Hi all. I’ve been thinking about this in the back of my mind for a little while now.

When the iPhone 15’s announcement was first making rounds, I noticed many (predominantly US-based) tech reviewers praising the EU legislation for finally forcing Apple to use USB-C in iPhones. However, to me, this doesn’t fully make sense.

As I understand it, the language of the law only applies to products sold in the EU. Apple has shown before that they can and will make different hardware models for different regions of the world e.g. dual physical SIM for HK/China, single SIM for other countries, e-SIM only for USA, etc. just to name a few.

They could have just made an EU-designated model with USB-C, and kept lightning for that sweet MFi money for the other regions like they did with the SIM types. But they didn’t, and instead added USB-C to all models, internationally. Why do you think that is?

Tried first 3 at home and they didn’t work, tried the one in my dads car and it didn’t work either.

I even suspected my iPhone was broken or something in that regard, tried another two and they did

Why is that?

I posted a version of this earlier in the week but I've cleaned it up to make it easier to read. This may save you money.

CHARGING SPEEDS

The USB-C cable that you use to charge your phone has no affect on charging speeds, because the minimum power delivery of a USB-C cable far exceeds what the iPhone 15 can accept. Officially, all four of the new iPhone 15 models take 20W. Unofficially, it may actually be 27W-35W depending on which source you're reading. All compliant USB-C cables will deliver 60W at minimum.

What matters is the USB-C power adapter you're using at the other end of the USB-C cable. A 35W adapter will cover all possible bases, ensuring that your phone charges as fast as possible. If you have power adapters laying around that deliver even more power, those are fine too. Your iPhone 15 will treat a 240W power adapter exactly the same way as it does a 35W power adapter. It will only draw what it can use.

DATA TRANSFER SPEEDS

The iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus use USB 2.0 for their USB-C port which has a data transfer limit of 480Mbps. There's no such thing as a modern USB-C cable that will transfer less than that, so any USB-C cable will do.

The iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max use USB 3.2 Gen 2 for their USB-C port which has a data transfer limit of 10Gbps. You will have to purchase a USB-C cable that's capable of transferring 10Gbps separately in order to take advantage of this, as the one packaged with the phone is USB 2.0 which will limit you to 480Mbps. Unless I missed it, Apple doesn't sell one. The next step up from their USB-C USB 2.0 cables is Thunderbolt.

Speaking of which...

THUNDERBOLT

Unless you have another use for a Thunderbolt cable, there's no reason to purchase one for your iPhone 15 for charging or transferring data. It offers no benefits, as the power delivery (100W) and data transfer speeds (40Gbps) delivered by Thunderbolt 3 and Thunderbolt 4 far exceed what the iPhone 15 is capable of accepting. Thunderbolt will not charge the battery any faster or transfer speeds any faster on an iPhone 15.

With the earlier iPhones I seem to remember that all legitimate Apple lightning cables had a small chip inside them to verify they were legit.

Is this the case with the USB-C cables or are they just all standard cables now? (I know there are different grades of USB-C cables)

Thanks.

am I able to use a regular usb-c cable to charge the iphone 15. I heard that apple changed their charging on the iphone 15 to make it usb-c but only a specific type of usb-c that is only compatitble with apple usb-c's

I’m looking at getting the 15 Pro Max and was trying to replace as few of my phone charging infrastructure (car chargers, bricks, cigarette lighter style bricks, cords, etc) as possible.

So my parents are switching our iphone 13s to iPhone 15s for the whole family because they have some sort of deal or discount that lets us be able to switch basically every couple years.

It's a set deal and I can't protest because it's their money in the first place and we have to give back our iPhone 13s.

I already switched but I didn't want to switch because the new iPhone uses a USB-C connector instead of the lightning connector. I'm wondering if this is going to be a problem if I ever have an emergency and need to charge my phone, because now my charging port is different from something my friend would use as they would most likely be using lightning. I wouldn't have a problem changing phones if the connector was normal so now how is this going to play out

Like we all now that by 2024 in the eu ophone needa to be using usb-c and the usb-c will probably come to the iphone15 but what will really change? I know it could charge faster (but the iphone already has great battery life so it doesn't neccesarily need it) and you can transport files from your iphone faster to your pc or laptop but you can just use sites like airdrop to transport files to your pc / laptop.

So my question is why do we really need the usb-c on the iphone 15? And will you be dissapointed if u would get the iphone 14 bc it has the lightning port?

I recently bought a USB-A to USB-C Baseus cable to use with my old chargers in my new iPhone 15 Pro Max. Unfortunately, the cable didn't work for charging and data. My other Baseus USB-C to USB-C cable works perfectly. According to the cable supplier, iPhone 15 Pro are not compatible with cables that have USB-A in them. It only works if it's USB-C to USB-C. To test, I bought a cheap Chinese USB-A cable, and it worked perfectly. Can someone explain to me the compatibility of the iPhone 15 Pro Max with charging and data cables?

What’s great: one cable to rule them all

Finally one cable that charges iPhone, AirPods, iPad, MacBook and a ton of competition - it’s great

What’s not so great: it’s fragile

It might be my unit but some cables are not fully snug in the port. Slight wiggle and connection is terminated. This is often obvious with CarPlay. I feel that lightning was a more superior connection in terms of fit and durability

What’s your take?

Title

Hello guys,

Just got a brand new iPhone 15 and it will only charge with the provided usb-c to usb-c cable (tried connecting it to a usb-c port on my laptop). I tried two other usb-a to usb-c cables connected to a generic 10w wall brick and it wouldnt charge. I orderded the genuine 20w wall brick but its gonna arrive in 3 days and i dont know how im gonna charge my phone. I thought that the whole rfi thing wasnt gonna apply this time.

Am i missing something? Isnt it supposed to work with any usb-c charger? Is my unit defective?

Thank you for your advice

SOLVED: Port was full of dust and debris that a toothpick could not get to because it was stuck around the sides of the dumb thing sticking out of the USB-C port. Ended up having to use a needle to dig out all the junk and now it plugs in and stays plugged in like it should.

As the title explains, the port is extremely loose on my 15 Pro. Tried 5 different type-C plugs and they all come loose if I wiggle the cable just a tiny bit or move the phone around too much. I don’t recall the port being this shitty when I first got the phone, and I would’ve noticed it before if it was always that bad. Port is completely clean as I just cleaned it yesterday to see if dust and debris might have been the issue, which I quickly found out was not the case. Most of the plugs I’ve tried don’t even click when I plug them in.

Is this to be expected of USB-C? And would this even warrant a replacement or do I just have to deal with a plug that basically falls out on its own if I use my phone while it’s charging?

I mean will any USB-C cable work, or do the phones use a special Apple cable with a chip like the Lightning cables have?

My iPhone 15 pro just randomly stopped charging. I go to put it into another charger and it completely is not charging anymore. I'm assuming I need a new phone now, but how does this even happen?

Edit: Solved. Thank you for the comments.