I'm expecting more complaints with the iPhone's USB-C switch as people discover that all those cables they have stashed in glove boxes, office desks, school backpacks and bedside tables have become obsolete.īut the good news is that USB-C is already very well established, and not just on MacBooks and many iPads. There was plenty of kvetching when Apple switched to the Lightning port, even though it was clear Lightning was superior to the bulky, fragile 30-pin connector that preceded it. Stephen Shankland/CNET USB-C transition less painful than Lightning USB-C cables like the one at left have an oval connector a smidgen larger than Apple's Lightning cables, left. (And most products don't even have icons.) I check for the USB-IF certifications, and I love it when companies like Plugable attach clear descriptive labels so we don't have to decode USB-IF icons. I prefer buying USB-C products that have passed USB-IF's useful if optional compliance testing. And note that your efforts to future-proof your products have limits: The next USB version will reach top speeds of 80Gbps, and Thunderbolt 5 will require 80Gbps support when it arrives in 2024. You can save some money getting cables that only support 10Gbps or 20Gbps - still plenty of capacity for an iPhone - but 40Gbps is handy if you want to use the same cable to plug your PC into a big external display. I'm partial to Anker, Plugable, Satechi and Monoprice, whose cables I've used for a few years.īut thanks to USB's messy history, you have to look at the specs carefully. You can get 40Gbps 1-meter USB-C cables that transfer data at 40Gbps for only a little more than $30. There's a big price difference: Apple's 1-meter Thunderbolt 4 cable, which supports 40Gbps speeds, costs $69. Right now, it offers two options: slow charging cables and fast Thunderbolt cables. And it's one reason I'm irritated that Apple wimped out and shipped a slow USB-C cable even with its expensive iPhone Pro models.Īpple perhaps is concerned about confusing its own customers. It's one reason I've been annoyed with the Lightning port on my iPhone. Now, for serious data hogs, the kind of person who's shooting many gigabytes of 4K ProRes video, a faster cable is useful. That's the big reason Apple could mostly justify shipping an iPhone 15 with a USB 2.0 cable. Best USB-C Docks, Hubs, Chargers, Cables and Accessories.Buying a New iPhone 15? Try These USB-C Accessories First.Even as photo and video files have exploded in size with 50-megapixel phone cameras and 4K video, most of us get that data off our phones with mobile networks, Wi-Fi and AirDrop, not with cables. Indeed, iPhone 15 non-Pro phone owners won't be able to benefit from the speeds of a fast cable even if they have one.ĭata rates were more important in the olden days when we used iTunes to sync music and photos between laptops and iPhones. The good news for iPhone 15 owners is that most of them won't have to care much about whether they have a slow cable. When USB-C is a problem and when it's not A couple of months ago, when I got a new Canon mirrorless camera, I was caught on a trip with slow cables that really bogged down the process of transferring photos to my laptop. Mostly, I use USB-C for charging, and my devices that need fast connections stay attached to their own fast cables.īut problems can happen. I haven't struggled too much with the slow cable problem.

(USB's good backward compatibility means slower, older products generally still work fine when attached to newer ones.) Either the manufacturer was confused, lying or trying to argue that the cable would work in a USB 4 port even if it only supported slow data rates. One affordable cable I saw billed itself as a USB 4 product, but on deeper inspection, it turned out to support only USB 2.0 data transfer. Unlike with Intel's Thunderbolt, which developed the fast data transfer approach in modern USB and uses the USB-C connector, there's no requirement to pass tests. Worse, plenty of device manufacturers trying to cut costs and quickly ship products skip the certification process that the USB Implementers Forum offers. Having three standards - USB, USB-C and USB PD - makes it harder to understand the abilities of all your devices and cables. Most devices don't require that much power, but they do need to know how to negotiate electrical matters - for example, whether a portable battery should charge your laptop or vice versa. Last is USB PD, short for Power Delivery, which governs how USB is used for charging at rates up to 240 watts.

The newest USB standard, USB 4.0, requires USB-C ports, so as time goes by, it'll be fairer to equate USB-C with high speed. Earlier in USB-C's history, it was common for Android phones to support only slow USB 2.0 data transfer speeds, though that problem has faded with newer models. The next standard is USB-C, which refers only to the oval-shaped connector technology.

Ipad charging cable