Apple to Limit iPhone 15 USB-C Cables to USB 2.0 Speeds: Report

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 887 points –
Apple to Limit iPhone 15 USB-C Cables to USB 2.0 Speeds: Report
extremetech.com

Apple to Limit iPhone 15 USB-C Cables to USB 2.0 Speeds: Report::undefined

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TFW a wifi transfer literally loads files from your phone faster than a fucking cable.

That's the point. Expect the iPhone 17 to be portless to the consumer.

There has to be a USB-C. Some people will always want wires to transfer data, even if it's through their "wireless charger", which is proprietary.

And some people will always want a headphone jack... oh wait...

The difference with wireless listening vs. charging is that the former doesn’t need close to 2x the power of the cable-bound method and doesn’t destroy the phone’s battery in the process, unlike the latter

Wireless listening absolutely needs more than 2x the power of wired listening. It also needs charging an entire other device. You're right that it doesn't affect the phone battery, though I don't think wireless charging "destroys" it.

It warms it up, and you're not going to get the absolute maximum battery life out of it if you're wireless, but the impact usually isn't that big, unless you're really cooking it. Using the standard fast charger that comes with your phone is probably going to put about as much, if not more wear than a. 10W wireless charger.

You're not meant to wirelessly charge it by sticking it in the microwave.

Wireless listening absolutely needs more than 2x the power of wired listening. It also needs charging an entire other device

It might be more than that. A wired headset is incredibly simple, unless you're running a ridiculous amplifier through it. It's just two speakers, maybe a microphone and button if it's a mobile headset.

By comparison, wireless listening would usually need the audio encoder/decoder chips, the Bluetooth receiver/transmitter, the processors for the pairing/controls/noise cancellation, and the speakers on top of that. That's not a small amount of componentry.

I’ve tried using wireless charging in a friend’s car on my iPhone SE a few weeks back.

Result: notification that charging had (!) to be stopped at around 50% due to overheating and was poised to continue once the iPhone had cooled down sufficiently. It never continued as that was all I needed to know about the current state of wireless charging with light usage on the side.

Good point on the wireless listening and ear pieces needing a battery as well, though. I guess with those it comes down to convenience for most buyers.

I can't imagine Europe wouldn't lose their shit if Apple removed it entirely. And if Android manufacturers did that consumers would also promptly lose their shit.

Beyond the consumer, having a physical port is beneficial to Apple. Businesses use attached devices (e.g. barcode scanners, DSLR camera attachments, charging stations) all the time. It's more common on Android phones, but I do see iPhones using these sorts of things. My local movie theater uses iPhones to scan tickets with an attached Lightning scanner, for example.

I don't disagree that wireless charging is more convenient, but from the standpoint of being in emergency situations where a cable is needed to charge your phone, it wouldn't be easily possible if the port is removed. People might carry around charging bricks, and while wireless charging bricks do exist they're not commonplace and they're certainly slower than charging by wire. I can tell you nobody will want to carry around a portable wireless charger, although MagSafe is almost already just that.

Playing devil's advocate, it's possible Apple does want things like portable wireless chargers to proliferate, like the one you can buy that slap onto the back of your phone. It means you're buying more of their shit, which is something they seem to love so much. It would mean you're buying MagSafe chargers or whatever proprietary crap they manufacture. I still do see it becoming an issue in emergency situations though, e.g. teens (a large user base of iPhones) use their phones a lot and borrow chargers from each other all the time.

Impossible? No. Unlikely? Yes, for now.

They might adopt something like pogo pins for physical connections, similar to the ipads

Some people will always want wires to transfer data,

But that group of people is growing smaller and smaller with each year. I haven't used a phone cable to transfer files once in the last 8 years. Phones just sync to cloud.

Same. I think the last time I used a cable to transfer data onto my phone was iTunes syncing my iPhone 5s music. Once I moved to Spotify I never needed to sync again.

It’s not the use case of everyone, but I’d bet the majority of iPhone users haven’t used a data transfer in years

I mean yeah I barely use cables to transfer data, but there are times I need to plug it in to back up files. The Pixel 7 Pro is also a bar of soap and slides off of my wireless charger, so it's more reliable for me to use a USB-C cable. I also like having the phone next to me in bed, and so I use a USB-C cable.

It just seems odd to remove something that is so reliable, even if only to have as a backup method. It would only make sense to remove it if wireless chargers are the dominant form of charging devices, especially in a portable manner.

Having a port also enables things like game controllers and wired headphones, if the user chooses to do something like that.

About the sliding phone, Apple has proposed a magnetic solution to that.

Haven't tried it, but seems to solve that specific issue.

In this case I just have a case on my phone which stops it from sliding. But generally I do like having phones without cases on them.

I suspect cables are used more on Android because its filesystem is open so you can basically use an Android as a flash drive, which is very convenient at times.

Also since Androids in general have a way faster wired connection, it's more likely to be used for that.

Unlike iOS, Android also doesn't have a way to easily transfer files over WiFi by default.

Whereas if you're embedded in the Apple ecosystem, you can airdrop something from your iPhone to your Mac straight out of the box (after getting set up).

You can install the share app on Windows for the same experience.

I only use it for small files or photos. I use a cable for bigger files like movies or whatever, since it's much faster.

Using a cable with Android is also very easy since you don't need any apps or anything. You just have to click a notification and set the USB mode to "file transfer" from "charge only", after that it just works on pretty much every device. Fast USB ports are also useful because you can connect accessories to your phone like gigabit ethernet, and especially flash drives.

I suspect iPhone users very rarely if ever, transfer big files since the iOS file system is so locked down. The only big thing I can imagine that they would need to transfer is filmed 4k video.

USB 3.0 is way faster than WiFi and some phones even gave 3.1

... iPhone has USB 2.0

Yes, I know that,

The comment above implied that faster USB support isn't needed because WiFi is faster anyways (obviously wrong).

I don’t think they intended to imply that faster USB support _isn’t needed _, but rather they are making a mockery of how absolutely absurd this reality is.

