[ChikkaChiChi]

Let's be honest: The Thunderbolt ecosystem is tragic.

- We're only now seeing the first docks come available. It only took Belkin an extra year to develop it.

- The hopes and dreams of internal buses being used outside the standard case is still only a dream unless you are willing to pay extreme premiums. Even then there is still no native solution for video.

- I still need a special cord from Apple to run Dual-link. If I want a Thunderbolt display for my Macbook, I still end up with a power cord adapter that's over a year out of date.

- And now Apple wants to convince us that somehow, someway, the forthcoming Mac Pro will somehow usher in a new wave of adoption? What flavor Kool-Aid are they drinking and are they somehow consuming it through FW800?

While USB3 is faring a little better, I still encounter mystical errors any time I use a card that relies on Displaylink drivers. The fact of the matter is that it seems like this latest generation of ports is being hindered less by the underlying technology and more by corporate bullshit that leaves us all frustrated.

[wcfields]

Ugh, don't get me started on the $300 Belkin Docks. ($250 for the Matrox DS1 / $400 for the Sonnet Echo 15!)

I feel like I'm living in the early days of VHS (USB3) vs. BetaMax (ThunderBolt) right now: Expensive, and while BetaMax is technically better, VHS will win on price & availability.

[extra88]

I'm waiting for the $200 CalDigit Station. No FireWire port but multiple USB3 and you can attach 2 monitors, 1 HDMI & 1 Mini DisplayPort.

[lechevalierd3on]

Still a bit pricy.

[extra88]

Compared to what, USB3 DisplayLink docks? $200 is competitive with dual video DisplayLink docks and can out-perform them in video display (not to mention OS X support for DisplayLink sucks). It can also daisy chain other Thunderbolt devices that can out-perform the USB3 devices you could use on a DisplayLink dock.

[ChikkaChiChi]

To be fair to Apple, DisplayLink kind of sucks on everything.

[senorprogrammer]

Could you expand on this? I've been eyeing the Belkin.

[wcfields]

Nothing personal/technological; the reviews of it have been very positive.

It's the $300 MSRP is a just a little ridiculous. (Though I know it takes a lot of R&D.. etc..., but this is just how Firewire devices were: full of promise, but are few and far between plus priced too high)

[venus]

> $300 MSRP is a just a little ridiculous

Is it? Sounds pretty normal to me. Belkin is a pretty good brand and charges accordingly. Like Apple, really.

I think that for their target market $300 won't be a barrier at all. In fact after checking it out I'm pretty tempted...

[ssafejava]

$300 is about 3 times what it should be, in my opinion. It's not much more than a fancy USB hub with audio & a NIC. USB 3.0 hubs with NICs are about $50-60, or one could easily use a regular USB 3.0 hub and attach a USB NIC, sound card, etc. Perhaps not as clean but a hell of a lot cheaper.

Even worse, the price is not really $300 - in order to use it, you'll need a thunderbolt cable which is nearly $40 (!).

There are few to no storage solutions that can benefit from thunderbolt over USB 3.0 and the whole ecosystem reeks of greed and vendor lock-in. No, thanks.

[venus]

What are you smoking? You cannot get anything even remotely similar for $100.

> one could easily use a regular USB 3.0 hub and attach a USB NIC, sound card, etc. Perhaps not as clean but a hell of a lot cheaper

Great, go and string together your tangle of bargain basement crap all over your desk. The whole point of these docks is to not do that.

You guys are not in the target market. I'm surprised you even have macs.

[beedogs]

The cable costs $40 because there are two discrete processors at either end. Intel charges about $20 each for those processors. The margins on Thunderbolt cables are probably a lot worse than you'd think.

[wklauss]

Apple also supports USB 3.0. go nuts with it if thats what you want, but they are not madefor the same kind of applications.

For some professional enviroments Apple still considers Thunderbolt to be useful. Its sad that they are the only ones thinking this way becouse it truly is a good solution and having more brands on board will probably push the price of cables and docks down, but if we are going to point fingers I think Intel is the one we should point them to.

[beedogs]

Considering Intel forced them to use it as a condition of going with a complete platform solution for Apple hardware, it's not a bad idea to point a great deal of the blame at them.

But it's been nearly three goddamned years and the uptake on Thunderbolt is nothing short of pathetic; some of the blame has got to rest with Apple.

[JVIDEL]

It reminds me of firewire, and even that was more popular than thunderbolt.

[bluedino]

At least firewire didn't cannibalize your video output port

[akandiah]

That's why most Thunderbolt devices allow for daisy-chaining.

[ChikkaChiChi]

Thunderbolt, yes. But when using it for its original purpose as a miniDisplayPort, you run out of options quickly.