New smart-home powers incoming?
We knew that Apple’s latest Macs and iPads were already packed to the gills with the latest chips and components, but it seems there’s also a bonus one that Apple didn’t tell us about – a radio that supports the Thread networking standard.
The Verge did some digging in latest reports from the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and found indirect evidence of Thread radios in most of Apple’s new Mac and iPad models. These include the iPad Air 6, iPad Pro 13-inch (2024), iPad Pro 11-inch (2024), MacBook Air 15-inch (M3), MacBook Pro 14-inch (M3 Max and M3 Pro), and the iMac (M3).
So what exactly does the Thread radio do? Currently, not a whole lot – Apple hasn’t commented on whether or not the radios are active. It’s more likely to either be a future-proofing move for later smart-home functionality (Thread is the main wireless protocol for Matter, which Apple helped to develop) or simply a default feature of the latest tri-band radio chips.
