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Apple Reportedly Planning to Limit iPhone 15's USB-C Port in the Same Way as Lightning
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Apple originally included chips in the cables to make sure no one else was doing it and harvesting your data.
If you check it out you'll find these charging cables do exist and quote:
They look the same as any normal cable, and general users cannot tell the difference. When connected, they create their own Wi-Fi hotspot through which a hacker can connect to your device even if he is more than a mile away. The cable can record anything you type, including passwords, and send the data back to the attacker.
Apple have been doing this for years- long before I even knew it could be a problem-and I for one would be disappointed if they stopped now.
If you check it out you'll find these charging cables do exist and quote:
They look the same as any normal cable, and general users cannot tell the difference. When connected, they create their own Wi-Fi hotspot through which a hacker can connect to your device even if he is more than a mile away. The cable can record anything you type, including passwords, and send the data back to the attacker.
Apple have been doing this for years- long before I even knew it could be a problem-and I for one would be disappointed if they stopped now.
Have you seen the price tags on these machines? These are premium products, and I find it disgusting to see Apple intentionally crippling machines where they already rack up +30% margins for just a couple of dollars.
Yes, it adds up to millions, but it’s still an insignificant amount in the grand scheme of things, and tarnishes their premium brand image (or at the very least should). As I usually say, “you’re not supposed to deepthroat the boot, but okay”.
Oh really, it reminds you of that? Except we’re not talking about ethereal qualities that only “very special humans” with “very special ears” can appreciate, we’re talking about something even the worst ADHD-ridden brain (like my own) can feel on a very tangible, very real scale: TIME. And while I’m not this, y’know, huge entrepeneur or whatever, even I can appreciate that “time is money” (or, better yet, that time can be literally life passing you by). Can’t you? 🤔
What’s even more disgusting is Apple offering a first-generation machine with real-world performance benefits to early adopters, who become word-of-mouth influencers, and after them, those on the second wave will either be literally shafted by getting an inferior machine in an important metric, or, in case they are wise enough to know the difference, *feel* shafted by Apple’s nickel-and-diming as they begrudgingly take Apple’s upselling path and get the obscenely-priced space upgrade as a consolation prize (yes, some people may have a plethora of external media and favour fast I/O over huge internal storage). It’s not exactly false advertising in the legal sense of the term, but ethically, yes, that’s exactly what it is. If anything, it’s lousy expectation management.
And full disclosure: I’ve spent more than €10.000 over the years on Apple gear, but this is ridiculous. It’s like the third time in but a few years they degrade a machine in some meaningful way. This is one of the few things (and yes, DO correct me if I’m wrong; and the infamous G4 doesn’t count because I mentioned it already, I just want to know of other examples) that Steve Jobs likely wouldn’t ask Apple engineers to do if he was still around (heck, he might do the opposite, i.e. ask them to use an even better component configuration, MSRP be damned).
You know, I don’t forget – nor forgive – those stupid fusion drives, and especially the later ones, when they crippled their SSD component down to ridiculous amounts of storage (32 GB, IIRC 🤦♂️) that wouldn’t even cover their respective machines’ top memory config, thus not even being able to properly swap stuff into virtual memory (which amounts to literally bad system design and false advertising, as those machines couldn’t properly benefit from RAM upgrades without internal storage overhauls to match them).
Last time I checked, those became a thing in the 2012 iMacs, right after SJ’s passing, and really came into their own as a craptastic and outdated solution (an important distinction, because they were indeed a good idea when they were first introduced and had to be in some sort of DVT stage while SJ was still alive) well into Cook’s tenure, and lingered on until as late as 2019 (!!!). If SJ was alive™, I’m pretty sure he would’ve killed them off once big SSDs started dropping to more sensible price points, or at least would’ve ensured they wouldn’t become complete crap (that’s the thing, their SSDs were severely crippled from a very reasonable – again, IIRC –128 GB, precisely when their prices were dropping, which makes it all the more egregious) or have them restricted to the perennially inferior – and largely inaccessible to the public – education-only models.
And guess what, I was one of those suckers who had to pony up for a pure 512 GB SSD 5K iMac model, just so I could upgrade its memory down the road and not have the machine crap itself, or otherwise have to pizza-cutter-slice my away around its super fragile, all-glass screen and fascia sandwich.
Them saddling you with a 32 GB SSD on ANY 27’’ 5K model was just insulting on a very deep, very visceral level even back in 2017-2018, let alone on the eve of the switch to Apple Silicon, almost as if they were purposely trying to make their old machines look even worse by comparison or something. Then Apple wowed us with M1 Macs and their SSDs’ insane speeds, and now they crap all over us again. Nice! 👍 (not)
The way I see it, Apple isn’t succeeding because they have an operations guy at the helm; they are succeeding despite having a bean-counter mistreating their most loyal customers, because their kit is overall better than the competition and their design still second to none, and by huge margin.
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Hobbyist arguibg over specs that have no impact on most users? Yea, the same.
Given most users are likely to have file sizes well under 100MB, the transfer speed has no noticeable impact on time. I took a quck look at file sizes on my machine. On of the most complicated Word documents, several hundred pages, with a number of graphics, was well under 100 MB. Photos? Even my DSLR ones were well under 20mb. A large spreadsheet with 40+tabs, VB code and data was less the 2 MB. No "time" impact.
Sure, special use cases will see some slowdown, but that user is not likely buying the minimum spec machine. even if tehy did, they won't see a noticable performance hit most of the time.
And a Gen 2 as well; with better real world performance.
I get the loss aversion reaction, even if it isn't completely rational.
Okay, so do explain: Why wouldn’t I let an unsubstantiated rumor affect my purchasing decision for an unannounced and unreleased device?
