EU may force iPhone to switch from Lightning to USB | Hacker News Reader

EU may force iPhone to switch from Lightning to USB

cultofmac.com

46 pointsmercutio2134 comments

The EU should force apple to open NFC to all. The only reason we have these stupid slow bluetooth adhoc payment systems here is because apple refuses to let anyone other than their own apple pay use NFC.

I can use my android phone to pay via NFC directly from my bank account (no android pay, no third party or extra fees.). Why can't apple?

It is also hurting the adoption of proper 2FA in the form of FIDO U2F/WebAuthn. With Apple phones and tablets there is no normal USB port (A or the newer C), and forcing vendors to include a Bluetooth option in their security keys drives up the cost.

It's downright silly to deny the owners of the hardware to use it.

Apple Pay is secure, does not expose your details and is integrated with the banks in the bank end.

The last thing you want is to have a plethora of insecure adhock hacked together contactless payment systems.

thats not the problem here. Developers like me dont want to access apple pay but NFC.

Lets say you distribute nfc stickers to local store, and when someone swipes their iphone on it, it should wake up my app and fetch the production information. Such ideas wont work with apples NFC limitation. They require you to first open the app, then swipe.

Many innovation ideas are hampered by Apples behaviour. Its not about security, its about Apple pays rollout and adoption

You are moving the goalposts. You can read NFC tags on iOS devices without a problem, I don’t want an NFC signal being able to initiate any action on my device, you shouldn’t want that either.

For mission specific implementations e.g. inventory checking or shopping costumers can have the app active it’s much less of an inconvenience and a security risk than being able to wake up apps and communicate with them without the user being aware of such activity.

While you can argue that many innovative ideas are hampered by Apple this isn’t one of them they are in the right on this issue and many other security related issues.

I don’t want an NFC signal being able to initiate any action on my device

Isn't that exactly what happens with Apple Pay?

No, you have to initiate payment from the device (phone/watch).

You only need to approve it, however it’s not the equivalent I trust Apple much more than any random 3rd party vendor. Heck as far as security goes I trust them more than my bank.

I'm not sure why you're disagreeing with the parent commenter. On my phone, I can wave my phone around the reader as much as I want, but until I double-click the side button, Apple Pay will not be engaged. I must then also authenticate, but there are no circumstances I'm aware of under which terminals can prompt Apple Pay to start. Which I believe is as it should be.

Something is odd with the phone or reader because all contactless payment readers in the UK activate Apple Pay on mine. As in I don’t need to double click I even have that option disabled it will prompt the wallet auth even if the phone is locked.

>They require you to first open the app, then swipe.

I really wouldn’t want to allow anyone with an NFC chip to be able to open apps on my phone. Which app gets used for what should be under the user’s direction, not the store’s or the developer’s. Habituation users into trusting any random kiosk to put data on their phone without input from them is terrible practice.

I wouldn't want your app on my phone if you insist it forces my phone to do things when in proximity to your tags. Talk about user hostile—it's my device, not yours.

If you don't like Apple's product design philosophy, that's fine. There is plenty of healthy competition in the smartphone market. I for one am glad there is a product like the iPhone which doesn't implement NFC as an anarchistic free-for-all.

Your file browser also "forces your phone to do things" depending on the file format, using whatever default application to open the file.

It's the same with NFC tags, and you can easily stop that by turning NFC off.

All of the files on my phone are there because I chose to put those files there. I choose which files I tap on. And I choose when I tap on them.

I don't choose where you stick your NFC tags.

You do choose when to turn NFC on, when to unlock your phone, and where to tap it.

Remember it's NFC, not WiFi we're talking about, you need to get your phone within less than half an inch from the tag for it to work.

If your expect me to unlock the phone and "turn NFC on" before scanning a tag then great, Apple supports that mode of operation today. What's the problem?

