EU Passes Law to Switch iPhone to USB-C by End of 2024
macrumors.com
macrumors.com
I am an iPhone user, but having an iPhone is not ubiquitous here, almost all of my friends/special other, use an Android phone with USB-C. Most of their laptops, Mac or not, use or allow USB-C for charging. This as been the case for a few years now, yet, if I go somewhere for more than a full day and forget my lighting cable, my phone will become a useless paperweight while every non-iPhone user is fine in the meantime because of the wide adoption of USB-C. It is also ironic how Apple markets heavily on how you can take great RAW photos or videos but somehow you have to use lightning USB2 speeds to transfer them. Lightning is barely smaller than USB-C, and clearly my iPhone thickness will not change if it switches to USB-C.
As for the e-waste generated by "having to throw all of those lightning cables", how is it not e-waste that someone buying an iPhone will have yet another lightning cable that will only be used to charge it. If we want to really be more environmentally friendly, wouldn't it make more sense to have no cable at all with the devices we buy, force the sellers to clearly tell the consumers about it and offer the cable on the side only if needed? With that cable being usb-c, the consumer don't have to think about the cable type, for non-tech savvy people, that would be "the regular charging cable" and that's it. I would also add that all lightning cables won't suddenly go to the landfill in 2024. Many people will keep their iPhones/AirPods for a while after that date. Many would probably donate their old lightning cables to whoever needs them. In the meantime, we all already have an ever growing landfill in our homes called the cable drawer, and it is also an issue that needs to be addressed.
What just happened is, EU, a political organization enforcing the use of a technology on a company which operates on free market. It's Apples best interest to make technology that the consumers want so that they can sell more units of that. A political organization like EU has no say in this. EU citizens already make this decision for themselves by voting with money and choosing to buy/not buy an iPhone.
Today is one of the dark days of EU. In short sight it's a victory. But in long sight it's a hinderence to progress by enforcing a technology on the market instead of letting the free market decide the technology.
EU and most people living within it would disagree with this statement.
without a referendum on such issues these kinds of statements are moot.
i'm also an EU citizen and this thing (along with many other EU decisions) are in the same dystopian vein as the covid fiasco in europe.
in any case, power plug type G is by far the safest and best. the EU should probably force everyone to adopt it, no? :)
As for global standardization of wall power; maybe in an ideal world. But in reality, it would cost a ton (way more than merely replacing plugs and outlets) and doesn't seem worth it.
Even 3/4 plywood is always 18mm, not 19.05mm.
I would have been happy to switch to a unified European plug. Iirc, the proposal was actually quite decent.
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-6-2005-1731-...
And yes, if power delivery was still a relatively new industry, EU absolutely should have mandated a single universal outlet that's "good enough". But existing designs predate EU by decades and are already so well-entrenched that changing them all to standardize on a single plug is too much effort to justify the gains.
But it ain't so with USB-C. Mobile rechargeable devices are a relatively recent tech, and the market has already largely converged on a single design. At this point, making it into a real standard, with the result that it's guaranteed to work everywhere, is a no-brainer.
That's utter crap. We had this argument multiple times, and somehow people without proof call it "best and safest"... when facts state that it is just not the case.
The people who were saying early on during the pandemic (me included) that we have to put into balance the number of covid casualties with the longer term economic consequences of imposing harsh and long lockdowns were treated as assasins of our collective grandmas, and worse. If it matters I’m triple vaccinated.
If anything, this should have put another big dent in experts' expertise, meaning if they knew what they were getting us into with their decisions (after all, they're experts) and they choose this high inflation route nonetheless.
Sure, there is never a need to be an expert to claim knowing more than them.
Also, I'm not completely convinced that it's exclusively related to the Covid lockdowns in Europe. For instance, many companies were very quick to restart (or were not even stopped) in Europe, but struggle with the IC shortage... which is not coming from Europe, is it?
That increased money supply was at first not really felt because of the decreased money velocity caused by lockdowns and restrictions, but once things started getting back to “normal” in terms of lockdowns and travel restrictions and all that then money velocity got back closer to its pre-covid levels, and coupled with that increased money supply left us in the current situation.
Of course, the increased money supply is not the only explanation, there’s also the war in Ukraine which has put a tremendous pressure on energy prices, plus the supply crisis, but imo it’s still one of the main causes of what we’re going right now.
