What do you mean lower USB-C standard though? If you use the included 20 watt charger, it won’t charge as fast as it can do. If you use a 30 watt or higher charger it will.

The only difference with the iPad Pro is it’s USB-C port also has Thunderbolt 4. Data transfer might be faster to Thunderbolt compatible devices, but that’s a different story. Thunderbolt has never been included in any non-Pro iPad.

Are you talking about fast charging? That’s nothing to do with MFi. Fast charging requires a 30 watt charger I believe, but it doesn’t need to be Apple branded. In the iPad’s box they only provide a 20 watt wall plug, which doesn’t offer the fastest charging possible for the iPad. If you use 30 watt chargers or higher, like from a MacBook, it charges faster. Same with the iPad Pro I have. Neither needs MFi specific cables or anything like that.

Just seems unlikely given they’ve made the move and the iPhone is the last part of it. Why not do it back when the iPad and Mac moved to USB-C. The older iPad, when they used the lightning port were part of the MFi program, but my M2 iPad Pro works with any USB-C device or cable. Think until Apple makes an announcement it seems unlikely personally.

I’m confused, I have the latest M2 iPad Pro and it works with just about any USB-C accessory. As did my previous M1 iPad Pro. No iPad with USB-C needs a specific MFi charger for full speed charging. If the charger is lower wattage, it will charge slower, but that’s the case with all devices.

Precisely, it does say it’s just a rumour. Nothing confirmed by Apple at this stage.

With Mac’s and iPads running on USB-C already, this seems unlikely to happen just for the iPhone. They’d have already done this before on the iPad, when that moved over to USB-C.

I’m not sure I believe this, seems like just rumours and hearsay so far, unless Apple were to actually confirm it. They already have USB-C based iPad’s and Mac’s which don’t have these restrictions. My iPad Pro works with every USB-C cable and accessory I’ve plugged into it. Even obscure things like USB-C multi-hubs, microphones and USB NVMe drives work. Most aren’t Apple branded. If they were going to do this for the iPhone, why would they stop there!