Apple drops bundled 3.5mm adapters from all new iPhones, sticks with 5W USB-A power

AppleInsider · September 12, 2018 8:46PM

In a potential disappointment to some buyers, iPhones are no longer shipping with 3.5mm headphone adapters in the box, and still come with 5-watt power adapters that forego USB-C.

The 3.5mm adapter is missing not just from the iPhone XS and XR, but even older devices that previously came with one, namely the iPhone 7 and 8. Apple hasn't announced the change, but the accessory is conspicuously missing from the "What's in the Box" sections on iPhone product pages.

Without an adapter, iPhones can only reach external audio via Bluetooth, a Lightning cable, or streaming protocols like AirPlay 2 and Google Cast.

Apple is selling a basic Lightning to 3.5mm adapter for $9. Since the launch of the iPhone 7 in 2016, a number of third-party adapters have also joined the market.

The continued inclusion of 5W USB-A power adapters may disappoint people those who have switched over to USB-C elsewhere and/or those wanting fast charging out of the box. An iPhone X can hit 50 percent charge in as little as 30 minutes, but only when using Apple's Lightning to USB-C cable and an adapter with USB-C Power Delivery. That typically means buying a new cable and a MacBook adapter, the cheapest Apple option for the latter being a $49 30-watt unit.

Keep up with AppleInsider by downloading the AppleInsider app for iOS, and follow us on YouTube, Twitter @appleinsider and Facebook for live, late-breaking coverage. You can also check out our official Instagram account for exclusive photos.

indieshack · September 12, 2018 8:59PM

don't think this is a big surprise, it always comes down to money with Apple.

lkrupp · September 12, 2018 9:02PM

Good. I didn't want to pay extra for a dongle I don't use on my iPhone 8 purchased earlier this year. I can't even find it right now. Make it an optional accessory. Will it be the end of Apple? Nah. I'm actually sorta happy it will piss off certain people, the same ones who thought they had Apple by the short hairs when they piously asked, "How do I listen and charge at the same time?"

spamsandwich · September 12, 2018 9:06PM

I suppose if I were to get a new phone, I'd go for the AirPods also.

soli · September 12, 2018 9:22PM

I hope the PSU gets the boot next, especially when inductive charging pads become more common.

abolish · September 12, 2018 9:28PM

AppleInsider said:

An iPhone X can hit 50 percent charge in as little as 30 minutes, but only when using Apple's Lightning to USB-C cable and an adapter with USB-C Power Delivery. That typically means buying a new cable and a MacBook adapter, the cheapest Apple option for the latter being a $49 30-watt unit.

I'm so sick of hearing this $49 figure. Every discussion of iPhone charging should mention the 12W charger. That's really the right default recommendation. Let's change the narrative on this.

The $19 12W charger hits 40 percent in 30 minutes, only slightly behind the USB-C options -- and double the speed of the bundled 5W charger.

That really should be the default recommendation when purchasing an iPhone. Spend more if you want but $19 for 2X the charging speed is an extremely good value.

seankill · September 12, 2018 9:36PM

abolish said:

AppleInsider said:

An iPhone X can hit 50 percent charge in as little as 30 minutes, but only when using Apple's Lightning to USB-C cable and an adapter with USB-C Power Delivery. That typically means buying a new cable and a MacBook adapter, the cheapest Apple option for the latter being a $49 30-watt unit.

I'm so sick of hearing this $49 figure. Every discussion of iPhone charging should mention the 12W charger. That's really the right default recommendation. Let's change the narrative on this.

The $19 12W charger hits 40 percent in 30 minutes, only slightly behind the USB-C options -- and double the speed of the bundled 5W charger.

That really should be the default recommendation when purchasing an iPhone. Spend more if you want but $19 for 2X the charging speed is an extremely good value.

