Ride the Lightning.
Apple is starting to modernize their well-known Thunderbolt cables, starting with the Thunderbolt 3 cables now seen in recent releases of Apple devices.
Although Thunderbolt technology itself has already been present since the late 2000s, the newest Thunderbolt 3 cables are quite far from what they were when the technology was first developed. For one, the Thunderbolt 3 is now a USB Type-C connection, considered a new revolution in the power of cables.
In addition to this, the Thunderbolt 3’s power has also grown exponentially. They are able to transmit data at a blazingly fast rate of 40 Gbps, they can charge smartphones as well as laptops with up to 100 watts of power, they can connect your laptop to your external monitor and show 4K resolution videos at 60Hz, and they can even connect to an external GPU if needed.
The only downside is that USB-C Thunderbolt 3 ports are not compatible with old Thunderbolt models without a ridiculously priced $49 adapter. Also, while all Thunderbolt 3 ports are USB-C ports, not all USB-C ports are Thunderbolt 3 ports. This means that you may be able to use your USB-C cables and accessories with a Thunderbolt 3 port, but it doesn’t mean that you can use your Thunderbolt 3 accessories with just any USB-C port out there.
