Unfortunately I fear even asking this question probably angers some, but I think it's an interesting question because unlike other things in history we're seeing such rapid iteration. Maybe the laws in the EU have accounted for this - it just seems like a short term good thing that could be not so great in a few years down the road... thoughts?
The fear for a "lock-in" is completely unfounded, as the EU previously quasi-mandated Micro USB and switching to USB-C was no issue whatsoever. Besides, nothing is stopping manufacturers from including both USB-C and another charging connector.
I’m not saying it’s a bad thing— just that it’s not without consequences.
But under these rules, wouldn’t that necessitate that a new standard develops and becomes the more popular one despite not being used because it can’t be sold in all the places that ban non USB C? How would you imagine that happening? It seems like in order for a new standard to catch on you can’t ban non USB C.
The more places that implement this non usb c ban the less a new standard can emerge. The regulation scales poorly in that regard.
I assumed the directive had some "go with the flow" upgrade path, but after reading the directive I can't see any wording to that effect.
If the USB-IF depreciated USB-C in favor of a USB-X the EU's directive wouldn't change, the only "upgrade path" appears to be that the commission will "asses" whether the directive should be changed every 5 years, starting in 2025.
I think the EU should have done something about Apple's insistence on their own custom connector, which is clearly only there to create a moat at this point.
But it also seems like if we'd had this law 10 years ago we'd still be using micro-USB everywhere.
Who in the EU bureaucracy is going to risk their neck in approving a new connector, which might become the next industry standard, but might also be a rubber stamp approving future Apple-like fragmentation.
1. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=uriserv%...
How a better alternative will created if you can't put it on any device to make it popular.
If micro-USB was mandated, it would have prevent the use of the Lightning connector that I have quite enjoyed for the last 10 years or so, instead I would be stuck with the IMHO inferior micro-USB.
On a handheld device with limited space? Come on now.
And no, innovation usually does not come from a bunch of companies sitting down to cooperate on a new version. First there is individual innovation, then there is consolidation, even if these come with changes from the original.
Being "locked" on a a few not awful standard connectors is a good thing.
The Edison screw bulb is very simple, reliable, still used today even if I am sure that many companies would have invented more sophisticated standards over the years, I am glad they did not.
I still use audio jack connectors as much as possible, and I think that the world would be a slightly better place if we had universal AC power plugs.
The Edison screw works quite badly for LED bulbs commonly used today. The electronics are all buried in the base part, which has very limited cooling, so they get extra hot and kills the lightbulbs prematurely when the LEDs themselves last much longer. It is also not standardized w.r.t. voltages, power limits, etc, making it prone to user error.
The European and British plugs both have noticeable advantages compared to the American one, in that it is much harder to get shocked by them or cause arcing. Also, a universal plug would be much more helpful in a world with the same electric power systems everywhere, which is not the case.
This is definitely not the case. As an example, the Official Standard way to encode data structures in the 90s was ASN.1 from the ITU. Problem is, ASN.1 kinda sucked and so nobody uses it anymore outside of cryptography. Then the Official Standard became XML. Eventually people decided that also wasn't that great and switched to JSON, which is a totally unofficial standard defined by one guy.
Your approach / the EU approach would mean REST APIs would all need to be encoded with ASN.1 or XML.
What EU wants to avoid is Apple giving "unfair" advantages to their own chargers (which could either come from Apple making better chargers or artificially slowing third party ones) defeating the purpose of having less electronic waste.
Isn't there a chicken and egg problem there - no one will release products with new power interfaces, because they aren't releasable in Europe.
I suppose such products might get released first in the US, but which large tech company if going to ignore the EU market when releasing important products?
The very corruptible EU?
I’m not even sure people understand that Apple also contributed heavily to the development of USB-C along with other companies, some of them European.
The irony is that I believe the Lightning Connector, the iPhone connector, has been the longest standing standard connector (11 years now) and the introduction of the Qi “wireless charging” is also a good argument against this narrow sighted EU authoritarian/communist mentality that some apparatchiks can make better decisions than those who actually do and create things.
Has someone actually asked Apple to lay out its reasons for not adopting the larger and bulkier USB-C? Could it be that it has something to do with trying to engage in economic warfare against Apple because it’s harder to compete?
