Charles Starrett over at iLounge, on the high cost of living for AirPlay and Thunderbolt devices:

Sources have noted that the cost of adding AirPlay music streaming support to a set of speakers results in a retail price bump of around $100, making it unlikely that the standard will be widely adopted in lower-priced audio systems for the foreseeable future.

I understand the desire not to commoditize and saturate the market with AirPlay-enabled devices (Apple likes to control its brand image, and that involves some careful monitoring of who is licensing and selling their technologies), but it seems to me, in this case, Apple is more content with having AirPlay remain its in own confined backyard rather than letting its allure become tarnished out in the wild.

In other words, Apple doesn’t want to cater to 3rd parties with AirPlay, and for those who do want to get in on the action, Apple has guaranteed they will be higher-end products (the obligatory higher price point will drive the lower-end of the market away, as it is currently doing).

But:

We similarly have learned that the price of the components required to add a Thunderbolt port to an external hard drive is roughly equal to the cost of a low-end hard drive itself, a high cost that one developer has suggested will limit Thunderbolt’s near-term use to products aimed at the professional market.

Now this I don’t understand.

I get Apple wanting to keep AirPlay as a near-exclusive selling point for its iOS home ecosystem, but what good is it for Intel (who I assume is the one responsible for the licensing, seeing as it’s their technology) to make Thunderbolt inaccessible for manufacturers? Weren’t they pushing Thunderbolt as the future of data connectivity?

It would only make sense to let developers have a field day with the standard rather than ensure it won’t become widely adopted (which is, regardless of what Intel decides to do with the licensing, what I feel is going to happen. People are accustomed to USB and all their devices are made for USB. With the new backwards-compatible USB3 rolling out, unless there’s a radical change in perception amongst consumers and manufacturers, I don’t think Thunderbolt will be anymore successful than FireWire was).

That still doesn’t explain why Intel is pumping Thunderbolt’s tires so hard only to not even give it a chance to succeed (and as I said, I don’t believe it will, but it baffles me why Intel won’t even take that chance by charging more reasonable fees).

Starrett goes as far to suggest that Apple isn’t getting any special deal on Thunderbolt licensing either, as they too are subject to the high fee. He believes this explains Apple’s push for wi-fi sync in iOS 5, but I highly doubt Apple would integrate Thunderbolt in their mobile devices even if it was economically feasible.

iCloud is all about cutting the cord, and making iOS devices self-sustaining rather than dependent on wired sync to iTunes. Incorporating Thunderbolt would not only be redundant (there’s already a USB connector) and mostly incompatible (only newer Macs have are supported), but it would go against everything they’re now standing for with this post-PC talk.

UPDATE

The astute Michael Camilleri has pointed out to me that Intel makes money on USB3 licensing as well, and due to this it’s likely they’re not as concerned with Thunderbolt not taking off.

[via MacStories]