iPhone 11 Pro Two Questions About the 18W USB-C Adapter

[Caliber26]

1) how much faster will it be to charge an iPhone 11 Pro Max with the included 18W adapter as opposed to using the old Lightning chord paired with a 12W iPad adapter?

2) based on what Apple says on their website, it looks like the 18W isn’t compatible with my 6th gen iPad. Does this mean that it won’t charge the iPad at all? Would there be any risk to the iPad?

 

[nbuubu]

No one will know the answer to 1) until the review embargo lifts. I would suspect, having used quick charging on my iPhones for years, that the difference will be significant compared to a 12W adapter.

No one will also be able to 100% confirm 2) either until these devices are out for testing and review, but I’d be pretty shocked if the 18W charger only works with new iPhones. Apple (like most consumer electronics companies) knows that people tend to mix/match cables and chargers all the time, and there should be a dropped-down setting in the charger itself to detect which device is connected and default down to 12V or even your basic USB 5V depending on what’s connected to it. Likely won’t charge at full speed, but it should charge up eventually.

 

[Caliber26]

No one will know the answer to 1) until the review embargo lifts. I would suspect, having used quick charging on my iPhones for years, that the difference will be significant compared to a 12W adapter.

No one will also be able to 100% confirm 2) either until these devices are out for testing and review, but I’d be pretty shocked if the 18W charger only works with new iPhones. Apple (like most consumer electronics companies) knows that people tend to mix/match cables and chargers all the time, and there should be a dropped-down setting in the charger itself to detect which device is connected and default down to 12V or even your basic USB 5V depending on what’s connected to it. Likely won’t charge at full speed, but it should charge up eventually.

Gotcha. Thanks for explaining that second part. Hopefully that’s the case. I prefer to travel with a single chord and adapter so I’m hoping that doesn’t change when I move to the Pro Max.

 

[ruslan120]

If you really wanted to, you could get an approximation by looking for 5W vs 12W speed comparisons, and extrapolating that to 18W.

And then taking those numbers and scaling them up to the listed battery capacities of the new iPhones.

 

[The Game 161]

1) how much faster will it be to charge an iPhone 11 Pro Max with the included 18W adapter as opposed to using the old Lightning chord paired with a 12W iPad adapter?

2) based on what Apple says on their website, it looks like the 18W isn’t compatible with my 6th gen iPad. Does this mean that it won’t charge the iPad at all? Would there be any risk to the iPad?

0-50% in 30 minutes

 

[jkozlow3]

1) how much faster will it be to charge an iPhone 11 Pro Max with the included 18W adapter as opposed to using the old Lightning chord paired with a 12W iPad adapter?

2) based on what Apple says on their website, it looks like the 18W isn’t compatible with my 6th gen iPad. Does this mean that it won’t charge the iPad at all? Would there be any risk to the iPad?

#1 - Historically, there has only been a minimal difference between the 12w & 18w adapters in charging speeds. See this report that was done by MacRumors with the iPhone X. Starting from 0%, the 12w charger achieved a 72% charge after 60 minutes. The 18w charger achieved a 79% charge after 60 minutes. That's a pretty negligible difference as far as I'm concerned. For comparison, the 5w adapter only achieved a 39% charge after 60 minutes. Link: https://www.macrumors.com/guide/iphone-x-fast-charging-speeds-compared/

#2 - I'm very interested in the answer to this as well. I have an iPad 5th generation (as does my wife). As with most people that are part of the Apple ecosystem, we've got various Apple charging adapters throughout our home, in our laptop bags, at our offices, etc. We'll almost certainly find ourselves plugging the iPads into an 18w adapter at some point - even if unintentional. I'm not sure why Apple doesn't list these older model iPads as "compatible" on the 18w adapter page. I would love to hear more people's thoughts on this!

 

[Renho]

1) how much faster will it be to charge an iPhone 11 Pro Max with the included 18W adapter as opposed to using the old Lightning chord paired with a 12W iPad adapter?

2) based on what Apple says on their website, it looks like the 18W isn’t compatible with my 6th gen iPad. Does this mean that it won’t charge the iPad at all? Would there be any risk to the iPad?

I use a 29W third party adapter I have used for 2 years. From like 5% to 100% it took 50 min give or take. The first 50% goes quick then it slows as it gets fuller. Technology is still not out to power it up to 100% at the same voltage.

yes you can use the same cable it just won’t fast charge it...

 

[Strelok]

18W charger should be compatible with pretty much any device, it just won’t charge them any faster if they don’t support it. There’s no risk of damaging your device.

 

[winterny]

I would imagine that for the Pro Max the difference will be pretty noticeable on the 0-50% charge times.

It's got a large enough battery that it can probably charge at the full 18W, meaning that charge times would be 50% faster (ie: 30 minutes for 18 Watt charger, and 45 minutes for 12 Watt charger).

Charge times over 50% always slow down (and in particular, charge times above 80% are much slower).

 

[TheIntruder]

#1 - Historically, there has only been a minimal difference between the 12w & 18w adapters in charging speeds. See this report that was done by MacRumors with the iPhone X. Starting from 0%, the 12w charger achieved a 72% charge after 60 minutes. The 18w charger achieved a 79% charge after 60 minutes. That's a pretty negligible difference as far as I'm concerned. For comparison, the 5w adapter only achieved a 39% charge after 60 minutes. Link: https://www.macrumors.com/guide/iphone-x-fast-charging-speeds-compared/

Bingo, it's not going to be a huge difference, and it will be blunted since the battery capacities have grown in the new Pro models, at least unofficially. (11 = negligible difference, 11 Pro = +20%, 11 Pro Max = +10%)

#2 - I'm very interested in the answer to this as well. I have an iPad 5th generation (as does my wife). As with most people that are part of the Apple ecosystem, we've got various Apple charging adapters throughout our home, in our laptop bags, at our offices, etc. We'll almost certainly find ourselves plugging the iPads into an 18w adapter at some point - even if unintentional. I'm not sure why Apple doesn't list these older model iPads as "compatible" on the 18w adapter page. I would love to hear more people's thoughts on this!

A PD source will be smart, and won't fry a non-PD device, in the same way that a QC adapter won't fry a non-QC device. It would have been foolish not to incorporate safeguards or backward compatibility into the standards, and put countless legacy devices at risk.

 

[chrfr]

1) how much faster will it be to charge an iPhone 11 Pro Max with the included 18W adapter as opposed to using the old Lightning chord paired with a 12W iPad adapter?

2) based on what Apple says on their website, it looks like the 18W isn’t compatible with my 6th gen iPad. Does this mean that it won’t charge the iPad at all? Would there be any risk to the iPad?

The 18W (or any USB-C Apple charger) will work fine with your iPad, and there's no chance of damage to the iPad with that charger.

 

[lke]

The 18w charger from the iPhone 11 Pro is exactly the same as the one from the iPad Pro

You can travel with only one charger but you will need the included cable in the iPhone 11 Pro and the one from the iPad Pro.

 

[newellj]

No risk to other Apple devices at all. For a comparison of charging speeds, take a look at this MR article and the two graphics

posted from it below: https://www.macrumors.com/guide/iphone-x-fast-charging-speeds-compared/