Apple’s come out with a new range of iPhone 15 smartphones, and while we wait for the obligatory photo and videography sessions to finish so we can get an idea of how the cameras have improved, there’s some hardware quirkiness to delve into.
From a direct user perspective, the big change is swapping out the proprietary Lightning port for the industry-standard USB-C connector.
USB-C is nine years old now. It solved the most vexing problem plaguing peripheral Universal Serial Bus users, which is that plugging in cables never worked the first time. You had to flip the plug around a few times; none of that with USB-C, as the plug fits either way. Just like the old Apple Lightning connector that’s now history.
Now, USB-C is quite the wonder-connector: it can transfer data really fast (Apple’s iPhone Pro implementation zips along at 10 gigabits a second, which is quicker than most wired networks); it can connect external hi-res displays, network adapters, storage devices, audio gear, multi-port hubs and more.
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The little plug does this by supporting several digital protocols over the same connector, like DisplayPort and the High Definition Multimedia Interface, which is what HDMI stands for, and is used for monitors and cameras.
Apple was happy to add USB-C to MacBooks and iPads years ago, but dragged the chain until now for iPhones. Why’s that?
It could be power input and output. USB-C can deliver a chunky amount of power, 20 volts and five amperes in some cases, which works out roughly as 100 watts. That means heaps faster charging, and the ability to run peripherals directly from the main device without power bricks and cables.
Obviously, there was the European Union pushing for an industry-standard connector for charging purposes, but what might have decided the move to USB-C on iPhone Pros for Apple is the higher power output: compared to Lightning, which manages a mere 100 milliamperes at three volts, the USB-C port on the device can output five volts and 0.9 amperes.
This gives you around 4.5 watts to power up the gear you plug into your iPhone 15 Pro. It’s not heaps, but I was able to use a Seagate FireCuda 1 terabyte external drive for my ProRes video recording at 4K and 60 frames per second jollies (for 72 minutes max, the file sizes are huge).
It might be possible to record 4K ProRes video to really fast Secure Digital (SD) memory cards; the older adapter and card I had for testing maxed out at 1080p resolution.
Apple chief executive Tim Cook holds an iPhone 15 Pro Max during an event at Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California, earlier this month. Photo / Getty Images
Other things that worked included charging another iPhone, accessing footage on a GoPro Hero 11 and connecting a Yubikey USB-C hardware key.
Powered hubs with SD card readers and more USB-C/USB-A etc. connectors should also work.
Nothing is easy and uncomplicated in this world though, and I was not able to connect the iPhone to the network with a 10-gigabit-per-second Ethernet brick.
This despite having what seemed like the right Thunderbolt 3 cable hooking up the two devices. The iPhone 15 Pro Max dismissively said it does not support Thunderbolt accessories, which is baffling as Apple’s support documents suggest using the very same cables for connecting displays.
For a moment I toyed with the idea of buying a USB-C cable with Thunderbolt 4 support, the latest revision of the protocol, until I saw it costs over $220 and wasn’t in stock anyway.
Then I remembered the 4.5-watt limit on output power from the iPhone 15 Pro’s USB-C port. Sure enough, the OWC 10GE adapter uses 8.2 watts, which could be why it doesn’t work.
This is immensely annoying, and I have to fix it or I won’t be able to check if the hidden Ethernet network interface on the iPhone 15 Pro Max can keep up with an 8/8Gbps HyperFibre internet connection.
Here’s another gotcha: on the lower-spec iPhone 15, the USB-C port manages USB 2 speeds - a mere 480Mbps. The full super-fast 10 Gbps USB 3 data transfer hoojam is for iPhone 15 Pros only and yep, buying a better cable than the one bundled with the phone is required.
Could we not have had a higher-spec cable bundled, at least with the expensive iPhone Pro phones, Apple?
Either way, while it might be annoying to recycle Lightning connector accessories or get adapters for them, USB-C gives you the lovely One Cable To Rule Them All feels, and opens up iPhones to a well-established ecosystem of peripherals and interconnectivity.
The connector upgrade is well worth it, especially for the iPhone Pro, which is now able to generate huge amounts of data that otherwise takes a long time to transfer from the device, even if you have a speedy Wi-Fi 6E wireless network (yes, that’s another hardware upgrade on the new phones). Added technical complexity notwithstanding.
