Brazil agency fines Apple $2M for not including charger in iPhone 12 box | Hacker News Reader

Brazil agency fines Apple $2M for not including charger in iPhone 12 box

9to5mac.com

49 pointsawb66 comments

If Apple actually cared about the environment they would make a charging cable that wasn't so flimsy and would completely ditch Lightning so people could use more devices with the same cable. But both of those options would cut down on their profits, so instead we get this pseudo-environmentalism that could very well increase the overall environmental impact of these devices.

They are moving towards wireless charging which will solve that issue.

Wireless loses 1/3 of the energy. It requires 47% more energy, and even more when misaligned. https://debugger.medium.com/wireless-charging-is-a-disaster-...

The last time I had a wireless chargeable phone, the charger would get uncomfortably hot, which I assume degrades the battery as well.

I understand wireless charging for my toothbrush (charging port = less waterproof), but it's such a "solution searching for a problem" for phones. Plugging in a cable just isn't that hard.

I have an Anker wireless charging station, have not experienced any excessive heat. I have it on my desk so that I continuously charge my phone during the day, but am still able to pick it up all the time.

It’s pretty nice but I agree it’s a gimmick, not a necessary problem to solve.

> I understand wireless charging for my toothbrush (charging port = less waterproof), but it’s such a “solution searching for a problem” for phones.

The one awesome use case for phones is where the phone itself is a wireless charger, so you can do phone-to-phone charging when someone has a well charged phone and someone else has one about to die, without additional gear.

Isn't the volume of the wireless charger bigger than the wired one? It may solve the cable issue, but not the environment one.

Most devices charge with USB-B, not wirelessly. If they wanted to skip to USB-C, sure, that's fine. Including wireless would have been a good idea five years ago, when it started becoming popular. It's still popular today, but it's way too slow for modern phone battery capacities.

>Most devices charge with USB-B

Do you mean USB- A?

No. A is the host port. B is the side that connects to the device, with micro-B being the most common.

>micro-B being the most common.

I guess that is me sticking to Apple for long. I thought most Android devices has been on USB-C for 5 years?

It really depends on the price level of the phone. Non-flagship phones, like the Moto G9 and the Samsung A11, use micro-B and were released in 2019. USB-C is common in the $500+ market.

I guess, micro USB.

Apple's one does 15W which is plenty.

At 15W, that would mean charging your phone would take over two hours. That's way behind their competition, and twice the time of even their anemic 20W wall charger.

Even my friend's entry level $150 Xiaomi Note 7 comes with a 17W charger and supports up to 27W chargers.

Higher wattage degrades battery life, should only be used when needed.

Not a concern. His phone battery is cheap and easily replaceable.

He's been using it for a year and a half and battery is still fine. A bit over full day per charge according to him.

>make a charging cable that wasn't so flimsy

Agree, they looked at braided cable [1] which I hate as it is a dust magnet. And not doing something properly like Anker [2] which is a cable that refuse to break. ( As most cable should be )

>completely ditch Lightning so people could use more devices with the same cable

That I disagree, there are billions of lightning cable out there. Ditching them for USB-C doesn't fix anything.

[1] https://www.macrumors.com/2020/07/23/leaker-shares-images-br...

[2] https://www.anker.com/products/variant/powerline-ii-3ft-ligh...

This doesn't add up. In a world with Lightning for iphones and USB C for everything else there's a smaller chance of having the correct cable than in a world with USB C for iphones and everything else. Enforce a standard and the problem goes away.

Just yesterday I had to connect my phone to a friend's USB connector in his car but couldn't because the only cable available were the freak that is one standard in one end and another in the other (IE. a standard iPhone cable with USB -> lightning).

Everyone in the iPhone ecosystem already has lightning cable. That is 1 billion iPhone user with at least one lightning cable if not more.

By enforcing a USB-C standard, you are throwing away one billion lightning cable. And as shown in your example, he has one. It works for him, it just happens not to work for non-Apple users. Which isn't a problem for Apple users. What is there to be gain for the current one billion iPhone user, 200M iPad user which are still on lightning ? I have room full of lightning cables and devices that use it, but zero USB-C devices.

