It's that time again when we start to see plenty of links about the forthcoming iPhones - in this case iPhone 13 (or perhaps 14).

It's been fairly usual over the last couple of years for a rumour to suggest there will be no Lightning Port meaning the upcoming device would have no ports for external connectivity whatsoever. 

Here's that rumour again - but this time there's a difference. 

One of the biggest problems with not having the Lightning port - aside from charging speed and applications for certain users such as pro audio - is that it's how an iPhone is recovered if something goes wrong with it. 

Traditionally, you'd have plugged your iPhone into iTunes and that's still an option of course. And if you take your iPhone into an Apple Store to get fixed, they'll plug it in. 

Apple site Appleosophy suggests that several teams internal to Apple have been charged with finding a solution here; namely how you'd recover an iPhone without a physical connection. One suggested solution is that putting the device into recovery mode triggers an internet recovery state which means the device can be paired with a Mac.

This mode could start automatically if there's a problem. A backup system could use Bluetooth as a last resort (because of the slow data transfer speeds primarily). 

It's also suggested that Apple could include a hidden pad on the device - perhaps in the back of the SIM slot - to enable the device to be restored by an engineer in case of a bigger problem. This would be similar to the iBus cable tech that can be used to resurrect a dead Apple Watch by Apple. 

Other fresh iPhone 13 rumours suggest a premium (so Pro) variant of the device will come with 1TB of storage while well-known Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo suggests that the 5.4-inch iPhone 12 mini has been successful enough that there will be another mini version this year