It's not like the EU standardizes emergent and rapidly evolving things, it's a freaking plug and "stuck in the past" isn't exactly how I describe the EU.
- GDPR, e-privacy and such only led to us having to click away cookie banners. Someone should make a study how much of the GDP is wasted because of those micro-interactions maneuvering around dark ui patterns. Still, Big Tech is just collecting the data in different ways and the regulations will never be able to catch up.
- Over time, we saw many smaller companies were put under pressure by some lawyers to also "obey the law". It massively incentivized legal uncertainty for many local companies. We will see the same pattern with generative AI and the obligation to make transparent where the data it's trained on is coming from.
- We have lately seen regulations being misused by some governments to stop things they didn't like (see Italy's government and their take on ChatGPT).
I am not so sure that regulating power plugs isn't just another iteration of stupidity of doing the opposite of what they claim.
1. The "locking in" is not universal, it mostly concerns portable devices and has exceptions for higher wattage requirements 2. USB-C is a very flexible format, at the moment I think Thunderbolt 4 is the maximum commercially and that can deliver 40Gbs and 240W 3. What's locked in is a minimum, you can have two different charging ports on any device as long as one of them is USB-C
So as far as I can see you would incur into problems if you: 1. Want less than 100W of power 2. Need more than 40Gbs (I think thunderbolt 5 will bring this to 80?) 3. Don't care about compatibility with headphones, mice, keyboards, external hard drives etc which more and more are going to switch to usb-c 5. Can't physically put more than one charging port on the device 6. They can't afford to make the case for an exception from the commission
This is certainly a possibility but I think it's a minor one, and personally it's worth it if it means I can bring less chargers around (it's less highlighted but for devices with certain capabilities this law also mandates compliance with power delivery standard)
My approach to the whole thing is that I more or less see USB-C as a parallel to electrical sockets, we might be missing out on some theoretical improvements but I'll take that chance
> means in 50 years the EU is still stuck The commission can adapt the law through implementing regulations and it can still be adapted or repealed through the standard process, I can see as realistic us in the EU missing out on some fancy new port for 2-3 years (which I grant would suck) but doubt it'd be more than that
Probably something similar to what happened when the EU mandated mini-USB B for phones and USB-C was rolled out.
Just in case: every phone used to have its own proprietary charging port. Typically (but not always) contemporary models of the same brand had the same port, but that was it. This led tp a ton of chargers - and e-waste, because 2 years later the charging port had, of course, changed.
The EU came and legislated this nonsense out of existence - and good riddance to that!
That was mini-usb-b. We've moved on to usb-c nowadays, and the EU is expanding the legislation to cover most chargeable items.
Your worry is relevant, but the EU's track record in this particular field is absolutely stellar and more than sufficient to assuage me.
The concept was iirc that industry will be reevaluating what needs to be standard
However, there is very little chance for that to happen now, considering most of innovation comes from small startups who don't have the resources or disposition to research something that is illegal to put on the market. So we are stuck with USB-C and committee-driven "innovation" for the foreseeable future.
Hopefully Apple will not adopt this forced mandate on other markets and maybe they can innovate there and back port the improvements to the EU. Most of tech innovation currently happens in the US anyway. We'll see, but I am not optimistic. Large companies always benefit from regulations since they have the resources to comply while denying a possible differentiator for small companies.
Right, just like how USB-C was invented by small startups like AMD, Intel, Apple, and Google. Before standardization the only "innovation" we were seeing was how many obscure connector shapes people could come up, all using the same voltages and currents.
> something that is illegal to put on the market
It is not. You can 100% put something on the market which has both your MagicConnector 3000 and USB-C.
The EU previously issued a Memorandum of Understanding, which basically just asked phone manufacturer nicely to please use USB micro-B. There was no mandate or enforcement (obviously, because Apple never released a phone with micro-B).
The USB-C law is an actual law which can't be ignored. The law will need to be updated when USB-D comes out.
We've already been through this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_external_power_supply
EU laws are not like physics laws, you can change them. That's why so many people are employed in policy and law making.
So if it happens that in the land of cable freedoms they come up with something much better, it would be adopted. At first, those electronics which can accommodate more than 1 type of charging plug will start getting this new plug alongside with USB-C and if there's actual demand for it they law will be changed to allow only that plug.