The only reason this is muddled in America is because the people don't agree on to what degree the politics should control things.
Where are you living that your free market isn't regulated for the benefit of the consumer?
Says who? USB type-XYZ will be even more beneficial to the consumer in 5 years and the EU governing body is going to what... ? update the books with that? Force all consumer electronics companies to switch? Will they be the new guiding light for all things tech deciding what is "good" for the consumer?
This is a bad take and others who might find it convenient for Apple to forced to do this are looking at this too short-sightedly.
Sure! Why not?
More practically, it wouldn't be hard to designate a list of standardized form factors. The average smartphone also has plenty of real estate on its edges to ship multiple connectors (especially now that so many phones are dropping 3.5mm jacks), so if some fancy-shmancy USB-D or USB-J or whatever comes out it wouldn't be the end of the world to ship both until the EU updates its legislation to allow the fancy-shmancy one as an acceptable single port.
As it stands, the EU's decision represents a strict improvement from the consumer's perspective. That's worth celebrating, even before the longer-term kinks have been ironed out.
Who cares? Seriously, the OP made a claim that
> What just happened is, EU, a political organization enforcing the use of a technology on a company which operates on free market.
said claim being almost completely incorrect and devoid of fact. The reality is that in Free Markets, there is still heavy regulations.
I want to know, just what sort of Free Market you are living under that doesn't have regulations on consumer devices.
That's a poor example, telecoms are heavily regulated for the consumer. That's the reason why different operators are able to place consumer's calls to other operators - that is regulated.
There is no such thing as a free and unregulated market. Well, it exists but we call it the law of the jungle.
This is not to say that any regulation is sensible, but this kind of standardization to avoid vendor lock-in and waste is one of the prime examples of sensible stuff.
Whole heartedly agreed. If I, as a consumer, had my say then my flagship phone would still have a headphone jack, an SD card slot, and a replaceable battery. Yet here we are.
And with that EU will help out also, they are already working on a legislation for that.
But it didn't, and it may very well be because those people are not as incompetent as betting on making something a standard prematurely. They id it only now.
Be careful with hypotheticals as basis of an argument.
What???
It's an appeal to reality! It's what actually happened!
What do you prefer? Imagination and "I can say whatever and who cares about facts"?
> counterfactual
There was not a trace of "fact" in that argument, it was 100% imagination.
When it comes to charging and slow transfers of data, today's USB-C sockets will probably still work.
The next realm of standardization will probably be in the wireless-charging market (where standards are already maturing).
I believe the exact wording was that the industry was required to standardize on a connector, which at the time turned out to be micro-usb. Now the industry is shifting to usb-c, which is objectively better.
The current law already includes provisions to switch to a potential superior connector in the future. If the industry comes up with something better, the EU is not going to demand they stick with usb-c forever.
But as other commenters point out, provisions exist to assist with this.
USB went through mini, and micro, and USB-B, and...
I very much doubt the consortium would ever arrive at a reversible connector without Apple (who contributed heavily to USB-C)
"voting with money" or "voting with your wallet" is a complete non-sense. There is no -absolutely no- way for anyone in the industry to attribute a lost sale to a "missing" feature.
I think this also a symptoms on how Americans view the world through means of consumption. Everything HAS TO be consumed one way or another.
There's a whole idea around it called market research. It goes as far as... surveying people post-purchase to find out what features became the deciding factors. So yes, it is possible, just with very small sampling rate.
Finding out how to attribute a sale to specific features or marketing is definitively possible and common usage.
Finding out why customers churn and what levers could prevent that is also a very common practice.
But finding out why someone _didn't_ buy something in the first place because of a _missing_ feature is just plain and simply impossible.
If you disagree and can prove that I'm wrong, please send me the maths.
I'm happy to give those out for free: I didn't buy oneplus 6t, because it's missing the audio back. <- that wasn't impossible.
"Big Box" stores will not question you for the reasons why you bought a Nokia over a OnePlus. Their market research doesn't focus on that. They also don't share customer data with Apple, Nokia or OnePlus.
Neither does Apple have it in their culture to ask, what people want.
How long did it take for Apple to get on contactless payments?
