We’ve known that the iPhone is switching to USB-C for a while now, but there was always a possibility that Apple would stick with Lightning for one more year. Based on the latest leaked images, however, Apple is all-in on USB-C for the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro models, with USB-C parts for the iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, and iPhone 15 Pro Max all shown in a leaked image by X user fix Apple.
With the switch to USB-C, nearly all of Apple’s devices will have adopted the new standard, with only AirPods, Mac accessories, and the iPhone SE remaining aside from older iPhones and the 9th-gen iPad.
EU is the real MVP. Hoping that a few more years now and we’ll have iphone with USB C, app sideloading, user replacable battery. I’ve never owned an iphone before but if that happens, I might consider one.
If you don’t need access to iMessage or are not part of the iCloud ecosystem (i.e. do most/all of your work on a Mac), it’s still not worth it. I switched ~3-4 years ago for iMessage and the Lidar sensor. The lidar is shit for technical work, or really anything other than the simplest in-phone diversions. If iMessage were available on Android I’d almost certainly swap back. It’s not that the phone is bad, per se, just that there are weird limitations that pop up from time to time that wouldn’t exist with an Android device.
Edit: I was going to jump on the 15 for the USBC, but I’ll probably wait for the hype to die down unless I get a sweetheart upgrade deal from my provider. My airpod case is still lightning, so there’s no economy for me in getting my phone switched over.
I don’t really care about imessage or icloud. But apple have a much better track record for providing updates for old iphones. Android is quite enshittified these days. Filled with sponsored unremovable apps, abandonware stock rom, and if you try to use something else like lineage os, it is no longer possible to use banking apps etc. Really all iphone need for me to consider it is sideloading apps which is presumably on its way.
[edit - my first response was combative; I didn’t intend it to be]
Sadly, iOS is filled with sponsored, unremovable apps - the only difference is that they are Apple branded. I lock down my notifications pretty hard, and I generally don’t subscribe to streaming media. I get regular, invasive pop-ups to join Apple Music and Apple TV+. You can’t turn those off, you can’t uninstall them. Yes, they keep devices updated for longer, but once you fall out of that period almost none of the apps will work anymore and you can’t get versions that will work with your OS revision until you’re left with a brick (it’s happened on multiple iPads for me). It may be the lesser evil, but it’s still annoying at times.
Damn that’s a bummer. So the strategy of all the tech corporations now is to annoy us into paying yet another subscription.
Hot damn! Thank you, EU. Maybe we’ll finally be able to climb out of connector hell.
I wonder how they’re going to announce it at their keynote. Because Apple was strong armed into doing this they didn’t want to. At all. They kicked and screamed the whole way but they did comply.
So. Will they present it as an evolution like they almost invented the thing? Will they be passive aggressive about it? Or will they just say nothing about it.
I’m also expecting Apple to basically use the worst USB-C standard possible, which, just like Lightning, will basically be USB 2 in terms of speeds and so on. At least on the non-pro models. :/
They will probably introduce some dock to monitor mode that is super limited in functionality and talk about how they just couldn’t get it working right with lightning or something.
Honestly, some kind of dock that would turn iOS into iPadOS on a display sounds kinda neat.
Why not just full blown MacOS?
It’s Apple we’re talking about, I’m being realistic. Plus, that would require two OSes on the device. iPadOS is not really another OS, just iOS for larger devices.
Samsung is doing it with Dex. I don’t think MacOS and iOS are that different anymore. I’m not saying there isn’t work to do, but it’s far from being outside of Apples ability.
Apple actually pioneered and pushed USB-C use with their Macbooks which had only USB-C ports. Pretty sure they kept lightning out of pure greed.
Yup, and as far as I can tell they still require custom chips for “made for iPhone” approval.
The lighting port has one good thing though, it’s robust and easy to clean. I’ve cleaned my fair share of dirty charging ports on phones and USB-C is a bitch to clean sometimes. Really depends on what you have at hand.
