LIGHTNING IS DEAD, LONG LIVE USB-C

FIVE REASONS WE'RE THRILLED & READY

- CULLEN THOMAS

Apple has retired the decade-old Lightning cable from every product in its lineup. As our existing devices age out of use and we update to new devices with USB-C, we will finally recycle our tangled drawers of old Lightning cables, only to invest in a new collection of USB-C cables to tangle in our drawers. Despite this inconvenience, we’re excited to make the switch. Here are five reasons this change is welcome, plus one thing to bear in mind:

1) SPEED: USB-C CAN LEAVE LIGHTNING IN THE DUST

The maximum data transfer rate of a Lightning cable is 480 Mbps, or about one music CD in 25 seconds. The maximum data transfer rate of a USB-C cable is currently 40,000 Mbps (usually written as 40 Gbps, but I’m using the same units for the comparison). At that rate, you wouldn’t notice any transfer time for a music CD, it would happen before you could blink.

As startling as that difference may appear, we must moderate our expectations. A USB-C cable can be built to a few different specifications, and only the very fastest (USB 4/Thunderbolt 4) achieves that 40 Gbps transfer rate, and only in certain applications such as very fast solid-state hard drives. iPad Pro models offer USB 4/Thunderbolt 4, but the iPhone 15 Pro models use the older and slower USB 3 standard, which offers a potential transfer speed of 5,000 Mbps (5 Gbps). At that lower spec, a whole music CD’s worth of data should transfer to the 15 Pro in about one second. A regular iPhone 15 uses the USB 2 standard, which is similar to Lightning.