The iPhone 16 series was unveiled at Apple’s “It’s Glowtime” event with much fanfare on Monday. During the event, the company showed off several hardware and software improvements that the new generation of iPhone devices will come with. However, it seems that the company’s wording about “faster USB 3 speeds” may have been taken out of context, and the tech giant is not actually offering increased transfer speeds on the new iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max lineup.
iPhone 16 users may not receive improved USB transfer speeds
The Cupertino tech giant stated while listing the numerous improvements to the iPhone 16 Pro models that the next generation of Apple smartphones will get “faster USB 3 speeds.” However, as the MacRumors report noted, that may be misleading wording from the company.
A look at the tech specs for the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro models here and here reveals that the USB 2 and USB 3 transfer speeds for the base and Pro models are 480Mbps and 10Gbps, respectively. Interestingly, the same speeds were available on the iPhone 15 Pro and non-Pro models. If that’s the case, then there’s no real improvement in transfer speeds.
It appears that what Apple really wanted to communicate is that the iPhone 16 Pro models equipped with the A18 Pro chipset offer faster data transfers compared to the non-Pro models equipped with the A18 SoC.
However, this claim would be true if the tech giant were comparing the data transfer speeds of the iPhone 16 Pro with the iPhone 14 Pro, the last generation of the device to feature a Lightning cable.
However, for those looking to get 10Gbps transfer speeds with the iPhone 16 Pro models, users will need a suitable USB-C cable, which must be purchased separately. It is worth noting that USB 3 is the third generation of the Universal Serial Bus standard, which offers faster data transfer speeds compared to previous versions.
The iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max also have a larger display with a 6.3-inch and 6.9-inch Super Retina XDR OLED screen, respectively. The display also has a 120Hz refresh rate (ProMotion) and up to 2,000 peak brightness units.
