Ever wonder what happens to all that money you supply to Apple when you purchase one of their products? Yes, I know, a healthy chunk of it goes to China. But, Apple is also committing to investing a significant piece of change in the U.S. over the next few years. Read about it in the following article.
Jim Hamm
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/apple-commits-430-billion-us-spending-five-years
When you get an email with a confirmation that you have registered for a Zoom meeting, you should see this in the email:
Click on that link and you should see this:
Click on “Outlook Calendar (.ics)” to add it to your Apple Calendar. What will happen is that something gets downloaded to your computer. For the Safari browser, click on the Download link in the upper right corner and you should see:
The top-most item is the calendar event to be added. Double-click on it.
You should then see this:
I have several Calendars, one for each club I am a member of and a couple more for other reasons.
You have to select which calendar you want the event added to.
When you click OK, the event is added to your Calendar, and Calendar opens to show you what was added.
John R Carter Sr
I just completed the subject update on my iPhone, then read the following blurb. Interesting. What do you think: a good or bad idea on Apple's part? I, personally, like the idea of an app asking for permission to track your activity across the internet. On the other hand, this could become a pain if the app keeps asking permission every time you open it.
Jim Hamm
This week, Apple is rolling out its iOS 14.5 software update for iPhone users, including...
The ability to unlock phones with your face while wearing a mask
217 new emoji to express emotions you didn’t even know you had
Support for the new AirTag Bluetooth device tracker
But there’s one particular iOS 14.5 update that’s less “oh neat!” and more “this could shake up the $105 billion mobile ad industry.”
With this new feature, apps will be required to ask for your permission to track your activity across the internet. That data is crucial to advertisers who want to use your internet history to show you ads you’re more likely to click on.
Problem for advertisers is, when you ask someone whether they want to be tracked or not, the majority say no.
So why is Apple doing it? It’s part of CEO Tim Cook’s push to add more privacy features to Apple’s ecosystem. Here’s Cook at a privacy conference in January:
“Technology does not need vast troves of personal data, stitched together across dozens of websites and apps, in order to succeed.”
“If a business is built on misleading users, on data exploitation, on choices that are no choices at all, then it does not deserve our praise. It deserves reform.”
Facebook took to App Tracking Transparency like a foot to a stray Lego piece. In a PR blitz following Apple’s announcement, it argued that small businesses would be hurt without the ability to send users targeted FB ads. Whether Facebook’s ad biz will be dinged as much as it says it will is unclear, but other apps like Snap and Bumble have warned that Apple’s moves could be harmful.
Bottom line: Apple’s aggressive privacy measures are putting competitors on the back foot, but they could also invite even more antitrust scrutiny to its dominance of the app economy. This week, Apple is rolling out its iOS 14.5 software update for iPhone users, including...
The ability to unlock phones with your face while wearing a mask
217 new emoji to express emotions you didn’t even know you had
Support for the new AirTag Bluetooth device tracker
But there’s one particular iOS 14.5 update that’s less “oh neat!” and more “this could shake up the $105 billion mobile ad industry.”
With this new feature, apps will be required to ask for your permission to track your activity across the internet. That data is crucial to advertisers who want to use your internet history to show you ads you’re more likely to click on.
Problem for advertisers is, when you ask someone whether they want to be tracked or not, the majority say no.
So why is Apple doing it? It’s part of CEO Tim Cook’s push to add more privacy features to Apple’s ecosystem. Here’s Cook at a privacy conference in January:
“Technology does not need vast troves of personal data, stitched together across dozens of websites and apps, in order to succeed.”
“If a business is built on misleading users, on data exploitation, on choices that are no choices at all, then it does not deserve our praise. It deserves reform.”
Facebook took to App Tracking Transparency like a foot to a stray Lego piece. In a PR blitz following Apple’s announcement, it argued that small businesses would be hurt without the ability to send users targeted FB ads. Whether Facebook’s ad biz will be dinged as much as it says it will is unclear, but other apps like Snap and Bumble have warned that Apple’s moves could be harmful.
