In the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus phones, Apple got rid of the Lightning port and replaced it with a USB-C port, which opens a new world of convenience for connecting accessories and peripherals. The USB-C port in the professional models of the iPhone 15 lineup also supports USB-3 speeds, allowing… Data transfer speeds of up to 10 Gbps.
USB-C makes it easy to connect monitors, external storage, cameras, and charge using the same cable as all your other devices.
Here’s what you can do with your new iPhone and its shiny new port
Why did Apple change from Lightning?
Apple is fully invested in the Lightning port ecosystem on the iPhone, however it has been adopting USB-C across its Mac and iPad models since 2015 as a way to modernize computer connectivity. USB-C is versatile, carrying power and data with the same connector, and providing… USB-4/Thunderbolt faster data transfer speeds.
Meanwhile, USB-C has become increasingly popular on the Android side of the smartphone market, but Apple has stuck with Lightning on the iPhone, partly because it’s still reeling from the backlash it experienced more than a decade ago. Time.
The influential factor for Apple was the European Union Commission, which passed legislation to reduce electronic waste by mandating the use of USB-C as a universal connector for phones.
This means that Apple will at least have to make a special model of the iPhone for the European market, and that brings its own complications. Instead, Apple has chosen to adopt USB-C across the board, apart from the frustration of customers having to change all their Lightning cables. current expired, it brings a lot of benefits.
Universal USB-C charging
Now that you have an iPhone 15, you may be about to be able to use the same cable to charge all your devices, as almost all iPads have a USB-C port, and all Macs have had a USB-C port for a decade.
Newer Macs come with Apple’s MagSafe charger, but they can also be charged by plugging into one of their USB-C ports as well. The latest generation Apple TV also comes with a USB-C remote, and Apple just released a new AirPods Pro with USB-C charging case, and you can also purchase the USB-C case separately from the Apple Store.
Apple sells its own USB-C charging cables, and the iPhone comes with a high-quality woven cable in the box itself. Unlike Lightning, USB-C is not proprietary.
To charge your Apple devices, you can use any USB-C charging cable or accessory available in the market. This includes cheaper USB-C cables and USB-C cables of different styles and lengths, and Anker has a 47W dual USB-C power adapter, for example.
To charge your iPhone at full speed, you need to use a 20W or 30W power adapter. You can safely use a higher wattage power adapter like the one that came with your MacBook; The phone will manage power automatically.
Charge other devices with your iPhone 15 battery
Another great angle to the USB-C charging story is that you can use your iPhone to charge other accessories. The iPhone 15 can accept up to 27 watts through the USB-C port, but it can also output about 4.5 watts (Lightning can only handle 0.3 watts only).
This means that you can actually use your spare iPhone battery to power and charge connected accessories. If your AirPods are running low, you can connect them to your phone and your phone will fill the juice in your AirPods case. You can also charge someone else’s iPhone battery, but you have to be aware that It will take some time.
You can easily connect to external displays
With Lightning, you can only connect to external displays via a clunky dongle, with USB-C on the iPhone 15, you can output to the display directly.
Use a USB-C to HDMI cable and project your iPhone screen to a 4K TV or monitor, with screen mirroring
If you’re watching a movie in a streaming video service app, the movie will automatically fill the dimensions of your TV Using playback controls on the touchscreen, easily view your photo library or make a presentation with Keynote by simply connecting your phone directly to the projector.
One use case that Apple is pushing is to position the iPhone as a portable gaming console. Using the power of the A17 Pro chip inside, the iPhone 15 Pro can run some high-end games at high graphical fidelity.
Pair an Xbox or PlayStation gaming console, connect your phone to your TV, and start gaming. The Apple USB-C Digital AV Adapter is a good choice for this use case, as it allows an HDMI port and power output for continuous charging and USB-C passthrough in one convenient dongle.
Expand your local storage with USB-C hard drives and flash SD cards
Plug in a USB-C hard drive or SD card reader and browse files directly using the Files app on iPhone.
If you go on vacation and take a dedicated camera with you, you can import photos directly from the SD card into your iPhone’s photo library.
Then, empty the SD card and keep shooting while you edit and upload the photos you’ve taken on your phone’s large touchscreen.
The iPhone 15 Pro Camera app lets you record ProRes 4K video at 60fps directly to uncompressed USB-3 ProRes storage and the file sizes are huge, consuming gigabytes per minute of recording.
But when you pair your iPhone with a 1TB portable SSD, you can record for a while before running out of space. This requires a USB-3 cable (not just a charging cable) to take advantage of the fast 10Gbps transfer speeds possible through the iPhone port. 15 Pro.
Connect hardware keyboards and wired Internet
Sometimes, wireless just isn’t enough – you just need to connect.
USB-C on the iPhone supports almost any hardware accessory you can think of, with no special drivers or additional configuration required, meaning you can plug in a hardware keyboard and it will just work.
Or if you’re streaming on the road, you can record with a small USB-C microphone. Another possibility is wired internet, using a USB-C to Ethernet adapter, and if you have a MIDI keyboard, you can create a song on the go with an app like GarageBand.
Wired headphones that work with your phone and computer
Since Apple dropped the headphone jack, most of the world has moved to using wireless Bluetooth headphones like AirPods.
But if you still prefer a wired connection, using wired headphones with the iPhone was inconvenient. Lightning earbuds work with your phone, but not much else.
The iPhone 15 works with any USB-C headphones, including Apple’s new USB-C earbuds. These headphones work with any computer equipped with a USB-C port, so you can finally use the same wired headphones across your phone and iPad. and Mac, and an increasing number of high-end headphones and speakers also rely on USB-C connectivity these days.
Connect multi-port hubs
USB-C is very flexible and allows data and power to be transferred through the same port. This means you can carry a single dongle, which is a multi-port hub that includes all kinds of input and output operations. It is very convenient as iPad and Mac accessories, and now works with the iPhone as well.
For example, the $25 Anker 5-in-1 hub with a USB-3 USB-C port will work on the iPhone 15 Pro and enable you to connect to external displays, connect to power, and connect USB accessories and an external display, all at the same time.
The only thing you need to keep in mind is that the iPhone can output power to the center at 4.5 watts, where the iPad and Mac can provide much higher wattage, so if you are using them with an iPhone, you may also need to connect an external power supply.
