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Comment by beedogs | Hacker News Reader

Newton, Lisa, AppleTV, Thunderbolt

A product developed while Steve was away from Apple, a project he was forced away from, a success (if not up to iPhone levels) and a probable future success (for Intel!). What's your point?

Seriously, the AppleTV is only a 'failure' by the standards of the iPhone and iPad -- most companies would love to have a product that sells nearly 3 million units per year! The margins may be lower than the iPad's, but my understanding is that it does still make a decent profit.

Thunderbolt is an Intel technology and an incredibly useful one. The available products are already starting to look impressive in functionality and prices will come down before too long; Apple themselves use it to provide gigabit ethernet on devices that are about the same thickness as an RJ45 connector, and they sell those for just $29.

> Thunderbolt

I think you've picked a terrible example. I had to buy this very adapter yesterday, and I slowly start to wonder if I should've bought the USB one instead. It looks almost the same and doesn't prevent me from connecting an external DVI screen like the Thunderbolt adapter does. Maybe there's a Y-piece, but it'll certainly be another $29 or more.

It's largely intended for the retina MacBook pro, which has two thunderbolt ports, but I do agree -- many of the early peripherals seem to lack support for daisy chaining. As for the USB version... the thunderbolt one is much faster. File transfers at over 900 Mbps from the one testing report I've read so far.

I'm not fully convinced that there's much advantage to the USB one over just using wifi, except where the latter is unavailable.

The USB ethernet adapter is MUCH slower than a good 802.11n wireless connection, at least on my Air.

It's relieving to hear that the TB one is technically superior, but I don't see how it is intended for the MBPr - it is a checkbox in the Apple's MBA order form as well, along with all the other TB adapters which are mutually exclusive.

And even if the USB adapter is dog-slow, it's all I'd need onsite with clients (email, Skype chat). I'm still not sure if I made the right choice in the long term :/

The AppleTV is a failure? It's what has made all the difference in cutting cable for me. I love mine. Further, it's really coming together now that you can wirelessly mirror an MBP display to the AppleTV. That means projectors+screens can beautifully be replaced by HDTVs and AppleTVs for meeting room presentations. It also means every single piece of content you can get on your laptop, you can also easily watch with one click on your television, wirelessly. It's fantastic for home entertainment too.

Newton - was under a different CEO. He killed it because the tech just wasn't there yet.

Lisa - was the precursor to the Mac. It was beta but everything you see in a Mac was in Lisa.

AppleTV - STBs are really, really hard. I think this is the last gasp for TV. AppleTV just makes it useful again when the world is moving to watching things on a laptop/tablet.

Thunderbolt - fantastic piece of tech probably has longer legs than eSata, which it is supposed to replace.

Newton and Lisa were not projects under Jobs' control - Newton was Scully's baby, and Jobs created the Macintosh team precisely because he thought the Lisa was the wrong solution. AppleTV sells more units than xBox at the moment, hardly something that harms the company. Thunderbolt is a bit too young to see if it is going to pan out or not, but considering that it has the support of Intel, I would be happy to bet on it in the long term.

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