Bottom line: Apple’s aggressive privacy measures are putting competitors on the back foot, but they could also invite even more antitrust scrutiny to its dominance of the app economy.
FYI, here is an article on how to best charge your smartphone and prolong the battery life -- basically, not past 80%. Also the following statement is included in the article: "If you own an iPhone, simply turn off Optimized Battery Charging, and your battery capacity will last longer." I checked my iPhone and this function was turned on. The article recommends that I turn it off. Also, I am guilty of always charging my iPhone or iPad to 100%. I might have to rethink that approach, and turn off that 'optimize' function also.
New smartphone? Great! Now don’t charge it past 80%
Jim Hamm
By Brian Livingston
Sales of new smartphones are skyrocketing — Samsung's new S21 line sold three times as many units in the US in March 2021 as last year's S20 series did in the same period, according to SamMobile — but few people are learning from the manufacturers about these phones' dirty little secret.
That's the fact that charging these devices' lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries to a full 100% wears out a great deal of your battery's capacity within a year or two. This has been written about before. But in this story, I'll show you how to triple the usable life of your gadgets' batteries — either on your own or using a simple app.
You have a life cycle — and your batteries do, too
Many people don't realize the awful truth (though it's usually explained in the fine print). The Li-ion batteries in smartphones, tablets, laptops, and even electric vehicles lose a significant amount of capacity after a certain number of charge cycles.
Definitions vary, but as a rule of thumb, one round trip — a single charge cycle — is consumed when you boost a battery from 0% to 100% and then run it down to 0% again. Fractions of cycles add up. Let's say you charge a battery from 30% to 80% (an increase of 50 percentage points). You run the battery down and then charge it from 30% to 80% again (another 50 points). The sum is 100 points: another way to consume one cycle.
What people need to know is that all charging is not the same. According to smartphone app maker Digibites, "Charging to 81% causes 0.22 cycles of wear." Charging your device the rest of the way, from 80% to 100%, causes much more wear and permanently damages your battery capacity.
You can expect to get the following number of charge cycles from a smartphone's battery before your battery becomes irksome, having permanently lost 30% of its capacity, according to Battery University:
300 to 500 cycles if you charge your battery to 100% (approximately 4.2 volts per cell)
850 to 1,500 cycles if you charge your battery only to 80% to 85%
If you've been blasting your battery to 100% every night, after a year or so your device lasts far fewer hours on a charge. You're not imagining things! You just wonder why you need to buy a new phone every year or two.
Electric vehicles and laptops provide ways to save battery life
Electric vehicles and laptops are much more expensive than smartphones. Savvy car buyers and corporate tech managers wouldn't tolerate replacing these major investments every one or two years. So, many EVs and laptops have built-in solutions to prevent charging to 100%.
Figure 1. Electric vehicles — such as Teslas, Chevy Volts, and others — use Li-ion batteries similar to the ones in laptops and smartphones, which permanently lose capacity when the batteries are frequently charged past 80%. Photo copyright by Paul Gipe/Wind-Works.org
For example, the 2017 Chevy Volt has a feature that limits most charging to 89%. Newer Volts allow you to set the limit to whatever number you like.
Makers of some laptops — Lenovo, Sony, and others — provide software that can prevent the devices from charging past 80% or some other level you prefer.
Figure 2 shows the options available with Lenovo Vantage, a proprietary configuration app. Setting the maximum threshold at 80% makes Lenovo-, Think-, and Idea-brand computers automatically stop charging when the battery reaches that level. You can configure charging to restart at 70%, or at 5% below the maximum threshold (in this case, 75%), or at any other two numbers you wish. Don't let your battery run down to 0%.