I don't know how much if this is about environmental concerns, I'm under impression that EU is never happy about rent seeing companies and tries to standardise everything. That's probably why it's going after browsers and App stores: it expect company products to be picked for competitive reasons, not compatibility reasons. Another example is EUs enforcement of standardized EV charging plugs, arguably Tesla plugs can be better but overall it's better for everyone to be able to charge everywhere even if it was possible to have slightly better charging plugs on some stations.
I imagine, the US citizens are confused by all this due to the nature of how EU and US function. With GDPR, the American audience was imagining that startups will go bankrupt when trying to comply with EU law and there were tantrums about some people abandoning their projects because they don't have resources to deal with EU regulations. Maybe it's because how lawsuit happy the US is, maybe it's because how the laws are enforced in US is different than most of EU - I don't know, but in general Europeans feel differently than Americans about the government involvement.
EU laws have worldwide effects, there's no land of cable freedom anymore.
You aren't forced to use only USB-C but to provide at least USB-C without artificial disadvantages.
Without those standards the users are stuck or need to rebuy all accessories.
You expect a space constrained device like a smartphone to have multiple ports?
Unfortunately I fear even asking this question probably angers some
Please don't post like this. It's not a new or original insight and you're moving the discussion toward emotionalism rather than facts.
The regulations take this into account.
It is probably better to think of USB3 as extension that requires special, shorter cables. I like to think of them as charging cables and data cables.
I probably have two USB3 USB-C cables for MacBooks (and I found one that is 6ft long) and dozen USB2 USB-C cables for charging phones and MacBooks.
But the idea that a trans-national government over 750M people should be trying to regulate in this level of detail is just obviously a recipe for disaster. For every one time they successfully push a company to do something correct -- but ultimately trivial, like this thing -- there are going to be 10 cases where some bureaucrat makes a bad decision and they're like fifteen steps removed from any kind of oversight, or where no uniform rule-making makes sense over the vastly diverse areas of the EU. Humanity is just not capable of making a bureaucracy of this size that makes decisions at this level of detail in a on-average-good way.
Edit: One can make the case about the roman empire, and some really old civilization in India I am too lazy to look up, building quite impressive empires running on engineering and other stabdards across gigantic portions of thebthen known earth. That neother of those exists anymore is hardly the fault of those norms.
Oh, nor to forget: measurement units.
Why? Standards harmonization has big upsides too.
For example, the EU PPE safety standards are so good that there aren't even North American equivalents for many products.
If you buy a climbing carabiner in the US, it's being tested according to a test procedure defined by the same EU bureaucracy you deride.
Humanity does not have an alternative to bureaucrats because lassez-faire markets optimize for maximum company profits over all time spans instead of consumer convenience.
This is a truism, but does it have any basis in reality? Certainly, if every manufacturer were forced to use USB-C for everything it could lead to an innovation problem, but I don't think makers of new products are forbidden from offering innovative kinds of connectivity, which the market might or might not decide to adopt. Nor is the issue trivial just because it's physically small, any more than the design of electrical wall sockets is of low importance.
They're making Apple do it because they have huge market share, a long history of foisting different physical connectors on their customers and generating a significant amount of electronic waste as older models are abandoned. Crucially, the charging devices end up being unwanted because they don't work with anything else including other iphones. Sure, they could enjoy a longer life with the use of adapters, but physical adapters are Not Great.
It's a pity, because Apple does innovate and some of their innovations are very cool, eg the magnetized charging ports on Macbooks was an Apple first iirc. But they also have a reputation for stiffing their own customers by ignoring backward compatibility , assuming that most of their customers will grumble but keep paying for the new model because they like the ecosystem.
It's hilarious that your big question is: "Does the idea that bureaucracies routinely make money-and-time-wasting decisions have any basis in reality." You should investigate this reality at some point.
The gazillion iPhone users in the EU use this twice a day, in physical space, and honestly that feels ok rather than nit-picking. If they do an EU-only model, I’ll absolutely go out of my way to get one
Where are you getting this figure? It's below 450M AFAIK.
USB-C: You break the stem, you have a useless device and functioning cable
Lightning: You break the stem, you have a functioning device and useless cable.
