Apple is not giving up on the Lightning port

Mar 3, 2017 06:18 GMT  ·  By

Reports from a few days ago revealed that Apple might be making another major change to its iPhone devices and replace the Lightning port with USB Type-C on upcoming units. The move was said to be made on the iPhone 8, the phone that will mark the ten-year anniversary since the first iPhone was announced.

The move wouldn’t have been that surprising, considering that Apple unexpectedly ditched the 3.5mm headphone jack on the iPhone 7 launched last year. It would have certainly caught the attention of the market and Apple’s upcoming phones would have followed the trend to adopt USB Type-C ports, found on the company’s latest MacBooks.

Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities has stated for Apple Insider that the Lightning port will remain on all of Apple’s three new iPhones that will be announced later this year.

Fast charging Lightning port to remain on the iPhone 8

The analyst says that Apple will most likely keep the fast charging Lightning port on the iPhone 8. The Lightning port is slightly thinner than USB Type-C and one advantage of switching to this new option is high-speed data transmission. However, Kuo says that this is a “niche application” for the iPhone, and many users prefer to sync data through the cloud.

The analyst says that rather than changing the charging port on the upcoming iPhone, Apple would most likely modify the cable. The iPhone will still feature a Lightning port, but with a USB Type-C cable on the other end, in order to benefit from fast charging capabilities.

The new iPhones would feature “Type-C Power Delivery,” as well as power management technology from Texas Instruments and power delivery chips from Cypress. The anniversary iPhone could also come with faster charging using the new “2-cell L-shaped battery pack design,” according to the report. Aside from fast charging, the new Apple iPhones are also expected to feature contact-based wireless charging.