If Vantage is not already installed on a Lenovo laptop, you can obtain it free from a Microsoft Store download page. The app requires Windows 10 Build 17134 and higher (March 2018), although later builds are recommended. Vantage replaces earlier configuration tools, including Lenovo Companion and Lenovo Settings, which didn't have battery protection. (To avoid conflicts, you may need to uninstall the Companion and/or Settings app before installing Vantage, according to a Lenovo forum post.)
Figure 2. The Lenovo Vantage app — for laptops running Windows 10 Build 17134 and higher — allows you to keep a machine 70% to 80% charged, or within 5 percentage points of 80%, or any settings you prefer. Source: Lenovo
Personally, I've cajoled an old Sony Vaio laptop to run various tasks for me for more than 10 years. During that entire time, I configured the thing's built-in Battery Care function to stay below 80% charged. After surviving world travels, rain, sleet, and dark of night, the battery capacity of the old hunk of metal still rates as "good," just one step below "excellent." Its battery capacity is more than three-quarters of what it originally was. That's admirable for a spare machine.
You’re intended to repeatedly buy new phones, not make them last
Smartphones' battery-survival situation is more problematic than that of laptops. Phone makers supersize their revenue by selling new models to you every year or two. The name of the game isn't making a phone that will serve you well for a decade (as you might expect of, say, an electric car).
Since Apple introduced iOS 13 in 2019, iPhones have included a feature called Optimized Battery Charging. This app is intended to charge an iPhone up to 80% at night, while the user keeps the device plugged into a charger. Theoretically, the feature "learns" when the user gets up each morning and starts poking at the phone. Long before the user is predicted to wake up, the app automatically charges the battery to 100%.
Figure 3 shows an iPhone's battery level across a typical 24-hour day. The user charges the phone for an hour in the middle of the day (indicated by a lightning bolt in the left half of the graph). That evening, when the phone has worn itself down to around 20%, the user plugs it into a charger and goes to sleep. The dark blue horizontal bar shows when the device is maintained at 80% by the software, in theory. In the wee hours, the light blue bar shows the battery being charged all the way full.
Figure 3. Beginning with iOS 13, iPhones include a feature that pushes the battery capacity to 100% while you sleep. Source: Apple Computer
I don't wish to offend the Apple gods — who will surely smite me — but this "feature" is ludicrous. We want our devices to stop charging at 80% and never get pushed to 100%. What we don't want is our phones to get charged to 100%, especially not every night.
What works in theory doesn't always work in practice. How "battery optimizing" runs and doesn't run has generated numerous complaints on official Apple forums. Perhaps this is why Apple's official webpage titled "Maximizing Battery Life and Lifespan" doesn't even mention Optimized Battery Charging.
Isidor Buchmann, CEO of the battery-analyzer company Cadex Electronics, studied various charging methods. Citing IEEE technical papers, he reports that repeatedly charging a Li-ion battery from 65% to 75% was the best strategy to avoid permanent capacity reduction. (This is similar to Lenovo's 70% to 80% setting.) The worst strategy was repeatedly charging from 25% to 100% (like the iPhone feature). See Figure 6 of Buchmann's article.
Lithium-ion myths come from confusion with older batteries
There are many misconceptions about lithium-ion batteries. A lot of this comes from adages that were drummed into people's heads years ago. Back then, nickel-cadmium (Ni-Cd) and nickle-metal hydride (NiMH) batteries ruled the roost before Li-ion became dominant.
FACT: Li-ion batteries don't suffer from a "memory effect." Ni-Cd and NiMH batteries were sometimes unable to boost themselves past the level of a previous charge. Li-ion batteries largely don't have this problem. See Wikipedia's memory-effect article.
FACT: Li-ion batteries shouldn't be drained to 0%. To cure the so-called memory effect, people were often told to completely discharge Ni-Cd and NiMH batteries and then charge them all the way up. But total drainage can damage a Li-ion battery. (Most smartphones, fortunately, contain circuitry that stops Li-ion batteries from being discharged past a safe point.)
