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Apple Configurator 2 TIDBIT

After a detailed re-reading of the Apple Configurator 2 User's Manual, which is contained in the Apple Configurator 2 Help file, I just realized why it is necessary to run Apple Configurator from another computer that also explains why neither the installer or clone utility can create the iCSPreboot volume. An essential part of Apple Configurator involves updating/reviving/refreshing the firmware on the target system and you cannot modify firmware or software while it is in use. This all takes place at a very low level in the target system's hardware and requires the target computer to be connected to the configuring Mac via USB data and power cable (a Thunderbolt cable will not work) and it must be plugged into a specific port on the target computer (the specific port is unique to the model of the target computer).

By-the-way Apple Configurator 2 can also revive/restore iPhones, iPads, Apple TVs, as well as Intel and Apple Silicon Macs but only Apple TVs can be revived wirelessly. I have yet to find any mention of Apple Watches.

Complicateder and complicateder, said Alice!

Am I correct in assuming that the USB cable can be plugged into a Thunderbolt port with an adaptor?

And if so, why must it be USB?

And have you any idea why it must be a USB cable?

The documentation assumes it is a USB cable with Type C connectors, but I see no reason why a type A to type C adaptor would not work other than the adapter might not be 100% compliant with the standards.


Because...

1. ...the manual emphatically specifies USB and explicitely states Thunderbolt 3 cables will not work? (Had I known this previously, I would have had better success using Apple Configurator 2 when I managed to entirely erase the boot drive on an M1 Mac mini, but I was using instructions from a third party that were not as thorough as the AC2 User Manual.)
2. ...USB is implemented entirely in hardware.
3. ...Firewire is at least one protocol layer above USB and requires firmware to function.
4. ...One of the primary functions of Apple Configurator 2 is to update/revise/refresh the firmware
5. ...the firmware cannot be updated/refreshed/revived while it is in use

PLAUSABLE DENIABILITY: the following is somewhere between fuzzy speculation and a wild-a**-guess. I would have to dig a lot deeper into the hardware standards and implementation to do any better.

1. USB is implemented entirely in hardware.
2. There is a level of intelligence in the Thunderbolt connector
3. Firewire is at least one protocol layer above USB and requires firmware to function.

Thanks for that. It answers my questions without exceeding my ability to understand the answers.