That is possible.

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Amazing how this company is so successful knowing they're just scamming their clients

And yet their anti-consumer practices continues to be hailed by their loyal customer base.

It's mind blowing.

"A fool and his money are soon parted."

Oh? Can I voice my opinion here that people suck off apple despite how shitty they are? Are we doing this?

When you’re the biggest shop in your town it’s because you do good work.

When you’re the biggest shop in the world it’s because you’re scamming your clients.

Apple fanboys drooling over the company as it continues to shit on them.

I doubt your typical apple user will use the usb port for anything other than charging.

If they are going to improve transfer speeds it's not going to happen in the same iteration they're being made to switch to usb c for two reasons:

  1. They want to incetivise users to upgrade to a newer model 16
  2. They will want to take credit for faster speeds. Otherwise people will think usb c is just faster than lighting they were stuck with for years.

Number 2 is probably a bigger deal than people realize. They want to save face.

The reason is that like with the iPhone 14, in the non-Pro models they put the SoC from the previous year's Pro model, and that one was only designed for Lightning so only USB 2.0. So the non-Pro will get USB 3 once the USB 3-supporting SoC trickles down from the Pro.

Apple is very good at price discrimination. I hey know if they can build a slightly cheaper phone by reusing the SoC from the older lightning version, and 99% of iPhone users won’t care (for whatever reason) they then know that the 1% that does care will spend a little bit more on the Pro model. And they do that with few different features, which ends up with the Pro models selling a significant number of units.

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ITT people pretending this is a spite based move, when realistically it is probably cutting costs by reusing the same hardware they used for lightning ports just soldering on a USB-C port instead of a lightning one.

A shining example of cutting edge Apple innovation

Are you trying to suggest the company that invented rounded corners isn't innovative enough?!

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dude usb 3.0 is 15 years old by now, and they're a trillion dollar company. They'll manage, this is 100% by choice

One could argue that you don't become a trillion dollar company by leaving money on the table.

One could argue, greed is a subset of malice, and spite isn't mutually exclusive with any of it.

Public companies aren't really driven by spite. At least not for its own sake.

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The SoC lacks the hardware. Even the USB C iPads with A series chips operate at 2.0 speeds. They can only do 5Gbit in host mode, like with an external SSD. Plugged in to a computer they are 2.0.

I would imagine future chips will have the capability, once the Pro chips trickle down to the base models.

Yea, well, there you go. Pretty much straight up supports my original claim. If they need to full on change the SoC why in the hell would they fork up to support thunderbolt on iphones.

Thunderbolt seems excessive for most, but 3.0 would be welcome.

You think this more likely than just creating a bigger artificial difference between the standard and normal model?

I think that is most likely a lot of what drives that divide, but this almost certainly the case for the port. Some shit undoubtedly is software locked, and that is in fact scummy, but new hardware will always be more expensive than hardware you have already designed and maybe even have lying around.

To get thunderbolt in there they probably need a new board specifically for the iphone, while they can just cram in the lightning version with a new solder job and call it a day.

At the end of the day 95+% of the people who will use their phones will only use the port for charging anyway.

Well we don't know yet what port the pro model we have, so once we do, we'll know whether it's just scummy behavior once again, or if Apple decided to use low to midrange hardware on all their models

Someone else commented that the SoC literally lacks the capability to run above 2.0. If this is the case it would be very hard to call this even scummy adjacent.

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by reusing the same hardware

I'm sure their engineers are competent enough to repurpose she iPad Pro's TB4 hardware.

Two factors. Do they still have lightning hardware sitting on shelves? Do they need to design to fit the iphone form factor? If the answer is yes to either of these, designing for TB this release cycle seems non-sensical when most people only use the cable to charge their phones.

That, and also, how many iPhone users do you think will actually notice slower USB speeds? One percent? They literally do not need 3.0 to keep their customers happy. And they're not going to poach many Android fanboys with this change, so who cares?

I'm with you, people use the cable for power, it's pretty rare to use them for data transfers. He'll moving to a new phone is all wireless, just set them next to each other.

I'm going over... that's literally all I needed from them. Consumer choice is all lesser evils atm.

RIP Firefox phone and Samsung Pure.

I believe it's both. Apple said that they'd be compliant with the EU regulations of having usb-c as a port for any cell phone with a charging port. I don't remember the exact wording, but a valid interpretation was that usb-c is not required if the device has no charging port. I believe apple is moving towards exclusively QI-charging and wireless connection. Reducing the capability of wired connections would in that case just be a way to move the users towards the planned infrastructure.

So it's both a spiteful move regarding the regulations, but also a move which reduces costs and pushes users their desired way.

I believe apple is moving towards exclusively QI-charging and wireless connection.

I sure hope not. I'd have to take off my case every time I wanted to charge my phone.

I charge my samsung just fine with a decently fat case. Does apple have a weaker QI receptor?

I have a wallet case. It's really really thick. It holds all my credit cards and drivers license and stuff.

I see. I believe that Apple's vision is that payment cards and drivers licence will soon be fully integrated in the phone, eliminating the need for a wallet case. Not that I'm an Apple user, but I am pretty much at the point of never using physical payment cards, and my drivers licence has a digital version in my country.

I'll still need my health insurance card, my driver's license, etc. That won't work on a phone.

My health insurance is fully digital and my country has an official app for driver's licences. This varies from country to country, but I think we're all heading in that direction.

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How do apple fan boys keeps eating this shit-sandwich year after year?

Most people are totally lost in a sea of capitalistic greed and wealth indicators. If you don't keep up with the Joneses, are you really alive?

They have convinced themselves it tastes better than a club sandwich.

It never had to make sense.

Samsung doesn't support USB 3 on several of their higher priced phones, either.

Yes they don't support. It's different from supporting and limiting. I'll bet there will be a super-duper-special USB cable or dongle you'll be able to buy in order to get full speed.

It’s different from supporting and limiting.

We don't have the information needed to speculate that this is the case.