FACT: Li-ion batteries shouldn't be charged past 80%. If you have a choice, it's much better to charge your phone twice a day from 30% to 80% than to charge it once a night from 0% to 100%. The increase in percentage points is the same, but the wear-and-tear of the 80%-to-100% gauntlet adds up. (You won't really damage a Li-ion battery, though, by occasionally charging a phone to 100% for, say, a long flight when there will be no outlets at your seat. Don't obsess over exact percentages.) With the improved battery management in today's devices, you may get by without charging twice a day — but, in any case, don't leave a phone on a charger overnight.
FACT: Don't refrigerate a Li-ion battery or leave it in a hot car. Rechargeable NiCd and NiMH batteries self-discharge by a few percentage points every day at room temperature. In addition, alkaline batteries, such as the common AA and AAA types, self-discharge about 25% per year at 100F (38C). Refrigeration might help in those cases, according to a Green Batteries article. But cold isn't good for Li-ion batteries, and heat definitely makes them wilt. Storing a Li-ion battery for a year at 104F (40C) — a car sitting in the sun easily exceeds that — can permanently eliminate 35% of its capacity, according to Table 3 of a Battery University article.
The answer is an app that alerts you to unplug your phone
The remainder of this story will focus on fixes for Androids, since they comprise 72% of smartphones worldwide as of January 2021, according to Statista. If you own an iPhone, simply turn off Optimized Battery Charging, and your battery capacity will last longer.
On an Android phone, I suppose you could just watch your screen and unplug the thing when it hits 80%. But a much easier solution is to install a free app called AccuBattery, a product of Digibites. I use it myself. There may be a better program out there, but AccuBattery has achieved a rating of 4.6 out of 5 in the Google Play Store, which is one of the highest app scores I've seen.
An install wizard walks you through several configuration steps. By default, the app alerts you with a ringtone when your battery hits 80% charge. But you can change this to any level you prefer. A few one-star reviews complain that this alert isn't audible, the power readings seem off, etc. This is probably because you must configure the phone to protect the app from "task killers" that suspend watchful apps. You must also grant AccuBattery permission to read other apps' power usage, exempt it from "do not disturb" states, and flip other Android switches you may never have tweaked before.
Unlike laptop and EV operating systems, smartphone environments don't allow a mere app to stop charging the battery at a given level. "We cannot stop the phone from charging, as Android devices don't let us control the charging behavior," explains an AccuBattery spokesman who asked to be identified as Chad.
There are zillions of apps that claim to supercharge your battery life. Most of them don't, and a lot of them make the situation worse, as described by the Android Police.
Forget about the wild promises, and just make sure you aren't permanently wrecking your battery capacity.
Figure 4. AccuBattery plays a ringtone when your phone has reached an 80% charge — or any other level you specify. Source: Accubattery guide
Get AccuBattery from the Google Play Store download page. The app learns your phone's battery usage over a seven-day period, which you must wait out to get good results.
After the first few days, the free app includes ads, which are not obtrusive. There's a Pro version based on donations of $3.99 and up, which adds a few types of notifications and eliminates the ads.
I'm happy to have donated a few bucks for the peace of mind of knowing any new phone I buy may actually last a while. Good luck with yours!
Here is an article by ARS Technica about the announcements at the recent Apple Event.
Jim Hamm
https://link.arstechnica.com/view/5be9f71a3f92a4046933007fe1zy0.1xi/0d1269bd
Apple introduced the new AirTags today, and it appears they could be quite handy in finding a lost 'something' -- it could be about anything you've misplaced. The following article explains more about these devices.
Jim Hamm
https://www.macworld.com/article/343664/airtags-price-release-date-specs-features-privacy.html
If you missed watching the Apple Event live, you can watch the announcements in the following video:
https://www.apple.com/apple-events/april-2021/
And in the following link CNN summarizes the announcements.
Jim Hamm
https://www.cnn.com/business/live-news/apple-event-april-20-2021/index.html
This interesting article on PCMag tells how to take a free Apple product workshop. Some of you may like to take advantage of these classes.
