USB 2.0 on the 15 is kind of a joke considering it came out in April of 2000. 60hz, USB 2.0, getting a bit dated. I know a bunch of people will excuse it but at that price I think it's not ideal.
Oh and RIP 13 Mini, you'll be my phone until I can't use it anymore I suppose.
Sounds like the A16 just doesn't have the I/O block for USB 3. They are using the chip from the last generation for the base model.
Though to put this in a realistic context, I am curious what percentage of iPhones have ever, over their usage lifespan, made a data connection over USB. I suspect that percentage is low single-digit percentages, and -- again speculating -- I would wager they are almost always by users with the pro models.
Is it lame that it's USB 2.0? Yes. Will it matter at all for the overwhelming majority of users? Not in the slightest.
It definitely serves as a differentiation between Pro and base, and I'm sure they'll get some additional pro upgrades by people just looking at a piece of paper and deciding that they must have USB 3.
However the lack of USB 3 IO on the existing chip from last year is a very real limitation. The Raspberry Pi 4 supports USB 3 via a separate host controller (the VL805) communicated with over PCI-e, given that the core SoC doesn't have the IO blocks...basically the same deal. That VL805 by itself is almost the size of the A16. Now of course Apple could make a USB 3 host controller dramatically smaller, but then they'd have a new SoC.
>It's not a matter of a dedicated processor block on the chip.
Yes it is. It’s just rare for any modern SoC to leave out an XHCI controller, which the Pi and countless others have in their SoC. Apple was an outlier
FWIW the A16 Bionic and earlier have a USB block, they just don't have a USB 3.0 block. They added one in the A17, probably porting over from the M1/M2.
For that matter, neither does the BCM2711 on the RPi4. It leans on an external chip -- almost as large as it -- for USB 3.0 functionality.
I have had a company mandated iPhone for about 4-5 years.
First year, I tried to transfer data via USB.
After I accepted that Apple hates me personally and does not want me to transfer any of my voice memos, photos, or videos, or documents, or files via USB (I don't have a macbook), you are indeed correct and I'm one of those people who does not make a data connection via USB to my iPhone. But while stat is true, as with all such stats, devil is in the details :).
I got around this limitation by adding my home NAS to the Files app. On the iOS side: set up the SMB connection in Files, hit the Share button on files I want to transfer, point it to a folder on the NAS, and transfer. On the PC side, I just grab the file in Explorer.
Airdrop works well for sharing files to other people's iOS devices, but I'd argue SMB is actually better for my use case. Airdrop sends files to a Mac's Downloads folder. SMB transferred files go exactly where I want them on the first try. The difference is just a couple extra taps in the 'Share' modal.
Though I must admit this isn't a solution for everyone. I doubt many iPhone users have a NAS stood up at home and would be happy to spend money on the 'simpler' solution of purchasing turnkey products and services from Apple.
Why would I use a lightning cable when getting data on or off the device is faster over Wifi. It's kind of a trick question, why don't you use this slower protocol? See no reason to upgrade it no one uses it!
It really isn't a trick question. If your needs are 100% satisfied through wireless, why would you ever care? I suspect for the overwhelming majority of iPhone users, even if the wired option was infinitely fast they would never have used it. We're long past the days of an iPhone suckling on iTunes.
The exception to this -- and there are exceptions -- tend to be "pro" users. If you're actually using the iPhone for video production in any way, USB 2.0 is a brutal limitation, and has long been a noted annoyance when you're transferring massive video files. Lucky for those people they'll be Pro buyers and will enjoy USB 3 (and maybe WiFi 6E? Not sure if this was delivered).
I'll raise my hand and say I still sync my iPhone over USB. Happy to move to WiFi, I just haven't, as my existing workflow works fine. I also have an old 2015 MBPr, so that plays into it as well.
Most likely, they weren't looking at the A16 needing to support USB3, since it was a phone chip (iPads now running on Mx chips instead), and Lightning didn't support USB3. The USB-C mandate was only a year ago, and I expect they probably were planning on exactly what goes into the A16 a year further back, so unless they respun a new A16x chip that had the USB3 controller, there's no point where they could have forecast the A16 actually needing to support USB3 until it was too late.
