Apple’s connector consolidation

Apple, 2015: “We’re introducing USB-C charging for our laptops. Soon all of your Apple devices will just use one connector to charge. It’ll be great.

Apple, 2017: Oh, hey, we’re introducing wireless charging. You can now use three different connectors to charge your Apple devices, none of which interoperate across multiple device categories. You’re welcome.

Apple, 2020: We are now introducing MagSafe for the iPhone, and a completely different MagSafe for the new MacBook Pro and Air, in addition to USB-C on the iPad and some other stuff, and Lightning on the iPhone, some iPads, and various accessories. We now proudly offer four different options for charging some but not all of your Apple devices.

Apple, 2023: Introducing Apple Vision Pro, an exciting new device with an exciting new proprietary power connector unlike anything you’ve seen before, that won’t work with any other Apple device at all. Oh, and we’re moving the iPhone and most accessories over to USB-C now, but we are still gonna carry all the Lightning accessories and stock three iPhone models and one iPad that still use it.

I wrote this essay during my usual fumble to charge the iPad, which always involves, like how the old USB ports were mandated by cosmic law to always take three tries to orient correctly with only two options, grabbing first the Lightning plug and then the identical looking USB-C plug. I really should color code them.

But hey I can put Lightning behind me as soon as I buy the iPhone 15 Pro. Once I do that, I’ll only need Lightning for my backup old iPhone, and of course my keyboard, trackpad, and mouse. I guess I can stop using it for AirPods because I lost one. Upon writing that I looked into replacing just the missing AirPod instead of the set… $89 plus tax and shipping. So that’s a nope for me.