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My theory is they want to you buy Thunderbolt displays. They get a cut of sales of Thunderbolt, but not a cut of DisplayPort, since it's a standard that is free
by olyjohn 5y ago
My theory is they want to you buy Thunderbolt displays. They get a cut of sales of Thunderbolt, but not a cut of DisplayPort, since it's a standard that is free of royalties. There's literally no other reason I can think of not to support MST out of the box on these laptops. Especially if they are involved in working on the spec.
- chipotle_coyote 5y agoThunderbolt has been royalty-free since 2019, when it was licensed to the USB-IF to be used as the basis for USB4. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/03/thunderbolt-3-becomes-usb4-as-intels-interconnect-goes-royalty-free/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/03/thunderbolt-3-become... (I also suspect that Apple's cut wasn't huge to start with; Thunderbolt was developed with Intel, and Intel likely got the lion's share of royalties given that they were the ones actually selling the Thunderbolt controllers and seem to have been the driving force behind Thunderbolt 3.)