Why Apple bought Beats? Forbes guess...

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Racer X wrote:
So, expensive audiophile quality headphones to listen to heavily compressed digital audio files?

…or losslessly compressed digital audio files.

[RAMd®d]

I'm familiar with the Thunderbolt port on Macs.

The Lightning port on the 'Phone and 'Pad is also knows as a Thunderbolt port?

[RAMd®d]

So maybe it just means Apple is considering offering a high end set of earphones that use Thunderbolt in addition to offerings from itself and everybody else that will continue to use the traditional jack?

There isn't really anything signalling Apple is going to throw the baby out with the bathwater by dumping the traditional connector. Rejiggering their entire product line, losing a great chunk of sales in the process, just so they can sell a relative handful of style victim headphones? Doesn't seem very likely.

This.

Just as the 30-pin connector was used as a Line Out to bypass the headphone amp, I think if anything, Apple would do something similar with the Lightning port in addition to the standard offering of the 3.5mm jack.

[eustacetilley]

RAMd®d wrote:
I'm familiar with the Thunderbolt port on Macs.

The Lightning port on the 'Phone and 'Pad is also knows as a Thunderbolt port?

If your referring to my post, it should state:
"The Lightning Port, (Like Thunderbolt), as currently designed,..." (For some reason, I can't edit this time.)
They are both essentially Apple/Intel standards; Apple/Intel makes, contracts out or licenses the hardware bits.
They are both bi-directional serial data highways and they both support supplying power.
Whereas Lightning is loosely based on USB2, Thunderbolt is a joint Apple/Intel development of the old VESA DisplayPort, with all the DRM crap built-in, among other things.

Lightning is a stopgap, whereas Thunderbolt has a lot of legs, especially as optical comes into play.
It was no mistake that Apple named their two ports Thunderbolt and Lightning; the two standards will probably officially converge at some point. (There are already Lightning to HDMI adapters, and Thunderbolt to HDMI adapters, but no Lightning/Thunderbolt adapters...)

So to make it clear, at this time, the Lightning connector is not Thunderbolt. By the time that the ThunderBowler is on the market, it may be.

Eustace.

[bazookaman]

eustacetilley wrote:
Lightning is a stopgap, whereas Thunderbolt has a lot of legs, especially as optical comes into play.
It was no mistake that Apple named their two ports Thunderbolt and Lightning

Very very frightening.

[eustacetilley]

bazookaman wrote:
[quote=eustacetilley]
Lightning is a stopgap, whereas Thunderbolt has a lot of legs, especially as optical comes into play.
It was no mistake that Apple named their two ports Thunderbolt and Lightning

Very very frightening.
(Galileo) Galileo!
(Galileo) Galileo!
Galileo, Figaro...
Magnifico!

I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me.
(He's just a poor boy from a poor family,)
Spare him his life from this USB3!

Easy come, easy go, will you let me go?
Thunderbolt! No, we will not let you go. (Let him go!)
Thunderbolt! We will not let you go. (Let him go!)
Thunderbolt! We will not let you go. (Let me go!)
Will not let you go. (Let me go!)
Never, never let you go.
(Never let me go, oh...)
No, no, no, no, no, no, No!
Oh, Mama Mia, Mama Mia, (Mama Mia, let me go!)
Timmy Cook has a cable put aside for me, for me, for me!

It's a variation of a Fiber Optic cable developed for the Abel Ion Injection Control System, back at LBL, in around 1980. The optical cable was conventional enough, but it was sleeved in double-insulated dual-shield woven copper sheaths. The Optical part eventually got into the networks somehow, but the shields were used to power whatever little boogers were needed on the way.

Eustace