The Thunderbolt controller is on the SoC.

The M1 Macs have two Thunderbolt re-drivers because they have two Thunderbolt ports. If multiple displays are important to you, perhaps an M1 Mac is not the right product choice for you. It can drive five displays, including the built-in display). My 2017 MacBook Pro has four Thunderbolt ports, two Thunderbolt controllers, and a discrete graphics card. A trash can Mac Pro has dual video cards and two Thunderbolt controllers, so it can support 4 displays. There’s nothing “intentionally crippled” about this. For M1 machines, one DP stream goes to the built in display (laptop) or the HDMI connector (Mac Mini). For previous Intel based Apple laptops, that meant the built-in display, plus up to two more via Thunderbolt. Intel integrated graphics van drive three. Thunderbolt 4 also supports two Display Port stream inputs at the controller, and mandates that both are connected. Not all implementations connect two streams to the controller. Thunderbolt 3 supports two Display Port streams. There's merits to both sides of that argument. But what you and I may consider 'crippling the device,' Apple may consider streamlining the experience. Is it what I would have chosen? Maybe not. This doesn't have to be something sinister.

So perhaps Apple removed that option so there's less chance of confusion.

Sure, it might be possible with the M1 to drive two Thunderbolt screens and NOT the internal / HDMI screen. Making the user think about which screens are running and how many screens can run is the opposite of that. So even if Apple disabled that option, it isn't inherently malicious.Īpple has always prided itself on being user-friendly. Plug in two display adapters to an M1, be it the MacBook Pro / Air with an internal display (that makes three) or the Mac mini (HDMI makes three) and it is a bad user experience. It isn't user-friendly to allow the M1 devices to support two arbitrary screens, and not three. What reason is there to believe that this is a fake limitation? Even if the supporting hardware can support the extra screens, that doesn't mean the M1 can. You're assuming the M1 can support three screens simultaneously.

Thunderbolt 4 hub mac m1