I wouldn’t describe myself as a fanboy, but here’s my reasons for continuing to use an iPhone and not moving to Android:

  1. I’ve been a Mac user for over 20 years. I’ve got a lot of Mac software that I use that have iOS only counterparts, and I’ve no interest in comparable software. The inertia of daily use software is a huge incentive for me.
  2. In the case of USB C vs Lightning or 2.0 vs. 3.v, I genuinely don’t use USB for file transfer to and from my phone. I may be a unicorn, but iCloud file sync and iCloud Photos have always worked reliably for me. Documents are on my iPhone, iPad, and Mac when I go looking for them. Photos and videos are there when I go looking for them. I don’t think I’ve plugged my iPhone into a computer (Mac or otherwise) in the last four years.
  3. I’ve charged on a QI charger for as long as I can remember (and a 3d printed MagSafe stand now). I have several lightning cables stashed away, but I actually loaned them out more than I use them. And my battery life is not a major concern for me. Since the iPhone X I’ve mostly managed all day battery life between my bedside and desktop chargers. And most days I use my phone lightly enough that I don’t need frequent charge ups.
  4. And the last bit: long term support. I hand down my devices about two years after getting them (in my immediate and extended family). I have family members with six year old iPhones who are still receiving software updates to the most recent OS. My iPhone X being used by my daughter won’t get iOS 17 this year, but it’s from 2017. And when I upgrade later this fall I’ll replace the battery in my 13 Pro, and hand it off to her. My son has an iPhone 12 that my wife handed down to him, last year. iPhones “wear” well.

I agree about the iPhones wearing well. Folks in my family pass down their iPhones too, but the ones with Android phones don’t seem to last. The lose support so quickly it’s not even funny.

Some Androids have extremely long support times, like the Fairphone. But as a general rule, yes, this is true. Unless you buy a Fairphone, or a model that is supported by Linage and root it, you're losing software updates after just 2 years, which is insane.

What % of mobile users plug their phones into a computer to move files on/off them? I'm not even an iPhone user (I have a Pixel 6 Pro) and it's probably been 5+ years since I last moved files over USB on my phone.

But why even limit it?

I'm guessing it saves them a few cents. I just don't think most customers care so I can see why they'd want to save a little bit of money.

That's the same excuse used when they removed the headphone jack and forced you to use bluetooth. I owned many a cell phones and they all had headphone jacks and bluetooth and both worked just fine. But then the headphone jack was removed and now you had to dish out cash for over priced devices that have a limited lifespan (those batteries aren't going to last forever).

I heard so many people say "well I never/rarely used the headphone jack" or "but I like bluetooth". Fine, that's nice, no reason to make it exclusive other than the company stands to make money off it. People gave up better audio quality and a plug that was more universal than the USB port... we're not likely to get it back. No doubt Apple (because of course it'll be Apple) will release a new proprietary cabled audio port that only works with their headphones.

Apple is anti-consumer.

I usualy agree with this but here is a thing USB 2.0 is really not that slow. I higly doubt you need faster data transfers on a phone.

The best argument I can see for faster than USB 2.0 speeds is YouTubers that shoot 4k video on iPhones and then need to edit the video. That's a very small number of people though

Those are definitely iPhone pro users and those get thunderbolt if my feeling is right (based on rumors I lost the source, lol)

Proprietary card audio port? What are you talking about? Apple doesn't care about wired audio and neither does the average consumer.

I've been using Bluetooth headphones for many years and imo it was the right call to push the industry in this direction. Bluetooth headphones don't die as quickly as you think. My first gen QC35 lasted close to 5 years when I replaced them and the battery was still good. They were replaced because they started making a weird noise randomly and I didn't take the best care of them so probably some wire in them became loose or something.

People don't like change but if you still want to use wired headphones you can. Use a USB-C/lightning adapter to headphone jack.

Batteries can last a long time. We have a Tesla in the driveway that I expect the battery to last 10+ years at least.

Man, you over trust tech industries... but your on Lemmy, weird IMO.

Apple doesn’t care about wired audio and neither does the average consumer.

That's a lie, customers do care. They weren't given a choice.

imo it was the right call to push the industry in this direction

Why? Because I cannot fathom a reason to remove a perfectly good option, especially since that option has existed for some decades.

I fully expect Apple to release a "premium" cabled option down the road. And why wouldn't they? Better audio quality and a whole new tech line to get money from. And if it's proprietary then they don't have to worry about those pesky non-Apple branded headphone from working.

Good for you you've been using Bluetooth. So have I. I also use cabled audio sometimes because I can or because it has fewer issues. I have headphones from the 80s and 90s that still work. I also have Bluetooth that gets flakey if I put the phone in the wrong pocket or I turn my head the 'wrong way'. Because Bluetooth is just a low powered radio.

People don’t like change but if you still want to use wired headphones you can. Use a USB-C/lightning adapter to headphone jack

The whole world had 3.5mm headphones. Then Bluetooth was an option. Now it's forced and the standard everyone had that any headphone or 3.5mm cable worked with doesn't. And lightning, is only Apple. And it's ignoring the myriad of problems...

And to make it perfectly clear, because I feel like people completely miss the point here (because every time this is brought up that seems to be the case). I'm not saying Bluetooth audio needs to go away. I'm saying, there was nothing gained from forcing people. Also, there's nothing gained from proprietary bullshit or things that cannot be repaired/maintained by people.

Lithium-ion batteries can last 10+ years. They can also last much shorter. They're not magic and it doesn't matter who makes them. It's science. They will fail. From over use, kept at the wrong amount of charge for too long, too hot\cold, somehow damaged, etc. They are going to fail and are all e-waste. I mean, find me someone who has any mobile phone that's from 2013 that still gets the full use of it like it was originally advertised. I mean, you're expecting to get 10 years maybe more out of a car... and you're not mad about that. I know people who drive cars that were built in the 60s. They've been able to repair/replace/maintained that vehicle for the life of it. Apple hates the idea of you repairing anything from them.

It's good for app development where you're constantly testing changes

I'm transfering stuff from my phone to PC all the time.

