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The iPad Air 4th generation and current iPad Mini use the A14 and A15, respectively, and both support USB 3 speeds (albeit only at 5 Gbps).
I could be wrong, but my understanding is that speed is as a HOST and not as a device. For iPad to PC/Mac connections, the speed was only USB 2 since the iPad was acting as a device. To some extent, this is a new features at the silicon level as it now supports it as a device not just a host.
 
The USB-C spec should have NEVER allowed that. Seriously, what the hell were they thinking????
...that a USB 2.0-only cable needs 8 less physical wires than a USB 3 one, which makes it cheaper (sure) but also lighter and more flexible & makes room for thicker power wires to support higher charging speeds.

Sure, the USB IF committee have a special gift for picking pesimally confusing names - and should have mandated standard labelling on cables.

Hopefully, someone will come up with an App for displaying the capabilities of USB-C cables...
 
Is a 240W charger cable a sign that we will one day see a MBP 16" M3 Ultra?
The problem with Ultra chip is that laptops can not go beyond 100W or it will not perform without a power cable but that's totally normal for all laptops. It's just that Apple hate to go beyond 100W.
 
Following its iPhone 15 event on Tuesday, Apple released a few related accessories, including a USB-C to Lightning adapter and a one-meter Thunderbolt 4 Pro cable. It turns out the company has also made available a new 60W 1-meter USB-C Charge Cable ($19)...

The 'new' 1m shares the same part number & appearance as the one that's almost a year old

 
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No one has mentioned this, but the 60W cable is NOT new. It is the exact same cable that has been shipping with iPad Pros. Maybe other products, but that's the only one I can directly speak to. It is marked 'new' in the store because it is newly back in stock - as of yesterday they were unavailable (I verified this with Apple chat because I was confused by the 'new' marking). The 240W cable is of course an actual new product.
That’s not how Apple uses “new” in the store. It’s “new” because it’s 1 meter. Previously they only sold longer versions.
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Out of curiosity, why aren’t you doing this over wifi?
Not who you asked, but...

I tried this repeatedly with an iPhone 12 Pro to sync to a 2014 Mac Mini. It failed 100% of the time. I haven’t tried it since I switched to a 2023 14” MBP. I will get around to trying it eventually as an experiment, but since the phone needs to be charging for WiFi sync I have to plug in a cable anyway.
 
I'll turn this on and see how it works going forward. I would think it'll be faster than a wired connection.
The iPhone 15 Pro supports WiFi 6E. If you have a Mac that also supports 6E and spend a few hundred on a router that supports 6E it still won’t approach the 10Gbps that the USB port is (theoretically) capable of.

EDIT: So it turns out that there are some 6E routers that claim better than 10Gbps for a lot more money than a TB4 cable.
 
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So before the announcement, people were clamoring for faster data speeds on the Pro models, because well, the are used by Pros. Apple did that, and now people complain teh plebeian 15 models get non-Pro needed speeds?

Apple is going to differentiate the two lines as that is the best way to get people to buy the higher priced version.
Because they should have put 3.1 on the standard models and TB on the Pros.
 
It would be nice if Apple can make a MBP with M3 Ultra which is totally normal to consume more than 240W for gaming laptops unless they still care about 100W limit for battery performance.
 
Old cable was basically just a charging cable with USB 2.0 - new one has faster data transfer, hence thicker.
But the new one is USB 2 as well?

Old one: Thin, USB 2, 100W
New one: Thick, USB 2, 60W

That's illogical to me. The old one has a benefit of 100W and I can travel and pack light. The new one trades this for being more robust. Is that the only benefit??
 
Sooooo they got rid of the 100w USB C charging cable for macs and now offer a lower 60w version for......... im not sure since even a macbook air is 70w.... so that cable wont even power it fully... or go for the overkill 240w version that no macbook can take advantage off since USB C ports are still 100w max only. Meanwhile apple recommends buying their overkill thunderbolt 4 cable at $69 in order to get USB 3 speeds on the new iphone pro.... Man they really went all out on anticonsumer train.
That's exactly what I'm thinking. Because they got rid of the 0.8m USB-C Thunderbolt 3 cable as well.. (which was a lot cheaper than the TB4 cable). That was a perfectly usable cable for most scenarios. Now it's nearly double price.
 
That's exactly what I'm thinking. Because they got rid of the 0.8m USB-C Thunderbolt 3 cable as well.. (which was a lot cheaper than the TB4 cable). That was a perfectly usable cable for most scenarios. Now it's nearly double price.
It’s not like Apple’s cornered the market on Thunderbolt 3 cables, though. Thunderbolt being a standard (and a more stringent one than USB-c :)), any Thunderbolt 3 cable will do the same as Apple’s.
 
It would be nice if Apple can make a MBP with M3 Ultra which is totally normal to consume more than 240W for gaming laptops unless they still care about 100W limit for battery performance.
From recent news related to gaming on the iPhone 15 (and AAA developer’s support of it), it looks like the MBP is not where they’re focused. Which, really, makes sense because a developer that makes a game iPhone 15 Pro compatible has a greater likelihood to make a profit as there will be more of those sold in a year than Macs.
 
Because they should have put 3.1 on the standard models and TB on the Pros.

I get your point, but I suspect the number of people who would really benefit from that is so small it wasn't worth the effort and cost. In addition, it likely would mean needing a better cable, at a higher cost, to ensure you can get those speeds reliably.
 
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This is actually quite common. Nomads excellent Kevlar USB-C cables, Native Unions excellent USB-C cables, and most cables from Anker, Belkin etc. Are all USB 2.0 speed. The reason for this is because of how much easier it is to create high-quality cables supporting 100-240W power at 1.5 meters+ when you don't need to have signal integrity in mind.

Achieving USB 3.2 certification is much harder and costly, it's even tougher with USB 4.0. To reduce the cost of a charging cable most manufacturers won't bother with this. Instead, they have the cable certified for USB 2.0 as this doesn't require much at all. If your cable has been made to support 100-240W charging, it will most certainly pass USB 2.0 certification with ease. Many of these cables will be fully capable of transferring at USB 3.2 10Gbps, and even USB 3.2 20Gbps speeds, they simply haven't been certified for it.
 
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