Arguably switching to Wireless ( MagSafe ) made sense from a UX perspective. Although I question whether we can resolve the fundamental physics issues which is efficiency and heat.

Apple makes less than one half of one percent of their revenue from the entire MFi program, which includes all proprietary port licensing and cables - basically the entire lightning port ecosystem, including cables made by third parties. To them it's a trivial amount of money. Apple isn't concerned with making revenue from cables, this is a false meme that needs to die.

https://sneak.berlin/20190330/apple-is-not-trying-to-screw-y...

Apple's TTM revenue was $274B. So that's over $1B a year? I wouldn't throw away that kind of cash. Yes it's small as a percentage but it's still a very large number.

Would ditching lightning really make finding a compatible cable easier. Which alternate cable should they have used? Mini-USB, Micro-USB A, Micro-USB B, USB Mini-b 4pin, USB Mini-b 5pin, UsB 3.0 Micro-B, Micro-USB AB, goodness knows what else.

Lightning was a revelation. Rotationally symmetrical, fast, auto-negotiating, compact. It set the benchmark for what a mobile charging cable should be like.

Of course it would. Any phone shop would have both kinds but lots of places only sell USB. USB C should be a required standard.

For how long? How would you manage improvements?

Oookay. Nevermind that all modern phones use usb-c, I guess?

Apple definitely doesn’t have a monopoly then.

I’m going to go ahead and say it. Usb-c is a disaster. The promise of a cable that is universal ended up being a cable that looks the same as every other but u have no idea if it’s the right cable. Maybe in the next 10 years it will be fixed but from my POV this has not been a success or the panacea it was made out to be. You can actually brick stuff using the wrong usb-c cable and you will have no clue until it’s too late.

And Apple may well move to USB-C, in fact they already are for some devices at the pro end.

As for 'standard' and easy availability, I'm pretty sure Lightning cables are more ubiquitous, and probably cheaper than USB-C still. There's certainly no shortage of them, I've got about half a dozen chargers and cables in the house right now. Nobody is pushing for Apple to adopt USB-C for my convenience, that's for sure.

Maybe the Brazilian government should look into helping its citizens by reducing tariffs, protectionist policies, and other regulations that make it one of the worst and costly places to do business and be a consumer. Rather than trumpeting a symbol of a $10 charging cable on a phone that's out of reach for 99.99% of Brazilians, using regulations that sound rather dubiously defined and enforced, I have to say.

-- From Brazil Cost to Brazil Profit: Why are electronics so expensive in Brazil? https://thenextweb.com/la/2012/09/30/from-brazil-cost-brazil...

-- Brazil is among the world's most expensive countries to buy an iPhone https://www.zdnet.com/article/brazil-is-among-the-worlds-mos...

-- Brazil - Country Commercial Guide ("... Brazil ranked 141 out of 141 economies for burden of regulation...") https://www.trade.gov/knowledge-product/brazil-trade-barrier...

-- Trade Restrictions in Brazil: Who Pays the Price? https://www.e-jei.org/upload/JEI_32_2_283_323_2013600128.pdf

I don't know if any others here have Brazilian friends, but every time I talk to mine, they offer to pay me to send them consumer goods at normal prices, or bring them when I visit. That is not a good sign. Well, that and the desperate poverty and financial situation that much of the country lives in. Unless you managed to marry someone on a military pension before he/she died (https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/21/world/americas/brazil-pen...). But I digress.

Absolutely. Regardless of one’s sentiment on Apple removing the charger this should be a focus of the discussion.

i disagree. One can certainly add one related link to HN and we can discuss about it there. This thread however is to talk about the OP linked article. I'm not in Brazil, but i can imagine that as anywhere in the world, there is no such thing as "The" government, but different agencies, ministries each one with their own duties/responsibilities.

