Report: 2019 iPhone Still Ships With a 5W Charger

Every year Apple refreshes its line-up of iPhones, but the accessories that accompany it in the box hardly ever change. For the 2019 iPhone models, there was hope Apple intended to improve the charger to allow for faster battery top ups, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

As 9To5Mac reports, the Japanese website Macotakara believes that the iPhone model refresh this year only extends as far as the smartphone in the box being different. Alongside it, the same 5W charger, USB-A to Lightning cable, and Lightning EarPods will be included.

If correct, it confirms that Apple is continuing to stick with the Lightning port on the iPhone for now and that it is unwilling to take the profit hit adding a more powerful charger to the box would bring. For consumers purchasing one of these handsets it means accepting slower charge times or further investment to acquire a faster charging solution.

If you regularly leave your iPhone ($156.98 at Amazon) to charge overnight, the 5W charger won't really matter. However, as the iPhone can support fast charging using the Lightning port over the USB Type-C protocol, it's a missed opportunity for Apple to boast about "fast charging out the box" when the new models launch.

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iPhone sales are slowing down and Apple has a lot of money in the bank. It really needs a marketing win to bolster sales performance this year, even if that does cost more to achieve, but clearly profit margins come first. And it's not like the company doesn't already have better chargers it could include, for example, the 12W iPad charger.