How MacBook Air presents the battle between USB-C and Thunderbolt

There is a big rivalry in the thin chassis of Apple's latest MacBook Air.

The two ports of the laptop have a dual function: they serve both standard USB-C inputs and alternative Thunderbolt exclusive to Intel to connect devices such as monitors, devices photo and external hard drives. (Apple calls them Thunderbolt ports, which adds to the confusion.) Intel is pushing the high-speed Thunderbolt heavily, but that's not easy since the USB-C is almost as fast and benefits from Wider support of the sector.

The other new device from Apple shows the magnitude of the challenge of Intel. The iPad Pro, which presumably embodies the embodiment of Apple in the future of personal computing, has a USB-C port without Thunderbolt capabilities. Apple's decision may encourage mobile device manufacturers to focus more on USB-C, but it sends the opposite message about Thunderbolt.

"It's very difficult to know why two standards are needed," said Roger Kay, an analyst at Endpoint Technologies.

Apple's inconsistent approach to Thunderbolt underscores the rocky character of its route as the main port. It is based on a technology derived from traditional personal computers and shows little signs of expansion beyond. Even in high-end computers, it's risky to rely on that. Which video editor wants to be left out when trying to share a big file with a client who can not connect the Thunderbolt hard disk on which it is stored?

Intel fights for Thunderbolt

Thunderbolt's prospects looked promising after its debut in 2011, thanks to the weight of Intel and Apple's support, which bet a lot on technology. Thunderbolt began to spread on Windows machines in 2012. At the time, USB throughput was still 480 Mbps, about twenty times faster than Thunderbolt at the time.

Today, more than 400 computer models support Thunderbolt and the prices of computers equipped with Thunderbolt are down, said Jason Ziller, general manager of Intel 's customer connectivity division. There is about the same number of devices as storage systems, docking stations, external graphics cards and monitors, he added, double the number available a year and a half ago.

Many big names are present, such as Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo and Dell. Samsung has just launched a broad promotion of Thunderbolt for monitors, high-end SSD storage devices and laptops.

In addition, Microsoft supports Thunderbolt in Windows 10 so that nothing gets out of hand when you plug in or unplug devices. Thus, these devices work best with Microsoft's modern power backup management technology.

Apple's support for Mac continues, with the decision to double the number of Thunderbolt ports on the new Mac Mini to four.

Not yet a standard in the industry

But Thunderbolt is Intel's proprietary technology, forcing device manufacturers to buy Intel controller chips for use, which has delayed adoption. In 2017, Intel announced its intention to make Thunderbolt an industry standard free of rights.

In the end, this effort could cause other chip makers to support Thunderbolt and possibly bring it to markets such as phones and tablets where Intel is weak. But it's getting late. Intel was hoping to release the specification in 2018, but the plan is now the first half of 2019, Ziller said.

"It takes a little longer than expected," he said. "We are working with a group of large companies to get them to look at the specifications. … They expect that they will be documented in a way that allows them to meet those specifications without having to to trust them on the Intel hand. "

Intel also hopes that Thunderbolt will become more popular by integrating this technology directly into its processors. The pricing details are unclear, but the presence of integrated Thunderbolt could help PC makers concerned about the power consumption, cost and complexity of standalone Thunderbolt chips.

Intel is still not ready to say when it will be a reality. Always keep your ears open for news regarding the Thunderbolt integration in 2019, said Ziller.

Why not just use USB-C?

The biggest challenge is that the benefits of Thunderbolt simply do not go beyond USB-C. USB stands for Universal Serial Bus, and the technology has reached a level close to universality. It has absorbed the youngest standards ever (FireWire, SCSI, Parallel, Serial and PS / 2 ports) and expanded its utility to charge tablets, phones and laptops.

The USB-C version offers a better connector that works from one side to the other and only one port that works on laptops and smaller devices. It can handle up to 100 watts of power, which is enough for high-end laptops. It usually comes with USB 3.1 data transfer speeds of 5 or 10 gigabits per second.

The USB-C only spreads gradually, but it's now become commonplace. The analyst firm IHS Market expects there will be nearly 5 billion USB-C devices by 2021, an annual growth rate of 70%.

Thunderbolt retains the benefit of speed, with 40 Gbps connections that can support higher or higher resolution monitors, as well as faster transfers for people handling video files such as multi-gigabyte video files. But USB-C could handle 20 Gbps in 2019 and double to 40 Gbps thereafter. In any case, mainstream customers are generally well served even by low speeds for things like network cables, monitors, and external storage devices.

For comparison, updating an ordinary 4K video at 60 frames per second requires about 9 Gbps of capacity.

Edge of lightning

But people need more, says Ziller. "Many people need higher performance and capabilities than USB," he said.

Business customers use a single Thunderbolt cable to replace old laptop docking stations with modern docking stations. Graphic designers and photographers have to deal with "an explosion of data". And Thunderbolt allows you to connect to two 4K monitors at 60 frames per second while transferring data at the same time and possibly connecting to an external graphics card.

Intel is working with industry partners to try to lower the price of Thunderbolt devices, he added. The integration into Intel chips should help reduce the costs that manufacturers have to pay Intel. He argues for a "good, better, better" approach, Thunderbolt moving from high-end to more traditional devices. Proof that everything is fine: he just returned from a Thunderbolt event in Taiwan that brought together the largest number of people, 350 for training and the largest number of devices, 36, organizing a "plugfest" for s & rsquo; Make sure Thunderbolt devices work properly everywhere. .

Tens of millions of laptops have Thunderbolt today, said Ziller. You may not even know it, since Thunderbolt 3 uses the USB-C port itself, allowing you to connect more than USB-C allows. You can check if the Thunderbolt logo of the flash is next to the port, although it is not always present, for example on the latest Apple laptops.

But all have USB-C, and now Apple's iPad Pro tablets too. It's hard to compete with ubiquity.

Intel's advertisement says "Thunderbolt 3 – the USB drive that does it all" and invites us to "consider a world with Thunderbolt 3 everywhere". Until now, the reality of Thunderbolt is falling short of Intel's hopes.

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