The iPhone 15 is gearing up to launch in September, and its new leaked feature includes a USB-C port with Thunderbolt support, which is taking the internet by storm. As earlier leaks in February confirms, the iPhone is shifting from the Lightning charging port to the USB-C port.
USB-C port with Thunderbolt
Thunderbolt is a technology that combines USB, DisplayPort, and PCI Express protocols into one port, offering speeds of up to 40 Gbps. This is much faster than the standard USB-C port, which can reach up to 10 Gbps. Thunderbolt also supports power delivery, which means that the iPhone 15 could charge faster and power external devices.
According to tweet by fix Apple (@lipilipsi), iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max could be equipped with a Thunderbolt-compatible USB-C port. This would allow the iPhone 15 Pro models to connect to external monitors, hard drives, docks, and other accessories that require high bandwidth and low latency. For example, the iPhone 15 Pro could output live 4K video to a monitor while recording on the device.
A leak of supposed iPhone 15 components shows a Retimer chip on the USB-C sockets, which is commonly used to improve signal transmission stability for high-bandwidth data ports such as Thunderbolt/USB4. This suggests that the entire iPhone 15 series, not just the Pro models, might support Thunderbolt speeds.
Thunderbolt support would make a huge difference for iPhone users, especially for video work. It would enable faster transfers of large files such as 4K videos, and also allow more creative possibilities with external devices. A leaker claimed that the iPhone 15 Pro models would have a new cinematography feature that would use Thunderbolt for this purpose.
However, these have not been confirmed by Apple and could change before the official launch. We will have to wait until September to see the full features of the iPhone 15. If the iPhone 15 series ends up with a USB-C port, then most probably all the Apple devices such as AirPods and iPad will likely switch to the USB-C port in the near future.
