EU laws have worldwide effects, there's no land of cable freedom anymore.
If Apple "only" ends up offering a certification mark for USB-C chargers that have been tested with the iPhone and makes that easily accessible, they might well be in the clear. If they try to add power delivery profiles that are unavailable to everyone else, chances are the EU will react.
Also, you are not banned from engineering other solutions. The police isn't going to knock on the doors of engineers who are suspected to develop better charging cables :)
> Also, you are not banned from engineering other solutions. The police isn't going to knock on the doors of engineers who are suspected to develop better charging cables :)
We are discussing under an article where the regulator has sent a "stern warning" to a company. I don't think what you're saying makes sense. If I tried to sell my better plug in my home market, the police would come knocking.
In reality if you come up with some kind of better plug, you will sell to a specialist market that would recognize the benefits (dentists or musicians for example) and then expand into other markets. You could try selling direct to consumers but guess what, nobody would buy it unless it had connectivity with other devices, and manufacturers wouldn't go out of their way to adopt it unless it delivered overwhelming advantages at low additional cost.
Not everything has to be sold in EU, there are plenty of things not available across all markets.
