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Here's Why Apple Hasn't Made a Portless iPhone
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My Samsung Galaxy A25 has a headphone jack, so rumors of Samsung having ditched the jack are greatly exaggerated.
I refuse to buy a phone ever again with proprietary charging, from Apple or otherwise.
No exceptions.
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I was like who write this since saying there wouldn’t be any downside in speed is completely wrong. Aside from wires still being faster on paper, in real world it’s light years faster since wireless charging drops drastically as the device heats up and other issues. So while someday they may be equivalent, charging speed is currently a massive differentiator and the main reason why we don’t have a portless phone not the EU. Just like how in theory wifi is faster than Ethernet, but Ethernet is better I. Real world cases almost every time.
Over the years, there have been rumors suggesting that Apple eventually wants to make an iPhone without any ports, allowing for a completely wireless charging experience. An iPhone without ports has been speculated about, and Apple has even published patents for an all-glass iPhone with no ports or buttons.
Apple apparently considered making its dream a reality with the upcoming iPhone 17 Air, but ultimately decided not to do so. In his latest Power On newsletter, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says that one of Apple's ideas for the iPhone 17 Air was to design it without a USB-C port, which means it would only charge via MagSafe.
Apple did not end up going in that direction, because there were internal concerns that eliminating the USB-C port in the iPhone 17 Air would get the company in trouble with regulators in the European Union.
With the iPhone 15 lineup, Apple transitioned away from Lightning and adopted USB-C for iPhones because of an EU law that passed in 2022. The law requires technology companies to use a "common port," aka USB-C, for charging purposes. Technically, the law only applies in the European Union, but it was easier for Apple to make the change worldwide than to develop a special USB-C iPhone in Europe and continue using Lightning elsewhere.
Along with potentially angering the European regulators, getting rid of the charging port on an iPhone entirely would undoubtedly upset customers. When Apple eliminated the headphone jack from the iPhone 7, there was a lot of pushback from iPhone users, and other smartphone brands like Samsung spent plenty of time making fun of Apple's choice before ultimately following Apple's lead and removing headphone jacks from Android smartphones.
The iPhone 16 models now support MagSafe charging at up to 25W, and can fast charge with MagSafe and a 30W power adapter. Fast charging allows an iPhone to charge to 50 percent in 30 minutes, and the faster MagSafe charging puts wireless charging on par with fast charging over USB-C. With fast charging available with MagSafe, there wouldn't be a downside to eliminating the USB-C port in terms of speed, but there would be far less flexibility because USB-C chargers and cables have become so universal.
Though Apple isn't adopting a port-free design for the iPhone 17 Air, it's not an idea the company is abandoning. If the new super thin iPhone sells well, Apple will revisit portless iPhones and slim down the rest of the iPhone lineup, too.
Article Link: Here's Why Apple Hasn't Made a Portless iPhone
Shhh don’t bring facts. EU-haters hate them.
Ever heard of airdrop? Works fine for transferring my iPhone photos to my Mac for me
If I select <100 at a time airdrop works like a charm for me
As usual this is the results we get after the EU sticks its nose in where it doesn't belong and has no business being and stifles innovation. I wish Apple had a CEO who had the balls to tell the EU to pound sand.
The EU hasn't done anything benificial for anyone except line their own coffiers.
The EU hasn't done anything benificial for anyone except line their own coffiers.
I think it a good idea to keep developing. Perhaps try it out on a lower volume iPhone to start. Call it a consumer test bed and add some other new, must have feature to make it compelling for people to buy.
Any regulatory concerns could be addressed by simply having a MagSafe charger in the box with a Usbc cable.
For anything requiring faster data transfer add the Smart Connector from the iPad and actually make it useful. Hmm, maybe the Smart Connector would connect to the MagSafe charger?
And as for wired CarPlay, Apple could make a decent wireless connector similar to products like carplay2Air, but work better.
Any regulatory concerns could be addressed by simply having a MagSafe charger in the box with a Usbc cable.
For anything requiring faster data transfer add the Smart Connector from the iPad and actually make it useful. Hmm, maybe the Smart Connector would connect to the MagSafe charger?
And as for wired CarPlay, Apple could make a decent wireless connector similar to products like carplay2Air, but work better.
Meanwhile I can choose a single photo and it'll fail most of the time. Sometimes it'll refuse to "see" the Mac in the first place, but usually it'll come up with "Waiting..." and then not transfer. Occasionally it'll succeed but tell me it failed, and then maybe 25% of the time it'll actually work as it should.
Apple needs to get this working much more reliably if it wants to get rid of the port.
Unfortunately that’s useless for my iPad.
I mean that I can’t use Phone Link to move files from my iPad to my Windows laptop, and AirDrop is equally useless for this purpose.
That must be why my Apple Watch has a USB-C port … oh, wait a minute … it doesn’t!
But iPads are not rumored to lose their port, they don’t even have wireless charging.
Is there not a way to plug an iPad into a Windows computer today to transfer files?
iPads aren’t on the port chopping block rumor mill today, but they will be eventually if portless becomes a thing for iPhone.
I don’t think so, wireless charging is too inefficient for those much larger batteries.
In 10 years maybe…
The EU has everything to do with it. You know if Apple did this then the EU would, as it always does, invent charges or find some way Apple violated some imaginary regulation so the EU could line their coffiers further at Apple's expense.
Of course Apple will go to portless / totally wireless eventually. As soon as they think it's feasible. That has been Apple's trajectory over the decades. Always first to abandon something that's on its way out but has an adequate modern substitute. And almost always, after a lot of whining and mocking, the entire industry quickly follows.
My guess is that Apple has engineers working furiously on getting data transfer to be wicked fast and reliable, even if it means building a new chip or architecture to assist. Because as several here pointed out, that's a remaining weakness and barrier to going fully wireless / portless.
Wireless is the future. Look how far it has come, to where we are wirelessly handling individual 4K movie streams without even thinking about it. Wirelessly charging batteries, even gigantic car batteries. Wireless extreme fidelity for live music and Hollywood film production. When they figure out wireless energy transmission at rates powerful enough to run lightbulbs at a distance, the world will be a whole different place.
But of course one thing will never change: there will always be a cadre of grumpy geezers complaining about whatever it is.
My guess is that Apple has engineers working furiously on getting data transfer to be wicked fast and reliable, even if it means building a new chip or architecture to assist. Because as several here pointed out, that's a remaining weakness and barrier to going fully wireless / portless.
Wireless is the future. Look how far it has come, to where we are wirelessly handling individual 4K movie streams without even thinking about it. Wirelessly charging batteries, even gigantic car batteries. Wireless extreme fidelity for live music and Hollywood film production. When they figure out wireless energy transmission at rates powerful enough to run lightbulbs at a distance, the world will be a whole different place.
But of course one thing will never change: there will always be a cadre of grumpy geezers complaining about whatever it is.
Impudence charging generates a lot of heat, and is pretty inefficient. Heat kills battery life too.