I don't know about the Ethernet part but it bothers me that even wifi has become faster than the wired USB port on our phones.

All I want to do is copy over all the photos and videos from my phone to my computer but I have to baby sit the process and think whether I want to skip or retry a failed copy. And it is so slow. USB 2.0 slow. I guess everybody has given up on the idea of saving their photos and videos over USB?

> USB 2.0 slow

Many phones indeed only support USB 2.0. For example the base iPhone 17. The Pro does support USB 3.2, however.

> I guess everybody has given up on the idea of saving their photos and videos over USB?

Correct.

Wifi is fast but the latency is terrible and the reliability is even worse. It can go up and down like a yo-yo. USB is far more predictable even if it is a bit slower.

I feel like this is an artifact from the late 2010s when the talk was of removing the port completely from phones, where that was being touted alongside swapping speakers with haptic screen audio as a way to make them completely waterproof.

As wireless charging never quite reached the level hoped – see AirPower – and Google/Apple seemingly bought and never did anything with a bunch of haptic audio startups, I figure that idea died....but they never cared enough to make sure the USB port remained top end.

Why don't you get a phone with 3.0+ USB?

My last two phones in the last 4 years had at least USB 3.1

> given up on the idea of saving their photos and videos over USB?

Until USB has monthly service business to compete with cloud storage revenue.

> but I have to baby sit the process and think whether I want to skip or retry a failed copy

Do you import originals or do you have the "most compatible" setting turned on?

I always assumed apple simply hated people that use windows/linux desktops so the occasional broken file was caused by the driver being sort-of working and if people complain, well, they can fuck off and pay for icloud or a mac. After upgrading to 15 pro which has 10 gbps usb-c it still took forever to import photos and the occasional broken photos kept happening, and after some research it turns out that the speed was limited by the phone converting the .heic originals into .jpg when transferring to a desktop. Not only does it limit the speed, it also degrades the quality of the photos and deletes a bunch of metadata.

After changing the setting to export original files the transfer is much faster and I haven’t had a single broken file / video. The files are also higher quality and lower filesize, although .heic is fairly computationally-demanding.

Idk about Android but I suspect it might have a similar behavior