Originally posted by vanguard
I'm a computer programmer by trade. At work, I use a high end IBM thinkpad, at home I use it and/or my iBook for surfing the web, working on software/papers for school. (Yeah, lousy sentence structure, I know)
Everyday day at work I drop my thinkpad into the docking station and my monitor comes on, my keyboard and mouse become active, my palm pilot becomes connected, my speakers are active, and my network connection is established (I may have left something out).
Hey Vanguard, how about instead of dropping your thinkpad into a docking station, you walk into the room with your PowerBook?
I think that's where Apple's headed, don't you?
Looking at the back and sides of my PowerBook -- everything could now be done wirelessly except the monitor and firewire. (
could)
Airport or Airport extreme replaces ethernet & dialup modem, bluetooth replaces usb & headphone jack. Your keyboard and mouse would become active, your palm pilot would sync up, your speakers would come online and your network connection would be established. All for less than what a docking station would cost. (OK, maybe not that last part, I don't know since I've never bought a docking station.
) All you'd have to do is plug in the monitor, and all those cords you used to have to hide would instead be nonexistent. You don't even need a plug-in bluetooth module now.
Whaddya think? Of course, MS is the only one out with a bluetooth keyboard & mouse so far & they claim it won't work on Macs, and I don't know if bluetooth speakers exist yet either, but the technology is there now and Apple is saying: 3rd party people do your thing! Right?
Now if Apple could come up with a wireless display technology the whole dockless wonder would be complete. Anyone know what kind of data rate a VGA/DVI cable transfers at? Is it pixels * colors * refresh rate or something? I know AGP is far too fast for wireless technologies but I'm just talking about from the card to the display. Anybody know?