Apple Reportedly Planning to Limit iPhone 15 USB-C Port in Same Way as Lightning
macrumors.com
macrumors.com
* All USBC Cables will work for charging
* Probably all USBC cables will work for connecting to accessories
* Data will only be allowed to pass to a certified accessory
I think this is more likely to be very careful about what accessories you can use versus trying to stop you from being able to use an average usb cable to charge.
I don't see anything in the EU law that says every single device has to interoperate with every accessory.
USB cables available online from any arbitrary retailer could be so wildly out of spec they burn out gadgets, or include some phone home thing.
Of course technologists will scoff as of course they’re the only people on the planet.
Edit: To add to the anecdata, here’s a Reddit thread on the iPhone subreddit where the majority of folks are responding by saying they’re buying non Apple chargers.
https://www.reddit.com/r/iphone/comments/b4k8j2/do_you_guys_...
I guess I'm not sure what your point is.
There's a reason that Apple is not that big in lower income countries like here in Spain.
The future, everyone!
God forbid you buy one of those "cheaper" $20 rubber cables and live in a house with pets. No joke, I have went through more than a half dozen of those cables from regular wear-and-tear.
(That said, I do agree that their branded cables are generally overpriced for their level of durability.)
This helps exactly no one - except Apple of course.
These are my “universal charging cables”
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B092ZT8CJ9
- USB A/USB C on one end
- USB C/Lightning on the other
They transfer data at USB 2 speeds
But my truly universal cables are these
- USB A/USB C on one end
- lightning/USB C/MicroUSB on the other end
- 10 Gbps data
- 100W charging
- video over USB C for my portable display that gets power and video over 1 cable
These are thicker and less convenient than the first ones.
Apple's tristar (or whatever they call it now on new models) should reject anything out of spec, I don't think a cable should be ultimately trusted that it will work due to very real world wear scenarios.
Phone home is probably tin foil hat thinking.
Probably, but also be careful which cable you're using! https://shop.hak5.org/products/omg-cable
This one is physically exactly the same as an Apple Lighting cable, but contains a WiFi Server and a bunch of other doodads
Theoretically it should be possible for a cable to spoof the ID of what it's connected to though, right?
Yes, but the authentication doesn't appear to be simple ID spoofing. This is from the announcement of the standard they're using:
"The USB 3.0 Promoter Group today announced the USB Type-C Authentication specification, defining cryptographic-based authentication for USB Type-C chargers and devices. Using this protocol, host systems can confirm the authenticity of a USB device or USB charger, including such product aspects as the descriptors/capabilities and certification status. All of this happens right at the moment a wired connection is made – before inappropriate power or data can be transferred."
https://usb.org/sites/default/files/article_files/USB_Type-C...
So theoretically it could be possible to break the authentication, but in practice, we can assume it's at least very hard.
The ecosystem of USB C accessories is one of the best parts. Lightning accessories are incredibly expensive and incredibly limited by comparison.
https://www.amazon.com/Multiport-Adapter-Compatible-MacBook-...
For many many years there wasn't a reliable seeming 3rd party lightning to HDMI adapter. I bought mine in about 2019ish? And besides Apple the only one I could find was a sketchy clone of Apple's.
I see this as a general win since mfi seems to be reasonably open and USB-C has a lot of cheap cables floating around.
USB-C is annoying and I don't like having to worry about about my cable frying my device.
https://www.zdnet.com/home-and-office/smart-office/using-the...
Yikes. I've never worried about that until reading this comment.
USB-C has such a loud hate-mob after it. And it's really just not bad. It really mostly is great.
1). If I have 4 USBC devices, and 1 USBC port, how do I connect them? With previous versions I buy a $10 hub. There are literally zero options to accomplish this with Usbc ( if I am wrong I would love to know about it, this is actually a problem I have)
2). The cables. Some cables support certain data. Some certain power. There are no markings to give me any of this information at all.
...albeit it'll only do data, and won't let you do P/D or video.
My impression is that the cheap-hub product got a lot harder to make because of how much more USB-C supports, such that you need to caveat any cheap product (as I had to there), and the products that do support all the USB-C features wind up being full dock-type hubs that start at around $70.
