New Apple hiring points to Thunderbolt on iPhones, iPads
updated 10:55 am EDT, Wed April 6, 2011
Use of technology extremely limited so far
Apple is moving forward on bringing Thunderbolt to iOS devices, new job listings indicate. The company is currently searching for a Thunderbolt firmware/software engineer, whose role will be to "develop and maintain firmware for embedded controllers for Thunderbolt products," along with creating "corresponding Mac OS X tool and utility applications such as updaters and exercisers." Crucially, Apple is hoping for a person experienced with ARM processors; the company's A4 and A5 chips -- used in the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and Apple TV -- are ARM-based designs.
Thunderbolt remains a fairly marginal technology, as Apple was given a year's head start on it as a result of collaborating with Intel in the development process. The only computer to use it is the MacBook Pro, and the only peripherals that support it are generally a small number of external drives or DisplayPort-capable monitors. The standard may be increasingly attractive for iOS devices however, particularly the iPad, to which people are syncing large apps and documents as well as books and movies.
Apple is also hiring two Thunderbolt software quality engineers. The people are expected to test software and firmware on "world-class products and cutting edge technologies." Candidates must have five years of software QA experience.
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Where's Gigibit Ethernet?
Let's hope Serial TX/RX on that patent application refers to Gigabit Ethernet. Otherwise, those at Apple who're behind this are clueless as blind mice. Thunderbolt won't get past the next desk in an office and USB is master/slave. Users need fast, wired links to servers, other computers, and the Internet. WiFi won't cut it, particularly in dense environment or situations where security matters.
That deficiency addressed, it'd be nice to have a single, easy-to-mate connector that'd link a laptop to all my office gadgetry. But leave out Ethernet, and where's my connection to other Macs, the Internet, and my NAS backup? I don't want that data sharing the same cluttered 2.4 GHz spectrum with my 1000-watt microwave oven and about two dozen neighbors.