There are few devices I know of that support USB 4.0 or Thunderbolt 3.0. Even 20 Gbps is sufficient for most data transfer needs.
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Images Suggest Some iPhone 15 Models Could Feature Thunderbolt Data Transfer Speeds
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It did, years ago, like almost ten years ago. Apple killed that plug long ago. You could explore your iPhone‘s folders without jail breaking it but ”security” killed it
The chips illustrated support USB-4 and not Thunderbolt 4. USB-4 incorporates is own new 40Gbps USB protocol along with all of the old USB 3.x and USB 2.x protocols and incorporates TB3 (Intel "gave" TB3 to the USB-IF). TB4 doesn't offer any faster data speeds and is compatible with TB3 so there is no need or use for TB4 capability in a phone.
Mirroring the iPads would be:
iPhone SE - USB2.0
iPhone 15 - USB3.0
iPhone 15 Pro - Thunderbolt 3
iPhone SE - USB2.0
iPhone 15 - USB3.0
iPhone 15 Pro - Thunderbolt 3
If you want faster specs you have to pay for it. People act like they’re entitled to have top specs in a non-pro phone. If I pay $1199 for a 256 Pro Max I should have the top specs not someone that pays less than $999.
All the conjecture ends on 12 September 2023. Would be interesting to know how many of those making all of this noise will even buy a product.
All for the .001% of people that physically plug their phones in. lol.
Lots of people still do for charging and CarPlay, but people use iTunes, Apple Music and flash drives to transfer stuff
True.
They don't have give us top specs like Thunderbolt 3 or 4 but they also have to stop giving us bottom of the barrel USB2.0 speeds that they put in the iPad 10. It's not 2010 anymore. The least they can do is give us is USB 3.0 speeds.
I don’t even bother with it anymore. Too unreliable.
It makes sense for the Pro's, it's a pain downloading ProRes video's at the moment.
Some iPhone 15 models will be equipped with a Thunderbolt/USB 4 retimer chip for high-speed data transfer, according to ChargerLab.
Following last week's leak of alleged images of the iPhone 15's USB-C port components, ChargerLab has seen further images of the parts and believes that they show an integrated circuit (IC) for Thunderbolt data transfer speeds.
The IC, known as a retimer, rebuilds signals and mitigates jitter. It augments signal transmission stability for high-capacity data ports and extends transmission ranges. Such chips are seen in other Thunderbolt/USB 4 devices, and ChargerLab believes it is clearly identifiable on the iPhone 15's USB-C components.
All four iPhone 15 models are expected to feature USB-C instead of Lightning. The iPhone 15 Pro models with USB-C ports are expected to support higher-speed data transfers, likely up to Thunderbolt speeds, while the standard iPhone 15 models will likely continue to feature USB 2.0 speeds – the same as Lightning. For comparison, the iPad Pro features a Thunderbolt port for transfer speeds up to 40 Gbps, while the entry-level iPad's USB-C port is limited to just 480 Mbps.
Article Link: Images Suggest Some iPhone 15 Models Could Feature Thunderbolt Data Transfer Speeds
No way the standard 15's are getting this (Unless Apple give them ProRes video) which is unlikely, but you never know.
The thing a lot of people are missing, is the third phone, in my opinion it will be the Ultra and it will be the Ultra with the periscope lens, not the Max
Apple makes these decisions every release. We don’t get the best hardware that they are capable of delivering year over year.
Unpopular opinion: Transfer speeds don't mean diddly squat to what I would think is the vast majority of iPhone users. The last time I plugged in my phone to a computer was to transfer songs onto my iPhone 7 from my itunes library. If keeping usb 2 speeds keeps cost down, fine by me. I'm certain there are folks with other uses that require thunderbolt speeds, but that is probably such a small percentage of users.
Instead of being happy about literally ANYTHING, you should remember there’s a LOT of reasons to still be grumpy and surly.
I haven’t plugged in my phone within the last 3 months, just to charge it on a plane.
I haven’t plugged in my phone for data transfer since my iPhone 6.
We used to. But they have run out of new things, so they have no choice but to artificially hold back things from "cheaper" models so that they have a way to create tiers and differentiation.
On the bright side it’ll still be faster than my Garmin GPS that uses USB 1.1 at a whopping 12 Mbit/s. 
USB4 is backwards compatible. Why kneecap a flagship device that has previously been rocking a protocol released in 2000?
From usb2 to usb4 (thunderbolt) in one generation?! To me, if true, this proves apple was unnecessarily throttling the connectivity of iPhone.
The main question I have is why does iPhone need usb4/thunderbolt… thunderbolt brings the ability to tunnel DisplayPort and pcie.
Does apple have plans to offer a Dex mode for iOS? Another wild speculation is, the same way an EGPU can be used to offload graphics processing to an external GPU, can an iPhone connected to a Macintosh via thunderbolt (pcie) be used to offload certain processing tasks ? An iPhone as an accelerator ?
Finally, although an iPad Pro has a thunderbolt port, when it connects to a Mac, it connects via usb3.0, not thunderbolt. May be the same for iPhone as well.
The main question I have is why does iPhone need usb4/thunderbolt… thunderbolt brings the ability to tunnel DisplayPort and pcie.
Does apple have plans to offer a Dex mode for iOS? Another wild speculation is, the same way an EGPU can be used to offload graphics processing to an external GPU, can an iPhone connected to a Macintosh via thunderbolt (pcie) be used to offload certain processing tasks ? An iPhone as an accelerator ?
Finally, although an iPad Pro has a thunderbolt port, when it connects to a Mac, it connects via usb3.0, not thunderbolt. May be the same for iPhone as well.
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