A bit ironic that just a couple years ago there was talk of the death of the Mac and how it was all iPhone and iPad going forward, and yet, the Mac has become the most exciting and interesting product yet again. The Apple Silicon Macs and Apple Watch Ultra are the 2 most exciting products in the last few years in my opinion.
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'Thunderbolt 5' Would Enable Dual 8K Display Support and More on Macs
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For something to be Thunderbolt-certified it has to meet tighter manufacturing requirements and include specific Thunderbolt controllers, all of which significantly add to the cost. Same with cables; TB cables have specific manufacturing requirements and more expensive manufacturing methods allowing them to achieve higher bandwidths.
That being said those $20 NVMe SSD enclosures are more than enough for all but the most demanding users, so long as you take care to select one that isn’t impacted by the M1’s dreaded 5 Gbps speed cap.
I partially agree. have you seen 4k vs 8k side by side from more than arms length? you're looking at 64PPI vs 135 PPI for a 65inch tv. the difference is noticeable.
No I haven’t. And I’m positive I wouldn't notice the difference. I’m more likely to notice the difference of a backlit mini LED type versus not. I’m just chilling with a 4K concert and that does me nicely. Audio is more important to me than sharpness.
Nice to see that USB-C/Thunderbolt is progressing towards a robust (read: multiple-monitor) 8K workflow, great times! 
no way iphones would support it. no need. we haven’t even got usb c because they don’t think we needed it. thunderbolt on iphone would never happenReally hoping the next iterations of 'Pro' iPhone and iPad devices in 2023 have Thunderbolt support (via USB C connector
I see the new MacPro with this.
Intel today previewed the next generation of Thunderbolt, which would enable ultra-fast data transfer speeds and improved external display support on future Macs that incorporate the standard when it launches in 2023 or later.
The next generation of Thunderbolt will deliver up to 80 Gbps of bandwidth in each direction, allowing for up to 2× faster data transfer speeds between future Macs and external storage drives that support the standard compared to current speeds. The next generation of Thunderbolt will also have a mode that allows for up to 120 Gbps bandwidth for external displays, which would allow a Mac to support up to dual 8K displays at 60Hz.
The latest 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models are equipped with Thunderbolt 4/USB4 ports with up to 40 Gbps of bandwidth in each direction.
Currently, no Macs support 8K displays on a plug-and-play basis. The latest 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models support up to two or three external displays at up to 6K@60Hz depending on whether the laptop is configured with the M1 Pro or M1 Max chip.
The next generation of Thunderbolt is based on the newly released USB4 version 2.0 and DisplayPort 2.1 specifications, and it is backwards compatible with previous versions of Thunderbolt, USB, and DisplayPort. Intel plans to share more details about the next generation of Thunderbolt's official name, features, and capabilities in 2023.
Article Link: 'Thunderbolt 5' Would Enable Dual 8K Display Support and More on Macs
I understand where you are coming from with that statement, but it wouldn’t be hard for them to make companies compliant with 100% with the USB standard if the merged the two protocols/products into a single named item. There might be some other headaches involved but they control the standard and this can set the rules as long as the price is fair.Thunderbolt requires 100% of features, while USB doesn't. Sort of like HDMI 2. Lets keep USB out of Thunderbolt
Fingers crossed this comes to the Pro Display XDR (2nd Gen) we're all itching to buy!
New Features:
* Yes, this is not compatible with the prior Pro Stand. You're welcome.
** This requires a Polishing Cloth (2nd Gen). The Polishing Cloth (2nd Gen) is not included anymore because environment. It is available for a separate $29.99.
New Features:
- 8K display resolution
- Camera added to back of housing
- Optional Pro Stand (2nd Gen)*
- Optional pico-texture glass**
- Higher price
* Yes, this is not compatible with the prior Pro Stand. You're welcome.
** This requires a Polishing Cloth (2nd Gen). The Polishing Cloth (2nd Gen) is not included anymore because environment. It is available for a separate $29.99.
Why wouldn't it be? It uses a type C connector and supports USB power delivery - so that's a non-issue.
