Daniel Eran Dilger
The update for early 2011 Thunderbolt MacBook Pro models "resolves issues" with the new Thunderbolt Display and improves the performance of notebooks when operating in Thunderbolt Target Disk Mode, features that were also release for MacBook Air users in a parallel firmware update issued yesterday.
However, the MacBook Pro update also "enables Lion Recovery from an Internet connection," a feature formerly unique to new Air models and new Mac mini systems, both of which first shipped this summer alongside an announcement of the new Thunderbolt Display.
Apple's new 27 inch display is the first to incorporate Thunderbolt cabling, which it uses to provide a single signal cable that supports video, audio for its built in speakers, and a digital interconnect for the display's three USB 2.0 ports, one FireWire 800 port, one Gigabit Ethernet port and a Thunderbolt port for daisy chaining up to five additional Thunderbolt devices.
MacBook Air models support one Thunderbolt display, while 2011 MacBook Pro notebooks and other Thunderbolt-based Macs with discrete graphics can support two of the displays.
Charles Martin
Malcolm Owen
Andrew O'Hara
William Gallagher
13 Comments
MacBook Air models support one Thunderbolt display, while 2011 MacBook Pro notebooks and other Thunderbolt-based Macs with discrete graphics can support two of the displays.
I thought the 13" MBP also only supported one external display.
However, the MacBook Pro update also "enables Lion Recovery from an Internet connection,"
That's excellent news. I performed a clean install of Lion onto a new SSD (after moving the internal drive into a Data Doubler), and it doesn't appear to have installed a recovery partition. I suppose it's somewhat superfluous as I booted from a thumb drive to install Lion in the first place. I could simply boot off it again to run the diagnostics tools if ever I had a need to.
Still, I'm glad to see Apple adding this kind of support to 'older' hardware
Hmmmm.....no update for me. I have the latest 17 inch model.
Hmmmm.....no update for me. I have the latest 17 inch model.
I tried to do a software update and it didn't need one so I downloaded it from the first page for the article but I haven't tried installing it yet.
Macbook Pro 2011 13 inch
Hmmmm.....no update for me. I have the latest 17 inch model.
Same here...