What are you doing, Apple.
In a livestream occasion on Monday unveiling the brand new iPhone 16, in addition to up to date fashions of the Apple Watch and Airpods, Apple debuted a brand new iPhone and a pricier Professional mannequin, as ordinary, each that includes USB-C ports identical to final 12 months. Additionally, ridiculously, identical to final 12 months, the usual iPhone mannequin has a compromised port that may solely transfer information on the similar velocity units have been able to within the 12 months 2000.
Final 12 months Apple lastly changed the Lightning connector it has been utilizing within the iPhone since 2012 with USB-C, the common connector that the majority different cell units (and laptops) have harmoniously rallied round during the last half-decade. Although Apple’s been slowly working in direction of absolutely adopting USB-C for awhile, first placing the ports in MacBooks and iPad Professionals, it has been a really sluggish course of to see that port truly make it to the corporate’s most-used cell units. And the USB-C port that Apple placed on the iPhone 15 was a half-step: it ran at 23-year-old USB 2.0 speeds, as a result of solely the iPhone 15 Professional bought a brand new system-on-a-chip containing an on-board USB controller that might deal with 10 gigabit USB 3.1 Gen 2 speeds. That is 20 occasions quicker, by the way.
I assumed that this 12 months, the iPhone 16 would catch as much as final 12 months’s Professional mannequin, since Apple historically trickles down the options from the Professionals to the bottom cellphone a 12 months later. However no. When the iPhone 16 tech specs web page lastly appeared on Apple’s retailer, I sat there for a second in disbelief. There it’s once more: USB 2.0.
The iPhone 16 is utilizing a brand new system-on-a-chip this 12 months, somewhat than the mannequin in final 12 months’s Professional, and Apple clearly determined to not prioritize placing a correct twenty first century USB controller on there. Perhaps there simply wasn’t room, since this 12 months it is hyping up its new “Apple Intelligence” AI options. I humbly counsel that it might need been clever to equip the brand new, $800 cellphone with a USB spec extra succesful than the one used on the iPod circa 2003.
It is a notably irritating omission contemplating that the majority of Apple’s different units have made their manner onto the high-speed USB prepare by now. Throughout Monday’s occasion Apple introduced a small refresh of the Airpords Max headphones, which have now ditched the Lightning cable. The Airpods Max are in any other case unchanged and value the identical $550 they price in 2020. In the meantime, all of Apple’s latest refreshes of its iPad fashions—the Air, the Mini, and the common iPad—have been getting their very own USB-C ports, and now solely the bottom mannequin iPad is USB 2.0 velocity (480 Mbps) as a result of it is utilizing an older chipset. The iPad Mini is USB 3.0 (5 Gbps); the iPad Air is USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10Gbps). The iPad Professional is main the pack with USB 4 (40Gbps!).
Contemplating the plain jane iPad was final up to date in October 2022, I’ve a sense it’s going to be becoming a member of the Air with a contemporary chipset and a no-longer-embarrassing USB-C port very quickly. The iPhone, I suppose, must wait one more 12 months.
It primarily took EU rules dragging the iPhone into USB-C adoption for it to lastly occur final 12 months (whereas I am certain Apple was planning the change, these rules positively gave it a push). I am certain the iPhone 16’s USB 2.0 spec is solely a cost-cutting or space-saving train throughout the tight confines of the cellphone physique, however I nonetheless cannot however assist really feel prefer it’s slightly bit petty to help the usual with out doing it proper.
Even when we aren’t transferring a great deal of information to our telephones through USB cable today, on precept I am unable to abide it. The most affordable Android cellphone you pluck off the shelf will virtually definitely do USB 3 speeds, but the richest firm within the historical past of the world making the preferred smartphone cannot even hit the baseline for velocity we have been utilizing for properly over a decade?
I do not want Apple’s new “AI emoji” function to precise how I really feel about that: 👎