Why is it so difficult for Apple to provide a 12W charger by default with the $650+ iPhones? Especially the X-series? $1,100 and I get a garbage charger? Anything to save a buck.

soli · September 12, 2018 9:40PM

seankill said:

abolish said:

AppleInsider said:

An iPhone X can hit 50 percent charge in as little as 30 minutes, but only when using Apple's Lightning to USB-C cable and an adapter with USB-C Power Delivery. That typically means buying a new cable and a MacBook adapter, the cheapest Apple option for the latter being a $49 30-watt unit.

I'm so sick of hearing this $49 figure. Every discussion of iPhone charging should mention the 12W charger. That's really the right default recommendation. Let's change the narrative on this.

The $19 12W charger hits 40 percent in 30 minutes, only slightly behind the USB-C options -- and double the speed of the bundled 5W charger.

That really should be the default recommendation when purchasing an iPhone. Spend more if you want but $19 for 2X the charging speed is an extremely good value.

Why is it so difficult for Apple to provide a 12W charger by default with the $650+ iPhones? Especially the X-series? $1,100 and I get a garbage charger? Anything to save a buck.

Why assume this is Apple saying a buck when they'd adjust the price for any HW that takes them out of their ideal profit ratio?

strangedays · September 12, 2018 10:06PM

seankill said:

abolish said:

AppleInsider said:

An iPhone X can hit 50 percent charge in as little as 30 minutes, but only when using Apple's Lightning to USB-C cable and an adapter with USB-C Power Delivery. That typically means buying a new cable and a MacBook adapter, the cheapest Apple option for the latter being a $49 30-watt unit.

I'm so sick of hearing this $49 figure. Every discussion of iPhone charging should mention the 12W charger. That's really the right default recommendation. Let's change the narrative on this.

The $19 12W charger hits 40 percent in 30 minutes, only slightly behind the USB-C options -- and double the speed of the bundled 5W charger.

That really should be the default recommendation when purchasing an iPhone. Spend more if you want but $19 for 2X the charging speed is an extremely good value.

Why is it so difficult for Apple to provide a 12W charger by default with the $650+ iPhones? Especially the X-series? $1,100 and I get a garbage charger? Anything to save a buck.

Why are you pretending the added cost of a bigger charger wouldn't be added to the price of the product offering?

I have enough e-junk in drawers, thank you very much. These days, everybody has at least one charger and if they don't can just buy one, rather than accrue them every year until they go back to landfill.

appleish · September 12, 2018 10:24PM

Oh No!

Used one for my Bang & Olufsen H6s. Briefly until I got my AirPods.

The H6s gather dust.

Welcome to the present.

soli · September 12, 2018 10:33PM

StrangeDays said:

seankill said:

abolish said:

AppleInsider said:

An iPhone X can hit 50 percent charge in as little as 30 minutes, but only when using Apple's Lightning to USB-C cable and an adapter with USB-C Power Delivery. That typically means buying a new cable and a MacBook adapter, the cheapest Apple option for the latter being a $49 30-watt unit.

I'm so sick of hearing this $49 figure. Every discussion of iPhone charging should mention the 12W charger. That's really the right default recommendation. Let's change the narrative on this.

The $19 12W charger hits 40 percent in 30 minutes, only slightly behind the USB-C options -- and double the speed of the bundled 5W charger.

That really should be the default recommendation when purchasing an iPhone. Spend more if you want but $19 for 2X the charging speed is an extremely good value.

Why is it so difficult for Apple to provide a 12W charger by default with the $650+ iPhones? Especially the X-series? $1,100 and I get a garbage charger? Anything to save a buck.

Why are you pretending the added cost of a bigger charger wouldn't be added to the price of the product offering?

I have enough e-junk in drawers, thank you very much. These days, everybody has at least one charger and if they don't can just buy one, rather than accrue them every year until they go back to landfill.