One of these is clearly more optimal considering the cost difference between the two. Anecdotally, I have had problems with USB-C ports that I did not have with Micro-USB and (so far) with Lightning (admittedly I have only been an iPhone user for a year or so).
Of course, this directive is the correct stance and direction - having a standard and forcing it on everyone. It's just a shame the one they chose may be inferior.
Like this:
https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/163391/lightning+connect...
Here's a decent 2 minute video that explains the problem and the fix:
Perhaps the "benefit" you describe is only relevant because the proprietary Apple cable design is so poor?
No, the lightning connector's design is actually less prone to snapping than USB type c. Whether or not that it is an advantage is subjective, given that cables are inexpensive and the devices they're attached to generally are not.
In my opinion lightning is a vastly superior connector to USB-C. It's easier to insert and it's more robust and doesn't present issue if you do need to remove a snapped connector as was mentioned in the parent comment.
In an ideal world, Apple handed off the lightning connector off to the USB consortium and that turned into the type c connector. I don't know if there are physical limitations that would ultimately limit lightning, which has only ever gone as high as USB 3 speeds, but as far as using it on devices that I'm plugging and unplugging, it's much nicer.
As it is in the real world, it's a dead end and I am eagerly waiting to get rid of lightning so I can use one connector for all my portable devices.
I personally use the toothpick end of flossing picks. They're usually very thin and the plastic material doesn't cause any hard abrasion.
P.s. I'm not actually advocating for making this standard, USB C has too much momentum and I don't think any Linux based device I use knows this other connector.
Serious question how long until they drop the port full stop? Like what if they achieve serious wireless charging speeds
And actually does anyone know if that’s allowed with these new regulations? Like what if the iPhone 16 they drop it entirely???
Yes the wording of the law is:
> In so far as they are capable of being recharged by means of wired charging, the categories or classes of radio equipment referred to in point 1 of this Part shall: [ Legalese way of saying USB-C charging ]
So if a device has no power ports it's fine
Wireless charging was considered for standardization in the early stages of the law (preparation, it never made it into a draft iirc) but the landscape was still too much in flux for a similar regulation to make sense, they'll revisit it in 2026
I rarely even think about charging it anymore.
My smartphone charges while I am asleep. I can't see a good reason to charge a phone during the day unless you are using gps navigation all day. That is the only usagr that drain battery a lot. But in this case that is usually because you are driving so the phone can be plugged easily.
Probably in 2 years if it allows a loophole where a proprietary $100 charger works better than generic.
Their stance on this issue has shown that dongleification design culture has won over user experience design culture within the Apple walls.
The argument was that this technology is not yet mature enough to standardize and should be allowed extra time to develop further.
They remarked that in the future additional laws may be introduced if required.
This was a clear warning directed at the industry (read Apple) to find a common solution for wireless charging without additional regulations.
If they are unable to do so the EU is ready for round two.
People queue for hours, a tragic waste of festival time.
Wireless pads would make charging times longer and hence the queues too.
Camping / trekking you still want cables for speed of charge
Back when I went to such things nobody carried around cellphones and didn’t have any less of an experience.
We even had plans like “if anyone gets separated we’ll all meet up at the beer tent” because nobody wants to get left a couple hours from home because they didn’t pay attention to where the car was parked.
Kids these days…
If Apple ever revives AirPower then I could see them removing the charging port on lower tier models but Pros would definitely need it.
Either Apple is following the letter of the law or it isn't. I don't know what a "warning" from EU Industry Commissioner Thierry Breton is supposed to mean.
Either the law says USB-C charging is required but doesn't say anything about charging speeds, or it does say something about charging speeds.
In any case, Apple has a lot of lawyers and presumably they're following the law as written. I would assume the EU Industry Commissioner isn't able to make up new law by himself on the fly.
So what exactly is his "warning" about?
Not sure about this particular one, but in general, this sort of warning is along the lines of "If you continue expending effort in subverting the spirit of the law, we shall tighten the regulations to such an extent that it will hurt you".
The world and their dog knew what the goal of the regulations were: if the goal is not met because "Apple has a lot of lawyers and presumably they're following the law as written." you can expect the law to be rewritten in a way that is punitive to Apple.
