Although Apple only launch new iPhones once a year, the news cycle surrounding them run year round, thanks to the constant barrage of rumors and leaks that start almost as soon as the current iPhone has hit store shelves. The Apple rumor beat, in particular, has a couple of superstar insiders whose tips have proven to be highly accurate. One of them is Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, and in his latest article, he reports that Apple is currently testing iPhones with USB-C charging ports instead of Lightning ports.
This isn't too surprising for anyone who follows industry trends. USB-C is a charging and data transferring tech that's been hailed by tech insiders as the "next big thing" years ago, and outside of the iPhone world, that has come true. Almost all new Android handsets charge via USB-C, as do premium laptops released in the last year or so. Audio products have been slow to adopt to keeps costs down, but that's changing soon, too.
There's almost no good argument against using USB-C on mobile devices: it can deliver more power, more data, more efficiently than older USB or Lightning ports. In fact, even Apple made the switch to USB-C on its laptops and iPads in recent years.
I wrote in my iPad Pro 2018 review that Apple switching to USB-C for the tablet was writing on the wall that the Lightning port is on its way out. I thought it would take Apple a year or two to make the switch--not because the switch itself is that difficult to incorporate, but because the Lightning port, a proprietary Apple innovation, makes the company a lot of money. But much to my excitement, the switch may happen this fall with the release of the 2019 iPhones.
This is a huge win, not just for techies like me, who travel with half a dozen gadgets and would love to be able to charge all of them with one cable, but also accessory makers and Android phone owners in general.
Allow me to explain: most mobile accessory makers today are based in Shenzhen, and while some are huge corporations (like Anker and Aukey), many are relatively small companies that make things such as dongles or SD card readers. They have to build their products for iPhones first, simply because there's more demand there, before then making USB-C versions. For a smaller company, this is a time-consuming process. In the future, they'd only have to design hardware for USB-C, knowing that all phones on the market will use that port.
This, then, means Android phone owners will get more options for accessories, earlier. Because accessory makers can now make products that fit both iPhones and Android devices the same way, they no longer have to prioritize one platform over the other--a battle that Android has never won. Take Insta360, for example, which makes popular consumer-grade 360-cameras. I've tested several of its products, and they were always made for iPhones first, with Android versions coming months later. Soon, Android fans won't have to wait because Insta360 only needs to develop products for one port.
Long story short: other than the one-time inconvenience of iPhone users needing to replace their Lightning port accessories and spare cables, the iPhone's switch to USB-C is a big win for the entire tech industry.
