iPhone 15 event: all the news on Apple’s new phones

Every phone you pick up today has a fingerprint scanner, a face scanner, an option for PINs with four, six, or more digits, and often all of them at once. Phones prompt you to set up a scan and a passcode the first time you turn them on, and you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who doesn’t have some form of security set up.

But go back just 10 years, and the story was very different. Back when our phones were still used almost entirely as phones and not teeny personal computers, most of the “locking” features on mobile devices were designed more to prevent you from butt-dialing anyone than to protect your sensitive information.

If the rumors are true, Apple will drop the more-than-decade-old Lightning port from its phones and adopt USB-C today. That means: it’s time for iPhone buyers to purchase some new cables.

Apple has for years used USB-C on its MacBooks and iPads, but it’s only now bringing them to iPhones to comply with European regulations. Android users might already have a bunch of USB-C cables in their cars, bags, kitchen counters, and bedroom side tables, but year-to-year iPhone upgraders probably won’t. Instead, they’ll need to look at their collection of Lightning cables and think about how many of them to replace with new USB-C ones.

Apple is holding its next big event in September to take the wraps off the iPhone 15, new Apple Watches, and more.

Here, we’ll go over how and when you can watch the event, along with the new product announcements we’re expecting to see from Apple.

When I first saw the Apple Watch Ultra, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Apple’s sizzle reel had weatherbeaten explorers trekking up snow-capped mountains, running across deserts, and diving into the depths of the ocean. This was an Apple Watch for the intrepid explorer, which arguably few tech journalists swarming the Ultra models at the Steve Jobs Theater were. In fact, I’d contend that most people aren’t hardcore outdoors enthusiasts who need 49mm titanium cases, a sapphire crystal lens, WR100 water resistance, and EN13319 certification for diving.

That’s why, in my review, I called the watch aspirational. I stand by that, but having lived with the Ultra for a whole year, I’m still not exactly sure who the Ultra’s true audience is.

The Lightning connector really only had two jobs: be tiny and be foolproof. Apple developed the new port for the iPhone 5, which at the time was simultaneously the largest, thinnest, and lightest iPhone the company had ever made. That made every millimeter of space and milligram of weight matter. For nearly a decade, Apple’s go-to connector had been the 30-pin Dock Connector, which was positively gigantic — about four times the size of a standard Micro USB plug. The Dock Connector was also fragile and a bit fussy. You had to stick the cable in just so in order to get the little hooks on the end to attach to the port. After a decade of Dock Connector, Apple needed something better.

When Apple introduced Lightning at its annual fall event in 2012, company executives talked a lot about how small it was. “Given the dimensions of the new phone and all the capability that we wanted to add,” Bob Mansfield, then the company’s head of hardware engineering, said in a pre-produced video breathlessly detailing the phone’s every aspect, “we needed to manage the space inside the phone very carefully.” Phil Schiller, the company’s marketing chief, proudly flashed a slide that claimed Lightning was 80 percent smaller than the Dock Connector.