Earlier, it was known that Apple’s participation in Thunderbolt’s development, was basically a backseat collaboration with Intel. But with this recent Apple patent application, the tech giant’s participation in the development of Thunderbolt is much greater now. This can affect the results too as it could help turn the same with faster sync and faster power charging.
Many thought that Apple was trying to use the link for its latest Macintosh models technology, but on the Apple Thunderbolt Display — called a technology “collaboration” with Intel. That was confusing, as a recent Apple patent application notes that the company appears to be taking a greater hand in Thunderbolt development.
What would this result into? Basically, the combination would see faster sync and faster power charging. This would only make Apple fans rejoice as things would only get better with it.
The Patently Apple site this week discussed a patent application for the use of Thunderbolt on mobile devices. it was in through detail, as like it was explaining someone, with the deepness of the technicalities. It noted that it would require a new cable and physical connector, which will be reliable and handle heat.
An extract of the discussion is as follows:
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.” Of course if this is to apply to future iOS devices, as suggested in the quote above, Apple will have to reengineer the connector to be flat enough to fit a USB-type of device slot. The good news is that transferring data to and from an iOS device will be lighting fast as will recharging.
Another interesting extract of the site was titled ‘Apple’s Thunderbolt’. The detailing was as follows:
Apple’s Thunderbolt webpage states that Thunderbolt is based on two fundamental technologies: PCI Express and DisplayPort. In Apple’s second related patent application, they state that “DisplayPort is the legacy standard, which has been overlaid with pins for a new standard, referred to here as HSIO, and elsewhere in this document as T29.
In various embodiments of the present invention, the two standards may be separate and unrelated. In other embodiments of the present invention, they may be related. For example, HSIO may be a high speed signaling technique that carries DisplayPort information. That is, DisplayPort information may tunnel using HSIO signals. HSIO may also carry other types of signal information at the same time, such as PCIe information. In this way, the connector may carry DisplayPort signals directly, or it may carry DisplayPort information that is conveyed as HSIO signals.”
The remaining part of the discussion can be read here.
With a number of pending patent issues, Apple might be just displaying the fact that how fair are the company’s practices.