I don't think this will go down as an important or sector-changing decision. I remember hearing the same thing online about the 2009 common external power supply law and if anything it feels like the consumer is better off.
As others have said much more eloquently than I could, the answer for a happy market probably isn't total unregulated capitalism _or_ full government control, but likely somewhere in the middle. I've been an iPhone user since the 3GS and I'm pleased with this decision.
You probably shouldn't have based your argument on this statement, which is generally regarded as a myth. It is a myth in the sense that Apple exists in a free market: it is a near monopoly but is savvy enough not to wade into the area other companies did in the 90's and were penalized.
Second, governments have the right to enforce environmental protection acts to protect the health and safety of its people. Technology companies are subject to this from day one at many levels (e.g., fabs have limits on how much toxic waste they can pump into the air).
The EU is leading the way for cracking down on trillion-dollar companies who choose to treat you as a product rather than a person. I hope the rest of the world follows.
They collect pretty much all the profit in the phone market.
They don’t technically have a monopoly, but they are in an incredibly strong position which is close to being guaranteed for the short and medium term.
Was just trying to explain that although they don't technically have a monopoly in the phone market, they do hold a huge amount of power.
In a basic sense, monopolies were outlawed to try to keep markets fair, but Apple are in such a strong position now that they have pretty much the same level of influence that a company with an actual monopoly would have.
It's not about profit, directly at least. A company making twice the profit while selling half the product of their competitor is not in any violation of anti-monopoly/trust/whatever laws.
At the end of the day, it's a serial port. People should stop acting like Apple is being asked to re-engineer the Death Star, and recognize that this is a change so rudimentary that people on YouTube do it for a fun weekend project. It's the textbook definition of a failure, and the EU has every right to hold Apple accountable for the insane things they call 'innovation' in the US.
Oh, right, I can't.
A Pixel and a Galaxy are direct competitors. An iPhone and a Galaxy are not direct competitors because of lock-in effects.
Now, if you are saying that the EU should mandate that I be able to switch my purchases between those ecosystems, that would change. However, even as much of a fan as I am about anti-trust, I believe that would be a bridge too far.
Furthermore, from what we have seen in the past 36 months with respect to supplier consolidation, I would argue that ANY market with less than 5 real competitors should get broken up recursively until that gets fixed. That should apply to phones, food, toilet paper, disinfectants, etc.--everything.
Part of what is allowing all the economic price hikes to stick is that even in markets where there is "competition", there is some single upstream supplier that can't (mostly) or won't (rarely) increase production. This prevents any of the "competitors" from being able to gain significant market share since they can't increase their production since everybody is blocked.
A lot of businesses figured this out through Covid. So, they raised prices. What are you gonna do? Go to a competitor? He can't absorb your order and you'll be at the back of his queue. Good luck.
This is the short-sighted view. The unguided free market very often makes "decisions" that are detrimental to society as a whole, and it is absolutely necessary for political organisations to correct for this.
And they have no competition. It would be too political to list these. But, I am sure both sides of the political spectrum can come up with innumerable examples.
If a Frenchman doesn't like French laws he can move to Germany and haul all his stuff there (and his pension, etc). But if you don't like the Apple ecosystem anymore, Apple will make it as difficult as possible to move.
The free market isn't the utopia libertarians think it is. You don't get to protest inside Apple, you can't petition for redress of grievances, if Apple terminates your account, you don't get a judge or jury of your Apple peers to rule if it was right or wrong.
A bit offtopic but this is still something I find very lacking in the EU.
For all the good it's brought us, we still have extremely different social security in each country and if you've lived in many EU countries throughout your life it's a complete PITA to reconcile things like pensions. Some countries have state pensions, others only voluntary corp plans.. I have no idea how this will turn out when I retire.
IMO these different systems should at the very least be talking together.
But I think this needs much more priority than the 'one market' benefits for big business they're working on. It's really a mess if you move around in the EU now, it's not at all like in America.
They should fix the voting too: Right now as an expat I can only vote for my home country which has zero bearing on the country I live in :/ And changing nationalities takes 10+ years.
For other stuff like health I don't mind as much (especially as Spain has a much better state health system than the Netherlands' privatised crap :) )
About cooperation between countries; At least the gears are turning, even if it is not somethings that is high on the political agenda. The biggest issue is to have a central database that maps one identity in one country to another. We have not even figured out Inter-country Electronic IDs (via EIDAS) yet, there is no way to even do a manual match of identities between countries using eID. That makes it impossible for you to log on and check your pensions if you work in the wrong country.
