Kuo: AirPods, MagSafe Battery Pack, and Other Apple Accessories Also to Switch to USB-C in Future

Earlier this week, well-known Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo claimed that Apple plans to release at least one iPhone 15 model with a USB-C port in 2023. Now, in a follow-up tweet, he has claimed that accessories like AirPods, the MagSafe Battery Pack, and the Magic Keyboard/Mouse/Trackpad trio would also switch to USB-C in the "foreseeable future."

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Both the iPhone and all of the aforementioned accessories currently rely on Apple's proprietary Lightning connector for wired charging and/or data transfer. A switch to USB-C would result in a more universal connectivity standard and satisfy regulators, as a wide range of tech products are equipped with USB-C ports, including many Android smartphones and even the latest MacBooks and iPad Pro, iPad Air, and iPad mini models.


Kuo also suggested that it is still too early for Apple to release a portless iPhone due to current limitations of wireless technologies and the immaturity of Apple's own MagSafe ecosystem of wireless accessories that attach magnetically to the iPhone.

Related Roundups: AirPods 4, AirPods Pro
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Top Rated Comments

Lounge vibes 05 Avatar
39 months ago
I still don’t understand to this day why the mouse, keyboard and trackpad have lightning.
All of these other products having lightning makes sense because they’re mainly meant for iOS devices, so them using the exact same port is expected.
But the mouse, keyboard and trackpad all come with the Mac, are all accessories for the Mac. They should have the same port as the Mac.
Even the iPad Magic Keyboard has USB-C, it makes no sense
Score: 57 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Rychiar Avatar
39 months ago
this would be a nice time for them to redesign the mouse charging port to a position that isn't complete ridiculous...
Score: 34 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Lounge vibes 05 Avatar
39 months ago

People have lighting cables from iPhones, don’t need to buy usb-c cables if they don’t want to.
All these accessories come with lightning cables. If you purchase a desktop Mac that has the accessories in the box, they come with lightning cables.
That doesn’t make it make any more sense
Score: 24 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MasterControlProgram Avatar
39 months ago
So much of my stuff is USB-C now that still having Lightning on the iPhone and AirPods and having to keep adapters around for them is a pain. If they really are ditching Lightning next year I might wait to upgrade my iPhone until then.
Score: 22 Votes (Like | Disagree)
mrat93 Avatar
39 months ago

well for others it's the opposite - we have lightning cables pretty much everywhere, multiples in each location actually (bedrooms, living room, kitchen, cars, travel bags, etc.) since most of our devices all still use them (iphones, ipads, airpods, power banks, etc.) and comparatively have very few devices that use USB-C.

i acknowledge that eventually we'll all be forced to switch over as devices evolve and we eventually upgrade, but for now to most people who don't actually need to do a lot of data transfer, USB-C doesn't really offer any real world advantage over lightning (the cable's just used for charging anyway).

it just means that our existing lightning cables will become useless & we'll have to spend extra money buying a whole bunch of extra USB-C cables to place everywhere instead...
1. Your Lightning cables won’t be useless. They will still work on all of your existing devices and the tens of billions of existing devices in the world.
2. USB-C opens the door to much faster charging as well.
3. I’m sorry to say that you’re likely in the minority of people who are all-in on Lightning.

Honestly, you can/should be annoyed with Apple for taking this long — Apple duped its users (myself included) for years by creating a whole ecosystem of accessories when they knew Lightning would eventually die. They should have done this 5 years sooner.
Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Premium1 Avatar
39 months ago
As they should. If Apple truly cares about the environment, needing to have multiple different cords for different devices is stupid. I know they want to make $$ with their licensing of lightning, but come on.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)