Also funny to hear when people replace their phones because the USB port was dirty (cable doesn’t stick and the “phone just doesn’t charge anymore”. A toothpick and a blast of compressed air later and the phone is as good as new.
Yes USB is annoying to clean. We were on a trip and had nothing at hand except a piece of a plastic zip tie lying on the ground which worked wonders. It took a while though.
Props for MacWorld’s editors for digging out the OG Blue Pixel for this device shot†
†(back when they originally took it)
I wish I could get a 15 mini with usbc. That’s all I want.
Government regulation works.
I think the jury is still out on this one imo. If Apple does what the rumors are saying and limit it to 500mA @ 5V and 480Mbps transfer speed unless you have a MFI chip in the cable, then I don’t think these regulations worked.
Also, if a hypothetical USB type D comes out some time in the future and blows USB type C out of the water in every category, but phones can’t use it because the EU said, then these regulations didn’t work. It’s my understanding that the EU protected against this possiblity, so I’m hopeful that this won’t happen. But I haven’t actually read the bill myself. I have only heard this from comments on the internet, so I don’t know for sure.
Even if they limit the speed of other cables I think for the most part it’s still worked
Looking forward to the day a charger cable is a charger cable and no more of this “could I borrow your charger? Sorry only got an iPhone charger/micro USB” problem
Slow charging is infinitely better than no charging in an emergency
The power numbers I mentioned above would just cause modern phones to die slightly slower. But that’s the minimum required for USB 2.0, and that was the rumored amount that Apple was going to allow without an MFI chip. But other users seem pretty confident that it won’t matter because Apple won’t be able to find a loophole there.
Still potentially the difference between being stranded without a phone and managing to trickle charge it over a long period of time while it’s off
True. But I still think this would be a huge oversight, as it would completely go against the spirit of this regulation. It should be easy to keep this hole closed and a huge slam dunk if they can do it. If the EU whiffs on this, I definitely won’t consider it a win. All it will do is make Apple users upset that they can’t really use all the cables that they already own for non-apple devices. This will cause some families to purge every cable in their house and replace them with MFI cables, resulting in a ton of money for Apple, a ton of money spent by consumers, and a ton of e-waste. Is all that worth it when they could have just kept the loophole closed? An argument could be made, but I wouldn’t change my mind on it, especially when it would have been so easy for the EU to do it right in the first place.
But again this argument is kind of moot, because other users are confident that the alleged loophole doesn’t even exist.
We’ll see I suppose
Also my argument is not that it won’t suck if they find a loophole but it’s still better than what we’ve got right now
I’ll agree with that for sure.
This is not correct for devices being sold to the EU at least. Part of the amendment to the Radio Equipment Regulation outlines the exact standards for power delivery that must be used, and that interfaces which are capable of being charged @ > 15W must “ensure that any additional charging protocol allows for the full functionality of the USB Power Delivery…”.
For data transfer, I don’t see the point and future improvements to USB will come from industry in future.
The only way around this is with a wireless charging protocol, but manufacturers are moving away from that it appears.
The EU requirement isn’t actually USB-C. It’s whatever USB-IF says is the standard connector. So if USB-C gen2x2 (or wherever they will call it) comes out, that will be what everyone has to implement.
The problem would arise when USB-IF stops being the de-facto innovation driver for peripheral interconnection.
It’s amazing how few people know this very basic fact about EU regulation yet are so quick to criticize it. Internet in a nutshell I guess…
It’s also worth pointing out that Apple is part of the USB-IF and was one of the early pioneers of the Type C connector, so it’s not like the EU is forcing them adopt some random foreign design.
Consumer-based regulation works better.
ie- when people stop spending billions on iphones that don’t use standardized hardware… Then, perhaps Apple will stop being anti-competitive assholes.
Right now, they can get away with being anti-competitive assholes, because everyone keeps buying their products.
Money speaks.
