Although Apple is shifting from Intel to its Arm-based processors, the tech giant has confirmed the support for Thunderbolt 4 on the same day as Intel announced its specification and support in the upcoming products.
The Silicon-based Macs from Apple are rumored to be announced by the end of 2020. Along with the iPad Pro that boasts a USB-C port, the tech giant has not yet released an ARM-based product that supports Thunderbolt. Moreover, even the Developer Transition Kit Mac mini that was released by Apple in June does not support Thunderbolt. The aforementioned details created ambiguity about the future standard of Apple’s product development alongside with Intel.
Apple confirmed that Thunderbolt is to be included in their products in a statement to the tech publisher, The Verge.
“Over a decade ago, Apple partnered with Intel to design and develop Thunderbolt, and today our customers enjoy the speed and flexibility it brings to every Mac. We remain committed to the future of Thunderbolt and will support it in Macs with Apple silicon,”
Thunderbolt 4 is not much faster than the Thunderbolt 3 and The only difference is that it will provide a 40Gb/s transfer speed and the ability to power two 4k monitors simultaneously.
The company plans to make a complete transition within 2 years and its countdown has started from the day they announced their plan to shift from Intel-based processors to Apple Silicon Chip. As per the announcement by Apple, it is expected that we will get our hands on A-series processor powered Mac products at the end of this year, but the models to choose from will be limited.
The transition plan has been started by the release of A12-Z Bionic chip powered Mac mini for developers. We are keeping our fingers crossed and hope that these chips will have better performance than the Intel chips had. However, only time will tell whether chips made by Apple would prove to be cost-effective or not.
Via Wccftech