It's the responsibility of legislators and regulators to be clear and precise -- to mean what they say and say what they mean. To "punish" a company for following a law, because of something the law doesn't actually say, is not what rule of law means, and would be a shameful thing. No company should have to intuit or guess what the government "really" meant, over and above what the law actually says.
The EU can go ahead and revise the law, giving companies time to adapt again. That's fine -- that's how it's supposed to work. But some kind of "warning" to "do something we didn't say in the law" is just plain wrong.
[1] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20210920IP...
I am not a legal person but I can imagine several ways that this apple's practice can be made to fail. Also I do not see how anybody (apart from apple) would want this or find it reasonable to do.
But even if we're bound to this practicality, it's always about the spirit of the law. We have a principle called "statutory interpretation" which is dedicated to this problem, and administrations/judiciaries are often required to follow the law's original intent. Otherwise, administration and/or judicial branch can perform ad-hoc interpretation of legislation in favor of themselves and this defeats the whole purpose of trias politica.
Apple is not immune to this principle and EU is bound to enforce the original intent of the law. This is also why the supreme courts are one of the most important political entity in virtually every modern countries since they have the final and unobjectionable authority on interpretation of laws by setting judicial precedents. Unless you're going to challenge the whole field of Jurisprudence, it might be better try to understand why they're asking this to Apple and Apple takes it seriously.
It looks good for unelected political bureaus to take strong stances on popular things.
My guess is that Apple wants to restrict USB-c bales to certfied cables (which is not unreasonable given the number of shitty connectors out there), and limit thunderbolt/usb-4 to high end phones.
It's insulting that I can charge my MacBook and iPad with a USB-C cable, but still have to carry an extra cable just for my phone (and meanwhile my partner with an Android phone doesn't). I'm so excited to be done with all that
Welcome to 2005 when arguments about 'uniqueness' didn't hold and we got fungible chargers that could be used with multiple devices.
They were just taking their own sweet time. The fact that their other products switched a couple of years ago should make this obvious.
Of course the EU will crow when the next iPhone has USB-C worldwide. I doubt this has had a significant impact on Apples internal planning. If any.
It seems to me this will be more significant post USB-C and it's much more difficult to predict how it will effect the market and innovation.
And this particular topic (MFI) is based on rumour and speculation...
What?? Of course they did. Why do you think they are even considering USBC? Apple has zero incentive to use a common cable format; I'm sure they rake in money with their proprietary apple-only connectors.
Look at magsafe. Changed it twice so everyone had to get a whole new set of chargers. Sure, they changed it to C now, but I'm guessing that's just because that's the direction the laptop market was going. Apple has no reason to switch their phones to C unless a government entity forces them to.
You can still use USB-C for charging macbooks that have the new Magsafe, just like you could with any macbooks since their introduction of USB-C.
Not sure what you were trying to say about everyone suddenly needing to get a new set of chargers either. I have two different M1 macbooks in my household (one from my workplace, one personal), charging both primarily using Magsafe, and have spent exactly zero dollars on "a whole new set of chargers". The magsafe charging cable that came in the box with the device seems very sturdy and has shown zero signs of issues in the past almost-2 years. Never felt compelled to purchase another magsafe cable either. And the new Magsafe cable has USB-C on the other end, so I can use it with any charging brick, and it will work just as well as with the Apple ones (provided the brick can output enough charging power to deliver the full charging speed).
since the switch to lightning there is an even larger number of devices and docks all designed around lightning and very few of their customers wanted or asked for usb-c
It’s no surprise that for iPhones, with that large eco system they just didn’t change, while for iPads and macs they did because there just isn’t the same amount of accessories and usb a <> usb c is easy. You can’t use lightning dock devices with usd c at all. It’s far from as simple as “use a new cable” when the device is designed to fit over the base of the iPhone and plug in.
Otherwise they would have incentive to use usb c already as it’s been on iPads and many of their other devices for years and why keep around a separate set of product skus and parts just for iPhone?
So they simply waited to be forced to do it so now their customers will get mad at the eu and not them
I find it hard to believe that cables are a core part of their business. It just gets thrown out every chance it gets. They put usb-c on their laptops, everyone said it was to sell dongles. They didn't put usb-c on the phones, everyone said it was to sell dongles.
All reminds me of people saying what a huge mistake it was that the original imac didn't have a serial port or a floppy drive.
