Apple is rumored to be considering removing the Lightning port, which would be the company's biggest feature omission to date. More specifically, reports abound from credible outlets, such as Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, that Apple is considering creating a fully wireless smartphone. Yet this isn't the first time we've been here.
The saga of the headphone jack is well-known. As news of Apple ditching the audio port circulated, a slew of opinion pieces deconstructed the decision. The iPhone 7 was released without a charging port.
Almost the entire handset industry followed suit, many of which had initially ridiculed Apple's decision – such as Samsung. Last year, we had déjà vu when Apple wanted to delete the charger from the iPhone 12 case. Manufacturers, such as Xiaomi, ridiculed and then followed suit.
So, what brings us back here? A portless iPhone 13 (or later) will mix the teething problems of both the headphones jack and charging brick removal with an extra irritant thrown in for good measure.
The environmental impact of a portless iPhone can’t be ignored. During the iPhone 12 launch, Apple was keen to stress the positive environmental benefits of removing the charger from the box. Despite this, the decision would lead to many hunting out USB-C chargers anyway, a charger type that Apple had only sold with its phone for one generation. And, more importantly, pushing users towards an inefficient technology – wireless charging.
Eric Ravenscraft of Debugger found in his testing that wireless charging used around 47 per cent more power than wired charging for the same amount of power. That’s bad. Apple already pushed users closer to this technology with its introduction of MagSafe, but the removal of a wired charging option would take this much, much further.
Any proponents of wireless charging argue that using a more robust and long-lasting charging station is preferable to using less durable and easily replaced cables. Of course, making these cables consumes electricity, so it's only fair to factor that in. However, we don't seem to be clean of cables quite yet, as many wireless charging solutions, including Apple's MagSafe, prefer to use the same old cables to supply power to the wireless chargers themselves.
Although you should think about the long-term advantages of not having to buy those devices if you have a wireless charger that can last you years, you should also think about the immediate effect on accessories that use the Lightning port.
Apple-owned Beats makes its own Lightning wired headphones, the UrBeats3, and Apple included Lightning buds in the package for three years before removing the battery and headphones from the iPhone 12. If the Lightning port is disabled, current Lightning charging cables, charging docks, Lightning to HDMI adapters, and other Lightning devices will become redundant.
When arguing against European Parliament deliberations on requiring a standardized port across mobile devices in 2020, Apple said eliminating the Lightning port from the iPhone will "make an enormous amount of electronic waste."
When it came to the iPhone 12 launch, Apple didn't see fit to make public its considerations of the advantages and disadvantages of ditching the charging brick and implementing MagSafe, instead focusing on the positives. If Apple decides to make this change for a forthcoming product, more openness would be welcome; in the absence of that, early warning to suppliers of Lightning compliant products would go a long way toward eliminating waste.
Have you ever had a problem where you needed to connect your iPhone to a laptop PC or Mac to perform a complete recovery mode reset? Anyone who has had to deal with this knows it isn't the most convenient approach, and it even necessitates the use of the iPhone. You won't be able to do this at home if you don't have access to a port.
Apple has long been under fire for how it handles third-party repairs of its devices, eventually opting to declare some as Apple-certified so you aren’t forced to always go to an Apple Store. Should the port disappear, there may be no other way for your phone to be reset in recovery mode than for it to be taken to an Apple-certified store. Would early adopters using a portless iPhone relish having to go to Apple direct not only for hardware repairs but major software issues, too?
A portless iPhone does feel somewhat inevitable, with Jon Prosser claiming Apple will dip its toes in the water with one iPhone 13 model dropping the Lightning port, while renowned Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has also stated the change is coming eventually.
However, it didn’t have to be this way. There have long been hopes of a USB-C port coming to the iPhone. It wasn’t that long ago that a USB-C on an iPad seemed like a pipe dream then it did eventually arrive on the iPad Pro and the latest iPad Air.
With USB-C being the port of choice for the majority of Android phones, tablets and many laptops now (including MacBooks), what better way to reduce Apple’s impact on the environment than enabling a mass of USB-C charging and accessories to work with its flagship phone – rather than require the purchasing of anything new. Unfortunately, as Kuo argues, this now seems unlikely and a jump to portless is the likely next move.
Admittedly, many features – such as data transfer and listening to audio – can now be done wirelessly, whether it’s over the internet or via Bluetooth. However, the recovery-mode issue remains as well as the inability to use a range of dongles that offer display and other file-transfer capabilities.
A promising alternative could be right in front of our eyes. The Apple Smart Connector is used on the new iPad Air and iPad Pro models, allowing data and power to be transferred in a more space-efficient manner while still being water and dust resistant.
However, the inclusion of MagSafe seems to put a damper on this idea, since using both options would contradict Apple's historically streamlined approach.
Unfortunately, urging customers to use iCloud to pass data, connect to displays using AirPlay, and visit the Apple store for a hard reset seems to be even more Apple.
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