When the iPhone goes USB-C, other Lightning accessories will too says Kuo
Apple's potential move to USB-C will involve more than just the iPhone, says analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, with other accessories expected to make the switch in short order.
On May 11, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said Apple planned to abandon the Lightning connector for the iPhone from 2023, switching instead to a USB-C port. In a follow-up tweet, the analyst signals that other accessories that rely on Lightning will change ports quite quickly too.
Posted on Sunday, Kuo offers a continuation of the thinking from a few days prior, about a supply chain survey indicating a move away from Lightning to USB-C in the second half of 2023. Kuo starts by offering that the alternative of a portless iPhone would be difficult for Apple to achieve, "due to the current limitations of wireless technologies & the immature MagSafe system."
Due to this, Kuo is onboard with the idea that accessories for iPhones and iPads that still use Lightning will alter their ports to match a change in iPhone port. "Other Lightning port products (e.g., AirPods, Magic Keyboard/Tackpad/Mouse, MagSafe Battery) would also switch to USB-C in the foreseeable future," Kuo writes.
Apple has already started the shift away from Lightning, starting with the iPad Pro line. The company is also reportedly testing out USB-C adapters and a USB-C iPhone, in part prompted by an EU mandate about chargers.
Read on AppleInsider
On May 11, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said Apple planned to abandon the Lightning connector for the iPhone from 2023, switching instead to a USB-C port. In a follow-up tweet, the analyst signals that other accessories that rely on Lightning will change ports quite quickly too.
Posted on Sunday, Kuo offers a continuation of the thinking from a few days prior, about a supply chain survey indicating a move away from Lightning to USB-C in the second half of 2023. Kuo starts by offering that the alternative of a portless iPhone would be difficult for Apple to achieve, "due to the current limitations of wireless technologies & the immature MagSafe system."
1. Portless iPhone may cause more problems due to current limitations of wireless technologies & the immature MagSafe ecosystem.
2. Other Lightning port products (e.g., AirPods, Magic Keyboard/Trackpad/Mouse, MagSafe Battery) would also switch to USB-C in the foreseeable future. https://t.co/KD14TgBmtr-- (Ming-Chi Kuo) (@mingchikuo)
Due to this, Kuo is onboard with the idea that accessories for iPhones and iPads that still use Lightning will alter their ports to match a change in iPhone port. "Other Lightning port products (e.g., AirPods, Magic Keyboard/Tackpad/Mouse, MagSafe Battery) would also switch to USB-C in the foreseeable future," Kuo writes.
Apple has already started the shift away from Lightning, starting with the iPad Pro line. The company is also reportedly testing out USB-C adapters and a USB-C iPhone, in part prompted by an EU mandate about chargers.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
Wireless charging will be the default for all accessories when lightning gets demised. This will cover the MagSafe Battery Pack, AirPods, AirPods Pro, AirPods Max.
The iPad is virtually already on USB-C across the board so not much change needed there just the migration of the final few models in their normal update cycles.
The iPhone is a little more interesting in my mind. I almost never use a cable to charge since having a model with wireless charging so I’d be more than happy with no port, but I know friends who use their iPhone in hotel rooms via the AV adaptor. So I suspect that the iPhone will end up with a USB-C transition BUT perhaps this will be model dependent. Perhaps the Pro models get the port but the non-Pro models don’t…
Thoughts?
It was pointlessly snarky, so I made fun. Guess I wasn’t obvious enough.
anyway, I suspect one major reason iPhones have stayed lightning so long (apart from mfi revenue) is Apple probably planned to go portless instead and the tech hasn’t worked out well enough for them.
PS: crowley, the EU is a lesson in how not to do it. Don’t defend the sad senescence of old Europe pretending it still has something)g over the colonies.
A lesson in how not to do what, exactly?
Again, the EU laws will only apply to products sold in the EU. If Apple continues to favour Lightning, or any alternative port of their choosing, they're very able to sell iPhones with those ports to >80% of the world. And the majority of people here seem to think that moving to USB-C is the best thing to do anyway.
Lightning has gone as far as it can go with 4K video. It really is not a good experience to get an 8K video off the device. Then, if AR/3D/multi-cam shooting is going to be thing, that only puts more pressure on having a high speed interface to get data off the device.
Like I said in the earlier post, getting hundred GB to TB file sizes off the device won't be pleasant across WiFi, and having USB 20+ Gbit/s to TB4 40 Gbit/s interfaces would be nice. Apple has lossless audio. Maybe in the future there will be a wireless interface that can handle that, but today, to hear lossless audio on your headphones is through an external DAC and wire. The iPads, and bigger devices, need to have high speed data connections, so they will continue to ship with USB/TB ports.
So, yeah, I think all the Lightning devices today will switch over to USBC devices when the time comes. It's the most convenient thing for Apple to do.