With inductive charging pads Lightning cables won't get the same wear-and-tear the need will become even less over time.

normang · September 12, 2018 11:13PM

Perhaps l am wrong, but it seems the faster you charge the battery, you shorten it’s life? Plus since I routinely get through the day on a charge, and I plug in at night, the 5w charger works just fine.

mavemufc · September 12, 2018 11:31PM

Glad they’ve got rid of the adapter, I never once used it anyway, 5w charger was expected.

mplsp · September 12, 2018 11:56PM

StrangeDays said:

seankill said:

abolish said:

AppleInsider said:

An iPhone X can hit 50 percent charge in as little as 30 minutes, but only when using Apple's Lightning to USB-C cable and an adapter with USB-C Power Delivery. That typically means buying a new cable and a MacBook adapter, the cheapest Apple option for the latter being a $49 30-watt unit.

I'm so sick of hearing this $49 figure. Every discussion of iPhone charging should mention the 12W charger. That's really the right default recommendation. Let's change the narrative on this.

The $19 12W charger hits 40 percent in 30 minutes, only slightly behind the USB-C options -- and double the speed of the bundled 5W charger.

That really should be the default recommendation when purchasing an iPhone. Spend more if you want but $19 for 2X the charging speed is an extremely good value.

Why is it so difficult for Apple to provide a 12W charger by default with the $650+ iPhones? Especially the X-series? $1,100 and I get a garbage charger? Anything to save a buck.

Why are you pretending the added cost of a bigger charger wouldn't be added to the price of the product offering?

I have enough e-junk in drawers, thank you very much. These days, everybody has at least one charger and if they don't can just buy one, rather than accrue them every year until they go back to landfill.

And why are you implying that it isn’t right now? If I want a dongle to use any of the ‘outdated’ but still completely functional 3.5mm headphones I own, I need to pay an extra $9. If I want to charge my phone at anything faster than the outdatedly slow rate allowed by the 5 W charger, I have to pay an extra $20-40.

Does Apple (or any company) ever price their phones at $1009 or $1019? No. What they are doing is taking out an accessory that coasts apple significantly less and keeping the cost the same. That amounts to a defacto cost increase.

What I and many people find frustrating is that we pay a premium price for a premium phone from a company that has profit margins among the highest in the industry, only to have them cheap out on the included accessories.

wood1208 · September 13, 2018 12:10AM

Dropping 3.5mm dongle was not surprised but many expected 18W PSU with USB-C instead of USB-A.

soli · September 13, 2018 12:11AM

MplsP said:

StrangeDays said:

seankill said:

abolish said:

AppleInsider said:

An iPhone X can hit 50 percent charge in as little as 30 minutes, but only when using Apple's Lightning to USB-C cable and an adapter with USB-C Power Delivery. That typically means buying a new cable and a MacBook adapter, the cheapest Apple option for the latter being a $49 30-watt unit.

I'm so sick of hearing this $49 figure. Every discussion of iPhone charging should mention the 12W charger. That's really the right default recommendation. Let's change the narrative on this.

The $19 12W charger hits 40 percent in 30 minutes, only slightly behind the USB-C options -- and double the speed of the bundled 5W charger.

That really should be the default recommendation when purchasing an iPhone. Spend more if you want but $19 for 2X the charging speed is an extremely good value.

Why is it so difficult for Apple to provide a 12W charger by default with the $650+ iPhones? Especially the X-series? $1,100 and I get a garbage charger? Anything to save a buck.

Why are you pretending the added cost of a bigger charger wouldn't be added to the price of the product offering?

I have enough e-junk in drawers, thank you very much. These days, everybody has at least one charger and if they don't can just buy one, rather than accrue them every year until they go back to landfill.

And why are you implying that it isn’t right now? If I want a dongle to use any of the ‘outdated’ but still completely functional 3.5mm headphones I own, I need to pay an extra $9. If I want to charge my phone at anything faster than the outdatedly slow rate allowed by the 5 W charger, I have to pay an extra $20-40.

Does Apple (or any company) ever price their phones at $1009 or $1019? No. What they are doing is taking out an accessory that coasts apple significantly less and keeping the cost the same. That amounts to a defacto cost increase.

What I and many people find frustrating is that we pay a premium price for a premium phone from a company that has profit margins among the highest in the industry, only to have them cheap out on the included accessories.

