The iPhone 15 made the switch to USB-C this year, but the Lightning port lives on with several Mac accessories. The latest rumor is that these accessories will get updated with USB-C ports in the first half of next year.
This is according to Instant Digital on Chinese social media site Weibo (via 9to5Mac), and “spring 2024” is mentioned. We’re assuming that means spring in the northern hemisphere, so March, April, or May.
The tipster mentions the Apple Magic Mouse, the Magic Keyboard, and the Magic Trackpad, though we don’t get much information beyond that – it’s possible that the switch to USB-C will be the one and only change with the refresh.
Once that happens, there won’t be many Apple products left with the Lightning port. The company still says older iPhones of course, and as our iPhone SE 3 review will tell you, that phone has a Lightning port on the bottom of it as well.
A special event?
Another rumor earlier this week suggested that new iPad Air, iPad Pro, and MacBook Air models – all powered by Apple’s own M3 chip – could be launching in March, April, or May as well, so it sounds as if there could be quite a lot of new hardware on show.
Apple has launched products in March in the past, though it didn’t this year. This year we had the Apple M2 chips and some associated Mac computer refreshes announced in January, with nothing then until WWDC 2023 in June.
What remains to be seen is whether we’ll get a full event that gets live streamed over the web – like we did in March 2022, when products including the Mac Studio were announced – or whether Apple will content itself with a flurry of press releases instead.
It makes sense for Apple to slowly phase out the use of Lightning, though we’ll never know if the iPhones would have stuck with the port if it wasn’t for European Union regulations. It seems Apple’s flagship accessories are next in line.