Thats a RELIGIOUS statement. The government and politicans are elected by their people. They take decisions that were mandated by their people. If the people mandate something, that's that.
In Anglosphere, where FPTP system prevents the people's will from being reflected in actual politics may be causing such an environment in which what the politicians do and what the people want have little to do with each other. And it does seem to be so.
But in any country with proportional representation, its as it should be: Its the democratic will of the people that something happens.
"The people" does not need to have 'competition'. The people are, well, the society. Proposing that they need 'competition' or their power to be curbed is reactionary.
Compelling helpful action leads to all kinds of absurd conclusions.
For example, that we should we compel doctors to work more hours because anytime they spend at home is to the detriment of their patients.
Yes, I chose an extreme and absurd example to illustrate the point. I said as much in the post.
I agree that there are many realistic examples of compelling action. If you provide some I would probably disagree that the government should be doing them.
Claims that apple chargers are harmful are logically bankrupt.
If I like tuna sandwiches, am I harmed if a restaurant doesn't have it on the menu? Of course not! They are literally doing nothing to me.
I don't have to eat there any more than I have to buy an iPhone.
It appears the legislators in question disagree with you. I guess you’re free to contact them and try to convince them of your beliefs.
No reason that society has to demand this concession. Society will not crumble if Apple has unique connectors. Apple isn't hurting anyone.
I prefer live and let live, over trying to squeeze ever concession I can out of people.
There is a so-called Parliament. It's more like the US House of Lords power-wise. It can slow down legislation or tweak it a bit. It can't actually change the law, which means it's not a Parliament.
There is a set of courts. You can appeal to them against the decisions of the Commission after the punishment is enacted. Unlike in normal democratic systems of government, the government doesn't have to prove guilt in a neutral court of law. They assert guilt, fine you a few billion dollars and then if you have enough money left over you can appeal in the courts. Years will pass and if you eventually win, you might get the money back. Of course the Commission might then just fine you again - the rules are vague and being in compliance essentially political. The courts also have a history of activism and 'discovering' new laws in the texts of existing laws.
The EU is structurally and philosophically a Soviet-style system, which makes sense given its origins in the Ventotene Manifesto. Like all such systems it has institutions that use the names as western democratic institutions, but on close inspection the rules are sufficiently different that they aren't effective.
"we have a society here and it demands concessions"
"Society" doesn't care about phone connectors or make demands. Governments do that. Survey the populations in EU countries and their top priorities are nowhere even close to this. They mostly care about the economy, immigration and climate change.
> "Society" doesn't care about phone connectors or make demands. Governments do that. Survey the populations in EU countries and their top priorities are nowhere even close to this. They mostly care about the economy, immigration and climate change.
If you asked me what the top issues in the EU are, my top 3 answers would be:
1. energy policy
2. energy policy
3. idiots at the helm of ECB (how is the new hermes scarf, mrs Lagarde?) who can't comprehend energy policy
but! if you asked me specifically if I want to see phone charging cables standardized by legislation, I'd say yes, why now and not 10 years ago. Call me a Soviet for that, I don't care.
>It's more like the US House of Lords power-wise.
:)
No it doesn't. Besides, "not doing something helpful" vs "doing something hurtful" is often simply a matter of perspective.
> For example, that we should we compel doctors to work more hours because anytime they spend at home is to the detriment of their patients.
To use your own language, this example is completely absurd. Here is your logic applied to forbidding harmful actions: "Setting speed limits on roads leads to all kinds of absurd conclusions, for example that we should forbid people to walk too fast in their homes."
These companies hold a craptonne of legal power to force me and you. I'm sorry that I have zero regrets when it comes to just a common standard... Just like I have zero regrets that all power outlets in EU are 220v/50Hz
Its not as if the EU mandated flawed encryption, or silicon manufactured only within the bloc.
Do you, or any consumer, have perfect information about the phone market? No. Does your phone comply with FCC and EU rules? Yes. Does it contain mercury? No. Are there any taxes or tariffs on them? Probably. All of those and more mean we don’t have a free market.
Corporations exist because we let them, and they play by the rules we decide.
