Could Thunderbolt open up mobile opportunities?
Today, Apple and Intel announced the availability of Thunderbolt, a.k.a. Light Peak. This connector provides transfer speeds of up to a whopping 10 Gbps, which is faster than USB 3.0.
Since Apple and Intel seemingly teamed up for Thunderbolt, the connector head is in the shape of Apple's own Mini Displayport. If you've seen this connector before, then you know it to be pretty small. In fact, it could fit on a device the size of an iPhone in lieu of the seemingly unproprietary 30-pin connector.
What makes Thunderbolt interesting to me is that it has a lot of features that could improve tablet computing.
Tablet computing is all about speed and portability. With Thunderbolt's 10 Gbps data transfer speed, users could dock their devices and, within seconds, get all of the data that they need.
But maybe you're more the kind of person who has something like a laptop and only uses it at a desk, but loves the easy portability. With Thunderbolt, you can daisy-chain up to 7 different devices. Imagine this situation: You're a businessperson and you have an iPad 2 with all of your company's financial reports from the Numbers app. But maybe you want to hook a keyboard and mouse up, possibly gain some real estate from an external monitor, and listen to some of your music through speakers. Thunderbolt's daisy-chaining abilities can make that work for you.
These are just a couple reasons why Thunderbolt could make tablet computing a more viable option for a larger demographic of people. What do you think?
[Apple]
