So, the iPhone 15 and 15 pro now has USB-C…..so what, right?!
Well, actually, you can do quite a bit with USB-C on these iPhones, more than just connect
a ssd for Prores video at 60fps.
Do you want to see?
Ok, I’ll show you.
USB-C is now replacing the locked down proprietary lighting port on iPhones that Apple has used
for the last 10 years.
And you would think that apple would limit or hobble the USB port to control it or control
the experience but it seems they pretty much left it alone.
And because Apple showed external disks being used at the iPhone announcement, that is where
we will start.
I have tried a few different ssds that I have and I found that the port on the Pro is really
not limited in terms of speed.
The USB 3 spec apple is using can go up to 10Gbps per second so I connected this USB
drive to an iPhone 15 Pro and selected a 10GB test file.
And as you can see, the speeds are pretty much the maximum for this drive.
I am getting about 750MB write speed and about 480 MBps read speed.
Those are really great speeds which means now if you have large files you need to get
on or off the iPhone 15 pro you can quickly do that.
If you use luma fusion and want o backup your video projects, or you want to send a bunch
of photos to the ssd, its now waaaaaaay faster than it used to be……..Unless you have
an iPhone 15 or 15 Plus.
Thats right, the regular, non-pro iPhones did not get this awesome speedboost and is
stuck at USB2 speeds.
So I ran the same disk speed test with a 10GB file on this 15 plus and because the speeds
was so slow, I stopped the test and ran it with a 1GB file.
The speed came out to about 50MBps for write and 35MBps for read…..Pretty abysmal speeds.
Why apple chose to go that route, I have no idea.
There can’t really be a cost savings beyond pennies.
And of course if you want to shoot pro-res video on the iPhone 15 Pro you can save that
directly to an external drive.
If you want to shoot 60fps you have to use an external drive, Apple will not allow you
to record that footage on the iPhone.
But if you want to shoot in 24 or 30fps you can shoot that directly to an ssd or to the
internal storage.
And in case you are wondering, the video files are stored on the ssd just like a real camera
would which you can see in the files app.
Now, just take that to a Mac, offload it quickly and start editing.
And if you are wondering if you can use SD cards to do the same thing, you absolutely
can using an SD card reader.
Next you can connect the iPhone 15 and 15 pro to a display.
I was able to connect My iPhone 15 to my 5k Studio Display.
Here the iPhone will mirror and display what you are seeing on the built-in display, but,
larger.
If you want to watch a video, you are able to open up something like YouTube and after
starting the video, rotate the iPhone and you get not quite a full screen display but
a large display.
Other apps, like Hulu, will actually output the full video to the external display while
allowing you to scroll around elsewhere in the App.
Because the studio display has built in speakers, you can get great audio and control the volume
from the iPhone.
The animations and motion are smooth and I didn’t see any hiccups.
Using a USB-C to HDMI adapter, you can also connect to a 4k display.
Actually, you can spend a bunch of money on multiple dongles for SD cards, HDMI connections,
USB-C to USB-A adapters, or you could get something like the 7-1 USB-C multifunction
adapter from our channel partner Ugreen!
This 7-1 adapter is a great accessory for your new iPhone 15 and 15 Pro.
It has all the ports you need to connect the other usb accessories I am going to show you.
There is an HDMI port that can do up to 4k 60, 2 fast USB-A ports, 2 sd card readers
for regular and micro, a passthrough usb-c charge port, plus Ethernet!
This is a great iPhone 15 accessory to toss in your bag or keep handy at your desk.
You can use it to connect your HDMI display and mirror or watch video from your iPhone
on a nice large display.
You can see that when connected to a 4k display the UI is fast and fluid when mirroring.
The animations are smooth and there is no perceptible delay when using an external display.
And with the multiple ports on the Ugreen multifunction adapter, you can connect other
accessories like an external ssd and how you can watch videos from an external drive on
an external display, oh, and you can keep charged up with the passthrough power port
and the adorable Ugreen nexode 30w RG power adapter.
I will leave links in the description below to the Ugreen 7-1 USB-C multifunction adapter
and RG charger if you want to check those out!
Now, besides watching video, you can also play games on the iPhone using an external
display and a wireless controller, which is pretty great.
I like to play Call of duty mobile on my iPad but if I am at my regular job office and want
to take a break or blow some steam off over lunch, I could connect the iPhone I have in
my pocket to an HDMI display and start taking down some bad guys.
This is one of the only games I play and I found the experience to be really good, maybe
better than the iPad.
Now what if you don’t want to play games on an external display but would still like
to be able to use a controller and play directly on the iPhone?
Well you can still pair an xbox or playstation controller and prop your iPhone up, or you
can get something like this BackBone usb-c controller.
Backbone does have a lightning version, which I have, but the USB-C version they make for
Android works perfectly with the iPhone 15 and 15 Pro.
If you buy from directly BackBone, they should come ready for iPhone now, but the one I bought
on Amazon needed a firmware update when connected to an android phone, but after that, it works
just as expected with the iPhones.
Plus, because it is USB-C, if you live in a multi mobile OS environment, you can now
use the same controller for both devices!
The next thing you can do with USB-C on the iPhones is get fast, reliable ethernet!
Ya, you don’t need to use wifi or cellular if you plug in an adapter with ethernet, like
the Ugreen multifunction adapter.
I have really good wifi in my home and I have wifi 6e which allows me to get very fast speeds
but not all the time because….wireless….
The iPhone 15 Pro does really well in this speed test, getting about 800MBps download
speed, which is pretty great, but its not nearly as reliable as ethernet which gets
me about 900 MBps and lower latency so if I wanted to game with a monitor I can also
have a faster connection to really show all those teenagers who’s boss.
Unfortunately, the limited USB speed of the regular iPhone 15 and 15 plus limit the ethernet
speed, but you still get a stable connection so if you have bad wifi, this will probably
still help you out.
Another feature of having USB-C on the iPhones is the ability to do device to device charging.
With a USB-C to lightning cable you can charge up AirPods, and Apple Remote, or an apple
mouse if you want.
You can also charge other iPhones directly.
Here I have an iPhone 15 Plus and and iPhone 15 Pro Max.
When I connect them together with USB-C, the one with the higher percentage of battery
will start charging the other one.
In this example, the 15 Plus has 94% battery and the Pro Max has 66%.
Yes, Even if you connect an iPhone 15 to a 15 Pro Max, if the 15 has a higher percentage,
it will send power to the other device.
And you can also charge older iPhones as well, like this iPhone 14 pro max, although this
will only go one way and the lightning iPhone can not charge a usb-c iPhone.
Next, you can connect external webcams and microphones!
I don’t actually have an external webcam so I can’t test that but here is an external
microphone that connects with USB-C. You can use this in Voice Memos, FaceTime or zoom
calls, camera or whatever uses audio input.
[……audio test]
I also tested out the Magic Keyboard connected with a lightning to USB-C cable and the keyboard
lights right up and you can use it for text stuff, including command -C for copy and past,
and go home but not much else.
I tried out a Mouse as well and only enough,
when connected, the setting panel recognizes and creates a mouse slash trapped setting
that you can change but you do not get the mouse indicator like on an iPad.
So, That is everything I have tried so far and I was surprised that so many things worked
as well as they did.
Apple actually allowed USB on the iPhone and not just for the bare minimum.
Are there any other usb accessories you have tried with your iPhone that I didn’t mention
here?
Let me know what they are down below.
If you want to see my comparison of the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max, check out this video right
over here.
Hit the thumbs up