This Week's Sponsor
Magic Lasso Adblock: YouTube ad blocker for Safari
By Jason Snell for Macworld
Should Apple dump Lightning from the iPhone 8? The cases for and against
On Tuesday a Wall Street Journal report reinforced rumors that there’s a very new iPhone coming this fall, with a flexible OLED screen. But along with that expected bit of information came an unexpected one:
Apple [will] introduce other updates including a USB-C port for the power cord and other peripheral devices, instead of the company’s original Lightning connector.
At first parsing, it comes across as a flat-out statement that Apple is going to ditch Lightning for the USB-C connector currently found on the MacBook and MacBook Pro. But a second read highlights some of the details-power cord and other peripheral devices?-that make you wonder if this might be a misreading of a decision to replace the USB-A-based cords and power adapters that come in the iPhone box with USB-C models. (I’m also a bit baffled by how the Lightning connector is “original,” unless it means it’s like a Netflix Original.)
Still, the Wall Street Journal would appear to be a more visible and reputable source than an analyst or blog with some sources in Apple’s supply chain. It’s generally considered to be one of the places where Apple has itself tactically leaked information in the past. So let’s take a moment and consider this rumor seriously. What would drive Apple to kill the Lightning connector, and why would it keep it around?