Just watch- apple will indeed release a phone that has a USB-Type C port. Then, disable data transfer to any non-apple certified USB cord, due to “security concerns” or “fire hazards”
It literally does not, as evidenced by the state of chargers in the 2000s and early 2010s, before the EU threatened to regulate if phone companies didn’t get their shit together. Back then you’d have a different charger design for virtually every phone, including new models of the same phone. USB only became ubiquitous because the EU told companies to stop fucking around and legislate themselves, or the EU would make formal legislation. Most companies got the memo, but Apple decided to be cunts for long enough that the EU decided they needed to finally step in.
Consumer-based regulation being the end-all is based off the classical- and neoliberal ideas that humans are rational actors and companies have a greater incentive to compete than to collude. Both of which are lies.
the classical- and neoliberal ideas that humans are rational actors
Be very careful with this, because this is also the very foundation of democracy. If we start saying humans can’t decide for themselves over insignificant phone charger, how could we trust them selecting the people who has much more power than that?
how could we trust them selecting the people who has much more power than that
Who else is there to trust but us humans?
humans can’t decide for themselves over insignificant phone charger
Individual humans don’t have the ability to choose their phone based on their preferred charger. Each purchase is made between one buyer with fairly limited funds and few large corporations with extensive funds.
The real test on this one is going to be in how well those regulations support the eventual transition from USB-C to something else.
There’s inevitably going to be a use case for new connectors that have some yet-unidentified advantage over USB-C for certain devices, and there’s going to be hurdles convincing regulators to grant exceptions for those devices or to adopt one of them as the new standard for everybody.
There’s plenty of examples of government regulations gone wrong trying to transition from an old technology to a new one. (i.e. the REAL ID format in the US, or the switch from analog to digital broadcast TV).
The regulation is worded to require whatever the USB-IF currently requires, which is what companies that adopted USB already follow. The concern here died before the ink on the law even dried.
Was that so hard?
cries in proprietary
nobody understood this
I’m pretty sure accessory manufacturers have to pay Apple a fee for each device they sell. Apple are more concerned about making money than making life easier for the consumer.
One year early, so they can make a big deal about proprietary restrictions if you don’t use Apple accessories, which won’t be the case the following year with no mention.
This is the one iPhone left that they can do anything they want regarding USB-C, without being under the new law as it won’t be in place yet and won’t apply to product SKU’s that were released prior.
Watch them roll with the most barebones feature set possible just so they can point and say, “see, lightning was obviously better!”
There’s no point for Apple to self sabotage like that. Why make your new shiny $1500 phone look bad just to praise a discontinued products? Switching back to Lightning is impossible. Better to just move on with it and because it’s Apple, they will more likely to pull some bullshit like “Reinventing USB-C” or “The Best USB-C in the world”.
Apple would rather just ditch all physical ports and move to 100% wireless than praising Lightning over USB-C.
Remember that this is Apple, the company which has already been crippling its phones with lightning for the past decade(?). Although you’re probably right about them just going with whatever and then marketing the crap out of it.
As for ditching all physical ports, I was honestly thinking that’d probably be the road they’d go just to spite the EU. Oh well, I guess there’s always next gen?
Crippling? Lightning is way easier to use than usb c and USB C literally didn’t even exist a decade ago, no clue what you’re on about. Yeah USB C is really nice, but lightning doesn’t get junk in the ports and in general is a much sturdier connector and for the time was a much better option than all the other ports. I didn’t even use apple at the time and it was clearly superior to things like usb superspeed and all the other proprietary junk that other manufacturers had.
lightning doesn’t get junk in the ports
How the heck are you getting gunk in your USB C ports? 🤨
for the time
Indeed, it was probably fine ten years ago. But, as Mac Address (among many others) rightly pointed out, transferring gigabytes of HD video over a shoddy USB 2.0 line is a less-than-ideal experience.
way easier to use than usb c
How?
How the heck are you getting gunk in your USB C ports? 🤨
I’m not, but other commenters in this thread are. And with the internal pin in the female connector you have a much higher risk of damage, also the connector is larger. Also have you never had lint get into a phone connector in your pocket? That was a huge issue for years with my Android phones. I had it fuck up my Dell streak port all the time.
