One charging port for all. It’s official: USB-C has won. On Tuesday, consumers around the world heaved a sigh of relief. Apple unveiled its new iPhone 15.
The tech giant is finally adopting USB-C — and plans to eliminate its exclusive Lightning charger.
“The same cable can charge Macs, iPads, iPhones, and even the second-generation AirPods Pro that have been updated with a USB-C connector,” said Kaien Drance, vice president of iPhone product marketing.
USB-C, which offers faster data speeds, is already universal. So goodbye to electronic “spaghetti”, and no longer even need to carry two types of chargers to avoid losing juice. It may feel like Apple has changed its charging cables more times than we can count.
In 1998, Apple launched regular USB cables, then introduced heavy-duty FireWire, used with the first iPod. You can thank this Horning 30-pin connector for inspiring you to buy countless accessories in the early 2000s. But after 2012, those accessories gradually became redundant after Apple introduced the Lightning connector.
“There were a lot of iPhone accessories, boom boxes, docks, things like that. And people needed to completely convert them because 30 pin and Lightning, they were completely different ports,” said Michael Simon, executive editor of Macworld.
A few years later, the rest of the tech world began adopting USB-C cables. And the EU is fed up with not playing along with Apple. So EU lawmakers passed a law requiring all handheld devices to adopt uniform USB-C chargers by the end of 2024.
“I can’t even tell you how many times my son has an iPad Air and I have an iPhone and I’ve forgotten one of the two cables while traveling and I have to go to CVS or whatever is closest to me to buy it. Had to go there. Other cables,” Simon said.
EU regulators say their law will make everyone’s life easier and reduce technology waste. As far as Apple is concerned, this switch involves risks like losing licensing revenue from third-party supporting carriers, or worse – consumers rejecting the change.
“They have huge assets around the world protecting iPhones. So it has to run smoothly. They have to sell it well,” he said.
But at the annual Apple event on Tuesday, the company didn’t seem concerned about keeping loyal consumers on its side.