> we have these stupid slow bluetooth adhoc payment systems

Sounds like they already have a plethora of insecure adhoc hacked together contactless payment systems, just even worse than if Apple allowed third-party NFC

No we don’t because those are not allowed on iOS devices, if you want to use payments you need to integrate with Apple Pay.

Apple Pay even supports travel passes these days any use of NFC for payment authorization is supported in currently the most secure implementation we have with high assurance for privacy.

> if you want to use payments you need to integrate with Apple Pay

I dunno about that, I spent last month paying at retail for drinks, groceries, etc by scanning QR codes using https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/swish-payments/id563204724?m...

Yeah you do, they may not be insecure but they are "hacks" like Twint [1] which uses bluetooth and qrcodes to process payments:

[1] https://www.twint.ch/en/

Isn't that what the Store review process is supposed to prevent?

The store review process can only achieve so much, it also has no control over the backend.

Apple Pay is fully integrated with the banks and issuers you get a notification form your bank when you add a card and you can revoke it without going through Apple if your phone is lost.

You also are assured that your card details are never exposed because Apple does not use the PAN for billing, and it also does not expose your billing/shipping information without your acknowledgment and consent when used to purchase items on Apple Pay enabled services.

You mean https://developer.apple.com/documentation/corenfc?

That's limited to NFC tags. You can't do proper card emulation for payment terminals with that.

to be frank that corenfc has limitations which i think the threadstarter is complaining about. Namely it doesnt work if the app is not in foreground. Only Apple Pay can use corenfc when phone screen is off or the app is not running in foreground.

Does it use it in the background, though? I've always double-tapped the power button to open Apple Pay before trying to read the phone. Likewise, when I had an S7 Edge, I opened Google Pay before attempting.

Yes. On both iOS and Android, the wallet should open on its own when the phone detects a payment terminal. You don't have to double-tap the power button.

In my experience, this is definitely not the case. Multiple terminals at multiple stores have not activated Apple Pay on my iPhone X. I've always had to double-tap the button.

Here in South Africa we've had NFC payments (Android only) for our phones. I use it every day!

Apple needs to come to the party

If EU wants to save on e-waste, it should dictate that phone should be sold without chargers or cables. If one wants a new cable or a charger, the person should pay for it extra.

That doesn't really solve the problem since I already have USB chargers lying around but not <insert format here>.

A better solution might be to apply a charge per nonstandard charger given out to customers. At this stage it would practically be an Apple tax.

It surprises me that non-USB DC power supply plugs haven't been standardised. I have a big box of old chargers and even when if I find a matching voltage with sufficient current, the plug usually doesn't fit or has the wrong polarity.

A huge opportunity for reducing e-waste.

Isn't Apple's charger already standard USB?

Certainly is.

Of course it's not. Apple devices don't have USB ports - they have Lightning ports.

Have you read this article at all?

Apple chargers are USB on the block, just not on the phone. You can plug a micro USB cable into an Apple charger to charge your USB devices, and then switch to a lightning cable (whose other end is full sized male USB) to charge your iDevices.

You could also use a non Apple USB charger with your lightning cable to charge your iDevice, though how effective that is depends on the voltage of the block.

The standard iPhone charger has a USB-A socket. You plug a USB -> Lightning cable into that. So it's only the cable that's non-standard. Perhaps not ideal, but rather different from mandating a complete new charger.

The issue is that not all charges are the same especially with new phone that have quick charging.

Ideally the industry would have a standard for charges and how much power they provide. So for example you buy a new phone and it says you need a charger type 5 and if you don't have that you can buy it. Trying to figure out how many watts you have and what you need is too complicated for the average person. Make it super simple.

The point is to make people to pay for what they wanted. In my case if a fast charger were optional, I would skip it. Each day I need to sleep for >=7 hours and fast charger does not change that.

And if the chargers weren't standardized, you'd have to buy that extra cable if you actually want your device to turn on.

