Whither USB 3.0 on the Mac?
As reported at various Mac news and rumors sites, Apple CEO Steve Jobs supposedly sent one of his succinct emails to Mac user Tom Kruk, who asked why Macs still didn't support USB 3.0. Jobs allegedly wrote: “We don’t see USB 3 taking off at this time. No support from Intel, for example.”
Whether you buy that or not, there are plenty of users who are unhappy that consumer Macs don't include USB 3.0 and perhaps eSATA. And what to make of the fact that even the Mac Pros don't support those technologies (though you can sorta overcome this with PCI cards) or FireWire 3200.
As I've said before, I think Apple plans to replace ALL those port with Light Peak by mid or late 2011. But there's good reason for folks to be unhappy about the lack of USB 3.0 support. The peecee world has oodles of USB 3.0 goodies to chose from. Mac users can use 'em, too, but only at USB 2.0 speeds. And a "PC World" report (http://www.pcworld.com/article/186566/usb_30_finally_arrives.html) has praised USB 3.0's performance. To wit:
"The theoretical throughput improvement offered by USB 3.0 is dramatic -- a theoretical 10X jump over existing USB 2.0 hardware. USB 2.0 maxed out at a theoretical 480Mbps, while USB 3.0 can theoretically handle up to 5Gbps. Mind you, applications like storage will still be limited by the type of drive inside; so, for example, you can expect better performance from RAIDed hard drives or fast solid-state drives (SSDs) than from, say, a standalone single drive connected to the computer via USB 3.0.
"The real-world examples are fairly convincing -- and underscore USB 3.0's advantage for high-def video, music, and digital imaging applications. Our early test results are encouraging as well: We tested Western Digital's My Book 3.0, the first USB 3.0-certified external hard drive. The performance was on a par with that of eSATA-but the benefit here is that USB 3.0 is a powered port, so you don't need to have another external power supply running to the drive (as you do with eSATA; unless the eSATA drive you're using is designed to steal power from a USB port while transferring data over the eSATA interface)."
So, c'mon, Apple, let's see some USB 3.0 love. As for that lack of support from Intel, well, I believe Steve has a little influence at that company, as well.
-- Dennis Sellers
