When Apple announced the new MacBook Pro line last week they described them as having Thunderbolt
3 Ports.
This may be confusing to a lot of people who think well I don't need Thunderbolt 3, I need
USB.
Well in fact they are one and the same.
The new port is probably better described as a USBC port.
USBC shaped ports work with both USB and with Thunderbolt.
You can plug either of them into it.
So here you can see at Apple's website the specs for the new MacBook Pros.
You can see they describe them as two Thunderbolt 3 ports, or 4 for the larger one, with support
for charging.
So you can charge your MacBook through it.
There isn't a separate port that just is for the charger.
You can output DisplayPort or in fact any kind of display like HDMI or VGA for instance
with the right cable.
You can do, of course, Thunderbolt and USB 3.1.
So the latest version of USB.
You can plug any of these into there.
Now since USB supports a ton of different types of peripherals there is pretty much
no limit on what you can do.
Thunderbolt can support a ton of different things too like hard drives, video accessories,
things like that.
So it's basically one port to handle all sorts of different information.
So let's start with looking at USB.
USB has had two different port sizes over the last few years.
You can see here at the Wikipedia page.
Here's the standard port which you're probably familiar with.
There's also this other port called B. So this is USB-A and this is USB-B. USB-B usually
you see in the backs of printers or other large peripherals.
So you have a cable that goes from A to B and that's how it has been done for awhile.
But now there's also something called USB-C and USBC looks like this.
The advantages of USBC is, of course, is it can handle a lot more data so it can up the
speeds on USB to a lot more.
Also, it doesn't matter which way you plug in the cable.
You can plug it is right side up, upside down, there is no correct way.
Both ways work which is really nice because it's been frustrating all these years using
USBA.
Everybody always seems to plug it in the wrong way the first time.
Also we've got Mini Display Port.
Up until now Thunderbolt ports and mini display ports have the same shape as well and they're
kind of interchangeable and if you have a Thunderbolt port is can be used as a mini
display port.
So, basically Thunderbolt is a type of port that can also be used as a mini display port.
Now with the new type of port you can actually go and use it for Thunderbolt and for mini
display port.
It's a different shape of course so you're going to need to use a different cable.
This is the case with a lot of peripherals now.
People are talking about dongles but you don't really need dongles.
Most devices, like say a screen, has a cable that goes from the screen to your Mac.
Or your hard drive has a cable that goes from the hard drive to the Mac.
Right now if you've got a cable that goes to older USBA ports or older Thunderbolt ports
you just need to get a newer cable or in the future the devices will come with a cable
that at the other end is USBC rather than mini display port or USBA.
Apple actually has a page about this here and they talk a little bit about Thunderbolt
3 and how it relates to USBC and the different things that you can do.
For instance, hooking up the HDMI display, the VGA display.
You can even connect to your iPhone or iPad which has a lightning connector using a USBC
cable that they have.
You can probably get cheaper ones online as well.
Of course if you're at the cutting edge like I am you rarely connect your iPhone or iPad
to your Mac nowadays.
You do it all wirelessly.
But you do have the option to do all of these.
People are talking a lot about dongles and that they're going to need dongles.
Well, in the case you do I picked up this little one right here.
This just goes to USBC on the one end and to USBA on the other.
So I can take any old USB device and use it on this.
It makes sense because this thing costs exactly two dollars and gets great reviews at Amazon.
So I'm sure it will work just fine and it'll allow me say if I want to use my old SD card
reader rather than buying a new one, for two bucks I just extend it a bit and my camera
bag is filled with little gadgets and lenses anyway so I think one extra one isn't that
big a deal.
Next time I buy an SD card reader it'll be an USBC SD card reader.