It's USB-C!

Ryan Heshmati

October 6, 2023

The September 2023 Apple event came and went, but with it came a particularly remarkable revelation. No, it was not a revolutionary iPhone (I have already written about Apple’s recent failures to innovate in a previous article). The event was notable for the revelation that this cycle of iPhones is going with a USB-C charging port. In a previous article, I wrote about tensions Apple was involved in with the EU over the Europeans’ demands for Apple to switch to a common charger, USB-C, but now Apple has changed its tune and is embracing the switch.

What makes USB-C such an important transition? This switch will mark only the second time Apple has changed its iPhone charging port since its 2007 release, indicating the weight of such a change. Further, the technology is more advanced, with a USB-C charger able to work much faster in power delivery rate than lightning (Apple’s iPhone charger from iPhone 5 to iPhone 14). On the flip side, however, Apple loses an exclusive charging port type, as USB-C ports exist on a large number of Android devices produced today. 

The universality of the USB-C truly is a fascinating turn for the iPhone. Apple has guarded its charging connectors for over a decade; whether it was the lightning charger or its 30-pin predecessor, the iPhone charger has always been exclusively for iPhone, and now it is not. It is worth noting, however, that Apple has already been using USB-C ports in their products for years, with many MacBooks and iPads already possessing the port. Apple built an ecosystem around frictionless Apple device-to-Apple device connections, but that has been where the system ended. USB-C is a step in the opposite direction for Apple, parallelism with the competition: Android devices.

Considering what a shift this is, it begs the question, why did Apple decide to make the switch? As aforementioned, Apple faced pressure from the EU to adopt the USB-C standard, with the European Union passing rules requiring its use in devices like the iPhone by autumn of 2024, which likely factored into Apple’s decision. 

The iPhone 15 will presumably go down as nothing particularly unique. It boasts more cameras than the average user likely needs and more screen, too. The iPhone 15 is unique in one way, though, similar to how the iPhone 5 was, in being the first in the iPhone lineup released after a charging port switch. The way Apple users will receive the USB-C transition is yet to be clear, but the significance of the switch, on the other hand, is already very clear.