USB Type C is a port which can support myriad different data protocols as well as various charging protocols. AFAIK nothing in the EU directive requires support above the bare minimum charging and defines no data protocols as required. If you have a citation otherwise please post it.
Of course you would - getting all worked up over unannounced and unreleased devices is a fundemental human right of all internet users.
The whole point of the EU directive, as you point out, was to require devices support someminimum charging spec, if the use wired charging. Interestingly, IIRC, they did not require cables to support the same spec, so you still can have a cable that doesn't work with a device because even if it has a USB-C plug it doesn't support the EU charging spec.
In theory, Apple/Google/Samsung could make a device that complies with the EU directive but include a cable that only supports higher speed charging and thus only works with their device; not that they would do that as it makes no sense.
Of course I would? Would what, exactly?
While everyone has the opportunity to get emotional over random unsubstantiated rumors related to unannounced / unreleased inanimate objects, I don't see any point in doing so.
You can bet on it. Apple always nickel and dimes its customers. They live to put restrictions and make money out of it.
From time to time, companies seed rumors about products to gauge public reaction, so I would not be too dismissive of rumors either.
As you can see in the replies in this thread, most people have have found the rumor to be believable due to Apple's past decissions.
Time to time?
This is just the latest in a never ending stream of rumors about almost everything Apple “might” do. What makes you think this one happens to be seeded by Apple?
I did not say it was, only that it is a possibility.
You know, you might want to see the name of the website to learn how come there are so many rumors on what Apple might do on this website.
My comment isn’t about rumors being on MacRumors, it’s about clutching pearls because every rumor is treated as fact.I did not say it was, only that it is a possibility.
You know, you might want to see the name of the website to learn how come there are so many rumors on what Apple might do on this website.
Ah, so once again we get to skip the 15 series completely. Let's hope they get their **** together in the next few models so there's point to buy one again. Or maybe it's finally time to jump ship. My wife already went from iPhone to Android and doesn't seem to want to look back as she finally has a true all-day battery and all she really lost was our shared shopping list in Reminders and two AirTags. And there are replacements for those.
I think it may finally be time to jump ship from both Apple and Android and look for something else (or more likely live without a cell phone, since there’s hardly anything other than Apple and Android in the mobile phone market).
I’ve been waiting for the new iPhone because I’m not buying another phone with this P.O.S. Lightning port. It’s absolute garbage if you work outside, too much **** gets in there and is hard to get out safely. My last phone stopped charging or connecting to anything for this reason. I cleaned it out carefully, but one of the pins was bent to the side apparently.. I swear, it was like operation.. because of apples BS opposition to right-to-repair, nobody but apple could fix it. They quoted me $790 to fix it! My blood could have boiled out of my body at that moment. I charged it wirelessly and traded it in. Your problem now ******s, though it still cost me a bunch of money. I have been a Mac guy for at least 25 years.. MacBook Pro, iPhone 13 Pro Max, AirPods Pro, iphone SE for my business phone, an iPad Pro 12.9, Apple Watch ultra, and an Apple TV is the current lineup. I swear, if apple screws with the usb-c connector I’m out. It’s all going on eBay and I will never own another apple product in my life. Tim Cook blows goats, apple hasn’t innovated anything substantial since Steve Jobs passed. Shameful, and I’m pretty confident I’ve earned (payed) for the right to that opinion.
The iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro's USB-C port and accompanying charging cables will feature a Lightning-like authenticator chip, potentially limiting their functionality with Apple-unapproved accessories, a rumor shared on Weibo suggests.
The rumor declares that Apple has developed its own variant of USB-C for this year's iPhone 15 lineup and comes from a user who claims to be an integrated circuit expert with 25 years of experience working on Intel's Pentium processors.
Integrated circuit (IC) interfaces are semiconductor chips used to manage the sharing of information between devices. Since their introduction in 2012, first-party and MFi-certified Lightning ports and connectors contain a small IC that confirms the authenticity of the parts involved in the connection. Non-MFi-certified third-party charging cables, for example, do not feature this chip, often leading to "This accessory is not supported" warnings on connected Apple devices.
The authenticator chip allows Apple to encourage customers to buy genuine iPhone peripherals and receive a commission on MFi-certified accessories, but it also allows Apple to tackle counterfeit and potentially dangerous accessories.
The latest rumor seems to suggest that Apple has developed a similar custom IC for the USB-C ports on the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro, and presumably its charging cables. As well as the iPhone 15 lineup, the new IC is apparently destined for new MFi-certified peripherals.
It is worth noting that the USB-C interface currently used by Apple in the 10th-generation iPad, iPad mini, iPad Air, and iPad Pro, do not contain an IC chip for authentication, meaning that this would be a first for ports of this kind offered by the company.
It is unclear if this addition could have any major implications for the functionality of the new devices, but it is possible that Apple could limit features like fast charging and high-speed data transfer to Apple and MFi-certified cables.
According to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the USB-C port on the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus will remain limited to USB 2.0 speeds – the same as Lightning. Only the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max models will apparently get faster transfer speeds. As a result, the only major difference between Lightning and USB-C on the standard iPhone 15 models could simply be the physical shape of the connector.
The report is particularly believable since this would effectively mirror the split between the entry-level iPad and the iPad Pro. While both iPad models feature a USB-C port, the 10th-generation iPad is limited to USB 2.0 speeds of up to 480 Mbps, while the iPad Pro offers fully fledged Thunderbolt speeds up to 40 Gbps.
Article Link: Apple Reportedly Planning to Limit iPhone 15's USB-C Port in the Same Way as Lightning