Why should can’t we discuss not focus if the regulator is suspect? This seems like an overreach to me and other mobile phone sellers have much much worse practices that hurt consumer.

They voted for Bolsonaro. Go figure.

Anyway, $2M is peanuts to Apple and the fine is well deserved. They cheap out on a $19 charger on a $799 purchase, the consumers getting what is essentially a non functioning product, all in the name of reducing waste. Then sell the iPones with minimal packaging like a paper wrap and make them repairable instead of pushing updates that break older devices in order to force users to buy new ones.

I don't know how it's relevant. If you see there are links from 2012, talking about the issue, and AFAIK the IT world in Brazil has strong taxation since 80s. Look this issue from 2007, involving CISCO: https://www.reuters.com/article/brazil-fraud-idUSN1621022620...

How is this relevant to the conversation?

To begin with, every company is more than welcome to produce their goods in the country and lower their costs, happens to the xbox for example. If Apple would produce their phones there and still not include the charger they would be fined the same way.

Trade restrictions are there both ways. Or do you think we can sell our planes cheaper in America? How about the billions the US gov dumps on Boeing propping up a company that is a safety risk for not only those who fly but those who are in the ground as well, or all the pork that goes to the soy farmers, the restrictions on dishwashers and so on and so forth. To name a few.

And, please, Brazil is on the G20 your mud slinging against "people marrying into a military pension" is just blowing things way out of proportion. Or do you want me to talk about the terrible state most of Alabama, Arkansas and Mississipi are? How about the opioid epidemic in many states? Is that solved?

Imagine if my country would have an armed mob storming congress to stop an election what would you say right? But fret not, thanks to a president aligned to your previous president we will most likely face the same situation.

But I digress, I think the fine is fair and any company that does not comply to local laws should be fined accordingly.

I just got my first iPhone, without a charger. Now I have a MacBook as well, which has my only charger having USB-C out (and the ports on the machine). I find it pretty funny that I have to use an older Apple device with only USB-C ports to charge a newer Apple Device with a port I only have one cable for and have no charger to plug that cable except the MacBook. By Apple's thinking only has these ports because that's the future but somehow they missed to put these on the iPhone.

Personally I'm glad that companies are starting to not ship new cables with phones and would like to see it extended to other rechargables. I've thrown out so many micro-USB cables over the last few years and I still have them all over the place.

Yeah not gonna lie, i definitely have had plenty of left over charging cables, bricks, and wires over the years, and i don't even upgrade every year. I'm using the same charging set up i used for like the last 2 years on my X when i got my 12 pro. 5w brick, charged over night. New battery lasts me all day even with heavy use. I can see why it's inconvenient for people who are just getting into iPhones though. But now samsung is doing the same anyways, iirc.

> I can see why it's inconvenient for people who are just getting into iPhones though.

It would be nice if they offered you a free cable and small brick if you wanted one. Most people wouldn't actually take them up on the offer, but someone getting their first phone (or passing their old phone/charger to a family member) would actually want this.

Cables and chargers feel wasteful, but eliminating them only has a psychological benefit. There is zero impact in real-terms.

I have a few buckets of tech that I refuse (no pun intended) to throw out. I am a techy person. The total capacity of those buckets is under 3 cubic feet after I rationalised it down from a collection 10x that size built up over 20 years.

Meanwhile my family produces 200 cubic feet of landfill a year and 200 cubic feet of recycling a year. My e-waste is at least three orders of magnitude smaller than my household waste.

I don't believe that they produce less cables, but instead they sell it separately. I don't see how it impact positively the environment.

If you are concerned about the environment, please don't throw cables out, instead donate them.

The iPhones didn't see a price drop after charger removal since apple said it was for environmental reasons it should be obvious the price should have been reduced. same goes for earpods. can't believe no one directly asked apple this.

You think it should be illegal to raise prices?

“Hey, we usually give you this extra stuff, but now we removed it because we want to charge money for it instead, also the environment”

You don’t know if that’s true and Apple hasn’t hidden the fact that they removed it.

