Way more than a few cents. The iPhones don’t use a separate physical usb controller due to lack of space. It’s handled on the chip.
The non pro this year is using last years pro chip which doesn’t have the capability for usb3.
To bring usb3 to the non pro they would have had to put the A17 in it, which is limited due to TSMCs production for the 3nm chips. They would have had to both reduce the number of pro models for sale (which they would never do), and raise the price of the non pro which would have just pushed people up to the pro model which would be limited in stock already because of splitting the chip between the two models.
It’s not as easy as just adding a different controller.
My guess is one of two things they’ll do since thunderbolt 5 was announced a couple of days ago too.
They’ll either put thunderbolt 4 on the pros next year with 40 gig like the iPad Pro has, and regular usb 3.2 gen 2 like the iPad Air does, with the rumored SE getting usbc with an A16 chip and usb 2 like the base iPad.
Or, they’ll go with a four tier model and introduce the long rumored ultra with thunderbolt 5 and 80gig speed, the pro getting thunderbolt 4, the regular getting usb 3 gen 2, and the SE keeping usb 2.
The spring event when they announce the M3 Macs will probably give a clue to it.
Way more than a few cents. The iPhones don’t use a separate physical usb controller due to lack of space. It’s handled on the chip.
The non pro this year is using last years pro chip which doesn’t have the capability for usb3.
To bring usb3 to the non pro they would have had to put the A17 in it, which is limited due to TSMCs production for the 3nm chips. They would have had to both reduce the number of pro models for sale (which they would never do), and raise the price of the non pro which would have just pushed people up to the pro model which would be limited in stock already because of splitting the chip between the two models.
It’s not as easy as just adding a different controller.
Thank you for the explanation! Makes sense given the SoC design.
My guess is one of two things they’ll do since thunderbolt 5 was announced a couple of days ago too.
They’ll either put thunderbolt 4 on the pros next year with 40 gig like the iPad Pro has, and regular usb 3.2 gen 2 like the iPad Air does, with the rumored SE getting usbc with an A16 chip and usb 2 like the base iPad.
Or, they’ll go with a four tier model and introduce the long rumored ultra with thunderbolt 5 and 80gig speed, the pro getting thunderbolt 4, the regular getting usb 3 gen 2, and the SE keeping usb 2.
The spring event when they announce the M3 Macs will probably give a clue to it.