The Apple MacBook Air 2020 M1 is among the few recent computers to support Thunderbolt 4 technology with competitors such as the Dell XPS 13 9310. It's possible, and trivial, to create a device that will take 12 watts from a USB port like an iPhone would but without asking nicely first like an iPhone would.Apple Uses Own M1 Chip on the Thunderbolt 4 Enabled Apple MacBook Air 2020 M1 That's assuming one desires well behaved USB devices. Because this budgeting of power relies as much on the device as on the host there's ways to get more power by 'hacks' to the device. Apple computers will happily provide this much power without any 'hack'. They use the USB-PD and USB-BC protocols for this, and other USB devices can safely use this power too if they use the same protocol.įew USB devices will require more than 900 mA from a USB host because for a number of reasons few USB hosts provide more than 900 mA.

Apple isn't doing anything 'sneaky' or out of spec in providing this extra current from USB ports to Apple iDevices. Apple computers since 2012 or so were built to provide 2400 mA from USB. The USB 2.0 and USB 3.x spec allows for up to 1500 mA to devices. You don't have to 'hack' anything for it to provide 900 mA to a USB device. And Apple computers built after iPods started using USB for charging (2005 or there about) will provide at least 1500 mA from their USB ports. Much of this default behavior is written in the device, not the host. Is it possible to hack the mac, and change this default value (to something like 900mA?) This document is not intended for a highly technical audience so it's in a way lying by omission. The power the port can supply is not limited by what is plugged in. Reading this article: it seems that these ports are capable of delivering more power, but it's limited to Apple products. The ability of the port to supply power doesn't change with what is plugged into it. This can be demonstrated by plugging in an iPhone and see the computer report in System Information that it is supplying 12 watts. The USB 3.x ports on Apple computers are able to supply more than 500 mA. The USB port provides 500mA which is not good enough for many devices I use (Hard Drive, 3G Dongle.)

Macbook air usb c power output