My main charging station for my iPad is my computer, so it's plugged in when I'm not elsewhere. Thunderbolt would be great.
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LikeI used to be the same, but now I just plug my phone into the dock before I head to bed.
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LikeI was referring to the charging times of the iPad on something else than the dedicated wall charger.
A TB connection would be different, as it carries more power IIRC.
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LikeDon't you get annoyed by the long charging times?
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LikeIt's not too bad, it charges over night. I can usually get a full day out of my phone.
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LikeWhile speed would be nice, I don't think this is about speed. I feel like this is about adoption of Thunderbolt. Right now we have all these new Macs with Thunderbolt ports with hardly any getting used. There's a lack of products at this point and unless the PC market gloms onto it as well, I don't see it sticking around. That would be sad as Thunderbolt is beyond just being a fast connection. One cable is all that is needed to dock your MacBook Air to an Apple 27" Thunderbolt display and suddenly you have an ethernet port, USB, Firewire, and another Thunderbolt connection. Being able to use one port on a computer and have it be able to do multiple technologies is exciting (well, maybe that's just me, but it excites me quite a bit). You put a thunderbolt port on your iPhone and suddenly Thunderbolt is in the hands of lots of PC users and a need spreads.
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LikeI welcome the day I can hook up my iPhone to an external video card, and audio card, and wifi card, and monitor. Wait. What? ;)
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LikeYou're right that a Thunderbolt equipped iPhone/iPad would certainly give users a reason to choose hardware that supports the interface.
But from what I have heard, the problem with adoption lies with licensing right now. Only a few companies, among them Apple, LaCie and Promise have a licence to produce TB equipment. In a few months that'll change.
And as Intel is the company behind the technology you can be sure that it's going to be bundled with their future chipsets and motherboards.
I personally hoped for more peripherals this year, but a German storage retailer whom I talked to told e not to hold my breath. Consumer grade storage equipment wouldn't materialise until mid 2012.
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LikeIf I had to guess, Apple's probably not even going to be considering this until TB takes off. Look at FireWire, Apple yanked it from the iPod pretty quickly.
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LikeI suppose so. adding two interfaces isn't something they would be fond of.
Although, TB is very adaptable, so getting a TB iPhone to attach to a USB2.0 port might just be a matter of a special cable.
After all, my 4G iPod uses the same dock connector for the FW400 cable as it does for the USB2.0 cable.
Then again, this is all just wishful thinking.
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