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I sometimes wonder why we have to be so gradual? I mean thunderbolt 1 spec was released in 2013. Thunderbolt 5 is the 5th revision in 11 years. Thunderbolt 4 s

I sometimes wonder why we have to be so gradual? I mean thunderbolt 1 spec was released in 2013. Thunderbolt 5 is the 5th revision in 11 years. Thunderbolt 4 spec was published in 2020, you cannot possibly think about all future needs/usages but couldn't we have anticipated in 2020 that 5k and 8k screen would be a thing and that people would want more bandwidth than 40gbps? All these standard changes every 2.5 years just create a compatibility mess and confusion for the consumers who don't understand why monitor A doesn't work well with computer B with cable C. Couldn't we have jumped from thunderbolt 1 to 3 to 5 capabilities directly? Would our life have been more miserable had we had to wait a little bit more from an upgrade from say thunderbolt 3 but if it meant that thunderbolt 4 had been released in late 2021 or 2022 with capabilities of current thunderbolt 5 already? Like trading latency for higher improvements over generation? Does that even make sense or where there limiting factors that prevented thunderbolt 5 capable equipment to be built in 2022 already?

HenriTEL 2y ago
For marketing reasons, to justify value in the new gen of devices.
riobard 2y ago
> limiting factors that prevented thunderbolt 5 capable equipment to be built in 2022 already Lots of factors e.g cost, chip availability, heat dissipation, etc. Sure I would prefer upgrading laptop ports from 10Gbps directly to 100Gbps, but not if it costs 10x more and burns up battery.
rswail 2y ago
Because getting something into production is much more than just the specification. You can specify anything. But producing hardware that complies with that spec is much harder. Then you've done a lot of research and development, so you have to sell it in a way that is backwards compatible, so you have to wrangle a whole group of organizations (foundries, chip designers, customers) who each have their own product lifecycles to think about. Intel might be ready, but Apple is delaying their release, etc.

HenriTEL 2y ago

For marketing reasons, to justify value in the new gen of devices.

riobard 2y ago

> limiting factors that prevented thunderbolt 5 capable equipment to be built in 2022 already Lots of factors e.g cost, chip availability, heat dissipation, etc. Sure I would prefer upgrading laptop ports from 10Gbps directly to 100Gbps, but not if it costs 10x more and burns up battery.

rswail 2y ago

Because getting something into production is much more than just the specification. You can specify anything. But producing hardware that complies with that spec is much harder. Then you've done a lot of research and development, so you have to sell it in a way that is backwards compatible, so you have to wrangle a whole group of organizations (foundries, chip designers, customers) who each have their own product lifecycles to think about. Intel might be ready, but Apple is delaying their release, etc.