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Technology
Oliver Haslam

The USB-C iPhone 15 needs this transparent cable from Nothing

Nothing USB-C cable

Apple is expected to announce the new iPhone 15 lineup later this year and all of the smart money is on it switching to USB-C and ditching Lightning for the first time. That means it'll need to come with a USB-C to USB-C cable in the box and we can only hope that it's as cool as this one from Nothing.

Apple isn't the only one getting ready to launch a new phone, and the Nothing Phone (2) will be the first of the company's phones to go on sale in the United States after its impending announcement. But as interesting as the phone will be, it's the USB-C cable that we're most interested in. Because it's very Apple.

You just have to look at the thing to be intrigued by the transparent look. But Nothing says that the beauty is far more than skin deep here. And it might be right.

'Elevating aesthetics and focusing on durability'

Nothing shared details about its new cable in a tweet that goes deep on what makes it so special. Yes, it's transparent, but that's just the beginning of the story.

"A cable head looks pretty simple from the outside," Nothing says. "It’s easy to cover the internal structure with an opaque cover. Our team built over 20 design concepts, many of which were rejected by our partners as it was deemed too difficult to manufacture." But Nothing wasn't put off, so it kept pushing. "We challenged the norm and brought transparency to the forefront."

But as you might expect, the transparent design brought with it its own problems. Most notably, the way the whole thing was put together had to change.

"Using a transparent shell on a Type-C cable means we had to ditch traditional dispensing bonding or ultrasonic welding process, and move to an industry-first moulding process to create a seamless iron shell," the tweet explains. "Stretching the material four times and annealing it at more than 1,000 degrees three times."

Now close your eyes and imagine Jony Ive saying all of that in an all-white room.

"The result? A flawless design free from lines and surface defects." It works, doesn't it?

The tweet goes on to explain how Nothing worked to make the cable scratch-resistant, ensuring that it "passed over 25 tests including strict plugging and unplugging, salt spray and current resistance." All of that means that the cable went 60% beyond industry standards and passed a test that put it through 60,000 bends to make sure it survived. And survive, it did.

Doesn't that sound like a cable that should ship with Apple's best iPhones?

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