Why the Lightning (iPhone) Port Has Outstayed Its Welcome

 by James Heppell

Left to right: USB-C, microUSB, Lightning

The Lightning port when introduced on the 2012 iPhone 5 was years ahead of its main competitor microUSB (2007). Reversible, more durable, capable of faster data speeds and more power delivery there was no competition. But times have changed and I think it’s time for Lightning to go, in fact, I think it’s long overdue.

Despite its many downsides, everyone except Apple stuck with microUSB. Why? Because of Lightning’s closed nature. No-one else was allowed to use it. Had they been, maybe we would all be using Lightning on our phones now and this conversation wouldn’t even be happening. But that didn’t happen. Instead, the rest of the industry moved to USB-C, starting the transition in 2015.

Strangely enough Apple played an instrumental role in the development of USB-C, and led the adoption of it in the laptop space. Recently they’ve been using it on iPads as well. Why? Because it’s far more capable than Lightning, and due to its openness has a much bigger accessory market. So where does this leave iPhones and Airpods1? Stuck in the past. Especially because while USB-C keeps getting better and better, Lightning has hardly changed since it was first unveiled. I'm sympathetic to Apple's position; by the time USB-C came to market there'd already been 3 generations of highly successful Lightning-equipped iPhones, not to mention iPads, iPods and accessories built around them. On top of that consumers generally quite liked the port and they made a lot of licensing money from it. But considering they had the “courage” to remove the headphone jack2, a port which has been in use far longer, they should have also had the courage to drop Lightning. In stubbornly sticking with Lightning they've dug themselves a hole, one it seemed they would never get out of... until now.

On 23 September the EU proposed legislation around charging ports which includes3 mandating USB-C charging on all phones, tablets, over-ear headphones, cameras & handheld consoles. It’s likely to come into effect in 2024, and while we’re no longer part of the EU, this change would almost certainly affect us as products shipped to the EU are generally also shipped to the UK4.

While I’ve outlined the technical reasons why I think USB-C should be used everywhere, the EU's reasons for the proposal are different but related: convenience, and environment. 

Imagine a world where your phone, tablet, headphones, laptop, bluetooth speaker, and well everything charged over the same port. And not only that, but everyone's did. No more asking “Do you have an iPhone charger?” only to hear “No I’ve got a Samsung” or “The Android one”5 (the confusion is clear). Just “Can I borrow a charger?”. Now I don’t know about you, but that sounds like convenience to me.

The environment argument is similarly straightforward; more sharing and reusing cables and accessories, both between your own devices and others', leads to less buying new unnecessary ones and therefore less e-waste.

The caveat to both those is what will happen to existing cables. As I mentioned before, a big part of Apple’s reason for not switching is the massive userbase of Lightning users. Because for someone who uses Lightning everywhere, switching to USB-C and making all their cables and accessories useless is neither convenient nor environmentally friendly6. But while that’s a pain, I think it’s best to fix the problem now rather than ignoring it, even if fixing it 6 years ago would have certainly been preferable. In the long term I still think switching would be a net positive. 

So what about the political implications of this legislation? Well I think they boil down to one thing: should this kind of market be regulated? Most people agree standardising wall sockets and EV chargers were good ideas, but is standardising charging ports going too far? I would say no. I don’t have a problem with it; I think sometimes regulation is necessary or at least beneficial, and that it would be in this case. But I think it’s a very valid view to say otherwise. One of the most compelling arguments I’ve heard is ”What if microUSB was standardised like this?” That would not be good, at all. Now the EU says “Any technological developments in wired charging can be reflected in a timely adjustment of technical requirements/specific standards under the Radio Equipment Directive”, but I’m not sure how much I really believe that. What I do believe though, is the argument that there likely isn’t any more innovation to be had. As we’ve discussed, changing ports and really any standards (think how we still use the Imperial measuring system) is a massive undertaking and needs a big reward to be worth it. And what reward could that be? The USB Implementation Forum (yes that’s a thing) doesn’t plan to make a new USB port ever again, USB-C is supposed to replace all existing USB ports. And there really isn’t any innovation happening in other port designs, as we’ve seen. All the work is going into USB-C, it’s the port of the future, and I think beyond USB-C wireless is where the innovation will be happening7 (don’t get me started on wireless charging and data standards). So for all the reasons above I believe this is a good change and I hope it passes into law. The sooner microUSB and Lightning go, the better.

1 And older Magic Mice/Keyboards and Apple TV remotes and Magsafe chargers

2 This is an actual quote from the iPhone 6s launch event, which would have been the phone they switched to USB-C on had they done so at the same time as on MacBooks. 

3 The other fairly uncontroversial imo parts of the proposal are as follows:

All USB fast charging must support the default USB Power Delivery standard (while it's gotten better in recent years, believe it or not some fast charging-devices don't support PD, meaning they can only be fast charged with chargers made by the same company).

Devices need to be labelled with what charging speeds/standards they support so consumers can easily buy the right chargers for them.

And the other fairly controversial one: device makers must provide an option to buy the device without an included charging brick.

4 Especially now there’s no charging brick in the box

5 I recently actually heard someone refer to microUSB as ‘the Android charger’ even though most Androids nowadays use USB-C

6 Of course dongles exist but they’re hardly convenient nor environmentally friendly…

7 The iPhone 14 series is likely to drop the charging port entirely, which massively negates the point of this article I know but oh well. Proves my point that wireless is the future. And as iPhones tend to be sold for quite a few years after they’re initially released, some would still be affected.