Originally Posted by
KRSW
I'm getting a good chuckle out of this. Remember when Apple ran commercials about how their laptops didn't need dongles? Now they require the most out of any brand.
Thunderbolt won't become the standard because of Intel's licensing. USB-C is a different story and even cheap Chinese gadgets now use it. I even have flashlights with USB-C ports on them now.
USB Type C / USB-C is only the physical port standard published by the USB-IF group.
The USB data standards are either USB 2.0, USB 3.x, or USB4; the power standard used to be tied to the data standards as ‘bus charging’ only, but we’ve since gotten the unique USB Battery Charging standard which was replaced by USB PD.
So you can have USB4/USB-C cables, USB 3.x/USB-C cables, or USB 2.0/USB-C cables, and the supportable power may be either 3A / 5A and either 20V / new 48V per USB PD 3.1, and the port capabilities depend on the controller in each device…
And then you have the Thunderbolt 3/4 cables, which all use USB-C as the port too…
(Thunderbolt 3 or 4 combines the port, data and power together, using standards from the USB-IF as needed. The ports are apparently physically and electrically the same if I understand correctly, though TB’s signalling through them requires TB-specific cables… but apparently USB4 cables are now the same as TB3 cables - except for not being certified by Intel - as the USB4 data standard was enhanced to replicate a lot of what TB3 does).
And it’s not just Intel, Apple has rights to TB even if not using Intel chips (though who knows what at arrangement like like if in perpetuity per a specified term)…
The MacBook Airs and older MacBook Pros are indeed quite starved outside of USB-C (but still a headphone jack!), but the new MBPs have added back an HDMI port and SD card slot; not that much worse than laptops from other manufacturers…