I’m shopping for a new iPhone. I always connect my iPhone to my iMac, using a Lightnight to USB-A cable. I see that the iPhone 15 has a USB-C port :-(, and Apple is calling the included cable a “charge cable”.
Does this mean that they’re not including a data cable? And I would need to buy a cable? Along with having to buy a headphone jack to USB-C adapter?
The charge cable seems to support data transfer as well, per my few minutes exploring the Apple web site. I’m also happy to point you to a 10 dollar cable on Amazon that will support your thousand dollar purchase. And a pair of of inexpensive Bluetooth headphones to supplement that.
@Silbey I’d be interested in the head phones.
Or
Neither for audiophiles. Both for perfectly acceptable day to day sound.
iPhones do not support lossless audio connections to wireless headphones.
Which iPhone are you getting? If it’s a non-Pro you can use the included charge cable for data transfer since non-Pro iPhones have neutered data transfer anyway.
If OTOH you get a Pro that actually has support for USB3 from 2008, you can chuck aside that included cable and use a real USB3 cable so you get decent data rates rather than this 25 MB/s garbage as if we’re playing make believe it’s 2001.
There’s tons of USB3 cables that support charging at various wattage. Personally, I’m a fan of getting one cable to rule them all. This USB-IF certified $11 USB4 cable supports all flavors of USB up to 4 as well as TB4 and it has support for 240W charging, more wattage than any rechargeable Apple device even supports. Apparently Apple is fighting such cut throat competition and razor thin margins in that >$1000 phone market that they cannot afford to include a halfway decent cable with their $1000 luxury phone and instead have to resort to including cheap garbage with support for a standard from way back in 2000 (yes, I kid you not). But I’m sure the usual suspects will be here shortly to lecture us on why Apple knows better and why, although you don’t know it, you actually really want them to include garbage rather than sell you a decent cable. You just don’t know what you really want, but Tim does. Tough times to be Apple. 
I have 60GB of media on my iPhone if I first strip all video content. This cable lets me transfer that in <2 min. Apple’s included cable makes that 40 min. I know which cable I’d be using with an iPhone Pro. Unless of course you value your time at less than $18/hr in which case a single one of those transfers would waste your time to the tune of less than the cost of that $11 cable.
Sure. As I noted, neither of my recs are for audiophiles.
Non-pro. I used to buy the new top-of-the-line iPhone every other year but that ended with the increased cost of the iPhone X.
USB-C has a lot of pins. More specifically, it is a 24-pin connector, and cables have 18 wires.
But not all cables have all the wires. More specifically, a USB 2.0 cable with type-C connectors only has 5 wires, plus the shield and the VCONN line (for powered cables, and is not carried end-to-end). A cable like this is going to only support USB 2.0 capabilities, including bandwidth and charging power.
I think this is what Apple ships as a “charge cable” It will charge your phone, but is not going to provide anything resembling high speed data transfer.
We’re in the same boat. That makes it very simple then. The non-Pro iPhones have their USB-C ports gimped to meager USB2 speeds. And for that kind of paltry throughout the included “charge cable” will do just fine.
No matter what fancy cable you use, data between Mac and iPhone will gimped to about 25 MB/s and that’s just something we have to live with, unless of course, we’re willing to put up with extra weight and heft, not to mention a $200 surcharge for a Pro just to get data transfer that exploits the 16 year old USB3 standard. Courage, Apple!
I will say, as I mentioned in another thread, the cable itself is nice. It’s braided, lightweight, and bends really well. The insult is not the cable qaulity, it’s that Apple thinks it’s adequate to gimp a $800 luxury phone with data transfer like we did back in 2000 when for 16 years (!) there has been a far superior standard around that they otherwise readily support on even their cheapest hardware. But with the Pros offering so little advantage over an already very pricy regular iPhone, I suppose they see every opportunity to create “added value” as essential. So gimping galore. It’s not engineering, just, once again, marketing. The gift that keeps on giving.
What’s the data transfer rate using a Lightning to USB cable on an iPhone 12? I would be satisfied if the USB-C “charge” cable is at least that fast.
It is. It’s the exact same “480 Mbps” USB2 data transfer rate that both the old Lightning cable supported as well as the new “charge cable”.
It is. It’s the exact same “480 Mbps” USB2 data transfer rate that both the old Lightning cable supported as well as the new “charge cable”.
[/quote]Wow, Apple’s new USB-C cables are that slow? I thought they would be faster by now! :(
Why would they care about the cable? As long as they continue to gimp the iPhone to USB2’s real-world 25 MB/s shipping a better cable makes zero difference. It’s the $800 luxury phone that’s the problem.
Apple, like everybody else, sells a variety of cables with the USB-C connector.
Their “charge cable”, which they are bundling with devices is a USB 2.0 cable.
They also sell (not bundled with devices) Thunderbolt 4 cables, which can also carry USB 3+ data.
But Apple’s cables are very overpriced. I’d go third-party and get cables from a trusted brand like Anker and many others.
No. The USB C cable is for charging and for data. People have complained for years that they need different cables for different Apple devices. But you know how tight-fisted Apple is, and they would never have fixed this if it hadn’t been for the EU consumer protection agency. The EU ruled that unless Apple settled on the USB-C cable, it could no longer sell Apple products in the EU. This wouldn’t have happened in the US, where the tech industry seems to own the regulators.