Mitchell Clark, at The Verge:
In September 2012, Apple introduced the iPhone 5 — it was bigger, faster, and more powerful than its predecessor, but perhaps the most revolutionary change was how you charged it. Onstage to introduce the new phone, Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller announced that the company was switching from the 30-pin connector that had been on every iPhone to date over to a small new port called Lightning. Lightning seemed to be everything its predecessor and competitors were not: reversible, compact, and robust. Schiller called it “a modern connector for the next decade.”
The benefits of Lightning over the 30-pin Dock Connector were very real. Moving to USB-C won’t replicate that, but it will make living (and traveling) with an iPhone more convenient than ever.