How often have you found yourself fiddling around with your USB cable or having to try at least thrice before you get the charging cable correctly in the port? USB-C presents itself as an answer. The recent trend of smartphones coming with USB-C ports is not just another fad. It has the potential to become the new standard pretty soon. The future might hold just universal USB-C ports and wireless options.
Apple had switched to Lightning ports for iPhones from iPhone 5. The Thunderbolt was launched in 2011 in the MacBook Pro. The third revision of the Thunderbolt, has a USB-C type port. To the dismay of few users, because it would be a major change and the pleasure of many as it would become a common standard, USB-C has a great scope of being adopted by almost all computer and smartphone manufacturers.
A brief about USB-C:
The new USB standard has been available on phones from 2015. There are several benefits of USB-C. It is reversible and can be used in all devices with USB 3.1 support and is also backward compatible with previous USB versions. The small size of the port makes it an ideal choice for smaller devices. Now that smartphones, laptops and tablets are all becoming thinner day by day, USB-C would be easier to include in them.
What if you could have a single cable that can charge your laptop from a power source or charge a peripheral from your laptop and also aid data transfer? This is what USB-C cables do.
If a single USB port can handle data transfer speeds up to 10Gbps and deliver power output as high as 100W, then would that not make way for a universal port which would reduce the need for separate connectivity ports that take up a lot of space? This is why computer manufacturers are now trying to push USB-C standard. This is why, Apple’s decision to include USB-C in MacBook is a welcome change.
Apple – the trend setter:
When the 2015 MacBook was launched with a single port, the USB-C, some thought it was just another one of Apple’s unique ports. The iPhone which was first launched in 2007 became a pioneer in the smartphone segment. Something current CEO Tim Cook continues to maintain. The same can also be stated for the case of USB-C. This is an open standard which was adopted first by Apple and made popular. Given the performance of the port, and its versatility, Google’s Pixel and several other popular smartphones in the recent years have been released with USB-C. Google also announced that devices with Chrome OS would also come with USB-C in future.
Stack up on dongles and adapters:
While smartphones have now started coming along with USB-C ports, not all laptops and desktop computers have them yet. If you have a USB-C cable, to connect it to the previous version of USB ports, to charge your phone from your laptop, or to transfer files, you would need adapters that can connect your USB-C port to the conventional USB-A port.
Micro-USB is predominantly found in almost all devices except those from Apple. To replace this standard, it will take some time. But the future of USB-C ports has already become a reality. So whether your like it or hate it, you would have to prepare for this major change. Stack up on the dongles and adapters to connect your USB-C devices to your old devices for now.
Limitations that come with the USB-C adoption:
USB-C ports marked the end of MagSafe ports on MacBook adaptors. This would mean that one less port on the device. When you have different sets of ports for all your connections, though it takes up a lot of space on the device, you still have the option to connect several devices. But with USB-C resulting in the reduction of number of ports on the devices, if you have multiple wired connections to be included in your device, it would be a problem. Switching to wireless peripherals might be the solution.
Will iPhone 8 have USB-C?
As MacBook was released with USB-C, there were speculations that iPhone 7 would come with USB-C too. But we were in for a disappointment when this didn’t happen. You still need a converter cable to charge your iPhone 7 from your latest MacBook.
Now there are hopes that the iPhone 8 would come with USB-C. But there have been no rumors in this direction. So the chances are less. With Apple, each of its proprietary ports come with their own licensing terms. There have not been many instances when a universal cable or port has been found to be compatible with Apple. But taking into account the need for a universal fast port which can also handle higher speeds, it is time that Apple considered including USB-C in iPhones too besides the MacBook.
