The Lightning connector is a small connecting cable used on Apple mobile devices (and even some accessories) that charges and connects the devices to computers and charging stations.
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The Lightning connector was introduced in 2012 with the iPhone 5 and soon after the iPad 4. It's still the standard way to charge them and connect them to other devices, like a laptop, though some devices, like the 2018 iPad Pro, may use USB-C instead of Lightning as the default connector.
The cable itself is tiny, with a thin Lightning adapter on one end and a standard USB-A adapter on the other. The Lightning connector is 80 percent smaller than the 30-pin connector it replaced, and it’s fully reversible, meaning it doesn’t matter which way the connector is facing when you plug it into the Lightning port.
The cable is primarily used to charge the device. The iPhone and iPad both include a Lightning cable and a charger that is used to plug the USB end of the cable into a wall outlet. The cable can also be used to charge the device by plugging it into a computer’s USB port, but the quality of charge you can get from your laptop or desktop PC varies. The USB port on an older computer may not provide enough power to charge an iPhone or iPad.