You're making the ridiculous assumption hat by not dropping the price by $9 for a YoY model that they're still folding in the cost of the excluded item. Did you not consider any of the other YoY changes to the device that cost money? Or how to make this change from removing the 3.5mm headphone they had to eat some of their profit margin in order to include the headphone adapter because it was good for business until there was a certain threshold of BT users and/or customers that already had a adapter for wired headphones and/or before the outrage over an inexpensive, goddamn dongle wouldn't be a social media cry fest that could affect sales in a reasonably, measurable way.

Personally, the removable of all these things cannot come soon enough. I want the PSU, the Lightning cable, and the wired headphones to go away, too, because these are an actual expense that I have to pay for without getting any use out of them for several years now. With inductive charging this will grow even faster and become even more far reaching, but you're oddly OK with Apple being able to bundle stuff into an iPhone regardless of whether the customer needs it or not even if it's just a way to be able to charge more for for their iPhone. Did you even once look at it from that PoV? Surely you know that this accessories do cost money and that Apple isn't putting them in there for free or even at cost.

edited September 2018

soli · September 13, 2018 12:17AM

wood1208 said:

Dropping 3.5mm dongle was not surprised but many expected 18W PSU with USB-C instead of USB-A.

I had hoped that they'd move to USB-C for iDevices (or at least with the Watch charger which can't do data), but it looks like that tipping point isn't yet here, which may be due to WinPCs being so slow to move to USB-C for the great majority of options.

mplsp · September 13, 2018 2:47AM

Soli said:

MplsP said:

StrangeDays said:

seankill said:

abolish said:

AppleInsider said:

An iPhone X can hit 50 percent charge in as little as 30 minutes, but only when using Apple's Lightning to USB-C cable and an adapter with USB-C Power Delivery. That typically means buying a new cable and a MacBook adapter, the cheapest Apple option for the latter being a $49 30-watt unit.

I'm so sick of hearing this $49 figure. Every discussion of iPhone charging should mention the 12W charger. That's really the right default recommendation. Let's change the narrative on this.

The $19 12W charger hits 40 percent in 30 minutes, only slightly behind the USB-C options -- and double the speed of the bundled 5W charger.

That really should be the default recommendation when purchasing an iPhone. Spend more if you want but $19 for 2X the charging speed is an extremely good value.

Why is it so difficult for Apple to provide a 12W charger by default with the $650+ iPhones? Especially the X-series? $1,100 and I get a garbage charger? Anything to save a buck.

Why are you pretending the added cost of a bigger charger wouldn't be added to the price of the product offering?

I have enough e-junk in drawers, thank you very much. These days, everybody has at least one charger and if they don't can just buy one, rather than accrue them every year until they go back to landfill.

And why are you implying that it isn’t right now? If I want a dongle to use any of the ‘outdated’ but still completely functional 3.5mm headphones I own, I need to pay an extra $9. If I want to charge my phone at anything faster than the outdatedly slow rate allowed by the 5 W charger, I have to pay an extra $20-40.

Does Apple (or any company) ever price their phones at $1009 or $1019? No. What they are doing is taking out an accessory that coasts apple significantly less and keeping the cost the same. That amounts to a defacto cost increase.

What I and many people find frustrating is that we pay a premium price for a premium phone from a company that has profit margins among the highest in the industry, only to have them cheap out on the included accessories.

You're making the ridiculous assumption hat by not dropping the price by $9 for a YoY model that they're still folding in the cost of the excluded item. Did you not consider any of the other YoY changes to the device that cost money? Or how to make this change from removing the 3.5mm headphone they had to eat some of their profit margin in order to include the headphone adapter because it was good for business until there was a certain threshold of BT users and/or customers that already had a adapter for wired headphones and/or before the outrage over an inexpensive, goddamn dongle wouldn't be a social media cry fest that could affect sales in a reasonably, measurable way.