That automatically puts pressure on manufacturers to standardize things and made them think twice before introducing incompatible charger/cable.

Why would that be the case?

This makes the price of the charger explicit and unrelated to phone purchase. If I have a previous version of a device and I replace it with newer one why should I pay for the new charger as well?

Because the vendor introduced a new, incompatible plug for the new version of the device.

Way too much government overreach. It’s ridiculous for government to intervene at this level of product development.

> Way too much government overreach. It’s ridiculous for government to intervene at this level of product development.

I'm very glad government demanded standards for power plugs. Not sure why that should not extend to mobile devices.

Primarily for safety reasons.

What do you mean?

I'm guessing here, but probably that plugging in something that expects a different voltage could start a fire

It's just like that mains socket on the wall that every electronic device uses. Would you prefer if each manufacturer had their own 110v/220v plug?

Especially since the newer devices start to draw more significant amounts of power - that calls for safety, one reason governments got involved in standardizing power plugs.

A poor argument since iPhone uses, and has always used industry standard USB-A on the "wall" side.

I really don't understand what the EU is complaining about. I'm not aware of a single smartphone that doesn't charge over USB. Or do they really have stick up their bum about both ends of the cable?

  I really don't understand what the EU is
  complaining about. I'm not aware of a single
  smartphone that doesn't charge over USB.

You know why that is? Because in 2009, the EU told them to [1].

The fact you're not aware of a single smartphone that doesn't charge over USB is, in fact, a major success for the EU bossing phone manufacturers around!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_external_power_supply

That's basically a lie; the industry was already unifying around USB charging because it's so cheap to implement and reduces the part count.

(To the extent the EU did anything right, they correctly predicted the future, which is I suppose fairly impressive.)

If the market was going to give us USB chargers anyway, why do cheap phones which are excluded from Common EPS rules, like the Samsung E1200, often not use USB chargers?

So again, they correctly predicted that dirt cheap shit with internal electronics designed more than fifteen years ago will continue to be dirt cheap shit today. Wow, the EU is amazing.

What's their next trick? Banning spinning hard disks from laptops? Forcing all consumer grade digital cameras to use SD cards?

Having multiple connectors on the phone side results in more cables, more waste.

A valid argument if USB cables were durable in the hands of the typical ham-fisted end user... AND if the EU forced all phone makers to stop bundling USB cables and chargers with every phone.

I mean this is pure hypocrisy; the EU couldn't even standardise wall sockets. What next, are they going to force all mains devices to use the IEC C14 socket? Perhaps they should levy a steep tax on all aftermarket USB cables?

> AND if the EU forced all phone makers to stop bundling USB cables and chargers with every phone.

If all bundled cables were the same, people could reuse them more often.

Surely forcing change will cause more wasted cables than maintaining the status quo.

Plus Apple uses lightning in many more products than the iPhone; so unless they're going to force companies to standardise on cables for charging set top box remote controls (for example) then it's not going to have the desired effect long term.

> Surely forcing change will cause more wasted cables than maintaining the status quo.

Not in the long run.

While we're at it, let's ban Displayport and force everyone to use HDMI. Oh, and all headphones must now connect over USB-C, as 3.5mm TRS is banned too.

HDMI, Displayport and 3.5mm TRS will all be replaced by USB-C at some point. It's a little too earlier to force it though.

What makes you think that every device would have its own plugs? It's certainly not what happened way back when electric plugs were not regulated as it was a new technology.

Because phones all had their own plugs before the EU (and later China) threatened to legislate a common plug.

Not true. PDAs used mini USB way before the first iPhone came out (and a lot of PDA users were very unhappy with their proprietary plug). The threatening came way after the plugs were already standardized on USB. Remember that smartphones are not evolution of mobile phones, but PDAs and MDAs - that had mini USBs for a long time before any smartphone has existed. This started at least around 2003 and around 2007, it was already clear that not using USB is a disadvantage, and in 2008/9 it was irrelevant what "dumb" mobile phone manufacturers are doing as it was clear that smartphones have won in the long run.