Apple still sells the adapter (and the original magsafe) despite being more than a decade since they sold original computers. If anything, this shows that apple very much doesn't want you to stop using your old charging blocks and computers.
Any current iPhone will work with a charging cable from 2012, which is very much not true for any other phone brand.
I don't know why apple resisted micro-usb, but I am glad they did. Its a bad standard. It has a lower power capability, and the number of insertion cycle and abuse it can take is WAY lower.
Apples own customers complain quite loudly about the inconvenience about USB-C and Lightning, dongles etc. The inability to charge their phone with the same cable as their MacBook or iPads... they are providing a very un-Apple experience.
They have an enormous customer base, using a legacy connector (which predates USB-C), to switch over as seamlessly as possible (in their own sweet time)
Apple are dragging their feet because one form of Apple tax is going away.
And Apple a luxury in 2023, really? Competition phones are more expensive and loaded with better hardware, some look significantly better (cough notch cough), Apple also has budget phones... I don't think you understand the term luxury if you include current Apple into it. Louis Vuitton is an example of luxury brand. Apple is alternative to Android or Windows for laptops, thats it.
.... and as far as I can tell USB-C is a shitshow of an ecosystem anyway. This entire article could just be saying that Apple devices could charge "slower" on random USB-C cables and only guarantee fast charging on Apple-branded cables....
... which sounds like Apple being anticompetitive if you know nothing about the state of the USB-C ecosystem.
In the 90s everyone in Europe was upset about the EU regulating bananas curvature. That regulating had been requested by the banana industry as a requirement for a shared market. So it somewhat (I'd still have preferred the market to figure this out itself) made sense. This "Lightning charger" stuff is the true bananas curvature.
Not to defend Apple or anything but EU is being the mafia here.
For devices that doesn't need the extra capabilities.
Internal stance: Huge margins on overpriced USB-C cables that customers must buy to get the fast charging speeds.
> which had led many – including us – to speculate that these Apple-produced chargers would enable faster charging speeds on the iPhone 15 than third-party chargers from other manufacturers.
I believe the hysteria comes from a no-technical blogger not understanding the difference between the USB-C e-marker chip and MFI. Apple has nothing to gain by not using generic USB Power Delivery on phones as they do for all their other devices.*
Whether the will pursue MFI for other standard devices (keyboards, whatnot) is indeed unclear, but past precedent (the mac, mainly, but also ipads, as well as their history with bluetooth devices) suggests it's unlikely. In fact network effects argue against it. Apple would rather sell a phone than a low margin accessory.
So sure, such a thing is technically possible, but from a business perspective rather unlikely.
Also I will buy an iphone 15 if it has USB C and will wait another year if not.
* The 2016 "Macbook" used a nonstandard power profile but PD was updated shortly after that and subsequent Apple hardware has been strictly compliant. In fact going back to the iMac, the original mass market USB device, Apple's USB implementations have been very strictly compliant with that one notable exception.
I have a 13 and I’m in the same camp. Similarly I will buy a new pair of AirPods if they switch to USB-C.
These 2 devices are the last devices I have that don’t charge with USB-C
And like you, it's phone+ipods for me. If they don't upgrade both to type C I'll wait, since in that case I'll have to keep a lightning cable around.
A European sentiment if I've ever heard one.
I'm pleased that Brussels has cracked the case of what the Greater Good is, and what sacrifices we must all (mandatorily) make in pursuit of it. I'll let Plato know, I'm sure he'll be thrilled.
If lightning is so inferior to USB C, consumers will vote with their money and iPhones will either die out or apple will start offering it with USB C. The fact is that it hardly matters. This is a non issue for most users.
But due to some bureaucrats who have sold zero dollars worth of high tech products, Apple (a trillion dollar company who knows a thing or two about business and technology) has to modify their offering.
Is it though? Wouldn't we be hearing endless noise about how fragile android ports are if it was really that much worse? I've never heard any complaints about the USBC port from any android users in the news or anecdotally, even though most major phones are C now
It probably happens though.
I had cheap-o cables break but this is hardly the fault of usb-c
USB-C is supposedly designed in such a way that the (cheap) cable is more likely to break, not the (expensive) port.
