Jeremy Laird: Apple Finally Put USB-C in the New iPhone, and Now We Know Why It's Limited to 23-Year-Old USB 2.0 Speeds

But the really bad news here is that the USB-C port on the iPhone 15 is still limited to USB 2.0, meaning it tops out at 480 Mbps transfer speeds. That's ridiculous for an $800 smartphone in the year 2023.

This is such a silly take. Go talk to 100 iPhone users who are annoyed that their iPhone has a Lightning port instead of USB-C and tell me how many of them say, “because I can’t transfer files on and off my phone fast enough.” I would get the number is close to zero. Limit the questioning to people buying non-Pro iPhones and I bet it’s actually zero.

Like truly, we haven’t been syncing our iPhones with computers in like a decade and this complaint in PCGamer feels like complaining about spec details that don’t even matter outside of a spec sheet.

For the vast, vast majority of people, the issue has always been convenience with charging, not data transfer speeds. Yes, some people do have massive files they want to move on or off their phone, but they’re far from the mainstream and they’re more likely to be iPhone Pro users who will be getting the better speeds in the 15 Pro line.

Before we go, I did also enjoy this  update added today:

Update, September 13, 2023: Digging into the details of the new Apple handsets, it turns out there is a reason why the regular iPhone 15's USB-C port runs at 2.0 speeds while the 15 Pro has a faster 3.0-spec interface: It's got an old chunk of silicon inside it.

The issue is that the A16 doesn’t have a USB 3.0 controller. Could we wish that Apple gave their lower end phone a new SoC that added this feature? Of course! Will next year’s iPhone likely get USB 3.0 speeds? Absolutely. Will large swaths of iPhone 15 non-Pro buyers be enraged that their data transfer speeds are slow? Color me skeptical.