I have an iPhone and have never had anything get stuck in the port, unlike all the Android stuff I’ve owned. But like I said, other commenters in here are complaining about things getting stuck in their USB C ports.
Indeed, it was probably fine ten years ago. But, as Mac Address (among many others) rightly pointed out, transferring gigabytes of HD video over a shoddy USB 2.0 line is a less-than-ideal experience.
Huh? Why in the world would you be doing that? And shoddy? Haha dude, usb 2 ran the world fine fora decade and continues to work fine today. Lightning supports up to USB 3 anyway, but USB C came out and they didn’t bother expanding their cable selection.
How?
No need to worry about whether the cable you’re using supports PD, bidirectionality, hdmi, etc. All lightning cables are the same. Power and data. I literally have a device to plug usb c cables into to verify what they support. Even Android news sites agree it’s a mess.
I’ve soldered up USB C cables. They’re not “it just works” like lightning is. I don’t even use lightning anymore since I wireless charge everything but apple not putting usb c on their phones is completely inconsequential and really not the massive deal everyone thinks it is.
Also have you never had lint get into a phone connector in your pocket?
No.
Huh? Why in the world would you be doing that? And shoddy? Haha dude, usb 2 ran the world fine fora decade and continues to work fine today. Lightning supports up to USB 3 anyway, but USB C came out and they didn’t bother expanding their cable selection.
Because some people actually use their iPhone to record videos, since the iPhone has a pretty damn good video camera. I’ll just link this excerpt from Mac Address that I hinted at before.
No need to worry about whether the cable you’re using supports PD, bidirectionality, hdmi, etc. All lightning cables are the same. Power and data.
USB C is a mess, sure. But if your solution to that is to try and justify sticking with an old, proprietary standard that supports only a fraction of the features of the competitor, then I guess it’s your money to burn.
USB C is a mess, sure. But if your solution to that is to try and justify sticking with an old, proprietary standard that supports only a fraction of the features of the competitor, then I guess it’s your money to burn.
I most definitely am not doing that. Lightning was good for the time, and the benefits of USB C now are overwhelming (compared to a few years ago). What I am talking about is the blatant whitewashing of the past. USB C didn’t exist, and the lightning cable was amazing for what it replaced. Absolutely astounding honestly. And the connector still is. But time moves on. But lots of people love to hate on Apple and just completely ignore history.
Also, I feel like not enough people appreciate just how much shit Apple got for moving everything from the 30 pin to Lightning. There was a barrage of comments across the message boards from people bitching about how they’d have to replace their iPod docks and all the cables they’d amassed. There was no way Apple would have gone through that again lightly to switch to a new standard that wasn’t mature.
I completely agree. It was terrible how bad all the connectors were (including that fucking 30 pin, my god I hated that fucking thing) before lightning. This includes micro and mini USB.
I quite like the 30 pin, though that may be because I coveted iPods at the time but couldn’t afford one. I had a couple of Sony hard disc Walkman, which seemed to have a different connector every damn time, meaning you couldn’t buy one dock like you could with an iPod. On top of that, it was a solid connection that clicked nicely every time. But yeah, ya boy was wiiiiiide. I have a dozen of them knocking about now, as my little collection of iPods grows…
Also, it’s hilarious that Samsung straight up copied the 30 pin for their original Tab, but flipped the pin position so the cables weren’t interchangeable.
One of the good things coming out of the EU.
I still wonder if Apple will do a split between EU iPhones and the rest of the world, though. Lightning accessories make money.
It makes them a very small amount of money. But they’ve also been rumored to be making iPhones use a “Made for Apple” type of cable for faster charging speeds. I think that would be really dumb but here we are.
At least then there will be no more confusion over who’s fault it is when your iPhone doesn’t charge as fast as you’d like.
It’s always been Apple’s fault, but now there will be no more saying it’s because Lightning is somehow better.
I’ll give them some fairness. When lightning originally launched, it was a great interface for lightweight power delivery and was more sturdy than the deplorable micro USB. I can’t explain just how bad microUSB is. So it made sense. I think USB-C just put in the legwork to be a much better adapter.
