If you have just bought the new M1 iPad Pro
(or the M1 MacBook or Mac Mini), you are probably gonna need more ports.
And ports we shall have!
I am Alex and I do down to earth tech reviews. And I am here every week.
In this video we will focus on the M1 iPad Pro but these are great for any setup really.
I will show you how I’m using these Thunderbolt accessories to plug multiple external hard drives
to the iPad and and also hooking it up to my external Ultrawide display. Well, kinda…
This is the Thunderbolt 3 dock by OWC
And this little guy here is the Thunderbolt 4 Hub… Also from OWC.
This video is sponsored,…. by my bank account.
OWC to be fair did try to send me these out but, no.
There’s a bit of shortage right now and I had to buy them myself. Which is fine.
But I noticed that there is some stock available depending on where you are, so keep checking!
These are EXTREMELY popular accessories, and extremely capable too.
With this little guy here,
5 additional Thunderbolt devices can be daisy chained to the Hub.
They are so powerful…If you are using it with a single display,
Thunderbolt 4 supports resolutions up to 8K @ 60Hz or 4K @ 120Hz.
If you are connecting two monitors, this will support up to 4K @ 60Hz which is amazing.
As always I will leave links to all of this gear in the description for you.
I just got the latest M1 iPad Pro and I really wanted to take advantage of the
Thunderbolt 4/USB4 port that Apple has given us.
There is a problem though. My iPad is running the latest available iPadOS…which is the 14.6 version
And unfortunately, that does NOT like Thunderbolt 4 accessories.
It’s not that it doesn’t work. The dock works perfectly fine.
But the transfer speeds are not what we should expect,
and that can only be down to the current iPadOS software.
I know from other people who have been testing the
Beta software (iPadOS 15) that this problem has been solved.
We are gonna need more time to get into the details and a lot more testing,
so stay tuned for that - I will make sure to keep you guys updated.
I am not running the iPadOS 15 beta software. Mainly because I use this iPad for work,
but when the public beta for iPadOS 15 is available…
I will jump onto that.
To give you an idea, the transfer speeds between the iPad and my external SSD,
regardless of the direction I was sending the file was ridiculously slow!
In one scenario I was getting 80MBs on a drive that I know is capable of 800MBs
To make sure there was nothing wrong with the hub itself, I tried the same tests using my
Intel MacBook Pro and I was getting close to that advertised speeds on these drives, as expected.
These are not the fastest SSD drives by any means, but as I said,
I was able to get about 800 MBs read and write with the Sandisk connected
to the Thunderbolt 4 dock, on the MacBook Pro which is great for what I need to do.
So that confirms really that there is nothing wrong with the dock,
and after checking other YouTube videos like the one here from my buddy Kevin…
I’ve noticed that people are getting better luck with the M1 iPad transfer speeds,
using that beta iPadOS 15 software.
Even plugging the SSD directly onto the iPad
doesn’t yield any results which really confirms that the problem is with the iPadOS.
From a design perspective, I love how small the hub is and the fact hat it has
3 Thunderbolt 4 ports all backwards compatible so gives you lots of
flexibility for all accessories that you may want to connect to the iPad.
On the front of the hub you get a USB 3.2, USB type A port.
but not the cheapo version that Apple gives us!
This here at the front, is a 10 gig port!
So provided you are using the right 10GB cable, this is as good as it gets for USB type A.
Before I talk about the Thunderbolt 3 dock, just a quick reminder guys - I have built a
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Let’s crack on with the video
If you go for the Thunderbolt 3 dock, it gives you even more ports like:
- SD and MicroSD slots, -
- An audio port that works with headphones as well as microphones
- - For those who spend a lot of time in conference
calls, or recording audio this is great. As you know the iPad doesn’t have a headphone jack
so having this here is a nice bonus. -
- It comes with USB 3.1 ports (a Type-A and a Type-C connector)
- - And 4 more
USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports with Type-A connectors. - One of them here is also high-powered so you
can actually charge larger devices like the iPad.
- - It has a Digital Audio output too!
