Only Pro models support reasonable speeds for USB-C, up to 10Gbps. Regular iPhones are capped at USB 2.0 rates, up to 480Mbps, which is no faster than Lightning. With an iPhone 16 Pro, a 1GB file transfer can take 8 seconds – with a vanilla iPhone 16, you’re going to be waiting over 16 minutes.
…What? At 10Gbps a 1GB transfer takes under a second, while at 480Mbps it would take about 17 sec. Was this article written by AI or did the author just not care to actually do the math?
Yeah, that’s largely due to hardware manufacturers’ and ISPs’ marketing teams wanting to show bigger numbers. “1 Gbps” sounds a lot cooler than “0.125 GBps”. But file sizes are almost always measured in bytes, not bits. And the difference between Gb and GB is subtle, at best. So a layman will easily assume that 1Gbps will transfer a 1GB file in 1 second.
And don’t even get me started on the difference between GB and fucking GiB…
The maximum real world speed for USB 2 is around 320Mbps or 40MB/s, but that only happens if there is only one device connected to the USB controller. 30MB/s is much more typical.
…What? At 10Gbps a 1GB transfer takes under a second, while at 480Mbps it would take about 17 sec. Was this article written by AI or did the author just not care to actually do the math?
they are mixing gigabits with gigabytes so that is confusing. but even then, the math is still wrong for the usb 2 speeds.
My best guess is they somehow mixed up minutes and seconds? Usually people mix up bits and bytes the other way and overestimate speeds.
Yeah, that’s largely due to hardware manufacturers’ and ISPs’ marketing teams wanting to show bigger numbers. “1 Gbps” sounds a lot cooler than “0.125 GBps”. But file sizes are almost always measured in bytes, not bits. And the difference between Gb and GB is subtle, at best. So a layman will easily assume that 1Gbps will transfer a 1GB file in 1 second.
And don’t even get me started on the difference between GB and fucking GiB…
Data communication speeds have always been in bits/second. No marketing teams involved, it’s just the most logical way.
I mean I don’t think I’ve ever seen USB 2 actually hit the 480mbps theoretical speeds, usually it’s much slower
The maximum real world speed for USB 2 is around 320Mbps or 40MB/s, but that only happens if there is only one device connected to the USB controller. 30MB/s is much more typical.
Those are the bi directional bandwidth not the file transfer speeds going one way.