It's a new version of the iPhone, with a new price.

It would be a different case if Apple stopped including the charger and earpods with the iPhone 11.

They should be required to mark it accordingly on the box with bold marking, on the front face: “I come without charger and without earplugs”

IIRC, they did stop including it with the SE (or some other model that wasn't refreshed at the time the policy was instituted).

I think that saying it is for the environment and increasing prices while removing things from the box is false advertising and should be fined.

Also, it should be marked prominently on the box that the device doesn’t come with a charger or earplugs and won’t be self-sufficient. Let’s just regulate by making any device sold without charger display a 2x2cm logo on the box saying « I come without charger ».

I don’t buy a car expecting it to be missing tires or wheel.

Expectations do change though. In the UK, it used to be the expectation that appliances came with no power plug at all.

FTA: “While the iPhone 12 mini costs $729 in the U.S., in Brazil the same phone is around $1,200. Back in 2019 when Apple introduced the iPhone 11, it started at $799, while in Brazil it also cost around $1,200.”

I see no evidence for “no price reduction” there. It’s “iPhone 11 with charger” versus “iPhone 12 without charger” (AFAIK, they never sold the 12 with a charger). Also, average top of the line smartphone prices have gone up world wide.

Also FTA: “The depreciation of the Brazilian Real and the pandemic helped to increase the U.S. dollar over Brazil’s currency.”

I guess that could easily explain why the 12 mini is cheaper than the 11 in the USA, but equally priced in Brazil.

Hmm smart... the bigger problem however is that users buy 1$ chargers at local gas stores and thats gonna destroy their phones. One might think a person spending 800$ on a phone may spend 20$ on a charger but its quite easy for them to buy a counterfeit being ignorant at a local store cause it didn't come with one breaking their phone which is a far higher risk than anything in my opinion. Of course removing the port itself will solve this which is probably when they should have removed the charger.

That sounds really backwards, from an environmental point of view.

I imagine that nowadays, anybody who can afford any smartphone already has access to some standard 5V USB power supply. In fact, for returning buyers of iPhone, I would even recommend making the Lightning cable optional.

Not including a charger only becomes acceptable if outlets are mandated to have USB plugs by law. Otherwise it's an excuse for the company to save money while making me pay for a charger in the future if one of my old ones I got in the past breaks or is lost.

Having as part of the law won't help.

I work for a website that lists housing rentals.

Lead paint is still a very big deal, with a lot of complexity, and that's been banned nationally since 1978.

Lead paint being banned by law helped immensely, so not sure about that example. Outlets are also a lot easier to replace than lead paint.

… not that I think it’s a good idea to make USB outlets a legal requirement.

My point is that something being legally mandated doesn’t actually mean it’ll be anything like universal basically ever.

Should this law require USB-A or USB-C sockets?

And does the outlet on the ceiling of my garage for the garage door opener need a USB socket?

I think it's fine to not include a charger as long as it's clear it's not included, and you sell chargers where you sell the phones.

I wouldn't hesitate to buy a phone that came without a charger or cable if it was the same connector as my current one. Brazil has pretty good mobile phone penetration, so most phones are replacing an existing one, and most existing phones have a charger.

Apple is reducing waste and hiding a $10-$15 margin increase.

Part of the functionality with these new phones is improved charging capabilities. You can only get this if you get a new charger plus a USB-C to Lightning cable.

The population of people who have both of those is pretty negligible.

They probably saved $20 million, if not more.

I've started looking at fines in terms of "if we scaled this to a normal person, what was the fine?"; Apple's revenue in 2020 was $274.5B, so a $2M fine scaled to an income of $65k (approximately the US median) is 47.3 cents.

You should probably use after tax profit, rather than gross revenue

I could, but I would then also use a different metric for the average person: $65k is similar to gross revenue in that regards (it is money a person receives but before deducting tax or any expenses incurred). I could also use something corresponding to after tax profit for a person, but the data would be harder to come by, and I suspect much closer to $0.

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