Is this true? So you buy a $1,000 device, but then the battery runs out, and you can’t use your $1,000 device unless you pay extra for a charger?
If you want the convenience of another brick or wireless charging, the option is there.
As self-serving as it is for Apple, it is keeping more chargers out of landfills, and reducing the cost of shipping that extra weight.
- Micro USB to USB-C
- HDMI to USB-C
- DisplayPort to USB-C
- Mini USB to USB-C (that was tough to find!)
Literally everything plugs into my laptop natively without a dongle.
Remember that apple contributed to the USB-C format, and prefer it for all their other products.
In USB-C, all the pins are protected by the outer shell.
In what way? Every single lighting cable I've had since the switch was done years ago is unusable after a few months. The same pin, 4th from the left, wears out after a very short time. This has happened across owning multiple phones and iPads. I've lost count of the number of cables I've bought from either Apple or a 3rd party.
I see the exact same damage on other people's cables frequently. I'm honestly surprised there hasn't been a class action lawsuit against Apple about this.
If Apple wants to build a premium experience that is better than USB-C then what? They can’t?
We essentially gave W3C control over web accessibly and they can’t even release a new set of WCAG standards. Stalled and seems to be dead in committee.
Keep in mind the EU doesn’t even have a standard power outlet. This is just the EU being petty and bullying an American company.
Government is not the place for tech requirements.
From a durability standpoint your battery should last longer if you charge it slower, so unless your life is totally nomadic and you only got 10 minutes to charge your phone inbetween changing places I don't see any real damage been done here.
The advantage of being able to ask a non-apple friend for a cable you forgot or broke outweighs any alleged slower charging speeds by magnitudes.
The speculation is that Apple will only allow their chargers or chargers they approve (and get paid for it) to charge future iPhones faster. This is the EU telling them not to do it. USB-PD is a standard (already used by Apple on laptops) and can do up to 240W. No need for proprietary chargers.
Why would Apple do this? Money.
Really?
Apple can go F themselves if that won't be the case with the iPhone
USB should have never existed, it was a scam by Intel (and Microsoft) to put the PC at the center of everything. In a non-dumb world, we would be using Firewire over something like a lightening connector. Jobs was too greedy with Firewire for it to be successful.
The markets Apple cares most about right now are China and India.
The evidence? The heat generated by the coils, which you can easily feel, especially with the higher wattage chargers.
To me, that waste matters, since it’s something so easily eliminated with very little effort.
from the food we eat, the medicine we take, the cars we drive, the planes we fly, the banks with bank with, and, dare I say, the digital technology we have, the quality of our experience relies 100% on there being strong, non-captured, informed, hands-on regulation that tries on an ongoing basis to correct market failures (for which there is a mountain of damning historical experience)
remove regulation and energy companies will put poison in your car tank and they will destroy the atmosphere, banks will fall apart and your life savings will evaporate, planes will be flown with minimal tests and collapse and you will be inside, techs will pilfer and sell your behavioral profile to the highest bidder
self-regulation is a tool that works in certain circumstances but definitely cannot be relied upon across the board. especially not in oligopolistic conditions where better alternatives will struggle to receive traction. especially not on the face of our economies having ignored entirely the environmental damage of throwaway electronic devices and plastic pollution
what is the risk of veering to the opposite side, actual regulatory overreach, that is somehow gratuitous and does not simply try to correct some market failure? At worst it may delay things here and there. Taking a step back and looking at the outcomes of "the move fast and break things" ideology, that might not be a bad thing at all
Next up: make "side loading" apps a thing.
Do it with these stipulations:
1. Make it easy, part of the normal flow. Not hidden in an obscure panel or behind three or four dialogues.
2. Make it non-scary (no negs from Apple saying you'll destroy your device or safety)
3. Make it so it isn't called something negative like "side loading", but a part of normal user behavior: "download app", "web install", etc.
4. Make it so that Apple can't degrade the app experience for these apps.
If y'all can accomplish that, all will be right with the world again.
There is a trade off in terms of the economic condition and that can be seen in European salaries and the brain drain which reinforces it. It isn't all good for the longer term, but if a majority of people like it, be careful what you wish for.
It's going to look funny in a few years after the rest of the world moves to better technology.