What are you transferring? Do you really think others are? Most people just use Google Photos or equivalent for photo back up and YouTube Music/Spotify/Apple Music/Amazon Music/etc.

Ads campaigns apple spends billions in, such has having their brand name on top of every community to boost their popularity and overshadow competitors

I haven’t transferred data over a usb cable in at least a decade. This means nothing to me.

it's an identity. you might be surprised to see how often the apple logo is used on random things in countries where copyright doesn't exist. like it's a symbol of something really important.

but I think the USB 2.0 thing is completely normal and this is a misleading headline

edit: oh look im being le downvoteddit

How is USB 2.0 normal in a phone that costs upwards of $800?

I mean, it has been normal for apple phones. Lightning cables only have USB 2.0 transfer speeds as it currently stands. They've used it from iPhone 5 up to iPhone 14, including the pro and max versions. Only the iPad pros have the potential for USB 3.0 speeds. Those are the only ones with 16 pin connectors instead of the standard 8 pins in all other lightning connectors

Well, then there has never been a better time to upgrade to USB 3/4 than now.

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They are going to limit it to USB 2.0 speeds so in 3 or 4 years they can declare some new magical advancement and bump it up to full 3.0 speeds.

Apple purposefully limits things so that they have something to announce in the future. They aren't dumb. They know the advancements in smartphones has been starting to slow down. So they meter out the advances over many years in incremental updates to give their customers a reason to upgrade.

You will hear something like this from every reviewer after an Apple event: "The changes were small, but taken together the new insert product name here might be well worth the upgrade price."

This is not innovation that helps the market.

This is the reason capitalism will never maximize life for any but the few at the top.

In 3-4 years, WIFI 7 will be standard, and Apple will completely remove data pins from the charging port because nobody has used them since WIFI 6.

In other news: company with long history of selling over-priced, under featured products to aspirational nitwits does it again!

Stupid up and take my money!1!!!! - Apple nitwit shoppers

Yes, I can't wait for them to launch the newest innovative tech of Type C for iPhone, which will offer more speed and better compatibility cause they are the good guys who swear they would protect your data and keep an eye on your photos too.

I have family who actually believes all of what you just said. The tribalism can get a bit much.

Once the brand becomes a core part of someone's identity, the company can do no wrong and it's extremely difficult to convince them otherwise. The level of willful ignorance is astonishing. We have a similar problem in American politics.

This will probably shock you to the core, but some of us can use and enjoy the company’s products for a wide variety of reasons, whilst continuing to be skeptical and not liking every one of their decisions.

I tried to explain to my MIL once that iPhones contain mostly Samsung chips and Samsung displays just like most non-samsung Android phones because Samsung happens to be the best semiconductor manufacturer for phone parts. She paused to look at me like I had 3 heads and continued on about the unicorn farts and rainbow barf that makes her iPhone work.

Not long after that she bragged about how good of a deal she got on the 3 year contract with the regional carrier who has the worst coverage for the $1k+ phone that costs her more in a single month than I pay for a year of prepaid phone service. She even tried to say we need to switch to the plan she's on to save money...

Why anyone would buy into this crap is beyond me.

they have created the culture of superiority. a posh product for our shallow acquaintances. it's a great filter test actually.

seriously...so sick of people being like, "ew why do your text messages show up green" and just buying everything apple cuz it's apple.

It's like people are ok with purposefully shooting themselves in the foot.

Have you met a large chunk of US voters? People actively vote against their interests because they don't want "them" getting the same benefits.

This is a patently absurd comparision

I don't even like Apple, but when you talk about their mobile ecosystem (mainly looking at phones/watches) here, Android is laughably behind at this point.

  • Apple devices last stupid long.
  • First one here counts for both batteries and vendor support. This is for the worst reason, the walled garden, but it works. There have been a few times I realized my magsafe charger was unplugged... for three days in a row. But my battery was rolled into about 5% at the end of the third day and dozens of hours of SoT.
  • The 2021 OS release supported 2015 phones. Current OS is to 2017 phones. Point out any major Android vendor still supporting their 2017 phones until at least mid 2024.
  • I was a devout Android worshipper. I twrp'd, greenified, rooted, removed any social media apps, etc and everything else. And then I realized I hated having to do that to make it with a device that would have over 50% battery by lunch.
  • I grew up. I went from loving to tweak with my phone all the time, to just wanting it to reliably work.
  • One of my most important pieces of tech is my watch. I use it for payments, travel, access, and everything else. And the Apple watch versus ANY OTHER ANDROID offering is the reason I will never use Android again. Shit just works. Mindlessly. And never has downtime.

I use linux on my desktop and laptop, but iPhone is the only phone that matters.

I use an iPhone, I was just making a point.

Though I will point out, Apple is good at supporting their devices… for the warranty period. After which their solution is usually “pay so much to repair this device you may as well be buying the newest version.” For most purchases, this is 1 year unless required by law.

The walled garden for apps is extremely restrictive and honestly bull. Want examples? Install a porn app, or a network scanner app, or one of the many categories they deem “saturated.” Their walls don’t even stop scams or malware, both of which have made it into the store in the past, the latter of which can still easily be found.

The majority of the rest I agree with though.

I've been an Android user all my life. Nexus, 2 one pluses, Samsung flip, and now on Pixel. I've also been pretty anti apple. I feel Android isn't being able to hold it's weight very well anymore. I find the experience a little meh and the below average battery doesn't help. I'm not happy with the Pixel at all. Back in the day, I felt Apple was just overpriced and didn't bring anything to the table and was almost exclusively garbage. Over the last one year I've been thinking more and more about giving it a try. I might switch into an iPhone 15 this year to see how it is. What doesn't help is trying to pick TWS earbuds. All of them have some issue or the other. The new XM5s rely too heavily on foam tips (and Sony made a design where finding third party replacement is a pain), Beoplay Ex has average ANC which is important to me. From all my research, it's looking like the Airpods might be the most well rounded in what I'm looking for, I just need to compromise on the sound quality. I might get the airpods even if I decide to stick to Android. I don't know, man. I feel like there's nothing I'm truly happy with in the market anymore (and I'm willing to spend, just give me something good) and I'm hoping Apple is the least worst of the lot so I might give it a try this year. Windows is the only thing I can never switch away from. Sorry for the rant, I've been struggling a bit to find good products but it's like all these companies just hate us.