So this is a much more capable dock and will suit people who
have a much busier setup, not just the iPad.
As I said, there is a later version of this dock that will also be Thunderbolt 4
but I am still waiting for stock from OWC.
When I get my hands on that, you can bet you will see it here on the channel.
How about connecting an external display to the iPad?
It’s great to be able to connect the monitor and the multiple external hard
drives using this dock without having to disconnect stuff to free up ports.
And it’s very early days for the iPad Pro, and most developers haven’t
really updated their software to take full advantage of the thunderbolt capabilities.
Having said that, some apps do support it
depending on what you’re doing and the experience using those apps is great.
When using apps like Notability, you can set the presentation mode
or mirror. In Presentation mode, I got the resolution for my display and bingo!
Disney: Absolutely brilliant. I actually managed to get the sound to come out of
my HomePod mini and the image to go to my Ultrawide display, no black bars.
Netflix: You get the choice of using the entire screen, which means it will crop.
Or have the original aspect ratio, which means you get the black bars.
Honestly, for multitasking this is brilliant. So Now I can be working
on the iPad, typing away with my favourite show on the big display.
And having multiple Thunderbolt connected whilst I am doing all of that.
I thought that was really cool and the experience is only going to get better.
So clearly guys, the iPad is very capable - it will come down to
apps support as I’ve been saying since this Thunderbolt thing was announced.
So it’s really exciting still, that as app developers start to update their apps,
we will be able to take full advantage of a slick, minimal setup.
For my needs though, it needs better external monitor support.
Not these black bars and not just in a few apps.
I don’t want to get into a rant about Apple’s latest stunts with the iPad software here (I
did another video for that) but rather, I am accepting the iPad Pro for what it is right now.
OK, it’s a great little hub but are there any negatives?
Yes, the negatives don’t take away from the amazing
flexibility that this gives us but, there are things I wish were better.
For example, the main port is at the front - which makes cable management a bit tricky.
And the actual port at front doesn’t really grab the cable very well.
It does connect it OK, but if you move the hub or knock it accidentally,
it doesn’t take much to disconnect the cable. I have a conspiracy here.
OWC sells these locks for the cable which is a great idea for that extra security .
But I feel like in this case, you actually need it.
So I wonder if they designed it ever so slightly
lose to push us towards this little Clinton locks that they sell.
Any negatives on the Thunderbolt 3 dock?
Not really. I think this dock is fantastic and the only improvement I can think of is to have another
Thunderbolt port which they addressed in the latest model and I hope you are able to get it.
Another negative on the hub,
is that it doesn’t provide enough power to charge the MacBook Pro -
But I appreciate that this was wishful thinking anyway…
given it is just a hub and not a dock.
But when I saw the size of the charger
I though maybe we could get a little bit more juice out of it.
The hub will allow you to work and deliver some power to MacBook Pros,
but just not enough to charge it,
especially if you are running heavy workloads like video editing, working with 3D models, etc.
For smaller laptops and the iPad,
this provides more than enough charge at 60 Watts power delivery.
And the final negative
for the hub is a very small one. It’s just not really that portable.
Unless you want to carry this fairly sizeable charger with
you. I am being polite… It’s a massive brick!
If you are trying to get a minimalistic setup for your M1 iPad Pro,
M1 Mac Mini or M1 MacBook, these thunderbolt accessories are a must.
It depends really how much you want to connect to your main device. I’d say if your main device is
the iPad and you are trying to keep it minimal and future proof, the hub is great for that.
If you are looking for a more complete option, then the Thunderbolt DOCK is the best choice.
And if you have trouble getting the Thunderbolt 4 dock,
the Thunderbolt 3 is also extremely capable, with audio, Ethernet and extra USB ports.
The main thing you’d be missing out on, is that you are losing one extra Thunderbolt port.
The Thunderbolt 3 dock - like many of the competitor brands in the market right now
- has 2 ports,
whereas the Thunderbolt 4 hub, has 3 thunderbolt 4 ports in
addition to the host port that you use to connect your main device into.
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