Arguably, the EU rules could help dissuade companies Intel from trying to cash in and produce their own patented connector just to try and grab the market for themselves - and if we were still living in the 1990s that might actually have been a possibility. Today, Intel would be nutty not to piggyback on USB-C technology and Apple are gradually moving to USB-C anyway because it makes sense. The EU rule is mostly just irrelevant - a bit of "get tough with big tech" theatre.
Sounds like monopoly control that needs to be broken up. Thunderbolt ports spread enough to go mainstream several years ago but the cost is prohibitive for most people. I've never owned anything Thunderbolt except the ports on my Macs and my NUC.
Competitors did try. Dell and HP both produced 27" 5k's: the Dell UP2715K and HP Z27q.
Dell went even further, producing the 8k UP2319K, which has been around since 2017, but Apple never made any effort to support it—until (apparently) finally now with the Ventura beta; and even then I've read the official support is limited to the Mac Pro.
Do you mean a different HP display? That one doesn't seem to be 5K.
Sure.
I think part of the blame does lie on Apple — they should've incentivized third parties to create such monitors long ago (Retina on the Mac is over ten years old now!). I'd argue the same for Microsoft; Windows does look nicer at higher PPIs (as long as you aren't unlucky to run into edge cases and/or apps that flat-out only support 96 ppi).
But my point is that, primarily, the onus is on monitor makers (not just Apple) to compete. A $150 Android phone has high PPI. Why can't a $500 external display? Lack of competition is why.
Thanks. Leaving the encoding aside, I'm curious why the TB engineers choose to use what appears to be an inferior cable technology when it comes to both cost and functionality. For instance, this 1.5 m Monoprice TB3 cable is $58, which seems like a typical retail price. And, for copper, TB maxes out at 3 m.
Yet you can transmit data at the same rate (40 Gbps) over a Cat8 ethernet cable, and the typical retail pricing for 1.5 m (=5') is only $10. Plus the maximum length of a Cat 8 copper ethernet cable is 30 m, which is is 10x that of copper TB cables.
So why didn't the TB engineers just use ethernet-style technology for the cables (but terminated with USB-C connectors)? Is it because of the power requirement? There is PoE (Power over Ethernet), but I don't know if you can get the higher powers available with TB. Or is it just because they wanted smaller cable diameters, and couldn't get that with ethernet?
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Nope, I did mean the the HP Z27q, which was 5k. You're probably thinking of the HP Z27q G3, which is QHD. Really bad of HP to do that with the model nos.
27" HP Z27q - Display
Information about the diagonal size of the display of HP Z27q and its resolution. Comparison with the size and resolution of other HP models and models by other brands. HP Z27q is also known as HP J3G14A4, HP J3G14A8.
www.displayspecifications.com
HP Business Z27q 27" Class 5K UHD LCD Monitor, 16:9, Black - Walmart.com
Buy HP Business Z27q 27" Class 5K UHD LCD Monitor, 16:9, Black at Walmart.com
www.walmart.com
Nope, I did mean the the HP Z27q, which was 5k. You're probably thinking of the HP Z27q G3, which is QHD. Really bad of HP to do that with the model nos.
27" HP Z27q - Display
Information about the diagonal size of the display of HP Z27q and its resolution. Comparison with the size and resolution of other HP models and models by other brands. HP Z27q is also known as HP J3G14A4, HP J3G14A8.www.displayspecifications.com
HP Business Z27q 27" Class 5K UHD LCD Monitor, 16:9, Black - Walmart.com
Buy HP Business Z27q 27" Class 5K UHD LCD Monitor, 16:9, Black at Walmart.comwww.walmart.com
Yeah, I only got G3 results when searching.
But all of those use the same LG panel, and both the Dell and HP quickly got discontinued, no?
Ethernet cables don't contain controllers. The plugs on a Thunderbolt cable each contain an Intel timing controller.
Ethernet is for data transmission; Thunderbolt is for externally attaching a PCI Express device. While overlapping, the two aren't the same.
Now, USB-C does effectively do a lot of the things Thunderbolt does, but USB-C also arrived several years later, and cannot do all of them. It also (as USB is wont to do) heavily relies on the host machine's CPU, whereas Thunderbolt does the heavy lifting on its own.