One Analyst Thinks the iPhone 8 Will Still Have a Lightning Connector With USB-C Adapter for Europe

There is no way Apple would move from Lightning. They have invested so much into the ecosystem, it hasn't hit the limits as far as technical prowess, and Apple's control of the entire implementation allows them to do many things that would require serious work to implement without Lightning's wrapper on USB's transfer mechanism.

Did you know that when you plug accessories in, iOS flashes them with the most up-to-date firmware? Or the majority of the handshake between wireless devices (Pencil, Magic accessories) is handled by Lightning? Or even that Lightning's adaptor/connector support is so interoperable that it can survive any foreseeable transition or include any existing connection ever? They've just invested so much from a technical aspect that I see them having a hard time reimplementing much of it with a standard that they don't control.

Even the development path says no - if Apple transitions iOS devices to USB-C, they'd have to move controller hardware for supported modes back into the iDevice; at the moment the iDevices only need to control USB traffic and everything else is handled on the cord. Neither is Apple going to allow that complexity - which they worked so hard to move out of the core - back in, nor chance having to make a device larger to support a random array of modes (HDMI, DP are good examples and USB-C's mode set has grown every 6 months) and would never welcome back the days of: "this device only supports these series of connections".

Barclays, AKA the guys who downgraded Apple with $115 target one day before the stock skyrocketed.

And $20 in the US

This will never happen. Apple is all about thin. USB is thinner, as far as USB goes, but it's not thinner than lightning.

And $20 in the US

Yes, but in the US it will be an optional purchase. Guarantee you the iPhone will cost more in Europe than the US and more than $20 too - it always does even after you add in VAT - so stop your whining.

The WSJ article could be interpreted as "comes with Lighting to USB-C cord instead of Lighting to USB-A". The wording is vague.

If Apple were listening, they would have introduced USB-C instead of the Lightning port in the first place!

Lightning was implemented in iOS devices roughly 2 years before USB-C was even finalized.

I would love having usb c on the iphone. You could charge your phone with the same cable you use to charge your laptop. That would be awesome.

*Sigh* You realise this is possible with USB as long as software support is present, yes?

I never said it wasn't. I said Apple would have to implement this again outside of a protocol they control, then you hopped in and said I was incorrect about how Lightning actually works. All of that was to prove you wrong.

Even so, if Apple sticks with the current method of moving those bits out of iDevices and implements USB-C, that means you'd be bound to certain USB-C cables and Accessories in order to connect correctly to an iDevice. If an iPad doesn't support USB-C HDMI mode and Apple instead relies on some sort of adaptor instead of purely a USB-C -> HDMI cable, I guarantee the confusion and general uproar would be much worse than sticking with Lightning.

USB-C isn't some kind of magical unifier of all good, it's actually a very complex and dynamic standard that means a lot of different things to the devices that it is implemented in.

Ditching Lightning for USB-C is the smartest move Apple could make. Seriously, it would make everyone's lives so much easier.