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I don't understand, when they got rid of the audio jack and added wireless charging, why does the phone have ports at all? Couldn't they make a port-less phone?

mattnewton 9y ago
Diagnostics, developer experience and backups are all hard to do wirelessly, but I am sure they are thinking about it.
- moduspol 9y ago
  We (developers) can already build and run wirelessly since a year or so ago, and iTunes will back up your iPhone wirelessly, too. It does need to be plugged in once and then enabled, but after that you're off to the races. We're actually pretty close. It wouldn't surprise me if the next iPhone had no ports, although they'll probably save that for a non-S year.
leerob 9y ago
I mean, they could. But does that mean they should? Personally, I don't think so.
sib 9y ago
I personally would not want to have wireless charging only for this device. Given the number of different places in which I want to charge my phone over the course of a week, and how few of them have wireless charging stations, that would be a big problem.
thefalcon 9y ago
As I understand it, Apple committed to X years of the lightning port to certain MFi vendors, which (if true) is just another checkmark in the "why have ports" column.
doctoboggan 9y ago
I heard somewhere, (but have not been able to back it up) that Apple guarantees a certain lifetime for their connectors to accessory manufacturers. This would explain why Apple hasn't switched to USB-C or no port at all.
umanwizard 9y ago
The lightning connector is used for data transfer, not just charging.
abritinthebay 9y ago
Qi charging is slow. All wireless charging is (by its nature). It’ll get better but I’d be very surprised to see a popular phone go totally port-less in the next 5 years.
kristjansson 9y ago
CarPlay is also probably a limiting factor. There are a few options for wireless CarPlay, but it seems the vast majority of implementations still rely on the cable. I doubt Apple would be willing to effectively kill such a feature with so much investment and partnership, and without an effective and equivalent alternative available. Sounds a lot like the headphone jack now that I type it out, but I guess ‘if you want to listen to music, buy Bluetooth headphones if you haven’t already, or use the adapter’ is easier on the consumer than ‘if you want to keep using carplay, buy a BMW.’

mattnewton 9y ago

Diagnostics, developer experience and backups are all hard to do wirelessly, but I am sure they are thinking about it.

moduspol 9y ago
We (developers) can already build and run wirelessly since a year or so ago, and iTunes will back up your iPhone wirelessly, too. It does need to be plugged in once and then enabled, but after that you're off to the races. We're actually pretty close. It wouldn't surprise me if the next iPhone had no ports, although they'll probably save that for a non-S year.

leerob 9y ago

I mean, they could. But does that mean they should? Personally, I don't think so.

sib 9y ago

I personally would not want to have wireless charging only for this device. Given the number of different places in which I want to charge my phone over the course of a week, and how few of them have wireless charging stations, that would be a big problem.

thefalcon 9y ago

As I understand it, Apple committed to X years of the lightning port to certain MFi vendors, which (if true) is just another checkmark in the "why have ports" column.

doctoboggan 9y ago

I heard somewhere, (but have not been able to back it up) that Apple guarantees a certain lifetime for their connectors to accessory manufacturers. This would explain why Apple hasn't switched to USB-C or no port at all.

umanwizard 9y ago

The lightning connector is used for data transfer, not just charging.

abritinthebay 9y ago

Qi charging is slow. All wireless charging is (by its nature). It’ll get better but I’d be very surprised to see a popular phone go totally port-less in the next 5 years.

kristjansson 9y ago

CarPlay is also probably a limiting factor. There are a few options for wireless CarPlay, but it seems the vast majority of implementations still rely on the cable. I doubt Apple would be willing to effectively kill such a feature with so much investment and partnership, and without an effective and equivalent alternative available. Sounds a lot like the headphone jack now that I type it out, but I guess ‘if you want to listen to music, buy Bluetooth headphones if you haven’t already, or use the adapter’ is easier on the consumer than ‘if you want to keep using carplay, buy a BMW.’