I've just bought some new iDevices _now_, in order that they come with Lightning ports, rather than the anticipated USB C on the next model.
Specifically because the Lightning port seems the more robust (and easily cleaned) of the two, for a device which will spend a significant chunk of the next 3-5 years in pockets, picking up lint and other dirt.
Relative charging and data transfer speeds seem less of an issue than the practical issues.
I've less concern about USB-C on laptops, tablets, etc. Simply because their operating environment will be less challenging.
The EU effort to standardize phone connectors led to nearly every phone manufacturer adopt micro usb and then usb c.
I don't see any reason that apple would be unable to use usb c after a everyone else uses it for more then 2 years.
Heck it's not even hard to imagine a world where the EU was a little bit faster and phones would be stuck on micro or mini ports.
But today these concerns get heavily suppressed. Funny how open and free never quite mean that. Anyway we shall see in ten years.
However — limiting technical progress is not a good idea and we see that with the plethor of different power modes existing within USB-C. Possibly politicians only saw the physical plug but never understood the depth behind it.
And that’s where we reach the limits. What if a company (Apple) comes up with a more efficient but also more elaborate way to quick charge their equipment? How would you handle a situation where non-compliant chargers could even harm this equipment?
USB-C already is way too complex for the average Shenzen cookie cutter factory to implement it correctly.
How would you protect your customers from such a situation?
While it may superficially look evasive I am willing to pick Apple‘s side here.
Who is limiting technical progress? The laws don't state that only USB-C can ever be used; they state that chargers must all be compatible. Want to improve it? Contribute to USB, or come up with an entirely new standard that everyone can agree to.
> What if a company (Apple) comes up with a more efficient but also more elaborate way to quick charge their equipment?
Then they contribute to the next USB standardization, same as everyone else.
> How would you handle a situation where non-compliant chargers could even harm this equipment?
Same way it's currently done: Through consumer protection laws. USB standards are called standards for a reason.
> USB-C already is way too complex for the average Shenzen cookie cutter factory to implement it correctly.
And yet people are happily using USB-C to power all kinds of devices.
> How would you protect your customers from such a situation?
CONSUMER PROTECTION LAWS
Enough with the FUD.
(9) in the EU directive: https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-10713-2022-...
If Apple is limited by USB-C then why do all their other current devices - where the EU never forced anything - use primarily (sometimes exclusively) USB-C?
Don't you think that 20V and 240W that are the maximum for Power Delivery are enough to fast charge a smartphone? Even laptops use it!
With that being said, the EU can fuck right off with this USB-C insistence. I've been using iPhones for 13 years now personally, and for 6 years with work. I have lightning cables coming out of my ears (a mixture of first and third party). Charging devices up with a lightning cable is incredibly convenient, and especially since I have USB connectors in many of the power sockets around my house. All of that is rendered useless because of the EU's loathsome meddling.
(I am generally an EU fan, but live in the UK which of course is no longer part of the EU. I can't say I'm at all happy about that but what I'm even less happy about is that even though we could potentially go a different route here, and a better route for people already in the Apple ecosystem who have the necessary accessories, Apple will no doubt consider it easier to supply EU compliant iPhones in the UK, for which I can't really blame them, but I'll gladly shake my fist at Brussels over it.)
I'm glad at least someone is forcing a notoriously hostile company like Apple to play ball. Like you, I too have many cables all over my home and office. Charging my devices with any of them is incredibly convenient, especially since I never have to check if it's the right cable or not.
All of that is rendered useless when my girlfriend needs to charge her phone though, because the manufacturer decided it was worth it to price gouge its customers over fucking chargers of all things.
And this is the situation without any Apple phones involved. Both our phones support USB-C. But her phone is old enough and from a scummy manufacturer that hadn't been forced to stick to the standard when selling that phone.
How is all of that rendered useless? You have the USB connectors in your power sockets already, so all that's left to do is plug a USB-A to USB-C cable in.
Could you maybe see or understand that maybe the regulation is a bit more "big picture" than specific individuals needs, like society at large?
What comes to apple tv remote, I have never charged mine and it’s been running over a year. I’m pretty happy I didn’t receive yet another usb-c with mine.
I had loads of pre-lightning connectors. I've still got two clock ratios with those connectors on. Apple change to lightning created tons of e-waste then.
