Thanks to a mandate handed down by the EU in 2022, Apple finally parted ways with its proprietary Lightning port in favor of the far more universal USB-C on the iPhone 15. While Apple complied with the directive, the new port was capped at 480 Mbps, or USB 2.0 speeds on the iPhone 15. Fast forward to the present day, and we’re all waiting with bated breath for the iPhone 17 to finally hit the shelves. Apple’s latest and greatest iOS hardware will be the first phone to feature native support for the all-new Liquid Glass UI.
Despite remarkable improvements to hardware, Apple has ignored the USB-C port on the base models for yet another year. Remember how we said Apple capped the USB-C port on the iPhone 15 at USB 2.0 speeds? Well, that’s the case with the vanilla iPhone 17 as well. The more premium iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max support USB 3.0 technology, which means they’ll be capable of speeds up to 10Gbps. However, both the iPhone 17 and iPhone Air are still stuck on the older technology, which means they’re going to be significantly slower when it comes to data transfers.
What does this mean for today and tomorrow’s iPhone generations?
The fact that not all iPhone 17 models are going to have equal data transfer speeds is certainly disappointing. That said, the average smartphone user may never notice the difference between USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 transfer speeds, especially if they’ve never used their iPhone’s USB-C port to connect interesting accessories. There’s also an argument to be made that most people aren’t really shopping with data transfer speeds in mind. Most data transfers nowadays happen wirelessly anyway — with AirDrop being the preferred option for most Apple users.
Screen size, battery capacity, and how user-friendly a phone is are probably the most important boxes to check for the everyday iPhone user, and the standard iPhone 17 checks all of them — making it the best phone to pre-order in Apple’s new lineup. However, power users and creatives would certainly appreciate the USB 3 port that lets you record videos straight to an external drive. Those users will now have to resort to buying the more advanced iPhone 17 Pro models. On the upside, the base iPhone 17 also gets the new 40W fast charging speeds, so the older port isn’t limited in this aspect.
