Guess what? Ray Wong over at Inverse stumbled upon something pretty cool today. Turns out, the Apple Vision Pro power cable is hiding a secret – it connects to the battery through what looks like the grand finale of the Lightning connector. Using a trusty SIM removal tool, Wong poked into a small hole next to the cable in the silver external battery pack of the Vision Pro, and voila! Out popped a beefier, 12-pin version of the connector, a blast from the past of Apple’s Lightning port.
Nilay Patel, who happens to be the editor-in-chief at The Verge and a reviewer of the Vision Pro, decided to try it out as well. Lo and behold, the rumors were true. Lightning made a surprise comeback, wider and with more pins. Now, whether Apple did this on purpose to keep their tech world intact or if it’s just a cheeky move after being nudged by the EU into adopting USB-C for iPhones, it’s a quirky find.
l used a SIM card push pin to “unlock” the cable connected to the Apple Vision Pro battery pack. It popped right out. pic.twitter.com/tShScpMlvr
— Ray Wong (@raywongy) January 31, 2024
In another universe, maybe this would have been a USB-C connection, part of a world where external batteries for the headset don’t need Apple’s nod of approval. Sure, you can hook up a separate external battery to the USB-C port of the battery pack, but linking portable batteries together for extended use might be pushing it a tad too much.
So there you have it – Lightning’s unexpected return in the Apple Vision Pro, adding a bit of humor to the tech scene, especially with the ongoing USB-C switch-up influenced by external forces.
