A portless iPhone is the first step on the road to a better world.
I had a revelation recently while testing the wired charging speed of my trusty iPhone 16 Plus. In six months of ownership, it occurred to me as I blew the dust out like an archaeologist examining an ancient pot, I had never plugged a cable into my iPhone’s USB-C port. It seemed impossible, but it was true.
And it made me think. Do iPhone owners even need ports? When reports suggest that Apple is working on a smartphone with no port at all, everyone loses their minds. But if I can go half a year without using my iPhone’s USB-C port and not even notice, where’s the issue? If Apple wants to ditch the iPhone’s USB-C port, I say: Good.
The port at the bottom of an iPhone used to be absolutely fundamental to its well-being. Whether 30-pin, Lightning, or latterly USB-C, the charging/data port was the main, often the only route into or out of the iPhone. Aside from charging, this port was vital in the early days for uploading music and books onto the device and getting photos and videos off it. Syncing and backing up were done via a wired connection, too. But one by one these uses switched from wired only, to wired or wireless, to MagSafe, to who still uses a wire?
Most of us will have memories of times when the port connection became unreliable, and of how much of a pain this was. From that point until you got a new phone the cable had to be waggled in a specific way to make it start charging, or the phone had to be laid upside down or at some weird angle. “Don’t use that cable,” you’d warn a friend. “It only plays nicely with the official Apple one.” Just another of those modern conveniences that make life hell.
MagSafe is already a fantastic wireless option for (most) iPhones.
Of late, however, this particular set of annoyances has faded into the background, at least for me. I charge wirelessly overnight when the slower speed doesn’t matter. I get my music via streaming, not being 87 years old, and I transfer everything else wirelessly to and from the phone, this not being 2009.