I am unfortunate in that I am the owner of a pixel by choice, and given an iPhone by my employer. I hate Apple's "exceptionalism" and inconsistencies, that they kept the lighting connector alive for so long, that they removed the audio jack even though I have good BY headphones, their constant bait for their ecosystem/cloud storage and whatnot, now this arbitrary cap on USB capabilities (the list is seemingly endless). iOS is also such a frustrating user experience. The perspective of typing long form on an iPhone is off-putting enough to often compel me to pick up the laptop or the pixel given how stupid the keyboard completion and text entry UX are. Don't get me wrong, I also think Android is a terrible OS, but at least it's not forcing its shortcomings down our throats. For instance, I use nova launcher and sesame shortcuts, so that I just type what I want (contacts, common actions, app-specific shortcuts, settings, directions, ...) and barely do any menu/app navigation at all. And that's what I want: to order my phone about my immediate needs and get immediate feedback/answers. Apple UX is about prettifying a workflow which I don't want in the first place, stripping out elements of UX which I might need, and leveraging a hard to reach zoo of applications which never interact/complement each other. They really managed to turn an incredibly powerful device into a dumb phone. Did I mention already how frustrating the user experience is?

Man, this sounds awful. I don't even know what to do anymore. I think the most infuriating thing in the pixel for me is audio output. I'm always connected to some Bluetooth audio device. Switching between them(or deciding I want my output to be from the phone's speakers) is insane. Only if some media is playing, can I switch otherwise I have to either go start playing something on Spotify or disconnect devices to be able to see the option of picking my output. The functionality is there but they've locked it behind some arbitrary logic. And coming from OnePlus I was blown away that suddenly I need 2 hours to completely charge my phone?! Wtf! 2 hours? For a phone that barely lasts the day on regular use!

I'm very much an Android user, but in an enterprise setting Apple products are so much easier to manage. When pushing certificates with profiles from Intune, we had no end of trouble with Android phones but iPhones were incredibly easy.

ITT: people who don't realize that most USB-C cables are USB 2.0

Which is fine, I have a full speed USBC cable and it's a thicc boi that I certainly wouldn't want to shove in my pocket all the time and the 2.0 speed ones still charge my laptop even. But Apple is limiting the PORT, not the cable, which isn't cool.

Because they are probably using the same controller, just rewired to usbc, there are videos of this modification being done aftermarket.

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This is irrelevant.

We're talking about smartphones here, and most new Android phones support > 3.0.

Limiting a flagship phone in 2023 to USB 2.0 transfer and charging speeds is a cheapskate move.

The article only really has facts about the 2.0 cable, anything said about the device is speculated.

The entire article is literally based on a tweet where someone tested the cable. The title of the article and of this Lemmy post references that.

Ah, I see. If the phones themselves support > 3.0, that would certainly be less egregious.

IIRC current iphones with lightning connector are still using USB 2.0 and only ipad pro actually has USB 3. I could be wrong though.

Do you actually connect your phone for anything other than charging? Not trying to poke at you, I'm just honestly surprised this is a big issue for anyone really.

There's a difference between connector and protocol version. But they are all backwards compatible.

Sure but most USB-C Android devices can at least manage USB 3.0 speeds

That likely includes most policy makers. They should have enforce color coding usb c cables instead of forcing the form factor.

Yeah I've ran into this problem a few times now. I use my Occulus Quest on my PC and it needs USB 3.2 cables. The meta branded ones are crazy expensive but I found a third party one for fairly cheap.

I just got a Pixel 7 Pro and it needs a special powerblock to rapid charge. My Samsung block from my S10+ didn't meet the requirements, I had to go back to the Essential Phones included charger. The USB-C port on my PC's case is at normal speeds, but the port on the mono charges rapidly.

The official Meta/Oculus one is expensive because the data lines are fiber optic which allows it to be longer.

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Well, charger cables are usually at USB 2.0 speed because USB-PD works the same, but signal integrity doesn't matter as much, so you can make a longer, more flexible cable without using in-cable shielding...

So this is misleading, since the included cable coming in 2.0 speed (missing pins) absolutely does not mean that the iPhone USB-C port will only support 2.0.

The article states that the iPhone (the device itself) will be limited to USB 2.0 speed. Do you have information otherwise? Also limiting the speed does not mean it will not support the additional protocols that USB-C would allow for. I believe why people are making a fuzz over this is that people with iPhones want to be able to do large exports/backups/imports. Specifically those that use the devices professionally. In those cases you would want all the speed you can have, and this feels like an arbitrary limit set by Apple because they don’t want to fully comply. Perhaps there are good reasons due to heat issues in the storage controller.

Well, the article showed their original source, the tweet, which shows cable spec, data from a tester, and teardown ONLY. 16 pins on the male connector instead of the full 24 means USB 2.0 transfer speed is the maximum it can support, which is typical of a charger cable. (And no, this cable won't be able to support things like DisplayPort since the 3.0 data pins are missing. )

My main point is that there is no information on the device side USB port configuration at all, therefore there is no conclusion that can be drawn about the USB-C port on the new iPhone yet, and it's incredibly bad journalism for Extremetech to draw conclusion about device side spec from only the spec of the included charger cable.

If this is all based on just the teardown of a cable than the article is just speculation. If it really lacks all additional pins this is just malicious compliance on Apple’s part. “Oh you asked for a usb-c connector EU Commission? Here it is”.

It wouldn't make sense to implement full USB 3 and then cap speeds. The alternative protocols like displayport over USB 3 needs the extra wires which were added in USB 3, so if the port only have USB 2 pins + power then it can't support the new USB 3 features

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And the Apple branded super speed cable can be sold for more profit. Win!

