Apple Cuts Price of Thunderbolt Cable, Adds Shorter Option
If you've been thinking about buying a Thunderbolt cable, this might be the best time.
Apple peripherals, like all of Apple's products, don't come cheap. It's why it's a good idea to hang onto the cables that come with the product's original purchase, as most of Apple's connectors cost at least $19 to replace.
Apple's Thunderbolt cables, first introduced in 2011 to connect to external peripherals, used to run for $49. The hefty price is matched by its hefty length of 2.0m.
Thankfully, the company's seen fit to slash the prices and the length on its Thunderbolt connectors. Now, a 2.0m Thunderbolt cable costs $39, and the more compact version, sitting at 0.5m is an almost reasonable $29.
Thunderbolt cables can be purchased via the Apple Store here (for the 2.0 m cable) and here (for the 0.5 m cable).
you are kind of missing the point.
its really just 20 thin as can be copper wires, and a plug...
if it wasnt for that stupid chip, which i believes only purpose is to stop cheaper cables from being bade, than you wouldn't pay more than 5$ for 6 foot cable,
You mean I could buy some regular ol' copper wire for a buck and do what thunderbolt does? Cool!
you are kind of missing the point.
its really just 20 thin as can be copper wires, and a plug...
if it wasnt for that stupid chip, which i believes only purpose is to stop cheaper cables from being bade, than you wouldn't pay more than 5$ for 6 foot cable,
I hear you.
There has been a recent price drop on certain micro-USB cables on Amazon, how about an article about that?
/s
That wasn't his point though. He was simply ignorantly hating on Apple. Is it overpriced? Yes, but it's much more than a copper wire. It's got active processors in each end, that's why it's so quick and remarkably consistent. Though, I wouldn't say the price is entirely justified.
ok, lets take a look at this here for a minute.
and
now lets convert that to mb
2211.84 mb per second
over 2 gb per second
thats display port, sure its not full duplex... but not really the point
honestly, i don't think there is a single thunderbolt thing that needs thunderbolt...
the only reason they use it is to sell the cables that you HAVE to have to use thunderbolt.
and i don't see it on the market.
also a exturnal gpu could use it, but again, i just don't see it out right now.
but what is the standard thunderbolt thing?
a display port port?
a harddrive?
possibly a camera or some connectors for ipad/phone
really nothing that has it needs it, or would be just fine on a usb3 or esata port.
What is at each end of the cable is a transceiver, not a processor... unless you want to do something fancy that requires that sort of intelligence such as Thunderbolt-over-40GBase-LR. The main reason for putting those into plugs is so cable manufacturers can use whatever type of cable they want between the transceiver chips at each end. (Or do whatever weird stuff they think they can find a market for.)
For short cables, you can put a dumb high-bandwidth low-power amplifier on each pair and call it a day, total cost is under $3. For fancy long(er)-range cables, the manufacturer can use multiple boosters and possibly repeaters on the cable or use fiber. Some companies may even make Thunderbolt-to-QSFP/SFP+ optical transceivers (or maybe straight LC/SC ones) so you can slap one of those at each end and use (almost) whatever length of whatever type of fiber you want to use.
$39 for 2m = OH NO SO EXPENSIVE
$29 for 0.5 = OMG MASSIVE PRICE CUT
They're charging 75% of the price of a 2m cable for only 25% of the length. Can't believe this is the same site where people discuss things like $/GB.
Thunderbolt and most of thunderbolt's expense is brought to you by Intel, so it is Intel that is inside your bung Hole!, and maybe a little Apple!
Bunch of fandroid kids!
Not sure, but perhaps this is a subtle way to point out to the Apple-haters that Apple created Thunderbolt... along with Intel, and they've innovated in countless fields (Firewire, custom-designed CPU's, UI design, ergonomics, craftmanship, etc).
As Steve Jobs stated, generally Apple have been about 5 to 10 years ahead in terms of innovation... it took Microsoft almost 10 years to copy Mac, and then copy OSX years later with Vista/Win7.
Same thing with iPod, and iPad.
The slight exception being iPhone, because Google's head (eric schmidt) was on the board of Apple, so knew exactly what Apple was creating. He basically took the earliest engineering samples to Google which they swiftly began copying to create Android (originally secretly funding a startup Android Inc).
I hate Apple with all my heart.
If you knew anything about these cables you'd know that they're more than "wire". It's an "active" cable which includes circuitry inside the connectors to manage the very high signal speeds.