Apple's 29W USB-C power adapter charges an iPad Pro to 80% in just 1.5 hours, compared to 3.5 hours with the included 12W adaptor
Testing Apple's 29W USB-C Power Adapter and iPad Pro Fast Charging — When Apple refreshed its online store with a new USB-C to Lightning cable with support …
Context & Ripple Effects
The 9.7-inch iPad Pro launched just over a week ago, and its Lightning port already carried USB 3.0 speeds with new adapters promised — this test fills in what those adapters are for. MacStories' numbers show the 29W USB-C power adapter plus a USB-C to Lightning cable cut charging time to 80% from 3.5 hours on the bundled 12W brick to 1.5 hours.
The catch is that neither the higher-wattage adapter nor the USB-C to Lightning cable ships in the box, so fast charging is an add-on purchase layered onto hardware Apple introduced days earlier.
First-order effects
- New iPad Pro owners who buy the 29W adapter and USB-C to Lightning cable get 80% charge in 1.5 hours instead of 3.5, while everyone sticking with the included 12W adapter sees no change.
- Apple opens a paid accessory tier around its own flagship tablet: the fast-charging capability exists only for customers who pay extra beyond the device price.
Second-order effects
- The same USB-C fast-charging recipe carries into phones: by late 2017 Apple markets 50% charge in 30 minutes on the iPhone 8 and X using the identical USB-C power adapter setup.
- Third-party accessory makers gain a spec to chase — wattage and cable certification become selling points for iPad and iPhone chargers rather than generic commodity bricks.
Third-order effects
- The pattern points toward USB-C displacing Lightning across Apple's lineup as the fast-charging and high-bandwidth path — a shift that shows up years later when the 10th-gen iPad ships with USB-C and Apple leaks work on a dual-port 35W USB-C adapter (published then pulled from its support site).
- Charging speed becomes a marketed differentiator in tablets and phones, pushing power adapters out of the box-bundle assumption and into a separate upsell category.
The trend: Apple is migrating its devices from bundled low-wattage proprietary charging toward sold-separately USB-C fast charging, one product generation at a time.