Back in December, Aaron (@aaronp613) shared some information about Apple’s Vision Pro battery pack, as per European IP database images.
Aaron said at the time, “The cable connecting Vision Pro to the battery pack is removable, although it remains to be seen how easy this will be.”
“A few months ago I found evidence of multiple Vision Pro battery pack model numbers indicating that there may be a variety of models. If that is true, it would need to be relatively easy to remove and swap them.”
Fast foward to this week, Ray Wong from Inverse, one of the few media outlets to go hands-on with the Vision Pro, shared the discovery that you can pop out the Lightning cable from the headset’s battery pack, using a SIM tray tool.
“l used a SIM card push pin to “unlock” the cable connected to the Apple Vision Pro battery pack. It popped right out,” said Wong on Wednesday, sharing photos of the process:
What we see is a Lightning cable right? But actually it’s a fatter, wider version of the cable we’ve never seen before.
Below is the Vision Pro cable (left) next to the regular Lightning cable (right) that we’ve known about forever. The unknown Lightning cable is wider and has more pins (12 pins versus 8):
Wong shared more photos of this ‘fat’ Lightning cable next to a USB-C cable, which you can see below:
Here’s the bird’s eye view of a USB-C cable and this fatter XL Lightning cable, which shows the thickness:
What does this all mean? This is an undiscovered proprietary connector Apple has created, specifically for the Vision Pro. It’s clear the cable’s capabilities exceed the regular Lightning cable in terms of power and data transfer, given its larger size.
Why not just use USB-C as the main connector for the battery pack of the Vision Pro? USB-C doesn’t hold as securely compared to Lightning cables when plugged in. It’s likely Apple doesn’t want Vision Pro users to have battery packs disconnecting from their $3,499 USD headset, as that would be a terrible experience. Will we see more of this new fatter Lightning cable in the future? The EU is probably licking their chops right about now…