This is so hilariously wrong. It's in Apple's best interest to do whatever makes them the most money. Sometimes that happens to coincide with what customers want, but it often doesn't, _especially_ in a market with a duopoly with an incredibly high affinity for lock-in.
And in the absence of a competitive advantage, you create a captive market. Apple was smart in quietly creating a captive market as they built out their ecosystem because they saw this eventuality. One of the ways they created it was by making the ecosystem both expensive to enter and leave. You're heavily invested in proprietary hardware and all of your digital assets are locked to the ecosystem and cannot be utilized outside it.
The Lightning port was innovative at the time it was introduced but it has been eclipsed in most ways by USB-C. Now it's just a DRM'd lock-in mechanism.
My partner recently switched to an iPhone. I bought a USB-C Charger, and some *certified* Lightning to USB-A cables in various lengths from various manufacturers to enabled the device to be charged all over the home and in the cars. Suddenly after 3 months the iPhone refuses to charge from any of the cables or using the USB-C cable that came with the phone plugged into the USB-C Charger. The cables work however when I use an old iPhone 6 or if I plug the new iPhone into a computer using one of the cables. No errors, no warnings, just nothing; the iPhone just refuses to charge from them.
Apple says the DRM exists to protect users from dodgy or counterfeit cables that might pose a risk to the users. Unsurprisingly [this official Apple cable](https://i.imgur.com/icsPxJx.jpg) will charge the iPhone just fine at full speed.
I for one welcome this regulation though I'm sure Apple will find a way to nerf it.
No, it's not in any way a hindrance to the market, merely one player who desires rent seeking. What it is doing is enforcing standards on manufacturers instead of the other way around.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/04/eu-digital-markets-act...
It's Apple's best interest to do what makes them money, and it often aligns with what customers want.
> A political organization like EU has no say in this.
Standards bodies in the EU have be defining things like this for decades.
> EU citizens already make this decision for themselves by voting with money and choosing to buy/not buy an iPhone.
As an Apple customer I might be voting with my money, but not on the connector specifically -- just on whether the product's collective pros outweigh their cons (and whether it's better than the competitor's, ofc). If I could vote, I would've voted for USB-C a long time ago, but I just get to choose between a set of products with varying compromises. Don't know why you try to make it seem like a democratic choice.
> Today is one of the dark days of EU. In short sight it's a victory. But in long sight it's a hinderence to progress by enforcing a technology on the market instead of letting the free market decide the technology.
If the free market had its say, it'd be choosing profits over the environment, consumer safety and worker rights every time. Or..? Why hasn't the US, with much laxer regulations free-marketed itself to utopia?
It's not. The EU tried to do it the easy way, where companies would agree amongst themselves. This was finally accomplished in 2009[1] by every one except Apple.
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2009/06/10-companies-agree-t...
After 13 years, the EU is finally forcing Apple.
> EU citizens already make this decision for themselves by voting with money
We're also voting with our votes and most of us agree with that the EU is doing here.
Never voted for crap like this or the GDPR. I voted for strong leadership against Russian aggression or not becoming energy dependent of an evil regime, but I guess mandating trivialities is so much easier.
I think I'm for this decision overall, but otoh I'm really glad that the EU didn't force everyone onto micro-USB back in 2009. If they EU hadn't done this now, I wonder how I would feel about the possibility when 2035 rolls around?
They did exactly that, force micro-usb, but in 2010: https://www.engadget.com/2010-12-29-european-standardization...
And now it's upgrading to usb-c, so they do seem to be able to change with technology.
That definitely makes me feel better about that process then, so thanks :-)
I think it's important to point out that most EU countries do not subscribe to the exact same free-market vision that the US does. And the biggest country that did has recently left it.
Most of Europe is totally happy with a much more restricted free market than the US would ever allow. This is not something imposed on us people. It's what the majority wants, aka democracy.
Don’t like the lightning cable? Buy a different phone, it’s really that simple
But since Apple gets the benefit of IP monopoly - I can't.
EU is not a political organization, it is a political and economical union. If companies are left alone, they will never make a decision that does not benefit themselves. This is why we need EU, to make the decisions that benefit the planet and the people, thus leveling the field, so companies can compete within sane limits.
