Since Apple removed the headphone jack from the iPhone 7 in 2016, rumours have circulated that the Lightning port will be the next to go in favour of a completely portless design. Indeed, analysts predicted that the top-tier iPhone 13 would provide a “completely wireless experience.” Of course, that didn’t happen, but a portless iPhone 14 in 2022 appears equally unlikely, for the reasons listed below.
Apple’s long-term goal has been to create an iPhone with no external ports or buttons for a clean, streamlined device, but significant obstacles remain if the company is to provide a completely wireless charging and data transfer solution. In terms of data, Apple would need to look beyond Bluetooth due to its bandwidth limitations and rely on a faster wireless protocol that allows iPhone data transfer at a speed that matches or exceeds Lightning, otherwise the loss of the port would be viewed as a step backward.
Apple, in fact, has already created such a protocol. Apple Watch Series 7 models, according to MacRumors, are equipped with a module that enables 60.5GHz wireless data transfer when placed on a proprietary magnetic dock with a corresponding 60.5GHz module. Apple probably doesn’t publicise this capability because it’s only for internal use. Apple Store employees, for example, may use the dock to wirelessly restore an Apple Watch. It’s unclear how fast its wireless data transfer is, but we believe USB 2.0 speeds of up to 480 Mbps are possible. To put it another way, lightning speed.
However, it is not only data transfer that must be accomplished wirelessly. You wouldn’t be able to physically connect your iPhone to a computer to reset an unresponsive iPhone through recovery mode if it didn’t have a Lightning port. Unless Apple devised an alternative at-home solution – perhaps a second iteration of MagSafe with high-speed data transfer capabilities – the iPhone would have to return to the Apple Store every time an over-the-air update or full device restore failed and borked the device, causing more annoyance and inconvenience for end users.
For the sake of argument, suppose Apple released “MagSafe 2.0” alongside a portless iPhone 14 and resolved these data/recovery issues. The current MagSafe Charger provides up to 15W of peak power delivery (or 12W on the iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 13 mini) and charges a compatible iPhone less than half as fast as a wired 20W USB-C charger, so any new MagSafe version would have to significantly increase the juice to compete with existing cable speeds.
To be sure, Apple is capable of accomplishing this feat (assuming it has shaken off its AirPower woes). It only takes a look at its competitors to see what’s already possible. The Google Pixel 6 and 6 Pro both support up to 21W and 23W wireless charging speeds, respectively, whereas the OnePlus 9 Pro supports 50W wireless charging speeds thanks to its next-generation Warp charger, which can charge a dead phone to full power in 43 minutes. That’s faster than plugging an iPhone directly into a 20W charger. Xiaomi is another market leader; the 5000mAh battery in its Mi 11 Ultra phone can be charged wirelessly from 0% to 100% in 30 minutes.
Despite these improvements in wireless charging speed, an often-overlooked issue is its overall low energy efficiency. Eric Ravenscraft of Debugger discovered in 2020 that wireless charging consumes approximately 47 percent more power than wired charging for the same amount of power. Unless Apple surprises us with a new version of MagSafe that boasts unprecedented energy efficiency, abandoning the Lightning port would undoubtedly contradict the company’s much-touted environmental policy.
And that’s not the only environmental issue Apple would create by going portless. Apple stated in 2020, in response to EU discussions about requiring a universal port on all mobile devices, that removing the Lightning port from the iPhone would result in “an unprecedented amount of electronic waste.” It’s easy to see how this argument could be used against Apple if it released a portless iPhone in 2022. It would render millions of existing Lightning cables, charging docks, and other adapters obsolete and ready for the trash overnight.
Of course, Apple could satisfy the European Commission by adopting USB-C, but that would simply be swapping out one connector for another, tying the company to another cable standard for an indefinite period of time. Apple would essentially be pushing its vision of a portless iPhone further into the future. Indeed, Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst at KGI Securities, predicts that Apple will keep the Lightning connector on the iPhone for the “foreseeable future,” and that it has no plans to switch to USB-C, which has a lower water specification than Lightning. As Kuo correctly points out, such a move would be detrimental to Apple’s profitable MFi business, which is why he believes Apple is more likely to switch to a portless model without first adopting USB-C.
Given these interconnected challenges, we anticipate that, despite some iPhone 14 rumours, Apple’s next smartphone will continue to use Lightning ports with the option of MagSafe, at least until a more viable wireless charging solution that allows for a portless iPhone design without the associated drawbacks becomes available. So, when is that going to happen? To be honest, it’s difficult to say.
Apple was rumoured to be collaborating with Energous to develop a “true wireless charging” solution in 2016, but nothing has come of it so far. Apple is still thought to be researching new wireless charging technologies, and with the introduction of MagSafe, the company has clearly shown that it is still interested in innovating new ways to power devices without the mess of cables. It’s unclear how long we’ll have to wait for one that can power a portless iPhone.
Video: iPhone 14 – 10 LEAKED Features!
You might also like our other trending Tech News articles