It has its own power supply. I have a USBC 14 inch monitor and a webcam plugged into the hub, and the hub plugs into my MacBook. The hub can power my external monitor, webcam and the MacBook.
Even chargers from ALLCAPS manufacturers on amazon?
It's just absurdly epic, in my book. Pick a completely random no-name brand it and there's like 98% chance it'll do the job fine, if you want a $30 100w charger for ex. In most cases, I would not be afraid to plug it in and find out. I expect some cheap chargers indeed probably won't be able to sustain full load, but I also expect they'll shutdown fine & not harm anything. It just seems unfair to try to reach into the absolute bottom-most reaches we can find to judge, and even if we do, I think most people would be impressed & shocked how little harm is done here.
But more so, there's so many perfectly fine all-caps brands that do have thousands of reviews that seem either quite legit or mostly legit. Nekteck has a 100w gan charger you absolutely can do fine with for $40. PPS and multiport capabilities abundantly available at under $50? Can we not be impressed a bit here?
Making 20V 5A & not messing causing damage is not the worlds wildest problem, even if you are cutting every corner you can.
I was trying to consolidate my chargers into a single charging station and I didn't realize started a saga. Eventually I had to give up. While I was getting down the rabbit hole, I tested dozens of different chargers and the results were quite unexpected. Though I didn't use an oscilloscope, the usb power meters used gave almost the same results, thus I would say the results were good. The best of those were a few ~$7 ones bought from Amazon, good/fair ones were either came with mobile devices or from popular brands such as A*r or B**n(I hid the names here deliberately to avoid being taken as ads). The worst were also among the two aforementioned popular brands. For A brand, its voltage dropped to 4.8V when under load ~1.8A but it caused significant interference that the USB light's switch stopped working after powered on. B brand were even worse, voltage dropped to 4.5V when under ~1.7A load.
So literally I gave up and continue to use what I have right now, at least for now.
I have no idea why a brand new cable would behave like this but after several scary interactions on the road I stopped trusting the standard and bought a better cable.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/poorly-designed-usb-c-cable-kills...
> Leung, who has been testing USB-C cables and posting about them on Amazon(Opens in a new window), posted a one-star review(Opens in a new window) of Surjtech's 3M USB A-to-C cable. Why did it earn such low marks? It "seriously damaged the laptop computer I am using for these reviews, a Chromebook Pixel 2015, and two USB PD Sniffer devices (Twinkie)," he said.
https://www.destructoid.com/after-the-mass-bricked-switch-si...
> To further quell that fear Nintendo has provided a landing page that explains what’s safe — and it basically boils down to USB-A to USB-C with 56K OHM resistors. Bottom line? Don’t get cheap bargain bin cables and you “should” be okay according to Nintendo. Or you can just opt for USB-C to USB-C to be safe.
Everyone is still going to have to re-buy 4x $60-100 power adapters, a $50 headphone jack for usb-c, and most anything else the want to connect to it. If you share a household with (gasp!) android, then you still gotta keep a bin for the apple vs android/everyone else crap and/or label them.
Belkin 65W 2-port PPS is like $50, and that is not going to fry your devices.
> a $50 headphone jack for usb-c
Even the Apple one is $10, and audiophiles have said the DAC in it is quite good.
> If you share a household with (gasp!) android, then you still gotta keep a bin for the apple vs android/everyone else crap and/or label them.
Not as of this fall.
This is untrue assuming you mean people switching from a Lightning iPhone to a USB C iPhone. Existing iPhones already charge over USB C PD (to Lightning) using the same USB C power adapters as a typical modern Android device or laptop, for example.
You should still by from a trusted or well reviewed source/manufacturer. My issue is the cheaper long cables I have all work but charging is not fast, just normal speed.
Unfortunately that does not always help. My Anker cable started to burn next to me, while I was trying to fall asleep. It wasn't even USB-C, but still mini usb. Fortunately I didn't fall asleep fast enough and noticed a strange smell. Very scary, though.
I tend to take a picture of the barcode / proof of purchase with my phone and tag it with the item name before I chuck the box. The one issue I had with an anker cable I submitted a ticket with a picture of the defect, picture of the proof of purchase / barcode and the invoice from Amazon. New cable arrived in a couple days. I was impressed. Their stuff seems to hold up.
