When Apple unveiled its latest Macbook and Macbook Pro the world rejoiced. Steve Jobs and his gang at Apple are excellent at product presentation and sales. One thing that was somewhat overlooked at the launch was the inclusion on of mini-DisplayPort.
It sounds great but where did Apple get this DisplayPort mini idea from? It seems as if they came up with the idea to design, fabricate and now push the small form factor display port themselves. It"s also astonishing because mini-DisplayPort is following in the foot trails of mini-VGA and mini-DVI which all were wildly adopted?
Now Apple does plan on applying the mini-DisplayPort onto all of its products which will bolster the adoption rate to, well, only Apple. Apple is trying to push the standard like it did with mini-DVI and mini-VGA but is offering it "fee free". It is Apple"s hope that by offering the port technology fee free, remember there is no free lunch, that other manufacturers will adopt the idea so that Apple"s computers will work with more devices natively. As it stands right now you need to carry around a dongle to make the connection ($30.00 to purchase, although now shipping free with new purchases, sorry early adopters). The fee free idea is clearly aimed at avoiding the slow adoption rate of FireWire with its steep licensing fees. If Apple truly wanted mass adoption why didn"t they submit the mini-DisplayPort to VESA for standard adoption practices?
The real question is do we need another port? Was DisplayPort that large to begin with that we already needed to miniaturize it? That"s the question that was left in the air and Apple decided it was necessary to create another type of port to confuse the consumer. Although, when was the last time Apple created anything without the idea of profit in mind, who knows if the fee free mini-DisplayPort will remain fee free