IWatkins

I doubt it

Apple were very late to adopting USB, haven't adopted USB3 and gone with Thunderbolt now.

I would suggest they had zero to little influence on the adoption of USB.

(To be fair, FireWire was quick, easy, chainable, but stupid expensive).

Gigsy

You don't have to own the whole market to have a good idea that the rest of the industry cottons on to. And yes, for peripheral manufacturers who wanted to sell products for Macs, it did twist their arms.

Do Apple have the majority share in computer sales currently? No, but do the ideas they pioneer permeate through the rest of the industry? Yes.

Gigsy

Thunderbolt could be argued as the Phoenix of Firewire. After all, the list of Thunderbolt devices is pretty small.

markjmd

iTrader: (11)

As has already been pointed out, and which you already acknowledged, Apple had no part whatsoever in developing the USB connector standard, so how in **** are you still trying to claim it was their 'good idea'?

So now you're backtracking to say it was only manufacturers of Mac peripherals? Well why didn't you say so in the first place.

IWatkins

No. You are confusing external, chainable, manageable and Raidable hard disk storage with Thunderbolt. It's a totally different kettle of fish. Thunderbolt is designed to be a high bandwidth, function agnostic interconnect. It'll fail outside Apple Pro users due to cost.

If a Retina 30", 27" or 21.5" display ever happens, it'll be necessary. Otherwise it's a white elephant. But the design is supremely elegant. Probably the last such design from Apple now the accountants are in charge.

Gigsy

I'm not trying to claim USB was Apple's "good idea". Their good idea was in only fitting USB connectors which other manufacturers then followed suit with (hence mine and a widely held assertion that Apple popularised it).

Dropping the 3 1/4" floppy was also something Apple led the way with and which was also a good idea - by that stage their capacity was woefully inadequate to be of any practical use. Again, this was something other manufacturers adopted soon afterwards. Sure, you could of course build/specify a PC without a floppy drive, but at the time, most people didn't even though they probably never used it.

Apple have now dropped the CD/DVD drive from their latest gen MacBook Pros and Mac Minis. Of course, netbooks have never had them so whilst Apple might not be the first to do this, I believe they the first to drop it from one of their flagship products and I'm sure other manufacturers will follow suit.

I think you're reading too much into what I wrote - twisting arms does not equate to forcing someone to do something, the latter seems to be what you think I was implying (I perhaps should have said "encouraged").

I didn't say Apple forced all manufacturers to make nothing but USB devices - the only manufacturers that would have been "forced" down the USB peripheral path would have been those that only made Mac specific products.

One thing is for sure though, which is that after Apple made the shift to a USB only product, other manufacturers followed suit because it was a good idea for users as well as device and peripheral manufacturers.

I'm also not saying that Apple products are the be all and end all - some stuff I like, some stuff I don't. The last little discussion on this thread was in response to someone saying that Steve Jobs' influence hadn't affected them. Whereas I happen to think it probably has and used USB as an example of where Jobs/Apple's influence possibly had had an impact upon them.

In hindsight, USB may not have been the best example I could have chosen but what I was attempting to illustrate was that, as with many things, Apple did something that others then followed suit with (again, I'm referring to switching to only USB, rather than USB itself).

Now of course, Apple may well be in a better position to be able to do this because the psuedo-religious following surrounding their products allows them to take more of a risk than another manufacturer like Dell or HP. After all, if you use OSX, you only have one choice of hardware manufacturer (excluding hackingtoshes). Whereas if you use Windows or Linux, you can easily replace your Dell with an HP and still have broadly the same user experience.

Whether you are an Apple fan or not, it's hard to argue that they have not been massive technology innovators. Whether that remains the case, we shall see, but without Jobs, I think they will find it a lot harder.

Anyway, this has all turned a bit serious and I'm probably guilty of taking the bait, but I've had a couple of beers at the end of the week and I'm feeling a touch loquacious (yes, I know, I'm sad and I'm wasting my life ) so if anyone is still up and reading this carp, I suggest you have a beer too and move on to discussing more important topics

Gigsy

Sorry, was simply referring to it probably being something quite good that ends up being a flop (not the actual technology behind it).

IWatkins

It'll be a flop. That is a given. But it is very elegant and works very well indeed. But as the market is very small, it'll die. Shame.

IWatkins

You have this wrong too. It wasn't until the introduction of the iMac that they went with USB as a majority (but still included FW400 or 800). A good two years (ish) after the majority of Wintel boxes went that way. I.e. late to the USB party.

JackClark

The Wright Brothers put an engine on an already working glider, I can think of better examples than that.

Saint AAI

An interesting read:

http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/gadge...ctually-didn-t

Gigsy

The point is that the Windows machines had a host of other connections on them too. The iMac just had USB. You seem to have missed that in what I said.

Gear Head

iTrader: (2)

My phone is better than your phone!

Gigsy

You decided to buy an iPhone 5 then. Congratulations!!!!!

Gear Head

iTrader: (2)

Hook, line and sinker!

Gigsy

Clearly you missed the subtlety of my humour and mistook the emoticon to be an expression of delight

Gear Head

iTrader: (2)

Do I care?

Erm, no!

Gigsy

See how bitter using inferior Android products has made you

JackClark

It's probably update day on his Windows machine too.

Gigsy

I thought that was everyday?

Boro

iTrader: (1)

Really? 49 pages of my **** is bigger than your ****?!

WOW!

markjmd

iTrader: (11)

Which is completely meaningless, if iMac's only represented a tiny percentage of total computer sales at the time, as they did.

Gigsy

They still represent a fairly small percentage of the marketplace, yet are still very influential.

Gear Head

iTrader: (2)

Gigsy

What's wrong with that?

Gigsy

Actually to be fair, my Linux machine has needed more updates than my Windows machine recently.

jonc

Apple have acknowledged the purple halo that afflicts the iPhone 5, basically become a better photographer.

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4436

Miniman

iTrader: (2)

Nothing but they are only comparing small against small.

Gear Head

iTrader: (2)

Please make it stop!

dpb

Isn't this apples mainline philosophy anyway. ?