Any more details on where you sourced the charger / cable? Power supply? US/EU?
This is Apple once again not respecting their customer.
My current gen phone also only support USB 2.0 and it's ridiculously slow to get data off of it. I usually put in an SD card, copy all data over and put the SD card into my PC.
MFi is costly and annoying (Android's AOAP is much easier because there is no paperwork and no key distribution), but it does bring some security (like "I am plugging this authenticated MFi ethernet adapter that was audited and that shouldn't pretend to be a keyboard and do stuff on my behalf")
How can you read that as a feature?
They want to protect users against themselves? What about a software interface for USB Host options (like OTG, how to present media, etc) is great. Does iOS already have one of those? A proprietary layer that stops you from using USB-C features unless they say it's okay is an abuse of their position. This is a money-grab.
They build a smartphone, they don't have to enable ethernet-over-usb if they don't want to (most Android phones don't). Just like they don't have to add cameras to their smartphones if they don't want to.
I guess they can totally say "you can only use MFi-certified ethernet adapter with iOS devices", and this actually brings security ("when you plug an ethernet adapter in your iPhone, you can be sure it won't behave like a keyboard and try to hack you").
Of course I wish everything was more open. But that does not make it an abuse of their position. Most software out there is vendor-locked and proprietary.
Does this mean that there is no possibility of someone would create a cable with some malware in it?
But at least it somehow protects against a fake accessory with some malware in it, because the accessory has to be authenticated (that I'm sure of).
Overnight, they all stopped working because Apple wasn't getting its fee from those manufacturers.
Well with the lightning cable it's pretty clear that it has to be MFi-certified, right?
> iPad Pros have USB-C, and as far as I can tell they are broadly compatible with things like USB audio interfaces which I'm also fairly confident have not gone through any sort of Apple certification process.
Sure. The thing is that MFi is some kind of authentication that goes on top. To me it really feels like they were forced to move to USB-C, so they did it, and now the rumor says that they are porting MFi to USB-C (which makes total sense, I don't see a reason for them to drop the MFi program).
"Activating" MFi with USB-C is just a matter of updating the software (assuming that they have the cryptography hardware in the device).
IMHO the rumor is really plausible. Actually I was expecting MFi to be there from the beginning on, and I was confused by the fact that it was not there: I don't see USB-C as a technical reason for them to drop MFi.
I don't know, but I would have said no. Is this thing certified by Apple? https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/USB-mini-Fan-Custom-L...
So this just brings us full circle that now we're going to have still apple vs. everyone else connectors, power adapters, etc and now it's going to be more confusing as you won't always know the difference until something frys.
All this means is the first Chinese company to get their hands on the new chips will still reverse engineer it, clone the first keys they get, and resume dumping cloned apple crap gadgets without any certifications. All so Apple can keep selling goddamn dongles to the rich herds that don't mind the Apple tax.
Way to go, the perfect perversion of the intended results. I do hope the EU crams this down their throats and keep them on the hook for non-compliance by just creating a new divergent usb-c spec for themselves.
Such an iOS device could support USB-C charging, but e.g. only accept ethernet-over-usb from certified adapters.
I don't think that they can force the cable to be authentified, it's really just that there must be their authentication coprocessor on the accessory side.
Try to plug a USB-C keyboard into your laptop and use it as a webcam... because it connects with USB-C does not mean that it is a camera.
Nothing says that a smartphone has to support everything it can. Typically, ethernet-over-usb is not really a supported feature of Android. It can work, it works on some phones, and on others it seems like the kernel module is just not there (so it doesn't work at all). Is that an antitrust issue? I don't think so: the phone manufacturer just decided that their phones would not do ethernet-over-usb, that's their choice.
The amount of things that are optional on the protocol level is... basically everything.
If your USB-C plug only provides charging, it's USB-C compliant, and if I understand it correctly, will get a USB-C certification.
Pick a random USB C cable today.
Now tell me:
- what speed data does it support?
- how much power can it delivery?
- can it do video over USB C?
Now pick a random USB C powered device like sone Sony headphones or low end devices that come with a USB A to USB C cord. You try to charge it with a USB C to USB C cable and find it doesn’t work because the device doesn’t actual support USB C power delivery
Does one start to charge the other? Which one? Does the result change every time you plug the cable in?
