Not every USB-C iPhone moves photos and videos quickly over a cable. The connector is the same, but the data standard behind it differs by model, and the cable in the box limits speed too.
Same shape, two standards
The “Charging and Expansion” section of Apple's Korean spec pages splits the models in two. The iPhone 17 specs, iPhone Air specs and iPhone 17e specs all list USB 2 (up to 480Mb/s). The iPhone 18 Pro specs list USB 3 (up to 10Gb/s), with a footnote on the same page saying a USB 3 cable supporting 10Gb/s is required.
Apple's support article on connecting and charging with the iPhone USB-C connector lists the models that support USB 3.2 Gen 2 (up to 10Gbit/s) as the iPhone 18 Pro, 17 Pro, 16 Pro and 15 Pro models. The iPhone 17, Air and 17e are not on that list and are USB 2 per their spec pages. The iPhone Duo specs, marked as coming later this year, list USB 3 (up to 10Gb/s), but the Duo is not yet on the support article's list.
| Model | Data standard in the specs | Maximum speed |
|---|---|---|
| iPhone 18 Pro / 18 Pro Max | USB 3 | 10Gb/s (USB 3 cable required) |
| iPhone 17 | USB 2 | 480Mb/s |
| iPhone Air | USB 2 | 480Mb/s |
| iPhone 17e | USB 2 | 480Mb/s |
Even with a Pro, the cable in the box is USB 2
A Pro model does not get 10Gb/s out of the box. The 18 Pro spec page lists a USB-C Charge Cable (1m) in the box, and the support article says the USB-C cable included with iPhone supports charging and USB 2 speeds, and that USB 3 devices require a compatible USB 3 cable that supports 10Gbit/s. Connect a Pro to a Mac or an external SSD with the included cable and it transfers at the same USB 2 speed as a base model.
The reverse also holds: plugging a 10Gb/s cable into a USB 2 model won't take it past 480Mb/s, because that is the maximum in its specs. How to read cable ratings is covered separately in our USB-C cable rating article.
Moving 100GB: the theoretical gap
Here is the minimum time to move 100GB (1GB = 1 billion bytes) at each standard's maximum. We multiplied 100×10⁹ bytes by 8 to get bits and divided by the maximum speed.
- USB 2, 480Mb/s: 800,000Mb ÷ 480Mb/s = about 1,667 seconds, about 27.8 minutes
- USB 3, 10Gb/s: 800Gb ÷ 10Gb/s = 80 seconds
These are lower bounds from the spec maximums only. Protocol overhead, how the Photos app or Finder handles the copy, and the speed of the connected computer or drive all make real transfers longer. The Apple documents cited here give no measured times for these conditions. At the maximums, the two standards differ by about 20.8 times.
A feature that splits along the same line
The support article names one more feature limited to USB 3 models. With a cable that supports USB 3, the iPhone 18 Pro, 17 Pro, 16 Pro and 15 Pro models can record ProRes video at up to 4K 60fps directly to external storage. If you plan to record straight to an external SSD, you need both a Pro model and a USB 3 cable.
External displays follow a different list. According to the same article, the models that can connect to a display over USB-C are the iPhone 18 Pro models, iPhone 17 models (except 17e), iPhone 16 models (except 16e) and iPhone 15 models, and high-resolution displays need a cable that supports USB 3.1 or later. So the iPhone 17 can output to a screen even though its data transfer is USB 2, while the 17e is left off this list. The Air spec page's USB-C entry lists no DisplayPort, only charging and USB 2 (up to 480Mb/s).