Personally, the removable of all these things cannot come soon enough. I want the PSU, the Lightning cable, and the wired headphones to go away, too, because these are an actual expense that I have to pay for without getting any use out of them for several years now. With inductive charging this will grow even faster and become even more far reaching, but you're oddly OK with Apple being able to bundle stuff into an iPhone regardless of whether the customer needs it or not even if it's just a way to be able to charge more for for their iPhone. Did you even once look at it from that PoV? Surely you know that this accessories do cost money and that Apple isn't putting them in there for free or even at cost.

They dropped the adapter from *all* phones. There were no changes to the iPhone 7 or 8, save that you have to pay for an adapter. If they wanted to save some money, they could offer the adapter as a free option to the people who wanted/needed it. You comment how I’m oddly ok with apple bundling items that cost money, but you’re only ok with forcing other people to pay more. I’m not daft - I know that the accessories cost money, but I also know that I use them and the actual cost to Apple is significantly less than they charge. Also, wireless charging still fails to match wired charging for speed, and AirPower is nowhere to be seen.

If I were buying a cheap Android phone for $300, then I could understand leaving out the accessories, or including an underpowered power supply. But Apple is charging $1500 for it’s top of the line phone. And they’re too cheap to give it a proper power supply.

payeco · September 13, 2018 5:16AM

seankill said:

Why is it so difficult for Apple to provide a 12W charger by default with the $650+ iPhones? Especially the X-series? $1,100 and I get a garbage charger? Anything to save a buck.

From what I’ve heard, Apple’s market research has shown most people, especially women with purses, prefer a smaller charger that takes up less room (in their purse in the case of women) over a larger, faster charger. That 5w charger is between 1/3 and 1/4 the size of the 12w charger.

payeco · September 13, 2018 5:25AM

abolish said:

I'm so sick of hearing this $49 figure. Every discussion of iPhone charging should mention the 12W charger. That's really the right default recommendation. Let's change the narrative on this.

The $19 12W charger hits 40 percent in 30 minutes, only slightly behind the USB-C options -- and double the speed of the bundled 5W charger.

That really should be the default recommendation when purchasing an iPhone. Spend more if you want but $19 for 2X the charging speed is an extremely good value.

I’m sick of everyone acting like the only charging options are the ones made by Apple. For that same $19 you can get a 2 port, 24w (12w per port) Anker charger along with an Anker Lightning cable with a lifetime warranty. Seriously. If it breaks you just email them and they send you a new one, free of charge with free shipping.

mbenz1962 · September 13, 2018 7:12AM

mavemufc said:

Glad they’ve got rid of the adapter, I never once used it anyway, 5w charger was expected.

There was a significant percentage of people who were convinced that the chargers included with the new iPhones would be bumped up to a USB-C (PD) version. There was a post in early July of pictures of an 18W USB-C charger than some felt convinced was going to be included in the new iPhones in September.

https://forums.appleinsider.com/discussion/206147/apples-mini-18w-usb-c-charger-may-be-real-after-all/p2

I think @Melgross will be particularly disappointed by the continued inclusion of the 5W charger with the iPhone as will @Nunzy , @Avon%20b7 ;, and probably a small but significant portion of other users who feel that an included Fast Charging capable brick would help the value proposition of the new phones. These folks are probably right in the long term, but not enough of potential buyers see it as a must right now (at least in Apple's opinion apparently).

As I mentioned in the post on the rumored 18W charger, the iPhone has lots of capabilities that require additional equipment (at an additional cost) to utilize such as video out via Lightning, SD card input, wireless charging, Bluetooth audio streaming etc. Fast Charging seems to be remaining on that list for the time being. Depending on market forces, there may come a time where Apple includes a faster charger in the box with iPhones. Perhaps next year if they want to leave the entry price of the 2019 XR (or its successor) at $749 this could be an easy throw in to increase its perceived value if there isn't a lot of new HW features added. Only time will tell.

edited September 2018

Apple drops bundled 3.5mm adapters from all new iPhones, sticks with 5W USB-A power

Comments