Frank Croft
https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-take-a-free-apple-product-workshop
Comment from John R Carter Sr.
The lessons are designed for people new to Apple products. Still, many members might get something out of them. The Macmost videos (YouTube) or the Lynda.com videos (free at the library) would also work.
Should you have an interest, the following article revisits the features of macOS Big Sur.
Jim Hamm
https://9to5mac.com/2021/04/17/macos-big-sur-11-rewind-review-video/
If you have a PayPal account, it’s time to look at how purchases you make with PayPal get processed. Do you have a bank checking account or a credit card linked to your PayPal account? With a link like that, your bank or credit card is immediately debited for purchases you make with your PayPal account. It’s also easy to transfer monies between your bank and PayPal.
PayPal is now being targeted by scammers by making fraudulent charges on your account and making it look like an official charge to an actual service or company. Case in point, I received an email saying that Symantec charged my PayPal account for a $669 subscription that was set up for annual renewal. None of the links in the email were dummy links. They all went to an official Symantec website. The language in the email was perfect in every way. Only the email address of the sender was suspicious as it it didn’t go back to anything like a Symantec website or customer support email. When I checked the PayPal account, nothing showed up as an activity like that. So the first thing I did was to cancel the links in my PayPal account to the bank and I notified both PayPal and Symantec of the potential scam/phishing attack.
John R Carter Sr
If you use Google's Chrome Browser, be careful or you might soon find yourself 'FloCed'!. .What is this, you might ask? Well, read the three articles below, and you shall be enlightened:
https://www.ghacks.net/2021/04/14/vivaldi-says-no-to-googles-floc-as-well/
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/03/googles-floc-terrible-idea
https://www.ghacks.net/2021/04/13/brave-reveals-why-it-is-disabling-googles-floc-in-the-browser/
I used the Chrome Browser for years, and liked it. But in recent months I've been using two other browsers: Brave and Vivaldi -- neither of which will use Google's FloC technology. Now, I realize Google relies on advertising for income and to support the company, but many consider their present technology for doing so to be intrusive. So, Google is adopting a new technology called 'FloC'. Is it better? For who -- you and I, or Google?
Jim Hamm
Just as a matter of info, a vulnerability was found in text files for macOS, per the following article from Kaspersky. The vulnerability has been patched by Apple. I like and use Mac's Text Editor a lot, and found the article interesting and good info to know.
Jim Hamm
Comment from John Carter Sr.
Another thing to be cautious about now is any .txt file found online or in email. Just because Apple patched this hack doesn’t mean that there won’t be other ways to attack a Mac with a .txt file. I don’t know if Sophos or other Anti-virus apps are bothering to check plain text files for malicious HTML code.
There was a time when just opening an image resulted in an attack. That seems to have been fixed.
I've used Gmail for many years, and have been pleased with its trouble-free service and storage capacity. But one concern that has always lurked in the back of my mind is their access to my emails. I don't send anything by Gmail that I would be concerned about someone at Google reading, but I have read that Google keeps a copy of all receipts. Whether this is true or not, I don't know, but don't like this idea. Here is a quote from an article I just read: "Google also scans all the receipts you receive in Gmail and stores the data for years, even if your purchases are not from Google."
I just read -- in the above-referenced article -- about the advantages of using another free email service: ProtonMail. If you have an interest in reading the article, you may read it here. Here's another quote from the article that might get your attention: "Much of Gmail’s popularity stems from the fact that it costs no money to use. It is, however, a prime example of the old adage that “if you’re not paying for a service, then you are the service.” Google’s entire business model is to invade its users’ privacy in order to profit from targeted ads." If this is true, how does ProtonMail provide a "free" service, the question comes to mind? They do offer upgraded plans for a fee, so maybe this is where they make enough money to continue providing a 'free' email service.
So, I'm going to mull this around in my mind a bit before making a move from Gmail. It is a good article, though. Just passing this thought along for your consideration and cogitation.
