Thunderbolt

[niles1]

Now that mac has introduced thunderbolt and eliminated firewire 400 ports, what's the future of connectivity in interfaces? In purchasing, should I wait for thunderbolt equipped interfaces, or are we going to stay at the usb firewire level?

 

[Orren Merton]

Now that mac has introduced thunderbolt and eliminated firewire 400 ports, what's the future of connectivity in interfaces? In purchasing, should I wait for thunderbolt equipped interfaces, or are we going to stay at the usb firewire level?

I'm sure that eventually, interfaces will gain Thunderbolt connectivity. I was just at AES and Apogee was saying that they certainly viewed it as a future option for their Symphony series. And I'm sure Apogee isn't the only one. No timeframe, however.

My guess is that once Windows PCs start being built with Thunderbolt (I believe in 2012) that will speed adoption of Thunderbolt (PCs may call it another name such as Lightpeak, it's original name, but it will be the same thing).

So when you ask about the future, how soon do you need an interface? A week? A Month? Probably USB or FireWire. But if you mean "future" as in "next generation of interfaces" I'm sure we'll start seeing Thunderbolt.

Orren