Forced to abandon Lightning in favor of USB-C on iPhone, Apple has developed a new proprietary cable, which could be described as “Mega Lightning”. It allows you to connect the Vision Pro battery to the headset. It’s anecdotal, but amusing.
In September 2023, after years of fighting, the European Union finally succeeded in forcing Apple to adopt a universal port on its iPhones. After 12 years of Lightning, the brand launched iPhone 15s which charge via USB-C, like Macs, iPads and Android smartphones. The end of proprietary connectors? That’s not knowing Apple well.
Available from February 2, 2024 in the United States (and at Numerama 🤫), the Apple Vision Pro introduces two new proprietary charging ports. The first is magnetic and attaches to the helmet (the magnet turns so that it can no longer be torn off). The second is integrated into the external battery and takes the form of a “Mega Lightning”, with 12 pins instead of 8. If Apple had wanted to joke, it couldn’t have done better.
The Lightning, the eternal revenant
Technically speaking, this Mega Lightning is the third iteration of Apple’s proprietary port. The branches of the AirPods Max headset were already illustrated by their mini Lightning, which the user is not supposed to see.
In the case of the Vision Pro, the battery cable is supposedly immovable (it is attached by magnet to the headset and by Mega Lightning to the battery). In case of technical problem, you can use a paper clip to remove the Mega Lightning from its hole.
Unsurprisingly, social networks, Twitter first and foremost, were greatly amused by this revelation. Numerous montages have emerged to mock Apple’s relentlessness with the Lightning, which seems, as very often, to design products according to its own needs.
Why did you choose Mega Lightning rather than USB-C? We reassure you, Apple is not doing this for nothing. Its Mega Lightning is immovable without a paper clip, which makes it more of a diagnostic port than a port that can be used on a daily basis (USB-C would have made the cable removable, with the risk of unplugging it by mistake). The battery is recharged via USB-C (with another port). It should also be noted that European laws do not regulate batteries for mixed reality headsets, which means that Apple is perfectly in line. This internal design choice only concerns the brand, even if this new form of Lightning, in the current regulatory context, is as clumsy as it is brilliant.
Is the Californian brand’s space computer as promising as hoped? Numerama will have the Apple Vision Pro in a few hours and is preparing plenty of articles and videos to answer your questions. Finally, without telling you more for the moment, we are preparing a surprise for Numerama+ readers who dream of trying the Apple product!
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