Yesterday, Apple officially introduced the iPhone 15, a new line of its premium smartphones. We saw the unveiling of three models, two basic (iPhone 15/15 Plus) and two higher (iPhone 15 Pro/Pro Max). One of the biggest innovations that all models received is the USB-C port, which replaced the outdated Lightning after many years. But is it really an upgrade? Or a better question – who will feel all the new capacities?

As we informed you in this article, the European Union (EU) orders all manufacturers of small consumer electronics (including smartphones) operating in its territory to use one and the same charging standard, namely USB-C, by the fall of next year. However, the minimum or maximum speeds that this standard should offer are not specified anywhere.

There is a very good reason for this. Setting an upper speed limit would be a huge nonsense. Such a step would significantly hinder innovation, and therefore progress in the field of battery and charging technologies. Determining the lower limit would in turn force manufacturers of cheaper models to use more expensive components, which would translate into a higher price of final devices.

Apple used a “loophole” in the legislation

Apple is very well aware of this “gap”, as evidenced by the new iPhone 15 models. Although they all have USB-C, not all of them offer the same capacities.

During the presentation of the higher pair, Apple mentioned that the models offer the USB 3.0 standard. It is a more modern technology that offers transmission speeds of up to 20 Gb/s. With the lower pair, he only briefly mentioned that the devices have USB-C. This suggests that the cheaper versions do not have the USB 3.0 standard, but a lower one, probably USB 2.0.

This standard is quite outdated by today’s standards. Its transfer speeds reach a maximum of 480 Mb/s, which is pitifully low. So it can be said that although the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus got USB-C, there is no big change. Charging and transfer speeds will be approximately the same as before.

There may be two reasons for this

The Californian giant could apply such a division for two reasons. The first is cost. The lower two models are cheaper, with Apple well aware that price is a key factor for those who regularly buy entry-level models. If he used a higher standard, he would probably have to raise the price as well, thereby risking losing a significant number of potential customers. iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max are more expensive, so the manufacturer can afford to experiment with them to a certain extent.

The second reason may be that customers of lower models do not require maximum transmission or charging capacities as much. The pair of more premium variants have higher quality cameras, which are combined with functions for taking high-quality photos and recording high-quality videos. At the same time, many customers need to export such records to a computer, which would take forever with USB 2.0. With USB 3.2, transferring larger files takes much less time.

If you want to read more about the new iPhone models, you can do so in the articles we have published on our website. You can find the article about the iPhone 15/15 Plus here and the article about the iPhone 15 Pro/Pro Max here.