Ah, the wonders of USB-C :D
I wonder what happens if I connect the 2 charging USB-C ports of my MacBook together
There was the same complaints thing when the iPad Pro moved over to USB-C and that turned out to be a full TB3 implementation after a couple of generations.
As in, they are either correct or they are not…
These are rumors, easy bait for clicks. I'll happily eat my words when this comes to fruition, but at this point is there any evidence Apple is actually interested in doing this?
The MFI program largely makes money because Apple control the lightning connector interface and can thus be the gatekeeper. While I don't like it personally, it does make some sense to me the mfi program might want this feature for a USB-C iPhone and future iPad models.
Like others, I suspect it would be data access only limited to the certified devices - any old USB-C cable will likely still work to charge. This likely satisfies the EU charging law changes and lets them keep much of the MFI revenues.
That the MFI program exists is frankly evidence enough for me to believe Apple would do this - they sell many more iPhones than iPads, and the change can be incorporated into future iPad models.
Apple is notorious for not breaking out revenue specifics in its public financial reports.
What source are you using to determine that MFI revenue is "significant?"
While sure there's some extra margin on those cables it seems the cost of MFi certification seems to be more than just a penny per cable.
Now, iOS supports ethernet-over-lightning, so you can plug an ethernet adapter and have it connect to your router. But it is illegal to make an accessory that would "integrate" an ethernet adapter. If you make an accessory, it has to go through the MFi protocol.
Here is an example: if you take a DJI drone and connect the remote controller to your iOS (lightning) device, it goes over MFi. It would be illegal (as per the Apple ToS) for DJI to use ethernet over lightning there.
Now go to Amazon and look for a use case where you can’t find a perfectly suitable non “certified” device.
Even when they re-used the iPhone SoCs for iPads, their solution is to add a separate USB 3.0 host controller, while leaving the client USB on the SoC USB 2.0: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/ipad-mini-6-is-still-us... . That didn't stop them from advertising it as USB 3.0 of course.
We don't need an ecosystem that doesn't allow to change much on our devices. We don't need an ecosystem that won't even let us charge our devices with the cables that are supposed to fit them. Apple deserve to rot and die in its own arrogance.
But that does not say that the chip has to be in the cable, does it? It just means that the iOS device may require authentication, so the accessory device needs the chip.
In that case, it's all compliant: we could reuse the chargers/usb cables. It's just that not all accessories will be allowed, which is another problem.
Of course I'm not a big fan of the MFi-related costs, and I think it would be nice to have an open version of it (just like AOAP on Android). But in terms of security, being able to cryptographically authenticate the accessory from an iOS app is actually nice.
If the rumor is true, I would bet that it's more about bringing MFi to USB-C devices. Which is totally compatible with USB-C.
1. Wringing extra revenue out of every possible angle 2. Preventing developers from doing anything unforeseen; a longtime Apple mania
No one will ever blame themselves, or the shoddy cables, they will always blame Apple.
If you purchase a cable from somewhere else and it doesn't work with your iPhone, Apple will say "no idea, it's not our cable".
If your Apple custom USB-C cable doesn't work with your Android phone, Apple will say "no idea, it's not our device".
Apple only guarantees that an Apple iPhone can transfer data through an Apple (or Apple certified) USB-C cable. Nothing more, nothing less. They don't have to manufacture their cables to be compliant with USB-IF standards as the EU law is only about charging and not about data transfer.
The reason it wouldn't work would be that they put in hardware to prevent it from working.
Of course that's their fault.
I believe the second revision of the law will be to this effect, which Apple will comply in 2030.
I don't need to imagine, I can just look at the bajillion USB-C standards and versions that were not "designed for the lowest common denominator."
It got to the point where almost monthly we have posts on HN that discuss the clusterfuck that is USB-C naming standards, as well as giant guides on how to buy the correct USB-C cable without losing your mind. I bet you can easily find people ranting about it in the comment section of almost every thread that mentions USB-C on HN, even this one (and if not, just give this thread a bit more time).
At this point, I prefer to not try encouraging more of those fantasies of standards (like USB-C) "not designed for the lowest common denominator" becoming closer to reality.