Regulating something that is not a problem anymore is typical EU propaganda move. After they did it, they flooded our TV and newspapers with ads saying "we saved you" - they forgot to say that dumb phones wouldn't be a problem anyways, though, and no one else was interested in proprietary plugs.

Not true. Do you want me to share a photo of some 2010-2015 phone chargers and their plugs? Because just recently I've found some of those lying around, and let me tell you: 5 phones, 5 different plugs.

Also one phone with a micro USB port, except it won't charge through it, data only.

You're talking about dumb phones, I suppose. I don't care, this market is diminishing every year and will be a completely niche market soon. It's bullshit to spend tax money on regulating a market that will almost cease to exist soon. The charger waste largely comes from old phones made pre-2010, as new dumb phones mostly have USB, but more importantly, are not sold at all.

I'm talking about PDAs (ancestors of smartphones) and smartphones as these matter - as was already clear around 2008, and it was clear since at least 2006 that USB is the way to go and the market has been following it.

If we spent the same amount of money we would spent on this regulation on cleaning the environment directly, we would get a much better result.

I remember before the EU's previous threats, when Nokia had their "FastPort", Sony Ericsson had their "PopPort", Motorola has theirs, Samsung had theirs. I'm very glad for consumer-friendly government intervention.

> It’s ridiculous for government to intervene at this level of product development

That really is a matter of personal politics and opinion.

Please, make it USB-C

Apple already has it on their Macbooks, so I'd not be surprised if their long term plan ("plan B?") is to go with USB-C for their iOS devices too.

At this point, I strongly suspect Apple are hoping to keep Lightning going until they're ready to make phones wireless-charge-only. That's probably still a few years away, but I'm sure they're thinking in that direction.

It'll cause some initial grumbling, but I'm not sure it would be a terribly thing. As well as making waterproofing easier, little sockets at the bottom of phones always seem to collect lint in my pockets, which ends up causing dodgy connections.

What would the EU do in this case?

That seems like the perfect plan, in my opinion, and I'm surprised why Apple hasn't done it already. Those who already have an Android phone with wireless charging quickly find the USB port useless, especially since Google removed USB mass storage support a few years back and replaced it with some awful MTP implementation that never fucking works. It would certainly fit Apple's image to have a sleek, futuristic looking device like that.

Until the wireless charging works at a distance of at least one meter and is way more powerful, there will be need for cables. Currently there are still quite a lot of uses which require constant charging and not being just placed on a table. Namely debugging apps and gaming.

I'm not the biggest mobile gamer, but I'm not sure I've ever played a game on my phone while it was plugged into a charger.

The "debugging apps" case doesn't entirely convince me, either. Unless you're pushing it pretty hard, I'm fairly certain an iPhone will make it through the day on one charge. If not, drop it on a charging mat when you go for lunch. (note that recent versions of Xcode can deploy and debug iPhone apps over Wi-fi -- so the cable isn't really needed for data any more...)

But for those who do need this, it's pretty easy to imagine a case with some charging coils embedded in the back.

iPhone does allow debugging over Wi-Fi but sadly it is not as reliable as a cable (hopefully yet).

My phone is a bit on the older side and has took a beating. My iPad would drain after less than an hour of PUBG were it not plugged in.

I agree with this. Lightning seems like a mostly dead standard, being kept on life support because it allows a slightly thinner device. I seriously doubt I'll ever buy another Lightning cable to charge a device; the ones I have now are high enough quality that I expect they last longer than the devices I have, and the next generation will charge wirelessly.

I think the chargers are already OK - they use a cable and they output via USB. Most phone makers here provide you with a charger and a cable or, sometimes, just the cable (and you can use an Apple charger if you want - I do because the design is good and I have a bunch of them). For Apple, it'd be a no-brainer to ditch Lightning, except for the fact it's a bit thinner than USB-C.

