iPhone 15 and 15 Pro First Look: Why a Tiny USB-C Port Is a Huge Deal

livemint.com:

Sometimes you have to travel 3,000 miles just to see an 8mm hole. Yes, I’m talking about my trip to Cupertino to see the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro’s new USB-C port. After 11 years Apple has retired the Lightning port and swapped in the same port you can find on most Android phones, Windows laptops, even iPads and MacBooks.

Sure, Apple spent nearly an hour at its event on Tuesday running us through all the new iPhone features. The lower-price iPhone 15 and 15 Plus models got a softer color-infused back glass, the Dynamic Island multitasking trick, faster A16 Bionic processors and new cameras. The more expensive Pro models have a new shortcut “action button" in place of the mute switch, a lighter titanium design and faster A17 Pro chips.

My colleague Shara Tibken wrote a rundown of what’s new and different, and I will have reviews of the new iPhones soon. But this little port is…a big deal. It could be the biggest iPhone news to impact you in years.

A decade of cords you’ve accumulated in your car, desk, nightstand? They no longer work with these new phones. (It’s Apple, so of course there’s a $29 dongle for that.) Breathe. Together, we will get through this challenging time.

Here are answers to your most im-PORT-ant questions. What is this port anyway? There are four new iPhone 15 models—the regular, the Plus, the Pro and Pro Max—and they all have USB-C ports. It’s the same port found on most new devices, even my baby monitor and teeth-whitening gadget.

So it means that I can now use the same cord that I use to charge all those things to charge my next iPhone. Hooray! All the new iPhones are capable of fast charging with this new port. But if you go up to the iPhone 15 Pro or Pro Max models, you’ll get even faster file