Srsly?

OK, the iTunes ecosystem & the fact you have no (official) choice but to use it with your iOS device. FaceTime & other Apple-device-only technologies. Go change your iOS email app. Apple decides what apps. you can use, and they can only come from Apple's store. Go figure. It even polices the content of the apps.

On the other hand, in the Android ecosystem the user is king and I can do whatever I wish. I can even change the OS to another fork of Android quite happily, because Google allow such tinkering. Go do that on your iOS device.

Jobs did consider creating his own network for the iphone but decided against it as too expensive ..

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/ ... r-free.ars

Didge

Well, only because that was the fastest option to both sync data and charge devices at that time - remember, back in 2001 this was before any Macs came with USB 2.0 ports, so copying data over USB 1.1 was pretty slow and I don't think would provide sufficient power to charge the iPod's battery in a reasonable time (if at all?). As the first editions of the iPod were Mac-only, and all Macs came with Firewire ports (and only USB 1.1), then it was the obvious choice at that time.

Of course, later on, when Apple decided to offer Windows-compatible versions of the iPod, they simply had to offer USB 2.0 - which by then had become more commonplace in both Windows and Macs - otherwise it wouldn't have been successful. Apple simply provided what they thought was, in terms of technology, the best option at that time.

I don't believe DisplayPort or Thunderbolt will catch on in terms of popularity - technically, they may well be superior to other digital connections, but manufacturers aren't really getting behind it in the same way as USB 3.0. I see them as just another Apple proprietary connector like ADC (remember that?!). I give it 3 years before they drop DisplayPort/Thunderbolt in favour of something else.

Feh. Piffle and balderdash. For the vast majority of buyers, in the Android ecosystem the carrier is king. Unless you have the technical knowhow to root your phone, the carrier gets to decide what apps you may or may not have out of the box, what app store is available to you (and therefore what it contains), what your phone interface looks like and even how certain aspects of the interface work.

Tell the users in the US who can't get Google wallet on their NFC-equipped Android phones because the carrier has an alternative system it wants them to use instead that 'The user is king'.

Jon

I suspect they won't drop it as such, but I think it will be fair to assume the next generation of Apple kit will have USB 3.0 ports as well. T-bolt will probably end up being the next firewire - used for certain fairly niche applications in specialised fields, but a pretty superfluous port for the majority. It will be on Macs for the forseeable future but actually used by an increasingly small minority of the people who have it.

Jon

Hardly surprising, really. Have you seen how much a Thunderbolt cable costs?
£39.00
http://store.apple.com/uk/product/MC913 ... MTY1NDA3Ng

Note that the plugs contain a little computer that talks to each other. It’s also not backwardly compatible. I could not fit a Thunderbolt card in my MacPro, but I could a USB3. Thunderbolt requires a dedicated motherboard. So I’d need a new Mac to use it.

It’s an expensive cabling solution.

Thing is Thunderbolt does a hell of a lot, very quickly. I can't see Apple letting it slip.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbolt_(interface)

My guess is we'll be seeing Thunderbolt replace most display and peripheral connections on laptops not too far down the line. One connector to rule them all.

Its the old Chicken and Egg "issue"

All my devices use USB (and they are OK with 1.1, 2 and new 3)
so why would I need a Thunderbolt connection for day to day stuff. I think it will be really difficult for Apple / anyone else to overthrow that esp if as stated a bit earlier you cant retrofit a Thunderbolt add on card into my existing PC

Do the carriers allow such tinkering? Or does it void warranty/support?
If it does void stuffs, then I can jailbreak my iOS device. Apple may not allow it, but I can do it...

Yes, I know Apple believes in closed systems, and when you listen to what they say it's easy to understand why - Apple control everything so the user doesn't have to (not saying this is good or bad). I think the closedness of Apple is fairly obvious, so if you don't want it, don't buy it...



But then consider that it gets put onto every Intel mobo (it being an Intel technology rather than an Apple one, I understand), you can use an adaptor to plug your monitor into it, later the external drives you buy can be dais-chained into it, along with Thunderbold enabled monitors. It could happen, but only if Intel put it onto consumer boards and push the technology to the consumer market.

Indeed. Nobody wants the port until there's something to plug into it and nobody will make anything to plug into it until people have the port.

I think the Thunderbolt port is backwards compatible to a degree, insofar as it will accept devices that previously used the displayport er.. port. However you can't plug a thunderbolt device into a displayport equipped computer, whereas in contrast you can plug a USB 3 device into a USB 2 equipped computer and it will still work. Not at top speed, but it will work. That's a major advantage USB 3 has from the off.

I'm not sure t-bolt will be put to all the uses Heather posted it might be. However for certain functions it is a significantly superior performer to USB 3 even. It's certainly a better solution for high performance disk access and the fact it's dual channel and chainable are also points in it's favour. However overtaking USB as the default connection format for peripherals even on the mac at this point seems to be to be unlikely.

Jon

Funny, I remember similar sentiments back when Apple adopted USB on the original iMac. USB will never catch on. No-one will produce peripherals for it. It's been a long 15 years hasn't it!

Well in the UK for Samsung Android phones on Vodafone you can have the android market place app store, Samsung app store and even the iddy biddy Vodafone appstore and they are just the ones initially, theres nothing to stop you going to another to download apps.

I have had an Android phone in the past and I was able to install a "vanilla" OS on it (i.e. to get rid of the cr*p put on it by the Service Provider.

However, when I had to return the phone for repairs I had to re-install the service provider OS onto it for them to touch it.

The same is true with jailbreaking an iPhone.

I think you are right though. I may not be able to install an app the Apple doesn't approve but I haven't found one that I would need to install and can't.

The main thing I get from that fact is people suggesting apps that can't/won't run on an iPhone. i.e. stuff wanting to run in the background (i.e. battery killer apps) or private API stuff (i.e. call monitoring or recording).

I have seen a few nice things on Android like the task manager type app but then Android may need that due to the lack of app approval system whereas iOS doesn't need that due to the way it deals with "background apps". etc... etc...

Not only can you remove those on Android, but you can avoid them altogether by buying SIM-free. You can't avoid Apple's foibles no matter what you do, unless you defy Apple and jailbreak - something that's a big no-no in Apple's book - it's a user behaviour they actively try to stop and undermine. You can't have the user tinkering with their own device, well that would be terrible now, wouldn't it?

Once the exclusivity deal with Apple has finished you'll see more of it.
It's starting to appear on a few higher end PC laptops. It won't be long until you see it on more lower end devices.