Jim Hamm
How to create a bootable macOS Big Sur installer drive
https://www.macworld.com/article/3566910/how-to-create-a-bootable-macos-big-sur-installer-drive.html
John R Carter Sr
If you already have a decent internet service, this post may not be of much interest. But, if the T-Mobile signal is strong in your home area, here is an article that may be of interest -- home internet with download speeds up to 100 Mbps. You can check to see how good T-Mobile is in your area by filling out a brief form on the website. At $60/month, the price seems reasonable --especially if your present internet service isn't so good.
Jim Hamm
Generally we 'Macophiles' regard Apple's products as good ones, but there's possibly been a few missteps along the way, as the following article points out. I never tried any of the listed products, so only know what the article expounds on.
Jim Hamm
https://www.macworld.com/article/342225/worst-apple-products-of-all-time.html
I came across the following blurb, and kudos to Apple for this commitment.
Jim Hamm
Apple announced that they are installing a state-of-the-art solar farm with a huge battery storage system utilizing Tesla batteries. This will provide power to the equivalent of 7000 homes and is part of Apple's commitment to renewable energy. Bravo!
Everyone probably has a favorite browser, and right now mine is Vivaldi. I just like it. Here is an article testing the speed of various browsers, and Vivaldi came in #4. Edge came in #1. I've found the difference in speed of the various browsers to be not of great significance to me. But if speed is important to you, this article may be of interest.
Jim Hamm
The various kinds of cables connecting to a Mac or PC can be confusing, as this article by Brian Livingston of the "Windows Secrets" Newsletter discusses. This might be an interesting topic for a computer club meeting.
Jim Hamm
It used to be that you could run any old USB cable between just about any two USB ports, and the devices on each end would simply work. But that hasn't been true for a long, long time.
As more and more manufacturers wanted to bring different devices with different needs to market, the standard USB-A cable was lost in the shuffle. Instead, we got a gaggle of novel USB connectors named Mini-A, Mini-B, Micro-A, Micro-B, Apple's similar-but-different Lightning, and more.
The latest connector — USB-C, finalized in 2014 by the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) — was supposed to bring these multiple shapes and sizes to an end. The sexy USB-C connector was the bell that got all the PC nerds salivating. USB-C was the first reversible USB connector: there was no "top" or "bottom" side for users to grapple with.
So-called ‘standard’ USB-C cables are a mess whose time is over
Unfortunately, USB-C cables are anything but identical. End users are expected to know the following differences (and more) among the cables:
Charging is supported by some USB-C cables, while others support only data.
Some USB-C cables can deliver 100 watts of power, while others deliver only 60 watts.
DisplayPort monitors are supported by some USB-C cables, but not others.
Some USB-C cables have data throughput ratings of 40Gbps, while others are rated for only 20Gpbs, 10Gbps, or even just 5Gbps. (These four speeds correspond with specs that, in reverse chronological order, are called USB4, USB 3.2 Gen 2x2, USB 3.2 Gen 2, and USB 3.2 Gen 1. Confusing, eh? Tripp-Lite has more details.)
Cheap USB-C cables gave the spec a bad name. In 2015 and 2016, Google engineer Benson Leung repeatedly posted tests showing that some laptops couldn't be charged by certain cables, contrary to what their makers claimed. One cable was so badly designed that it instantly fried a Chromebook Pixel laptop's two USB-C ports, the machine's embedded controller, and two USB power-delivery analyzers. That was enough to render each device useless, as described in an ArsTechnica article.
Even Apple was forced to recall, in early 2016, some USB-C charging cables it had shipped with MacBooks. The cables failed to actually charge the laptops, according to a Guardian article.
Faced with these public-relations disasters, USB-IF launched a new "power delivery compliance plan" in June 2016, as described in an EDN analysis. But the writing was on the wall for this kind of cable anarchy. The next stop on this train would be Thunderbolt.
