You might soon be able to stop lugging a Lightning cable around with your phone.
Following hot on the heels of leaks from trusted analyst Ming-Chi Kuo that claim Apple will finally be ditching its proprietary Lightning connector for the more widely supported USB-C standard in future iPhones, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman is adding some credibility of his own to the rumor. Earlier today, he reported that “people with knowledge of the situation” tell him that testing to replace Lightning with USB-C is already underway. For those tired of juggling dozens of different cables, this is pretty great news. Kuo has said in the past that Apple’s been reluctant to ditch its Lightning connector, which non-Apple devices don’t use, because it’s better for the “MFI business’s profitability” and because it has a higher waterproof specification than USB. But there’s no arguing against the convenience of being able to use the same cable for all of your devices, and Apple is all about convenience. Let’s not give Apple too much praise for this potential move, though. When Kuo made his initial leak, which was based on a survey amongst his own industry sources, he was doing so shortly after the EU’s Market and Consumer Protection Committee voted in support of legislation that would force companies to adopt USB-C on all small and medium-sized gadgets.
