Forget about USB-C on an iPhone — NEVER going to happen By CNET

I know this is going to break your heart, but hear me out, USB on an iPhone is never going to happen. This is my dongle life created because of apple. You see most gadgets today use an USB c port for charging and transferring data between accessories. In fact, my MacBook has the USB ports. The new iPads switch to USB to connect to accessories, but not the iPhone. It still has a lightning port.

Now lots of folks thought. Oh boy, the iPhone 12 lineup was going to be the iPhone's big moment to finally level up to that sweet, USB everything life nope no moment not gonna, be a moment. The iPhone 12 lineup sticks with lightning and, although you may be dreaming of a perfect world where all accessories and cords work together in harmony with the same USB ports, there is one simple reason why Apple is going to crush those dreams. You see apple wants an iPhone with no ports at all. There have been a few leaks and reports that apple's working on a totally wireless iPhone, but the most obvious proof of this is the MagSafe charger in the new iPhone 12s.

It's a wound-up, coil and magnet system that can snap together with a circular charging pad just like how folks charge their apple watches. Charging on the new iPhone 12s can still be done with a normal, lightning cable, but this MagSafe snappy charge stuff. That's a separate thing you see. MagSafe can be used for various accessories beyond a charger like wallets that snap on the company, welkin is working on, some charging stands and car mounts makes you wonder how far can we take these accessories? What, if that magnet started snapping on extra cameras, lights, battery packs, game controllers? We have seen this concept executed with other phones. Remember, Motorola's motor mods magnetic pins on the back of the phone meant you could snap on extra battery packs a speaker game controller, even a point-and-shoot zoom camera Motorola was not the only one trying to cook up this accessory snap-happy future google's project aura was a modular phone that used magnets, so you could swap out different components to the back panel.

It turned your phone into a Lego project of sorts and there were essential phones, ph1's modular camera, the magnetic contact on the top connected a camera, but the data had to be transferred. Wirelessly MagSafe is apple's version of this very concept, and if there are no ports well, an iPhone could be smaller or the space inside can be utilized for other things, apple's all about that clean, no wires, minimalist! Look, it just makes sense. But okay, let's say MagSafe is only really used for charging, but why not just keep the port on the bottom and have apple turn it into USB just to have the option you know like the iPad does at least for now, until we're ready for a fully wireless phone uh. But that's where we get to the second big reason: iPhone will never get USB the environment. Earlier this year, European politicians pushed apple and other gadget makers to just go with UPC as the universal port to reduce waste.

So you wouldn't have to deal with all these different proprietary cables floating around well. Apple did not agree. It said ditching, the lightning port would create an unprecedented amount of electronic waste. Yeah, remember 2012 when the 30 pin connector was obsolete and everyone lost their minds, throwing their I home in the trash. Well apple has more than a billion devices that use the lightning connector, so just think of all the accessories and speakers and docks that get thrown out when you ditch the lightning port.

Now, if Apple is going all wireless you're going to toss out those chargers anyway in a year or two, but if you had to buy more USB compatible accessories and then throw those away also in a year or two well, it would be a bad look for apple because, as you know, Apple is a company that does a lot of stuff to help the environment such as not including a power adapter or headphones with its thousand dollar phone. Why would apple be wasteful and make you buy new USB chargers and accessories when it would? Rather have you spend forty dollars on a new mag, safe charger that isn't included in the box, which would need to be packed and shipped separately and lead you to throw away your old wireless charging pad whether Apple's charger change ups help the environment will still need to be seen, but it is clear that by using MagSafe apple wants customers to shift more into the wireless world as it gets you hyped about wireless accessories and cases and docs. For now that means apple. Wants you focused on MagSafe, not USB, I'm not sure. I'm going to like wireless everything in an iPhone, but we get to look forward to how that's going to shape out.

Let me know in the comments: if you disagree, what your thoughts are about USB and MagSafe, or you could just tell us about how your dongle collection is going.

Source : CNET