Letters from Steve: No Mac USB 3 For Now

An e-mail allegedly from Apple CEO Steve Jobs said that Apple doesn’t have any plans for now to support USB 3, a much faster version of USB that is beginning to show up on PCs.

9to5Mac published an e-mail from a reader who said he asked Mr. Jobs why he couldn’t order a Mac with the new technology. He told the site that Mr. Jobs replied, “We don’t see USB 3 taking off at this time. No support from Intel, for example.”

Steve Jobs has often been known to respond to Apple customers who e-mail him, and his responses have typically been short and to the point like the quote above.

USB 3 is as much as ten times faster than USB 2, offering up to 5Gb of data per second. Real world tests on the PC side have so far not even set sites on that theoretical maximum, but there is little doubt that USB 3 will be faster than USB 2.

Intel is supposed to come out with its own USB 3 chipset in 2011, which could be the support Apple is looking for to consider the technology.

USB 3

USB 3.0