Mmmmm the warm smell of link bait in the evening. This reply will probably be longer than it needs to be but I find this stuff silly and want to vent.<p>TL/DR: The media loves writing "Apple v.s. the World" pieces and TB isn't really meant to compete with USB.<p>I, as well as many others based on comments I've seen elsewhere, think there are a lot of parallels between USB and Firewire and USB and Thunderbolt (TB). USB is a flexible interface you can use to connect to a camera, keyboard, printer, video adapter, hard drive, etc. It does a lot of this in software which means there's some overhead and various versions of the spec have had their own funky issues (like USB 1 & 2 being half duplex[1]). In the end it's "good enough" and no one except device implementors will have to deal with those problems. Firewire and TB are "better" technologies, designed to do some fairly interesting things. Firewire being essentially hot pluggable daisy chain-able SCSI and TB being an external PCI Express interface that can run over fiber optic cabling (whenever that shows up). As a device maker, unless your customers need any of those cool capabilities there's no reason to to use it. Same deal as with Firewire.<p>My take on articles like this is they're another case of some relatively boring technical enhancement being turned into the usual "My side must win" sort of religious war by the media (and parts of the general tech public) loves to turn these things into. Clicks are clicks after all. Partly this is because TB has been labeled an "Apple technology" because they helped with some trademark paperwork[2] and embraced it at launch. Unlike Firewire, Apple didn't do anything with the spec except say "Hey lets use this type of cable/connector." But honestly, that doesn't really matter because if it's related to Apple, they MUST be in some sort of battle against some force. In this case, the evils of USB...<p>Honestly, Thunderbolt seems great for Apple as their design aesthetic mandates (annoyingly IMO) a minimal complement of ports and TB doubles as a display connector and a data port. They won't see a cent by it becoming popular[2] aside from the sales of Apple branded accessories, but regardless TB makes it a lot easier for their customers to plug in an Ethernet adapter, keyboard/mouse, and a couple monitors without the need for a docking station (which is what I do with my MBPr) or a USB HUB/assorted mess (which is what I did with my MacBook Air).<p>Intel, as the creator of Thunderbolt, stands to make the most by it becoming popular (they make all the controller chips). That said, Intel is part of the USB consortium as well and it's hard to see how they can "loose" either way this goes.<p>[1]<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB</a>
[2]<a href="http://www.anandtech.com/show/5425/why-thunderbolt-wont-come-to-the-iphone-anytime-soon" rel="nofollow">http://www.anandtech.com/show/5425/why-thunderbolt-wont-come...</a>
I'm not knowledgeable in this area, but isn't Thunderbolt a more direct interface (since it's basically external PCI-E) with less overhead than USB, making it a better choice for devices requiring low latency (audio interfaces, graphics cards, SSDs, etc.)?<p>Regardless, I believe <i>Intel's</i> Thunderbolt is here to stay, along with USB 3.x...
Thunderbolt having direct memory access makes me slightly uneasy. I'm more inclined to fill the ports with superglue than actually find a use for them (I won't mind you). If the price of the accessories comes down, then it'll certainly be an incredible boost for some applications.<p>If anybody is interested in learning about them, there's direct key stealing attacks for both TB and FireWire if you look around.
I'm really interested in the 100 watt power bandwidth. That borders on making usb laptop chargers, saving a port on the side. Really expensive ones to support 3.1, though.
The new Mac Pro coming out this year and its slim design is only possible by Thunderbolt. Apple expects you to use your huge Raid Arrays and other 3rd party hardware through a thunderbolt connection. USB can do this too of course, but not as fast.<p>If size matters at all in a workstation class device is a different question entirely, but in case you need a portable workstation (for mobile audio/video work for example), Apple is now the way to go.
Thunderbolt is a back door. Generally, physical access to any machine and "all bets are off", but still, I'd rather not have an orifice on my machine that says "fuck me here please" no matter what my business. USB can be implemented in ways that are more secure, but they are often not.