News & Reviews:   USB Type-C

Apple is reportedly planning to adopt USB Type-C more widely within its portfolio, including on the AirPods lineup as well as Mac accessories. This is according to reliable tipster on everything Apple, Mark Gurman.

Fans of Apple’s true wireless stereo earbuds have been waiting for the tech giant to update its AirPods Pro for some time now, with a rumoured refresh never came to be over the past two years. If the latest rumour is to be believed however, the AirPods Pro 2 will be coming later this year and will feature USB Type-C.

Yesterday, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) agreed to a motion requiring for a common charger for portable electronic devices. Hence, the the European Union (EU) will soon require all technology firms, including Apple to put a USB Type-C port on their devices for charging.

A few years ago, most laptops came with thick power adapters that take up space in your back. The sizes for these adapters have gotten smaller in recent years, but no manufacturer has managed to get rid of them completely. Fortunately, that might change soon.

Can you imagine the time we used to have 30 types of charging ports back in 2019? If they haven’t been reduced to only three types now which are USB Type-C, micro-USB, and Apple’s lightning port, our living room would be filled with God knows how many cables. For years, the European Commission has been pushing for a single charging method for mobile devices, even for Apple’s devices as well. Now, the commission is planning to propose a new law to unify the charging method in the countries.

Companies are slowly moving away from including the humble 3.5mm jack on their smartphones. We have a few companies already coming out with devices sans the jack - LeEco, Motorola and the most famous of all, Apple. Now the organization behind the USB standard has come up with a new guideline for a spec called USB Audio Class 3.0, which eliminates the need of having an audio jack in the smartphone altogether.