Thunderbolt cables will eventually eliminate all USB cables
Thunderbolt is a data-transfer and power-delivery spec that has been shepherded into existence by Intel since Thunderbolt 1 appeared in the 2011 MacBook Pro. That version, and Thunderbolt 2 in the 2013 MacBook Pro, used a Mini DisplayPort connector. Both versions 1 and 2 were proprietary to Intel and required manufacturers to pay for a license
Thunderbolt 3 (TB3) laptops began shipping in late 2015 from Acer, Asus, HP, Dell, Lenovo, Sony, and others. Finally, in May 2017, Intel said it would make Thunderbolt 3 royalty-free. This allowed USB-IF to accept the spec in March 2019 and incorporate it into the latest version of its own standard, which is now called USB4. (There is no space between the letters and the numeral.)
Intel retained compliance rights over Thunderbolt and now attempts to ensure strict device certification for Thunderbolt 4 (TB4), the current spec. (Thunderbolt 4 cables have a symbol and the numeral "4" on the end, as shown in the photo above.) Among other things, devices with TB4 ports have the following requirements:
A maximum data-transfer rate of no less than 40Gbps, the same as Thunderbolt 3 ports. (All speeds in this article are theoretical, not actual.)
The ability to support two 4K monitors at 60Hz, which can be daisy-chained, or one 8K monitor at 60Hz (TB3 required support for only one 4K monitor).
Direct Memory Access protection, to prevent physical Thunderspy attacks that TB3 was susceptible to (this was patched in Windows 10 version 1803 in 2019 and macOS Sierra 10.12.3 in 2017).
At least one computer port must support charging (TB4 can deliver up to 100 watts).
Support for PCI Express (PCI-e), a common computer data bus, to connect to high-speed devices such as solid-state drives and video-capture devices.
Figure 1, straight from Apple's website, shows the back of a Mac Mini labeled with two "Thunderbolt/USB 4" ports. Apple can't call them "Thunderbolt 4" ports because neither port supports two 4K monitors, as required for compliance.
Figure 1. Apple labels its current Mac Mini (shown above) and MacBook Pro 13 computers as "Thunderbolt/USB 4" ports, not "Thunderbolt 4" ports. Source: Apple Mac Mini and MacBook Pro 13 Web pages
Here’s the shocker: TB3 is better than TB4 for some things
USB-IF finalized USB4 in 2019. USB4, which is a specification, should not be confused with USB-C, which is a hardware connector. USB4 is called "Thunderbolt 4 Light" by industry wags because USB4 is a "loose" standard by comparison. For instance, all Thunderbolt 4 ports must support a 40Gbps data-transfer rate. But a manufacturer can call a device "USB4" if its data-transfer rate is as low as 20Gbps. (USB4 also allows three other protocols: USB 3.2 Gen 2 supports 10Gbps, USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 supports 20Gbps, and USB 3.2 Gen 1 supports only 5Gbps.)
To make matters worse, USB4 computer ports aren't required to work with TB3 or TB4 peripherals. Support is optional. Therefore, a "certified USB4 computer" may or may not work with TB3 or TB4 monitors, docking stations, and hubs.
Buying devices that have TB3- or TB4-certified ports gives you the best shot of having a system that will keep up with greater and greater bandwidth requirements in the years to come.
IMPORTANT: TB3 is faster than TB4 at certain tasks. As mentioned above, the main reason for this is the way each spec implements its PCI Express data bus:
Both Thunderbolt 3 and Thunderbolt 4 support data transfers up to 40Gbps.
TB4 supports one PCI-e lane, allowing 700 megabytes per second.
The older TB3 supports four PCI-e lanes, allowing four times the bandwidth: 2,800 megabytes per second.
TB4 devices have fewer PCI-e lanes as a trade-off. The designers of TB4 specified only one lane of PCI-e so that TB4 devices could support as many as three directly connected devices. TB3 supports only one such device.
