In our recent discussions of the announcement Apple made at WWDC 2020 about their planned transition from Intel to their own ARM based processors one of the biggest potential issues for professional audio we could see was the future availability of Thunderbolt. In a welcome development Apple have confirmed that future Apple Silicon based Macs will support Thunderbolt.

What Is Apple Silicon?

The WWDC announcment contained no mention of ARM processors. Instead, Apple is calling its architecture Apple Silicon, which they describe as the same, Apple-developed Ax chips, that have been in the iPhone and iPad for years. But even though Apple is calling it Apple Silicon, at their core, the processors are based on ARM architecture, adapted by the Apple chip design team to make them for the iPhone and iPad, adding their own features like the neural engine to handle the machine learning capabilities.

In our follow up article to the announcement Apple Silicon - A Developer Helps To Explain The Impact we speculated that

What is not clear is what will happen with technologies like Thunderbolt 3 (which comes from Intel) It is unlikely that Apple will license Intel's Silicon Thunderbolt. Some are speculating that they will, drop Thunderbolt and use USB 3, skip to USB 4, or introduce their own proprietary interface technology to replace Thunderbolt. We would suggest there is another way…

Although Thunderbolt 3 is Intel technology, initially anyone using it had to pay a royalty, which limited the takeup of Thunderbolt 3. Intel realised that and made Thunderbolt 3 royalty-free, so no one would have to pay a royalty to use it. If Apple can take Intel’s technology and put it on their own Silicon then it may be possible. It will be interesting to see which way Apple goes. If Apple drops Thunderbolt support, that could be a real issue for pro-audio users with Thunderbolt interfaces or Thunderbolt expansion chassis.

What we do know is that the Mac Mini in the Apple Silicon Development kit does NOT have a Thunderbolt port.

Apple Will Include Thunderbolt On Apple Silicon Macs

It appears that Apple have sought to clarify the situation with the following brief but clear statement offered by an Apple spokesperson to The Verge:

“Over a decade ago, Apple partnered with Intel to design and develop Thunderbolt, and today our customers enjoy the speed and flexibility it brings to every Mac. We remain committed to the future of Thunderbolt and will support it in Macs with Apple silicon,”

This will be a big relief to all of the audio users who have benefitted from the near HDX levels of low latency offered by Thunderbolt audio interfaces from manufacturers such as Universal Audio, Focusrite and Presonus.