Surely this goes both ways - if you don’t want to play by the rules you can vote with your business and not sell in to that market?
The lightning connector is outmoded. The cables Apple makes are designed to fail, mostly around the heatshrink area. The digital standards that lightning supports are outdated: 0.480Gbps vs 20-40Gbps for USB C/+TB.
Maybe because your arguments are very one-sided and border on cult-like anti-Apple beliefs, like
> The cables Apple makes are designed to fail
All cables will fail with use eventually, there's no question to that. But suggesting somewhere inside Apple is an evil mastermind that's trying to get me to buy stuff that's deliberately engineered to be bad to get me to buy more is an accusation of which I've yet to see convincing proof. I respect your decision not to shop Apple, but I really don't like that fact you're spreading false or unverifiable claims.
(n=1, I've had 1 lightning cable break in the last 10 years)
An unelected political organization
So yeah it's great for long term.
Maybe switching to a less durable connector or no connector is fine given that Qi support has gotten pretty good. Most of the Lightning cables I've purchased are still in circulation, I'd prefer not to replace them.
If the EU really cared about solving a problem they'd ban micro, that connector is really fragile and totally superseded by type C.
It's less durable in my experience. I can do this all day.
That's not true, as my phone would be happy to attest. However, I think I cleaned it in the 12-18 month range, when charging stopped working and the cable no longer clicked. There's almost certainly lint back in there, but not enough to necessitate cleaning.
Certainly doesn't seem in favor of Lightning cables being any more durable.
The minimal spec C to C cable is USB 2 data and supports power delivery with currents up to 3 amps (i.e. 60 W at 20V 3A)
This is enough for most phones, and almost all of the exceptions use proprietary charging that isn't going to work on a C to C cable anyway.
The labeling issue of all these cheap shit cables is a serious problem, but it is a nonissue in the phone charging context.
Do you have reason to believe that the C to C cables you got/bought don't support USB 2?
It doesn't make sense for a random accessory to come with a charge only C to C cable because USB 2 C to C cables are a dime a dozen. They're almost certainly paying more money to produce a spec violating cable.
Keep in mind that power dissipation scales with the square of the current. That means that, as a first order approximation, relative to household 15 amp wiring, a 3 amp cable can be 1/25 of the size. You can get away with really thin wires for that.
The reason why you end up with thick USB C cables is because of either 5 amp support (requiring 2.8x bigger wires) and/or USB 3 support (requiring a bunch of extra higher spec wires). It is quite normal for plain old 3 amp USB 2 USB C cables to be thin.
yes, this is an interesting statement. and it's true.
basically in the countries that form the European Union Android has a higher market share than iOS. in some big countries like Germany, Spain, France and Italy Android has between 60% to 70% of the market.
but what's more interesting is this: in the UK, Canada, Australia and the US the iPhone has more market share (and in NZ it's very close).
anecdotally, in the UK pretty much everyone in big cities have iPhones. i very rarely see an Android device.
i do wonder why. it could have to do with cheaper prices for Android and a general lower penetration of technology in those countries, but i think this seems too facile.
In all likelihood, iPhone popularity is cultural (i.e. popular in the Anglosphere), which has an incestuous media/advertising landscape where Apple is seen as cool/hip.
A standard that would do just power delivery <100W and works in damp environments, so it could cheap and universal, would have been so much better.
Don't you just have a RCD/GFCI on your outlet / breaker for this purpose?
Regarding cost: the fast data is optional. Charging-only usb-c receptables are available for $0.025 / each. To be fair, a micro-b can be found for $0.015 so it is more expensive, but it's not exactly going to bankrupt anyone.
If we follow this logic, the EU should also mandate which aspects of USB-C PD are required to be supported and enforce that. Otherwise we'll end up with a slew of devices without even the required 5.1k resistors, which can't charge from PD-compliant adapters, but can be charged using a USB-A to USB-C cable.
As an EU citizen, while I do agree that regulation is often required (it did wonders for our roaming charges!), I do not like this development.
The law [0] reads:
> In so far as they are capable of being recharged by means of wired charging at voltages higher than 5 Volts, currents higher than 3 Amperes or powers higher than 15 Watts, the categories or classes of radio equipment referred to in point 1 of this Part shall:
> 3.1. incorporate the USB Power Delivery, as described in the standard EN IEC 62680-1-2:2021 “Universal serial bus interfaces for data and power - Part 1-2: Common components - USB Power Delivery specification”;
> 3.2. ensure that any additional charging protocol allows for the full functionality of the USB Power Delivery referred to in point 3.1., irrespective of the charging device used.
