USB-C PD (power delivery) has been a standard for over a decade now. I first used it on a Nexus 4 or 5, and later on a Chromebook Pixel in 2016. It would be surprising for apple to not use that standard, particularly when both ports are probably run from the same controller.

I think that makes it a non-standard implementation though (I agree it's certainly more practical for the user), sounds like it's usb-c pd but with nerfed data, an odd choice that feels like it would actually have cost more to develop than just adding two identical usb-c 3.x ports...

I suspect the limitation is that the SOC doesn't have the IO bandwidth to support two ports at usb 3 speeds (remembering that the SOC was designed for iphones which physically only have one port).

Ah, that's a good point, it would make sense (and be a small but real gotcha of using a phone CPU in a laptop).

Does this mean it is now possible to run OS X on an ipad? Those also tend to use phone processors.

Technically possible yes. It will have been for years at this point. But Apple hasn't released a build for ipad.

Why would it be non-standard? USB-PD is almost completely decoupled from the rest of USB, and USB-C connector doesn't imply 'super speed' lanes are available. The only thing it really changes from an implementation perspective is that you don't have to route high speed lanes to the port, and don't need them to be available on your USB controller.

Doesn't seem to be very Apple-like to have two identical looking ports with different function, though.

I'm not sure exactly what the USB specs require, but there are a lot of phones out there that only support USB 2.0 data speed but do implement the current fast charging protocols. It's absolutely a mainstream thing.

> That means you can charge and use the fast usb port at the same time.

For some use cases, you can do that with a single USB port, too. For example, a single USB cable connected to a monitor can both send video and charge the laptop.

Sure, but it's certainly convenient to have two ports