Thunderbolt ports on mac and the future, what ya think, how long till abandon ?

[streetfunk]

Hi everybody,

my backround:
i make music, i rely to thunderbolt port driven audio interfaces. I need to buy another one or two audio interfaces. TB audio interfaces have less latency.
My query is solely this:

What do you folks think, how long will we still see TB ports on apple desktop macs, respectivly, how long will it take till they switch to something nolonger anything TB compatible ?

Is there any guessworking with some value doable ?
Do we have another 4-5 years with TB ports ?

 

[PaulD-UK]

Since TB is a connection protocol to PCIe, it seems extraordinarily obtuse to bury a thread about such core technologies in an Apple TV/Services backwater.....

But at the connection level, USB4+ and TB seem to have coalesced into a single thing, so there no replacement technology in sight.
At the core, there are rumours of at least two successors to PCIe, mainly to handle data centre levels of data transfer, but they are nowhere near becoming something that Apple would use.

That's not to say that Apple, as an originator of the TB protocol, hasn't considered its future road plan.
But that is by the by, so until they reveal their hand we won't know anything about that.

But a communication protocol has to have source and destination, and Apple is not really in the business of both technologies.
So until it is obvious that something else is being used in, for instance, data centres, which is worthwhile Apple adopting, then I think its safe to assume that the TB status quo, with incremental advancements will continue.

For longer than 4-5 years.

EDIT: Entirely coincidentally Apple has announced something haha.
It doesn't seem like it will change anything anytime soon...

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/new-high-speed-technology-paves-way-for-apple-intelligence-upgrades.2447372/

 

[streetfunk]

I think its safe to assume that the TB status quo, with incremental advancements will continue.

For longer than 4-5 years.

Thanks for the feedback !

Since TB is a connection protocol to PCIe, it seems extraordinarily obtuse to bury a thread about such core technologies in an Apple TV.Services backwater.....

JFYI:
the thread was moved here by a moderator.