A new series Apple patents has revealed that Thunderbolt could feature on iOS devices in the future, Patently Apple reports. One of the patents stated that:
“a connection may be provided between a portable media player and a display, a computer and a portable media player,or between other types of devices.”
Rather like Firewire, the main benefit of having Thunderbolt enabled iOS devices would be the super fast data transfer speeds. You would only have to wait a few seconds for all your media to transfer.
It is unclear from the patents whether the Thunderbolt iOS device would be a host device as well or simply a peripheral, but regardless, Apple would have to reengineer the connector “to be flat enough to fit a USB-type of device slot”, as Patently Apple puts it.