The speed of PCI-e makes a difference to you only if you use a Thunderbolt cable to connect a solid-state drive or other high-speed external device to a computer. However, it's likely that few manufacturers will build TB4 into such bandwidth-hungry devices. That's because USB Gen 3.2 and USB4 ports and cables can provide similar data-transfer rates at a lower hardware cost.
Sonnet Technologies, an Irvine, California, company, manufactures Thunderbolt 3 and 4 peripherals, such as the forthcoming Echo 11 Thunderbolt 4 Dock (see Figure 2). The "Echo" trademark is unrelated to the "smart speaker" of the same name that Amazon sells. Meanwhile, the "11" in the name refers to the number of ports the dock has, not the version number of the device.
"There will be no Thunderbolt 4 peripherals, except for docks and hubs, because a Thunderbolt 4 peripheral could use only one lane of PCI-e," Sonnet CEO Robert Farnsworth said in a telephone interview.
That doesn't mean either spec is obsolete, Farnsworth explains: "Thunderbolt 3 and Thunderbolt 4 each can do something that the other cannot, so we expect a long life for both."
Figure 2. The Sonnet Technologies Echo 11 Thunderbolt 4 Dock supports 11 ports, including Thunderbolt 4, USB 3.2 Gen 2, and other interfaces. Source: Sonnet Technologies product page
So what's an end user who just wants a fast, reliable system to do? Like everything else, there are complex rules to remember:
TB3 and TB4 cables are interchangeable. "You can mix Thunderbolt 3 and Thunderbolt 4 cables and peripherals in any order and they work," Farnsworth explains.
There are different lengths of Thunderbolt cables. The standards are:
— A "passive" TB cable can be only 0.8m (2.6 ft.) for 40Gbps transfers.
— A "passive" TB cable that's between 1m and 2m supports only 20Gbps.
— A TB cable with an "active" chipset can be 2m in length and still support 40Gbps.
— Fiber-optic 40Gbps, TB cables are available in 5m, 10m, and 15m lengths.
TB3 and TB4 ports are both fast enough for almost anything you might connect. Devices such as monitors, keyboards, mice, and printers won't outrun a TB3 or TB4 port.
Only truly high-speed devices — such as external graphics processing units, SSDs, and the like — need maximum bandwidth. If you buy one of these devices to connect to your computer, you'll probably find that the products on the market use some flavor of USB 3.2, USB4, or TB3.
What type of Thunderbolt port do you really have in your computer?
The final factoid you need to know is what kind of Thunderbolt ports you have in your laptop or other computing device. Just to make you crazy, Thunderbolt ports on PCs are indicated by small lightning-bolt icons, but the version (3, 4, etc.) is not always printed alongside that logo.
The basic rules for Windows PCs and Macs are:
Most Windows PCs that were sold in 2016 or later have one or more USB-C ports that will support TB3, TB4, USB 3, and USB4 devices.
All Apple computers that were sold in 2016 or later (except MacBook) have USB-C ports that will support TB3 and, when upgraded to Big Sur, will also support TB4 and USB4 devices.
You can determine the support level of a Windows PC using a simple PowerShell command. Sonnet Technologies explains this in a convenient two-page PDF. The document provides the command, as well as listing versions of Thunderbolt support for specific PCs and Macs. You can download the PDF for free.
Intel hosts a search engine at its Thunderbolt site for certified TB3 and TB4 devices, but the hits are surprisingly sparse. The search tool claims that only three laptops have been TB4-certified, for example, although more than that are compliant.
Thunderbolt 4 cables are replacing our rat's nest of old USB-A and USB-C cables, in the same way that USB thumb drives once wiped out floppy disks. Until the transition is complete, however, we need to ask a lot of questions of any provider who claims to be offering full Thunderbolt compliance.
Mark your calendar: Apple's 2021 WWDC is set for June 7-11. (World Wide Developers Conference)
Jim Hamm
https://www.reviewgeek.com/75779/save-the-date-apple-wwdc-2021-is-june-7-11-and-all-online/