(I am not interested in MagSafe or other wireless options at this time, just trying to sort out wired choices)
My new iPhone 13 comes with a charging cable that has, I believe, a Lightning connector at one end and a USB C connector at the other.
But my old USB cables that I used with my iPhone 8 can still be used to charge the 13.
I am guessing that, if I had a wall USB C port, the charging process will be faster.
Am I correct?
If so, are there other advantages to springing for a USB C port to charge my phone? How much faster is it?
Also, is there such a thing as a USB to USB C adapter? Wondering if it would be worthwhile to get this for my vehicle for Apple CarPlay (assuming it exists).
USB-C is significantly faster charging up my iPhone X. They didn’t give you a wall wart? That sucks. I’d grab a couple off of Amazon - it’s nice to have a fast charging option.
There is, but it’s not going to give you an improvements (and I’ve found USB cords in cars to be especially finicky). Might was well stick with your USB-A to lightning cord for your car.
The reasoning I heard is that many people, like me, who are buying iPhones have previous ones and still have chargers that came with those previous phones. I also have additional third-party chargers I’ve bought over the years.
And your OP said you weren’t interested in the “magsafe” charger, by which I think you’re referring to the Qi inductive chargers, but I like it. It’s much simpler just to drop the phone onto a charger pad than to connect the little cable to the bottom of the phone (especially in my bedroom at night). And you can get chargers from companies other than Apple. I have Qi chargers made by Samsung and Anker and both work fine.
Looking further, “MagSafe” is what Apple calls its Qi charger and it does magnetically connect to the phone but I actually like the Qi chargers I have from Anker or Samsung better. The Apple charger is so small, it requires some futzing to make the connection. The Anker and Samsung chargers are larger and are easier to make work. Plus they’re cheaper.
Can’t beat the Qi charger if all you need is power for the battery, IMO. I got one that sits the phone upright at an angle so I can see the screen easily without having to crane my neck; they’re available for very little expense now, too. I got mine in the checkout line at Burlington for $10.
The only problem with this reasoning is that people have mainly just accumulated USB-A chargers, not USB-C chargers. They stopped including charging bricks right around the same time as they switched to USB-C, and those charging bricks are much much less common. If they’d stuck with USB-A or if they’d switched to USB-C years ago, then it would make more sense, but the timing totally betrays their rationalization.
Yeah, but like other such inconvenient “improvements,” it was pioneered by Apple. Apple gets away with it, then other companies follow suit. They’re happy to let Apple take the brunt so they can also get away with the nickel-and-diming.
At least the phones I got still had USB-A cables, so they’d actually work with my existing plugs. And they’re not Apple, so no proprietary nonsense in the plug, either.
I have a question about how long it takes to use the phone after the battery has been depleted.
Until a few days ago, if the phone reached 0%, it would take between 10 and 30 minutes to reach 2% (useable), then go another 1-2%/minute. Today the phone took 90 minutes to go from 0 to 2%, then quickly up to 10%, then more slowly again.
Anyone smart able to give me a list of possible reasons, and what I might do, if anything?
Don’t let the battery get that low in the first place. Completely depleting these kinds of batteries damages them, so they do technically have some additional capacity below 0% to try to mitigate that. Nevertheless, it sounds like it may have completely drained, and this last charge cycle put it into a safety mode that wouldn’t allow the phone to turn on until the battery had charged up enough to somewhat recondition it.
The charger in an iPhone is quite smart. If the battery is too cold or too hot, it will charge slowly. It also will wait until a period of time before you usually unplug the phone to finish charging so it doesn’t sit at a full charge for a long time. Unfortunately, none of this is visible to the user other than the battery state graph.
My iPhone 14 also warns me it’s using optimized smart charging. I told it sleep time is 12 to 7AM so it won’t charge completely as soon as I put it on the charger, but will slow charge or wait so that it reaches full charge at 7AM.
There’s the joke that the nice thing about standards is that there are so many… iPhone 14 uses the same USB-C as the rest of the world(?) does now. (I had to check this. I’ve only used the induction charger for almost two years)
As for chargers - yes I have a plethora of bricks from assorted sources I’ve acquired over the years. i don’t need the charger block when I get a new phone. (Although the most recent iPad did come with a USB-C block so now I have one of those). I ordered from Amazon a 4-pack of USB-A to USB-C adapters, so I won’t have a problem as more devices come with C-to-C cables. I recently ordered a 5-port USB-A charger unit to simplify the mess where my tablets, phones, Kindle, portable keyboard, powerbanks, etc. plug in. it’s a mix of micro-USB, USB-C, 2 types of Apple plugs (stll have some old iPads and my original iPod), phone induction charger, Apple watch chargers… like I said - “standards”.
I also didn’t especially miss getting a wall wart with my must recent phone. I have lots that you plug a wire into. And i had USB A to USB C wires knocking around, too.
I love that i can now carry one charger for both my laptop and my phone.
Since the switch to USB-C for the iPhone 15, when I went on vacation last week I had to bring one type of charger for the phone, one type for my Apple Watch, one type for my AirPods, and one type for my Amazon Fire tablet.