Also the giant plot hole missing here is that Apple sits on the USB forum I believe and so has some say in what the billions of devices they produce use to charge. They just can’t make money off of a standard now.
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Well my anecdote is that every single micro USB device I have has either a stuffed port or stuffs the cable. Those things are so incredibly flimsy.
I hate microUSB so much. I always feel like I have to treat microUSB ports like fine china or they will break on me. That nervous anticipation every time you plug something in that this will be the time it finally breaks. Too bad mini USB ports had that problem with getting loose over time.
making iPhones use a “Made for Apple” type of cable for faster charging speeds
They can’t do that. The iPhone must comply with PD.
Yes they can. Its just all about labeling. They can label a cable that fits to the standard and say “made for apple”
No, the regulation isn’t just usb-c, it’s usb-c and power delivery. Apple can’t magically escape both of them with a “made for apple” cable. It must accept all third party cable and charger.
Of course they can:
USB -PD support at limited speeds.
A proprietary Apple chip enables higher speeds, either using USB-PD still or another proprietary charging protocol.
They can just have both
As I commented above, the regulation clearly states “any additional charging protocol allows for the full functionality of PD… irrespective of the charging device used.”
So they can’t have both unless they split EU & RoW devices.
I hadn’t heard this. Good on the EU not letting them squirrel out of this (hopefully)
Could have had superior BNC, pathetic.
Apple is honestly garbage. This would have been news 5 years ago. Now it’s just sad.
This is not sad. Progress is progress.
Good on EU to force their hand, we should be cheering for regulatory agencies making life better for consumers.
I like apple 👍
I don’t. But their hardware is top notch. Fuck Apple. I like my Google Pixel. But fuck Google too.
fucking hell are we really at number 15? Are they just going to keep going with this naming scheme until the iPhone 1523?
You simply cant win. People make fun of Xbox fand Windows for having non sequential names, and iPhone gets berated for having a naming scheme that’s sensical, easy to follow and date
Yup, out of all the things I hate about Apple, their iPhone’s naming scheme is something I wish other brands would follow (including Apple with thier other devices).
Apple iPad on the other hand, is a completely mess.
To OP, what’s wrong with sequential names? I look at an iphone and i know exactly when they were released and their relative performance to other iphone models. Why is it a bad thing?
Remember the New iPad, or the 3rd gen iPad as literally everyone called it?
Apple did try to simplify in the same way they did with Macs, but then they fragmented the iPad line so much that it was difficult to keep up, so now you have “12.9” 2022 iPad Pro" as opposed to “5th gen iPad Air”.
Still, it’s better than the abominations that Sony come out with. Looking at you, WH-1000XM4 headphones, or Bravia KD55X75WL (2023).
I’m genuinely surprised Apple didn’t opt for the portless option. With wireless charging, wireless iCloud backup and wireless connections to macOS you don’t actually need a port on the phone.
I’ve had a 12 Pro Max for almost 3 years and I’ve have never plugged anything into it.
Wireless charging is a pretty bad option for a sole charging source though, it is highly inefficient and heats up the phone more than using a wire. My last phone actually had issues from overheating because I used it a lot while on a wireless charging dock.
Downvoted for sucking off apple
Just let people enjoy what they like. Not everyone cares about the same things and that is okay. And I’m using a Pixel 3, before you start making accusations.
Also there are no downvotes on Beehaw.
Unilem lets me downvote. Not sure what to tell you there. I’m not even sure what comment I meant to reply to before, but it seems like it wasn’t yours. My bad.
Don’t know what unilem is, but a lot of apps will show the button even though it gets blocked on the backend.
I’m really curious how apple will present that on stage. If they say anything positive about the change everyone will ask why they didn’t do it sooner. But they also can’t just not say anything about it
My guess is they spend less than 60 seconds on it, in the same way they talked about it when it came to the iPad Pro in 2018: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bfHEnw6Rm-4&t=3309
In summary: “We changed a thing. It’s a big deal but also not. Here are three benefits this change brings for users. Also this other benefit. On to the next thing.”
