Can you use an iPhone charger to juice up your iPad?
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Being a group of tech geeks we are asked a lot of questions by our viewers. Some are really interesting ones, like: how do you do this or that. While others are relatively less invigorating but, we love them anyway.

Today we have brought to you the answer to one of the web’s most asked questions about iPhones and iPads - “Can my iPhone charger be used to power up my iPad or vice versa”. So, we have decided to make a complete article intending to answer the question. Thus, without further ado. Let us begin.

Now, before we get straight into our topic we need to have a look at how smartphones actually charge.

How to an iPhone or iPad charges

Normally a charging setup for an iPhone/ iPad consists of the following components:

  • A device (iPhone or iPad)
  • A standard USB Type-C to Lightning Cable that Apple provides with its mobile devices.
  • A power brick or AC-DC Adapter.

Mobile Phone batteries are designed in such a way that they can only be charged by DC(Direct Current) whereas all power lines across the world use AC(Alternating Current) because:

  • AC can travel huge distances without losing its initial strength.
  • AC requires thinner wires as very little to no charge gets dissipated when the current is being transferred from a power station to your house.

Whenever you plug in your power brick to a power outlet it draws current from the central AC powerline. This charge is then converted into DC(Direct Current) which charges your device. A power brick has an inbuilt rectifier that does the work of converting AC power to DC and later forward the charge to an outlet via wires.

Then, your Lightning chord takes the lead. It has copper wires inside which conduct the converted DC current to the outlet. The outlet on the other hand has numerous gold-plated pins that give out charge by the method of conduction. Inside your iPhone/ iPad the Lithium-ion battery stores this DC charge into itself and thus, completes the cycle of charging a mobile device.

Difference between chargers or an iPhone and an iPad

Both the iPhone and the iPad use a similar method of charging(conduction) and both use the same Lightning Cable too. The only differentiating factor between their charger is the power brick.

The power brick of your iPhone has higher wattage due to the increased battery capacity of the device. Whereas, the iPad chargers have less wattage and charging speed.

This is why iPads are still not capable of handling fast charging.

Final Words

As a conclusion, we would say.

Yes, you can use your iPhone charger to power up your iPad. Both of them use the same charging mechanism and Lightning cable so compatibility will not be an issue. The only thing one has to keep in mind is - iPads (even the new-gen ones) are still not capable of handling fast charging so be sure to use the standard 15W power brick to charge your iPad.

Also, if your iPhone uses a MagSafe charger then it won’t be able to power your iPad as the iPad is not compatible with wireless charging.


Hope you liked the article and we will be back soon with more great content about your favorite Apple devices. And don’t forget to ask questions, it's your curiosity that drives us to upload new content every time. Good Day!