Edit: I did some searching and found all the major providers send the phone with a USB2 cable, so taking a punt at Apple for this actually is unfair.

Or include a cheaper cable since 95% of the users will never transfer data over usb?

Probably closer to 99%. It’s kind of dumb I guess (without knowing the port specs, it’s impossible to form an opinion.) What are these people up in arms about?

I'm guessing the people most up in arms about this don't even use iOS.

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To the surprise of no one. However, EU is already on top of this. After this law was enacted they realized just how scummy Apple is, not sure how they managed to miss that especially considering they have to fine them and threaten with market ban if they didn't uphold 2 year mandatory warranty consumer protection laws in EU guarantee.

On top of what exactly? The EU law doesn't mandate certain transfer speeds.

The only thing mandated is a USB-C port to charge the device, and afaik that the fastest charging speed needs to be obtainable via USB-PD. The latter was always the case with iPhones, even though the port was different. Other manufacturers are actually way worse offenders when it comes to charging protocols, but Apple it obviously the worst offender when it comes to charging ports.

They are introducing changes to enforce USB-PD is present for charging.

Maybe EU is playing some 3D chess? Leave open the possibility of Apple being scummy then fine the shit out of them. Not sure how though.

What a messy article. The title says that the cables are limited to 2.0 speeds (which they might as well be), the subtitle mentions charging speed as opposed to transfer speed and the article itself then talks about the port on the device having 2.0 speeds (for non "Pro" models).

Anyways, of course they gimp the base model on purpose. Every company does to set the more expensive models apart obviously, but Apple drives it to the extremes especially in recent years, which makes their line-up incredibly confusing. I mean they've gone out of their way to make their 10th gen base iPad use the old Apple Pencil, and they still don't laminate the display even after they redesigned the exterior.

If you want a new iPhone this fall and you're looking for something in the price range of the standard iPhone 15 (which will still be a very expensive phone of course), I'd recommend looking for previous year's "Pro" model. The iPhone 13 Pro dropped around the iPhone 14 price at launch, and it's essentially better in almost every way.

And because people will mention it: of course, you can also get a phone from a different manufacturer if it suits you, or keep your current phone.

Usb 2.0 is 23 years old now.

There's a line between "enhancing the pro model by shitting on everyone else" but like this is just disrespectful.

But hey your money, spend that shit as stupidly as you want

(3.0 came out 15 years ago for reference, it'll be older than some kids getting the phone ffs)

but like this is just disrespectful.

The word you’re looking for is “anti-consumer”

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I always get last year's model of whatever tech because it's likely to be both cheaper and less buggy due to the bugs already have been fixed.

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Why?

Not that I use the junk this company ships to stores but a part of me would like to hear the meeting where someone proposed this and the rationale to support it.

Easy. Because then it means that the easiest way to get files off your phone to your computer (definitely a Mac, right? RIGHT?) is via an iCloud subscription. Why sell a cable for $10 when you can sell a monthly subscription for $3?

And this is nothing new at all for Apple. I still remember how infuriating it was having to deal with iTunes for moving files to and from my iPod Touch. Jailbreaking so I didn't have to deal with iTunes was such a relief

Android obviously having no issues with you just having direct access to the file system makes it so much easier

nothing about using a USB-C cable inherently means it has to support USB3.

framing it as "limits it to USB 3 Speeds" is misleading. iPhone has only ever supported USB 2, all they're doing here is continuing to not upgrade to USB 3. the meeting where somebody proposed it went like this:

hey, should we put a USB 3 chip in the new iPhone?
nah, let's just keep using the same one as the last generation

Why pay for a better component when the sheep will gladly pay inflated prices for the same old crap?

How many people do you honestly think transfer data by cable? I haven't done it in years, and I have friends with iphones that don't even own a computer!

USB 3 is significantly faster than wifi so I frequently use it for larger file transfers. But I guess with iphone's crippled filesystem you would never have reason to transfer anything.

Everybody is thinking about storage speeds but what I want to know is charging speed. We see Android phones using USBC with more then 100w that can charge to 100% in under 30 minutes. Knowing Apple it will probably be limited to like 5w so that you buy a shitty 15w wireless MagSafe charger instead that they get money from. It will probably still get to 100% in under 2 hours, but only because Apple batteries are ridiculously small (3200mah on most recent iPhones, 5000mah is the budget Android phone standard that you can find on $60 phones, some even going up to 6000mah like the Samsung m54).

Minor gripe: the amp hours of the battery don't tell you anything about actual battery life. I worked for a phone manufacturer for a while and saw devices with 3000mAh batteries that couldn't last a day of idling and I saw devices with 1400mAh batteries that would go a week if you just left it sitting in on the table and didn't touch it. It's all about the efficiency of the SoC before the battery amperage comes into play

Another interesting thing is that charging speeds will vary depending more on the protocol used than the wattage of the charger. A 15w Qualcomm Quick Charge charger will charge a nearly dead phone up to 100% in about an hour, or to 78% in 20-30 minutes, but an old 5v 3Amp charger will take a good 2 hours or more to charge the same phone

My current job has me provisioning iPads into our MDM to send out to the field and holy crap am I sick of plugging 6 iPads into a mess of chargers and waiting hours for them to get up to 50%ish, so i do agree 100% that apple needs to get with the times

Spite. They hate the fact they are made to use USB-C so they're in a strop.

I'm not 100% sure this is why, because their current lighting cable only transfers at USB 2.0 speeds as well (480Mbit/s max)

because their current lighting cable only transfers at USB 2.0 speeds as well

This is the main reason. People are confusing the protocol (USB 2.0/3.0) with the connector (USB C/Lightning). Apple slapping a different connector on the phone isn't changing the underlying technology inside the phone. People claiming that USB-C must mean 3.0 are just spreading FUD in order to shit on Apple again.

And, as others in this thread have pointed out, high speed transfers by cable are low priority for phone users, there are much better tools to do that, like maybe an external hard drive.

