this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2023
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That's the point. Expect the iPhone 17 to be portless to the consumer.
There has to be a USB-C. Some people will always want wires to transfer data, even if it's through their "wireless charger", which is proprietary.
And some people will always want a headphone jack... oh wait...
The difference with wireless listening vs. charging is that the former doesn’t need close to 2x the power of the cable-bound method and doesn’t destroy the phone’s battery in the process, unlike the latter
Wireless listening absolutely needs more than 2x the power of wired listening. It also needs charging an entire other device. You're right that it doesn't affect the phone battery, though I don't think wireless charging "destroys" it.
It warms it up, and you're not going to get the absolute maximum battery life out of it if you're wireless, but the impact usually isn't that big, unless you're really cooking it. Using the standard fast charger that comes with your phone is probably going to put about as much, if not more wear than a. 10W wireless charger.
You're not meant to wirelessly charge it by sticking it in the microwave.
It might be more than that. A wired headset is incredibly simple, unless you're running a ridiculous amplifier through it. It's just two speakers, maybe a microphone and button if it's a mobile headset.
By comparison, wireless listening would usually need the audio encoder/decoder chips, the Bluetooth receiver/transmitter, the processors for the pairing/controls/noise cancellation, and the speakers on top of that. That's not a small amount of componentry.
I’ve tried using wireless charging in a friend’s car on my iPhone SE a few weeks back.
Result: notification that charging had (!) to be stopped at around 50% due to overheating and was poised to continue once the iPhone had cooled down sufficiently. It never continued as that was all I needed to know about the current state of wireless charging with light usage on the side.
Good point on the wireless listening and ear pieces needing a battery as well, though. I guess with those it comes down to convenience for most buyers.
I can't imagine Europe wouldn't lose their shit if Apple removed it entirely. And if Android manufacturers did that consumers would also promptly lose their shit.
Beyond the consumer, having a physical port is beneficial to Apple. Businesses use attached devices (e.g. barcode scanners, DSLR camera attachments, charging stations) all the time. It's more common on Android phones, but I do see iPhones using these sorts of things. My local movie theater uses iPhones to scan tickets with an attached Lightning scanner, for example.
I don't disagree that wireless charging is more convenient, but from the standpoint of being in emergency situations where a cable is needed to charge your phone, it wouldn't be easily possible if the port is removed. People might carry around charging bricks, and while wireless charging bricks do exist they're not commonplace and they're certainly slower than charging by wire. I can tell you nobody will want to carry around a portable wireless charger, although MagSafe is almost already just that.
Playing devil's advocate, it's possible Apple does want things like portable wireless chargers to proliferate, like the one you can buy that slap onto the back of your phone. It means you're buying more of their shit, which is something they seem to love so much. It would mean you're buying MagSafe chargers or whatever proprietary crap they manufacture. I still do see it becoming an issue in emergency situations though, e.g. teens (a large user base of iPhones) use their phones a lot and borrow chargers from each other all the time.
Impossible? No. Unlikely? Yes, for now.
They might adopt something like pogo pins for physical connections, similar to the ipads
Do you have an example of this?
Well, as I said, the smart connector on the ipad. It is used to connect the keyboard if I'm not mistaken.
Ah I forgot about the keyboard attachments
But that group of people is growing smaller and smaller with each year. I haven't used a phone cable to transfer files once in the last 8 years. Phones just sync to cloud.
Same. I think the last time I used a cable to transfer data onto my phone was iTunes syncing my iPhone 5s music. Once I moved to Spotify I never needed to sync again.
It’s not the use case of everyone, but I’d bet the majority of iPhone users haven’t used a data transfer in years
I suspect cables are used more on Android because its filesystem is open so you can basically use an Android as a flash drive, which is very convenient at times.
Also since Androids in general have a way faster wired connection, it's more likely to be used for that.
Unlike iOS, Android also doesn't have a way to easily transfer files over WiFi by default.
Whereas if you're embedded in the Apple ecosystem, you can airdrop something from your iPhone to your Mac straight out of the box (after getting set up).
You can install the share app on Windows for the same experience.
I only use it for small files or photos. I use a cable for bigger files like movies or whatever, since it's much faster.
Using a cable with Android is also very easy since you don't need any apps or anything. You just have to click a notification and set the USB mode to "file transfer" from "charge only", after that it just works on pretty much every device. Fast USB ports are also useful because you can connect accessories to your phone like gigabit ethernet, and especially flash drives.
I suspect iPhone users very rarely if ever, transfer big files since the iOS file system is so locked down. The only big thing I can imagine that they would need to transfer is filmed 4k video.
I mean yeah I barely use cables to transfer data, but there are times I need to plug it in to back up files. The Pixel 7 Pro is also a bar of soap and slides off of my wireless charger, so it's more reliable for me to use a USB-C cable. I also like having the phone next to me in bed, and so I use a USB-C cable.
It just seems odd to remove something that is so reliable, even if only to have as a backup method. It would only make sense to remove it if wireless chargers are the dominant form of charging devices, especially in a portable manner.
Having a port also enables things like game controllers and wired headphones, if the user chooses to do something like that.
About the sliding phone, Apple has proposed a magnetic solution to that.
Haven't tried it, but seems to solve that specific issue.
In this case I just have a case on my phone which stops it from sliding. But generally I do like having phones without cases on them.
Yeah same, if I need a transfer I use gdrive
I don't, for privacy reasons. I use either cable or drop.lol
Consumer demands appear to just kinda bounce off of Apple, it's remarkable really.