Apple will reportedly introduce the USB-C port to the iPhone 15 series next year, which would be a first in the company’s history. With the change in interface, the company is also expected to bring Thunderbolt 3 levels of data transfer speeds, but only for the more expensive iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Ultra, according to one analyst.
The Less Expensive iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus Will Still Feature USB-C, but Data Transfer Speeds Will Be Significantly Slower
On Twitter, Ming-Chi Kuo also talks about the less premium iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus, claiming that while Apple intends to bring USB-C to these models, both of them will not get the same data transfer upgrade. Kuo states that the non-high-end versions will continue to support the USB 2.0 standard, which is the same speed limit as the Lightning port.
The analyst states that the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Ultra will support at least USB 3.2 or Thunderbolt 3 levels of data transfer speeds, allowing the more expensive models to quickly move file types of larger sizes and improve the overall user experience. For those that do not know, the USB 2.0 standard tops out at 60MB/s (megabytes), or 480Mb/s, while USB 3.0 maxes out at 600MB/s, or 4,800Mb/s.
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My latest survey indicates all 2H23 new iPhones will abandon Lightning and change to USB-C, but only two high-end models (15 Pro & 15 Pro Max) will support the wired high-speed transfer, and the two standard ones (15 & 15 15 Plus) still support USB 2.0 same as Lightning.— 郭明錤 (Ming-Chi Kuo) (@mingchikuo) November 17, 2022
For some reason, Apple never transitioned to the USB 3.0 standard for the Lightning port for even the iPhone 14 models but is expected to make a massive jump when it introduces USB-C for the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Ultra. Speaking of the two, USB 3.2 has a data transfer limit of 20Gb/s, or 2,500MB/s, whereas the Thunderbolt 3 standard is twice as fast at 40Gb/s, or 5,000MB/s (5GB/s).
To make it less confusing for readers when it comes to data transfer speeds, we have provided a list of the relevant USB standards and their maximum speed limits.
- USB 2.0- 480 megabits per second (480Mb/s), or 60 megabytes per second (60MB/s)
- USB 3.0- 4,800 megabits per second (4,800Mb/s), or 600 megabytes per second (600MB/s)
- USB 3.2- 20 gigabits per second (20Gb/s, or 20,000Mb/s), or 2,500 megabytes per second (2,500MB/s)
- Thunderbolt 3- 40 gigabits per second (40Gb/s, or 40,000Mb/s) or 5,000 megabytes pers second (5,000MB/s)
Assuming Kuo’s prediction turns out to be true, customers next year will experience some massive gains in wired data transfer speeds. Interestingly enough, Apple introduced the Thunderbolt standard when it announced the M1 iPad Pro models with USB-C ports and maintained it when it launched the updated versions with the M2 chipset.
News Source: Ming-Chi Kuo