The current implementation uses the same electrical wiring as USB 2.0 and they used it because at the time USB-C 2.0 hadn't been released yet. Fair enough, but that was a decade ago, so there's no reason that they haven't upgraded in that time except they realised that it let them sell an inferior cable for more money and tell everyone it was better than USB-C standard. The thing is, if you're moving over to USB-C now anyway why not also take the opportunity to upgrade to 3.0 speeds?

It would cost them literally nothing to do that, and they're still not doing it. Well at the same time they're going on and on about how amazingly fast their wireless charger is. Seems suspicious.

Little bit of a strange article.

First, it's about data transfer speeds. I don't think... anyone else in my extended family, and certainly none of the iPhone users, use a cable to transfer data frequently.

But more importantly - the subtitle of the article says that only the pro models offer faster charging speeds. Despite the article being exclusively about data transfer speeds.

I use USB-C for data heavy applications all the time. I'm running a monitor on one right now.

This means that a bunch of people are just going to end up with cables that are once again locked into their iPhone ecosystem and can't be used for any other purpose. I find it hard to believe that this is anything but Apple thumbing their nose at the new EU regulations by intentionally making their "compliant" cables useless.

I highly doubt the limitation is going to be at the cable. They are generally known for their high quality production capabilities, meaning they would have to actively make the cable worse (and likely cost more while doing so.)

They are likely going to simply limit the controller to 2.0 speeds.

Merely a rumor. Apple is known to put multiple false rumors into their supplier chain to find leakers.

I’m going to wait for the upcoming formal announcement and specs.

I'm confused, is this a strategy meant to persuade people to keep using the lightning cable bullshit?

No, it's a strategy to sell you an expensive cable. Apple always do this, create a problem and offer an expensive solution.

Unless it's limited by hardware this will be a main cause for jailbreaking your iPhone.

What makes you say that? 90% of the users don't even connect their iPhone to a pc anymore.

This is true. I'm a bit biased as that is what I would do. I'd say most users will not even notice. I think most of us here on lemmy are tech heads though and we would be the ones who do connect our phones to PC.

Apple y u gotta be like dis

Nothing new at all. They've literally never not been cunts.

True but most of us would do the same if we worked at apple and asked for your opinion.

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Don't buy products from Apple or Microsoft. It's not impossible, it's not even difficult

So you use google and Samsung?

I use android, OnePlus ATM. I stopped using google search since years ago and use DDG which I love and has been superior to google for years now. Still use google storage but I'd like to shift to a different provider, maybe self hosting with nextcloud

I loved Samsung up to about 5 years ago or so, it's absolute shite now. Samsung was awesome but got complacent int heir success and now it's all corporate bullshit. Bought a monitor that literally fell apart, spent literally over 20 hours on the phone for them to apply warranty. Samsung TVs are now spyware adservers, wtf? Samsung phones are overpriced bloatware machines that can't be cleaned up.

For tv I'd go with LG now, I guess and I hoe they won't fuck it up.

Even for streaming I use jellyfin now to get rid of Disney, prime and Netflix

Good approaches :D hope your android is degoogled. With OnePlus, I can recommend to try PostmarkedOS. It is a linux alpine for multiple android phones, and OnePlus phones are one of the best supported devices.

Nope, it is not. I want to rip google out as it's actively annoying me. Now there is this "swipe left and get google shit" that I don't want and can't disable anymore after an update they did. That for me is reason enough to dump all this shit and go for something different.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll look into it!

Can't wait to find out it is just a software or hardware throttle and with a simple fix get full speed. The small repair shops still going to be busy.

It really should be 3.0 speeds but its not any slower than the lightning cable so it’s pretty much the same. Just a universal charging port instead of an iPhone specific one.

“ the company will limit the transfer speeds on the base model iPhones to just 480Mb/s, the same as Lightning and USB 2.0.”

I don't really care, I'm just glad it'll be USB-C. The only thing I use a cable for on my phone these days is when I rent a car that doesn't have wireless Carplay....and I forgot my wireless adapter.

I mean, fuck Apple! I can't believe this shit! Outrage! Gnashing of teeth! OMFG those bastards!

While you wont often run into the need, it'll become a real issue if you ever end up needing to do a physical backup on a device with near ~1TB of storage used.

Apple's propriety Lightning cable may offer cross-device compatibility

I may need to see the math on this. I thought the only devices it worked across were ones apple decided it would; devices within its own offerings, specifically after relenting on its decision to NOT let them.

It's less "hands across America" and more "stop hitting yourself" while still not playing nice with others.

Please show me where I'm wrong.

Lightning is proprietary. Whatever they say about it offering being cross-device if not specifically talking about Apple products means big $$ to license it, whereas the USB standard is open, and much more flexible.

I haven’t used a cable to sync my iPhone for a long time. The speed does not matter to me unless they give us free tethering via cable. Ever since I got a box of wireless chargers to scatter around the house I don’t think I have used a cable.

The few good things Apple has contributed to the world (libcups) are far outweighed by how much bad they do. Change my mind.

Edit: Ok, emotional response, it looks like this is just a rumor. But I still stand by what I said. Fuck Apple and their shit software.

Hahahha... and a week ago a report said it would be thunderbolt

Ok .thats apparently a controversial opinion but....why does that matter. Usb2.0 is still fairly fast connection ,i doubt it will impact anyone, unless someone dumps a lot of data on iphones for....some reason,honestly i am not sure in what scenraio you would move a lot of data very often from phone to pc or reversed. Its not a headphone jack scenario where they took a capability from a phone. You still can send data through cable.it will just take a minute instead of 10 s.

If you want to do local backups via iTunes or transfer multiple large video files then USB 2.0 speeds are horrendously slow. I do both of these fairly regularly.

Luckily I can transfer videos over wifi, which is much faster than USB 2.0 speed (but still slower than transferring over USB 3.1, which I can do with an android). Backing up my phone requires I leave it there nearly all day because the transfer speeds are so slow and doing wireless backups via iTunes on Windows is broken.