In the 1970's, since your "lowest common denominator" is the people who fund these things.
Which has been hugely beneficial to technology. Imagine if WiFi standards weren't backwards compatible.
If technology wasn't built to the lowest common denominator, whilst you might accelera progress, you would do it at the cost of convenience and ease of functionality.
In addition to whatever "normal" confusion there is around USB-C, now you'll have people wondering why their expensive Thunderbolt 4/USB 3.x cable that works as a Thunderbolt 4/USB 3.x cable for every other device is behaving like it's 2005 when plugged into a brand new iPhone.
No one blames Apple when their non-MFI lightning cable stops working. Apple trained their customers to only trust accessories purchased from Apple stores. Even for non-electrical items such as cases or screen protectors. Don't worry, Apple will be fine.
I buy lightning cables directly from Apple. They cost 2-3x as much as generic ones on Amazon but last 5-10x as long. Meanwhile my kids have iPads that are so old they have home buttons and lightning ports, yet still work great while all their cousins have Kindle Fires that are pieces of junk that get replaced yearly.
And of course Apple gives me free delivery of the cables within 2-3 days (Apple Store a few towns over) while even with Amazon Prime I’m waiting sometimes a week for a cable or whatever to be drop shipped from far away.
I’m years away from having to deal with whatever BS happens with these USB-C cables, but I bet by that time the market will have already killed the decent 3rd parties and segmented things into two categories - junk and Apple.
Meanwhile I've got a few fancy Nokia Win10 tablets that are literal trash (OS stopped updating) and a pile of Android tablets that can't even display a web page properly. All newer than the iPad 2.
As an iPad pro owner, I can confirm that not every USB-C cable or charging brick or USB outlet can charge an iPad either, and there's no shady MFi business involved. USB-C is a mess. If you had 5 USB-C cables and a lightning cable before and you were mad about that, you're going to have 6 USB-C cables now. One cable for everything is a myth/fantasy. My Quest 2 needs a special USB-C LINK cable. My monitor needs a special USB-C cable that can do 4K HDMI at 120hz(not all of them can!). My eGPU needs a USB-C cable with thunderbolt 3/4.
Yes there are different USB-C cables. Official ones all support at least 5Gbps USB3 and 60W charging. Unofficial ones sometimes dump the USB3 and only have USB2.0 connections, which is a messy complication, but it's advertised pretty clearly from what I've seen.
There is so much fear-mongering going on, to convince folks USB-C is evil & awful & horrible. It mostly just works. You don't need a lot of cables: you need a regular USB-C cable and one expensive 40Gbps cable for special purposes.
Another example: A gaming laptop that can be charged via USB-C at 100W PD but needs its own 240W power brick with proprietary tip to take full advantage of the GPU. If "USB-C charging" were a selling point I'd be disappointed.
But yeah, at least the cables can be reused. And people will learn :)
Even if they limit it "the same as lightning", charging will be just fine. The EU rulings seem to be exclusively about charging: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2022...
Specifically, note "Mactans"
https://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/07/31/resear...
"As a proof of concept, the three researchers created a malicious version of an iOS Facebook app that also includes a Trojan that runs in the background, capable of taking screenshots, simulating button touches, and sending data to a remote server."
You must not have been around for the era when data exfiltration via charging cables and bricks was a thing.
Buy a charging cable from some random Chinese reseller on Amazon, and bingo — data in your phones goes back to the PRC.
I still have about five little black USB security dongles in my drawer from this era. They only allowed the charging pins to connect to the phone or computer. The data lines are physically disconnected. We used to call them "charging condoms."
I like Android's AOAP better for this reason.
Standards must be defended against corruption and degradation, and if those standards are mandatory, then everyone's implementation of it must be compliant.
It's not Apple's job to police the world of cheap usbc cables.
But I don't think that it is about authenticating the cable. Rather it's about authenticating the accessory. Which I believe makes sense in terms of security (well Android doesn't do it with AOAP and nobody cares, but that's a design decision).
I'll propose an alternative explanation to "Apple has contempt for users like me": At Apple scale, the first version of any radical change (and this is one, after a decade of Lightning) must limit risk. Based on that, of course Apple will initially limit connections to chargers known to work, and the way they do that is via MFi.