If Apple goes pocketless, putting a USB socket on the charging platform is a no brainer. Lightning is much smarter and does a lot more than charging, which is not needed for this.

> What would the EU do in this case?

Fine Apple for not following its regulation, of course. Classic EU.

It'll be interesting to see how clear-cut this is. Do the rules actually require the socket, or do they say that if the socket is present it needs to be a certain type.

(Even in the former case, there'd be a much stronger "stifling innovation" case if you're proposing a fully-wireless device rather than just a slightly thinner incompatible socket).

If you want to express how oppressive the EU is, it might be better to use "late modern EU".

I would suggest he goes for "socialist EU".

I was just joking because before his edit he had "classical EU" instead of "classic EU".

Sorry I didn't update the page and didn't see your comment. I'd add an edit notice, but I thought nobody has noticed. :X

You would've gotten away with it, if it weren't for the meddling me! :)

If I were Apple, I'd just not pay the fine and let the EU try to ban the iPhone from being sold. And then I'd ignore the ban until they tried to enforce it, at which point I'd just stop selling them.

It would cause an absolute uproar. No iPhones because the EU doesn't like the Lightning port? The argument won't stand a moment's scrutiny and within a week, individual governments will be so averse to the controversy that the EU would be forced to fold.

Microsoft tried the "let's not pay" strategy once and failed. And Windows was arguably more strategic than iPhone.

EU is a huge market for Apple they can't just ignore it. If they are compelled to comply then they could make a EU version of the iPhone with USB-C connector. It would require a bit of re-engineering and re-tooling, but nothing Apple couldn't handle. However I suppose that if this ever happens there will be a lot of grey market export.

Personally with USB-C I don't really mind one way or another.

Microsoft didn't have a plausible argument on their end; that EU action could be easily spun as pro-consumer. I don't think the EU spin would work so well here.

Windows might be more "strategic" than iPhone, but unlike Windows the iPhone is a product consumers actually want. It won't fly to tell their citizens they can't have it because it uses a plug everyone already has ten spare cables for.

Many people would prefer to have USB-C cables on their phone. I guess the majority don't care, many would like USB-C and those who prefer lightning are in minority. The transition from lightning to USB-C would also probably be simpler than from 30-pin to lightning.

In the long run people will have more spare usb-c cables than lightning ones as well.

It won't fly to tell its customers that they can't have it because Apple considers itself too special to simply follow standards and the law.

That will be the line of argument from the EU of course, and I'm sure plenty of non-iPhone customers will accept it. Everyone with an existing iPhone effectively being told that the product they currently hold in their hands is now banned from sale because the little socket on the bottom isn't blessed by the EU? That little socket that their millions of customers love and appreciate as being a desirable feature of the device?

Good luck with that.

> love and appreciate

Normal people don't talk like that about connector sockets.

Maybe not consciously, but they absolutely do subconsciously.

When you've spent a long time dealing with blindingly or subtly hateful plugs and sockets, a connector like lightning seems utterly magical. I appreciate its ergonomics every time I plug my phone in.

I however don't appreciate how flimsy lightning is when it keeps disconnecting my apple headphones when my phone is in my pocket. Coincidentally, they put out new wireless headphones.

Not to mention what a hassle it is to find someone to borrow their cable from if I accidentally left mine at home.

> Maybe not consciously, but they absolutely do subconsciously.

This is not how talking works.

Actually it really is.

Why would someone say something like "I love the lightning connector" if they aren't aware that they do? Please explain.

Everyone already has ten proprietary lightning cables? That's news to me.

I have at least 6. And we had 3 iPhones in this house.

6,999,999 to go.

I believe they're just going to skip that step and go straight to wireless charging, removing the only ("unnecessary") port in their design.

Is the standard fixed yet and is everyone following it? There was a bunch of incompatibility issues for a while.

