If you’re waiting for Apple to finally introduce an iPhone with a USB-C port, we have bad news: it’s not coming this year. But the intrigue continues about the future that awaits the only port of the iPhone in the coming months.
Let’s start with the iPhone 14. According to iDropNewsApple is “working on speeds [USB] 3.0 for the iPhone 14 Pro connector. The current Lightning port is USB 2.0, which has a much slower transfer rate of 480 Mbps.
USB 3.0 offers a transfer rate of around 5 Gbps, or about 10 times faster than the current Lightning port. LeaksApplePro reports that the feature will likely be exclusive to the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max.
Apple actually used a faster Lightning port on the original 12.9-inch iPad Pro before switching to USB-C in 2018. It required a special adapter to unlock the faster speeds, which were limited to the 12-inch iPad Pro. 9″ (1st and 2nd generation) and the 10.5″ iPad Pro.
When the iPad moved to USB-C, it bumped up the transfer speed to 10 Gbps and increased it even further with the iPad Pro with M1, which supports 40 Gbps Thunderbolt speeds.
Although including a faster Lightning port on the iPhone 14 would be another point of differentiation between the iPhone 14 and the iPhone 14 Pro, things could get even more interesting with the iPhone 15.
Members of the European Parliament last week announced their support for “a common charger for portable electronic devices” by an overwhelming vote of 43 to 2. The new rules, expected to become official in May, would require that all phones, tabletsHeadphones and earphones that support wired charging have a USB-C port.
The regulation would affect numerous devices, including the AirPods charging case, but none are bigger than the iPhone. If it goes ahead, Apple may be forced to move to USB-C with the iPhone 15 or ditch the port entirely and rely entirely on MagSafe and wireless charging.
Although the rules would only apply to phones sold in the European Union, it is highly unlikely that Apple will sell iPhones with USB-C ports abroad and Lightning ports in the United States.
Be that as it may, the change would be important for obvious reasons. The iPhone has had a Lightning port for the last 10 years, since the iPhone 5 in September 2012, so moving to USB-C would be a monumental change that would affect countless accessories and cables.
And if Apple were to remove the port altogether, it would raise questions about charging speed and CarPlay, among other features.
So don’t lose sight of the boring iPhone charging port. Things are about to get very exciting.
Original article published on Macworld.com.
