All of Apple's "accessories" (things that will request charge from a host over their cable: phones, tablets, keyboards and touchpads, and now headphones) have a Lightning port.
All of Apple's "computers" (things that won't: computers that are wired for power, and devices that are wired for power like the Apple TV) have, or will have, USB-C ports.
The vague middle case is laptops, like the new MBP: they do charge over their USB-C cables. But they'll only do this from a wall-socket power adapter; they won't attempt to drain the battery of a peer device they're connected to.
Besides that HCI hint of charging semantics, though, Lightning is just physically different in a few important ways that Apple relies on: for one, the connectors are solid metal, so an upward-pointed male connector can be used as a freestanding dock. That's not true of USB-C. Apple isn't going to converge them.
I've been wondering this for quite some time. Thanks for the clearly explained response. Is this documented somewhere or just something you've observed?
Any battery with USB-A and USB-C ports (or just USB-C ports if you go out and get the USB-C to Lightning cable) that also supports USB-PD should be able to charge both your USB-C laptop and phone.
I ended up getting this battery [0] from Anker, and it's done a great job with my 2016 skinny Macbook and iPhone.
I believe the switching from charging a device and charging your laptop is done in software. The spec allows any USB C device to charge any other in either direction AFAIK.
All of Apple's "accessories" (things that will request charge from a host over their cable: phones, tablets, keyboards and touchpads, and now headphones) have a Lightning port.
All of Apple's "computers" (things that won't: computers that are wired for power, and devices that are wired for power like the Apple TV) have, or will have, USB-C ports.
The vague middle case is laptops, like the new MBP: they do charge over their USB-C cables. But they'll only do this from a wall-socket power adapter; they won't attempt to drain the battery of a peer device they're connected to.
Besides that HCI hint of charging semantics, though, Lightning is just physically different in a few important ways that Apple relies on: for one, the connectors are solid metal, so an upward-pointed male connector can be used as a freestanding dock. That's not true of USB-C. Apple isn't going to converge them.