I was out of the country back in February when thenew MacBook Pro model introduced Thunderboltto Mac users for the first time . And though we ’ve had those models in our lab sincewe reviewed themtwo months ago , we still do n’t have any Thunderbolt devices in our office to try with Apple ’s revamp computer hardware .
At Apple ’s headquarters , however , I was treated to an telling demonstration : A four - SSD RAID regalia streaming six channels of uncompressed 1080i video in real fourth dimension . For those of you who do n’t do it about video chip rates , permit me explain . No , there is too much — have me add up up . That ’s a gigantic amount of data make pass across the Thunderbolt port . So much information that it makes me wonder about the future of the Mac Pro , now that fancy expanding upon cards wo n’t be needed to enable massively fast datum rates .
Not to be scoop , Apple also introduced ( though did n’t demonstration ) another feature of these fresh iMacs : All models support video - in , so they can be turned into fancy 21.5- or 27 - column inch HD monitors . All you do is connect one end of a Thunderbolt cable system to the iMac and the other death to a gadget that ’s outputting TV . That could be an HDMI to Thunderbolt television adapter , presumptively … but , Apple executives told me , it could also just be a MacBook Pro .
That ’s veracious — if you ’ve got a new iMac on your desk at abode and you total home with your MacBook Pro , you’re able to stop up the laptop in to the iMac ’s Thunderbolt embrasure and use it as an external varan . Pretty cool .
build up with this cognition , Roman and I beat back the iMac back to our offices for nimble lab examination . I think it would be cool to do a hands - on mental test of the video - comment feature of speech . But we endure into a little match — we did n’t have a Thunderbolt cable . ( And no , a Mini DisplayPort line wo n’t make for , because Mini DisplayPort is asubsetof Thunderbolt and this lineament requires full - on Thunderbolt . )
It gets good . Nobodyhas a Thunderbolt cable . Well , Apple has one , obviously , since there was one run from its demonstration RAID ride to its iMac . But the company did n’t have one to spare for us . We called a bunch of storage marketer who are working on Thunderbolt devices ; they all suggest that we could appear forward to seeing a flood of awe-inspiring Thunderbolt hard thrust “ this summer . ” As for now , though ? Not even a cable was available .
More than a decennary ago , I got to witness the launch of the original iMac firsthand as a senior associate editor in chief atMacworld . One of my retentiveness of that period is just how new USB was . As in , for the first few months of the novel iMac , the only wreak USB devices we could get our hands on were the iMac keyboard and mouse . How dull was the USB roll - out ? We reported on the original iMac in our July 1998 issue ; our really big round - up of USB devices did n’t seem until July 1999 , eleven months later .
My peak is that there ’s often a big lag time with new connection technology . ( The same was dependable with FireWire and FireWire 800 , too . ) It just takes fourth dimension for the wheel of machine producer to slowly moil into motility . Right now , Thunderbolt exists in this oblivion state . It ’s there on multiple Apple systems , but there ’s nothing for the owners of those system to purchase .
So though we ’ve stress to be as exhaustive as potential when it comes to reviewing Apple ’s new MacBook Pros and iMacs , the bottom line is this : There ’s no way to verify any of Apple ’s claims about the f number of Thunderbolt devices , because there are n’t any . And we ca n’t tell you how the video - in feature article of the Modern iMacs make for , because there are no cable’s length to apply to test it .
We ’re on the cutting bound with Thunderbolt . When we experience more , we ’ll let you know . But for now , Thunderbolt is just a hope and those ports on the iMacs and MacBook Pros are just Mini DisplayPorts with a different recording label .