> I am curious what percentage of iPhones have ever, over their usage lifespan, made a data connection over USB.
It's actually a security vulnerability to do so, I'm very cautious to never click trust and I wish there was a setting to disable USB (data) entirely.
When that dialog pops up which asks if you want to "trust" the connected device, saying yes creates a token which is exchanged between the phone and the host and stored on the host. That token has special privileged with iOS and can exfiltrate some data from the phone without user interaction (this has become more and more minimal over the years, with the original iPhone as I recall it could literally take a full backup like from iTunes -- and there wasn't even a prompt on the phone to allow that). That token can also be exfiltrated from your computer and inserted into special boxes made by companies like NSO which have in the past utilize proprietary exploits to basically privilege escalate that minimal access and exfiltrate data from locked iPhones.
I sound like a conspiracy theorist and I should probably just delete this.
I'm a techie apple nerd and I've never made a data connection over usb. Just use google photos/icloud drive/air drop to transfer data to my desktop computer
USB3 (on USBC) is actually asymmetric signaling so you need either a separate chip or digital logic to handle muxing the signals around which is extra cost Apple probably doesn't want to eat. The USB-2 pins on USBC are symmetrical so nothing extra required.
Any suggestions? I see Best Buy has some open box minis for $630 and there are plenty of 3rd party refurbs for around $500. Feels like I'd have been better off buying a brand new one for $600 yesterday.
Can't buy an unlocked phone from a carrier. Only other authorized resellers either don't sell phones (B&H, Adorama, Staples), have a limited selection which is in-store only (Target, Walmart), which leaves only Best Buy and right now I see everything on backorder. Now that Apple isn't taking new orders there's a good chance those will be cancelled.
And then there's the roulette wheel of buying from Amazon or Newegg where you might get a refurbished phone advertised as "new" if it isn't a literal brick in a box.
Still comes down to my fault for being slow to act. I said I wished for a warning but you know what they say about wishes.
(For context of how slow I am, I'd be upgrading from a SE (2016))
Check the stores. I remember seeing old cycle products still for sale the week between announcement and the release date.
Not necessarily true this time but you might get lucky.
I will say the 15 Pro is a little smaller than the 14 Pro, and while it isn't a small phone per se, it's a lot smaller than most Android flagships. That's something at least.
USB 2.0 is a missed opportunity for bringing Stage Manager/screen mirroring feature from iPadOS to iPhone. This is already possible with iPad and a USB A + HDMI -> USB C adapter (plug keyboard/mouse into USB A, monitor into HDMI, and USB C into iPad).
Just like with some car manufacturers, if you want e.g. increased safety or radar cruise control, you also need $10k of leather seats and sunroofs; by removing previous Pro models, Apple basically adds a massive price premium to the zoom lens.
As this is honestly the only thing I would need from a new phone, my wife and I stay on our iPhone XR year after year. I just can't pay $1500CAD merely to get more optical zoom than my existing phone :-/
They were selling the 13 Pro after the 14 Pro came out? I was pretty sure they always removed last year's Pro from the lineup when the new Pro comes out. Meanwhile last year's baseline models will stick around at a reduced price.
Has the EU legislation factored in the USB-*(D?) might come next? Hopefully it doesn't slow down adoption of new technology.
The main downside instead of buying a lightning cable that always work we now have to decipher the 10 minor variations of USB-C's various speeds/power now with zero consistency in naming schemes or amazon titles.
The iPhone is literally the last hold out for USB C. I'm pretty sure every modern Android phone supports USB PD and I think the EU is requiring PD charging as well, but nothing on connectivity speeds.
EU legislation has review built-in. No way it's going to be slower than switch from lightning.
Also from other commenters say Apple implemented USB 2.0, so you don't have to care about type of USB-C cable you're buying - these are for advanced features which as it seems are not present in iPhone 15.
Oh and RIP 13 Mini, you'll be my phone until I can't use it anymore I suppose.