What? USB 2.0 is 480mbps. Much faster than most wifi routers (you need non-cheap 2x2 (i think) antenna to get >300mbps speeds on routers in ideal conditions).

I'm connected to my WiFi 5 router right now at 702 Mbps. With WiFi 6 you can get significantly faster speeds.

USB 2.0 speeds are horrible for modern wired connections and equipment, and that 480 Mbps is theoretical max, not what you'll actually experience on the wire.

That’s fair, fortunately I have a good AP.

Still though, with iPhones being as expensive as they are and their cameras being able to save some large photos/videos, it’s silly that it has to transfer them at such slow speeds.

Having actually read the article now, I am at least glad the pro might support higher speeds.

I mean with 400 Mbps its still like 3 seconda per gigabit/byte( not realy sure which one usb speed is mesured ) . Its possible that its the internal storage speed thats the limiting factor ( or the itune app on Windows ) if its that slow.

Can't remember the last time I actually used a usb port to transfer data.

External drives and sometimes adb are the only time when I'd even connect via USB

Macbooks literally run their entire peripheral ecosystem through USBC.

I don't do it often, but when I need to I don't want to fuck around. Spent an afternoon just a few weeks ago reinstalling star wars kotor and a few hundred mods on the android port. That would have been even more annoying trying to transfer the mods wirelessly

Do external displays and docks count?

On phones and tablets, I usually go for wired connections for video because I'm almost always doing it while traveling, where wireless options either will never work or have some PITA yak shaving setup required before they do. If you can plug in an HDMI cable, you know that it will work.

But why tho? They are going out of their way to make the data transfer slower just to artificially weaken the offering so the Pro looks better. It is anti-consumer and malicious.

Its probably just cheaper. Honestly i am not sure how many pepole there are that usb 3.0 speeds are even a consideration when buying a phone. I honestly dont know how it works on iphones but i know many androids dont have usb 3.0 also. In fact ive rarely even seen usb speeds mentioned anywhere . I know my phone has usb 3.0 but i have ridicolously overspeced asus rog phone( which has 2 USB c one 3.0 and one 2.0 port and that's probably the only reason they even mentioned it )

The intent behind doing it matters. There's no legitimate reason to throttle the product other than self-serving interests on their part that negatively affect customers. It's not like USB-C or USB 3.0 are new technology. USB 3.0 came out months after the first iPhone was released, and USB-C came out when the iPhone 6 hit the market. Remember these aren't $20 portable hard drives they're $1000-$1500 "premium" devices.

And it's likely at least a usb 3 controller in it just limited to 2.0 speeds. Why even bother

This isn't all that weird. Most USB-C cables sold as "charging cables" are only wired up with 4-pin USB 2.0, because it keeps costs down for a product that wasn't designed for data.

And most people never transfer data do/from their phones with USB anyway, in a world of wireless protocols.

can't you just buy a cheaper USB 3.0 speed cable anyway? or is this a hardware limitation that Apple have put in the port of the phone?

I can't imagine the horror show that it must be to live every day in a brain that thinks of nothing but how to scheme and scam people all day.

Cables or the ports?

Can't you always buy a better cable?:(and most likely cheaper, given its Apple shit)

Do correct me if I'm wrong

If the port only have a USB 2 controller you can't get faster speeds. Note that the lightning cable is also limited to USB 2 speeds, they would need more changes than just swapping controller (need more bandwidth to the controller) to support USB 3 speeds

What’s the current usb type on the iPad Pros?

Type C. I think you mean gen? 2018-2020 is 3.1 Gen 2. 2021 onwards is TB4.

That Majin Buu always comes through. Except that one day... Damn you Kakarot!

I expect the pro max to have thunderbolt and normal iPhone to have this slow USB.

You should do less suspecting and more reading.

You mean this part where the article doesn't say if the pros are going to have USB 3 or thunderbolt, and therefore I suspected it was going to be thunderbolt?

If you were going to bring the snark, at least bring the quote to help others too

Although the new info doesn't state what kind of speeds the Pro phones will offer, it's anticipated they will be in the neighborhood of USB 3.2, which tops out at 20Gb/s. At the same time, Apple currently uses a Thunderbolt 3 port on its iPad Pro, which can hit 40Gb/s. Even if Apple went with USB 3.0 for the base model (4.8Gb/s), it could still quadruple that by offering USB 3.2 on the Pro phones. But it sounds like the company isn't interested in providing fast transfer rates on its standard models.

It's literally exactly as fast as lightning is for the current generation phones.. so you lose nothing / gain nothing.

But I guess it's apple so we gotta riot while it's perfeCtly fine for android phones to ship that way depending on which vendor you pick.

That's the difference, Android users have a choice in what phone they buy. Apple users get the new iPhone or the old iPhone, so when bad decisions are made it sucks worse.

You are on lemmy, not on Reddit. We have criteria here

Lightning is already painfully slow for transferring photos and doing backups. Assuming you get max speed the entire time, backing up a full 64GB iphone will take 16 minutes. On USB 3.1 it'd take 4 minutes.

This was Apple's chance to up the bandwidth on their phone ports, it would cost them pennies (maybe less than pennies) and would give them a talking point. 6 years ago the 2017 Pixel 2 had USB 3.1 support. It's 2023 now.

Apple is either trying to squeeze people as much as possible before it's game over for their proprietary cables, or are afraid that people can't identify which cables support which speeds. Maybe a bit of both?

Not acceptable for phones that are more expensive, to have speeds from a USB spec designed in the year 2000. Pixel 7 currently implements USB 3.2 standards, and with USB 4.0 (based on Thunderbolt, designed by Apple and Intel) on the way, I'm sure Android phones will be packing that as soon as they can.

android phones to ship that way depending on which vendor you pick

Almost like Android has no business practices to criticize because it's not a company. This thread is about criticizing Apple, not iOS.

I'd hate to be one of the 15 unlucky buyers...

/s

That said - fsck Apple. I've no interest in their little walled garden. These stunts just reinforce why I feel that way.