Lightning

What Is a Lightning Connector?

The Lightning connector was introduced in 2012 with the arrival of the iPhone 5 and, shortly thereafter, the iPad 4. It remains the standard way to both charge them and connect them to other devices such as a laptop, although some devices, such as the 2018 iPad Pro, might use USB-C instead of Lightning as its standard connector.

The cable itself is small with a thin Lightning adapter on one side and a standard USB-A adapter on the other. The Lightning connector is 80 percent smaller than the 30-pin connector it replaced and is fully reversible, which means it doesn't matter which way the connector is facing when you plug it into the Lightning port.