> "The idea is to cut down on the 51,000 tons of old chargers thrown away each year."

Am I imanging it or is this a bit strange? Every single mobile device that I have owned in the last 5 years, exluding laptops has either come without an adapter (Kindle, Moto G5) or with its own 5-9W adapter and a plug-in cable (Chromecast, iPhone)[0]

[0] https://goo.gl/images/aD7Qxa

The pictured adapter is the standard one. What do you think you're imagining exactly? Kindles don't come with a charger? That seems a bit silly, for a device that has to charge...

You can use this adapter to charge your phone, or power your chromecast. It's not automatically junk if either of the two aforementioned devices should ever become junk, like the traditional "wall-wart" with randomly sized barrel plugs, or some other standard.

If anything is strange, it's that seemingly this law takes no account of non-USB devices that don't have any reason to plug into a computer, and may have variable power requirements other than 1A or 2.1A provided by USB at 5V. Don't get me wrong, I think it's great to have a common standard, it's a shame there aren't more of them /s

Also wondering what happens under this law when USB-C comes around? It's been a while since I've seen a new phone that doesn't use USB-C here stateside, but according to this law I would think that to be impossible and illegal. (So how does that shake out in practice?)

A quick google search doesn't seem to indicate that this is a solved issue, finding this result on the front page concerned in 2015 that the wrong thing will happen: https://medium.com/@gfrontera/usb-type-c-and-the-eu-35482b31...

  What do you think you're imagining exactly?
  Kindles don't come with a charger?

The Kindle [1] comes with a USB cable - but not a mains charger. The product page says "Fully charges in approximately 4 hours from a computer via USB cable" and offers an add-on item, "Kindle USB Charger (not included) 2017 edition £11.99" or "Kindle Power Adapter (not included) $19.99"

[1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B017JG41PC/ https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0186FET66/

The EU has been doing this since 2009 (almost a decade) and is mostly the reason why smart-phone manufacturers have settled on micro-USB port as the standard port for chargers (of devices) manufactured since 2009.

[0] http://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/electrical-engineering/re...

[1] https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-others-agree-to-universal-ce...

[2] https://www.engadget.com/2018/08/07/eu-study-harmonize-phone...

The "51,000 tons of waste" number comes from the original 2009 EU campaign that led to the near-universal adoption of USB you see today. It's outdated and doesn't fit in an article written today.

I think Apple may have even been eyeing a migration to USB-C for its phones and tablets, but held it back to avoid pissing off their customers after the (relatively) recent switch from the old 30pin connector.

This provides them with the perfect excuse for going ahead while avoiding (or redirecting) a bit of customer rage which would result.

If it could be argued that Apple changed because the EU forced them to, it would be a monumental scandal. There's no way Apple would be so stupid as to walk into that PR disaster.

Not a scandal. A scapegoat, for a change I'm sure they actually wouldn't mind.

Less dongles, more uniformity. Yeah a few less MfI certification fees (they would still have plenty of "officially certified" cables and chargers esp. from better brands, so this revenue wouldn't disappear, just somewhat shrink).

How would this be a scandal? The post you responded to sounds more plausible to me than it becoming a monumental scandal or PR disaster.

Apple changing the plug on their iPhone again? After they've told everyone to invest in lightning cables and accessories? It creates a stir when they change voluntarily; it would be an utter scandal if it was foisted upon Apple by a foreign government.

Did you not read about Macbooks and USB-C?

Scandal.

You're extrapolating your own care for this topic to all of Apple's customers. You've done it all over the discussion and it massively overestimates how much people care about this. If there's anything the last few years taught us is that Americans are quite immune to outrage and scandal. Your example of Macbooks and USB-C is hilarious. No one outside hacker news actually cares.

What if Apple comes up with some new invention for the charging cables in a year or two, for example some even faster Quick Charge that USB C can't handle?

