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.
Government regulation works.
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.
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.
Was that so hard?
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.
cries in proprietary
nobody understood this
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.
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.
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.
