In any case, this wouldn't be solved by USB-C. In fact, it'd be even worse, because instead of one chunky piece of metal with some bits inside, you'll have a me

In any case, this wouldn't be solved by USB-C. In fact, it'd be even worse, because instead of one chunky piece of metal with some bits inside, you'll have a mess of tiny plastic and long, unprotected connector pins, both in the device and on the cable connector. Also: Apple does not attach the lightning port to the mainboard of an iPhone, and thus it is easily replaced unlike damn near every Android phone where the connector is soldered onto the mainboard, purposefully, along with extremely fine pitch SMD components very close to the connector, to make it difficult to impossible to repair (the tiny SMD components will blow off the board if you use a hot air rework gun.)