Or what if they invented a better wireless charging system than Qi? The EU is basically saying innovation is dead. At this rate they'll be requiring all phones to support Adobe Flash and 3.5 inch IDE hard disks.

The EU merely requires that the currently largest manufacturers form a council, which decides on which charging standard to use. This council can change it again at any time, but all manufacturers have to use the same standard at each point in time.

If the manufacturers want to switch to a different standard, that’s absolutely fine — just all should use the same.

> for example some even faster Quick Charge that USB C can't handle

More power than 100W?

Apple already provide USB-Lightning cables and USB ported DC adapters, admittedly a greener configuration compared to hardwired options. It's the competition that must provide an Apple like option.

My Asus tablets and Moto phones also came with a separated charger + cable. Is hardwiring common?

Not anymore and we have the EU-law and smartphones tonthabk for that.

I remeber when Nokia, Sony etc. all had a different charger and they all were hardwired except the iPods and later the iPhones.

> Not anymore and we have the EU-law and smartphones tonthabk for that.

What? The EU did absolutely nothing that got us this outcome. It was purely the market itself, when everyone started switching to smartphones and it was common to connect your smartphone to your PC. Remember that smartphones are not evolution of mobile phones, but PDAs and MDAs - that had mini USBs for a long time before any smartphone has existed. This started at least around 2003 and around 2007, it was already clear that not using USB is a disadvantage, and in 2008/9 it was irrelevant what "dumb" mobile phone manufacturers are doing as it was clear that smartphones have won in the long run.

Yeah, the EU has created a memorandum. A completely irrelevant memorandum, as it was created in 2009, very very late in the game.

It was entirely because of the EU as to why most smart-phone manufacturers switched to USB. It wasn't really a law per-say but more of a MoU[0] (which means it's entirely voluntary). Apparently, having them comply with it voluntarily didn't work out so well, which is why they want to enforce it as a law[1].

[0] http://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/electrical-engineering/re... [1] https://www.engadget.com/2018/08/07/eu-study-harmonize-phone...

So how do you explain the fact that I used many PDAs before 2009 (I had 4 between 2004 and 2009) that had mini USBs and there mostly wasn't a PDA on the market that didn't have mini USB around 2007?

From what I can tell, neither Palm nor Samsung nor the HP iPAQs were using USB on their PDAs back in 2007. Neither was Nokia on their pre-iPhone smartphones, like the E-series. And obviously, the original "modern smartphone" - the iPhone - didn't either.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_external_power_supply

It's completely irrelevant what PDA manufacturers were doing when the bulk of charger waste comes precisely from those "dumb" phones. And Apple.

It's not. The bulk of charger waste comes from old phones. New dumb phones a) mostly have USB and, more importantly, b) are not sold at all - the market has became completely insignificant.

We would spend a lot of tax money on this regulation, and the money would be spent to regulate a market that barely exist anymore and will not exist almost completely soon. If we used the same amount of money to clean air or sea directly, we would get much better result.

Additionally, charger waste is not that big problem according to our national recycling agency and their experts. These products can be and are recycled. There are much bigger issues we should be looking at that are ignored or not given enough attention.

We would spend a lot of tax money on this regulation

How so? Are you thinking they would check every single model, or something like that? As far as I know, that's not how these regulations are enforced, they wait for complaints, then confirm the claims and fine the company.

How so? How not so? Do you know how lengthy the legislative process is in the EU and what needs to happen before a law is even voted on, and how much it costs?

Oh. Alright, how much does it cost?

Great response. You have correctly put the burden of proof on the claimant.

Why is having several different cables and adapters a greener configuration than just having a single charger?

Makes the charger more versatile and reusable instead of having a cable 'built-in' to the charger that cannot be swapped out. Also if the cable frays, you just get a new cable, not a whole new charger.

That said- are hard-wired (non-changeable) chargers even common anymore? I have a family member that still uses an old flip phone and even it uses a USB charger

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