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Apple iPhone 15 relegated to USB 2.0 unless you buy the Pro
(www.pcgamer.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
So lightning cables offer transfer rates of 480Mb/s - USB 2.0 offers 625Mb/s. You are cross that they swapped out Lightning for USB on the main models and use USB 3 as a differentiator in the Pro models. Fair enough, but that's not 'malicious'. It's not even malicious compliance.
USB 2.0 is also 480Mbps.