As to devices supplying less than 15 Watts: the 5.1k resistors are already mandatory in the USB-C connector spec.
[0]: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2022-0338... , page 35
Mandating a technology standard, purely for personal preference and convenience reasons -- not for reasons related to safety, or pollution, or security -- especially for things that change as fast as phones, is one of the most short-sighted and naive things any government could do.
There's a long history of Apple using proprietary connectors to achieve performance specifications above what the currently available standardized connectors could provide. Hell, in all likelihood, Apple is likely to ditch a charging connection altogether in favor of wireless charging in the near future. The EU is mandating technological stagnation. They will always be behind the market.
I think even the EU can regulate on that kind of schedule.
USB-C, electrically, has enough headroom that performance should not be an issue for a very, very, very long time. Already you can push more data over a USB-C cable than a phone can meaningfully handle.
A USB-C cable with fiber core is what Oculus Go suggested to connect to a PC.
Apple and other phone companies don't depend on selling cables and chargers. If they did, they would have been doing a much better job and they'd be more like Anker and Griffin.
How convenient of you to forget Mini-USB and Micro-USB and regular USB-B
I still have a stash of USB-B, mini-USB, and micro-USB cables with the USB-A because I've got a printer, a camera, and devices (Kindle, older battery) that use those ports. I have a USB-C -> USB-A hub. In 5-10 years from now, I might have gone all USB-C.
Lightning was good when it came out (compared to the various micro-USB options), but it's not held up. Even Apple knows this and they've moved away from it on their iPads.
The laws are not going to mandate USB-C of a certain revision, etc. The laws simply mandate cooperation in a market that has been mostly cooperative, save for a single participant.
The Personal Electronic Device Port Amendment Act 2025, and so on and so forth.
Tends to take years to develop new connectors, and longer still to develop new objectively better connectors.
Hopefully future EU mandates can optimize that near-decade timespan from standardization to being legally allowed by hardware manufacturers.
This seems like it inherently provides wiggle room when you have a legitimate reason that you can't follow the public standards?
Apple shipped it anyways, and all Lightning cables have failed or will fail for exactly the reasons it was rejected. Apple chose the cable because of how easily it fails.
Lightning was never good, and Apple has a long history of fucking customers, period.
Do you have some references for this? I had never heard of Lightning having been developed anywhere but at Apple and specifically for their iDevice line and a check on Wikipedia's Lightning connector page has no references to anything that can substantiate this claim. Either a great example of historical erasure, or you're making this up.
TL;DR: Source?
Those are not the reasons.
And while this regulation puts some limitations on innovation in connectors, Thunderbolt shows that there is lots of room to innovate within the USB-C format (in a way that's compatible to normal USB).
Why would it be different this time?
Now the EU is settling on the socket on the devices, that's dofferent.
Sort of. Standardizing on a USB-A charger did slightly push people to use a USB form plug on the other end - but data transfer is what really killed the proprietary connectors.
The multitude of USB connectors has been pared down - mini USB was withdrawn due to its design flaws, micro USB was obnoxious for 5Gbps data transfer, as was the larger USB-B plug. The convenience and capabilities of USB-C have slowly replaced them both on the device side, as well as the capability to go higher than 5 Gbps.
If anything has slowed adoption of USB-C, I'd point at desktop PCs and the reluctance to put 'real' USB-C ports on them. This is mostly because of what I consider to be a design error on the USB-IF's part - they added backward compatibility, allowing a USB-C dongle to supply a USB-A connector, when they should have supplied forward compatibility instead. This left a lot of bundled cables as well as hardware dongles like wireless mouse adapters stuck on USB-A.
The current legislation was introduced because 1 manufacturer chose to not follow the standard and mostly for profit reasons.
Remember when people said they’d never use an phone that needs to be charged every 2 days? Now we all charge our phones every day. Habbits change with technology.
But the whole point is being able to depend on a cable that just about everyone has. All of your gear has USB-C. Apple just being cocky.
From what I understand, the battery is damaged most when close to 0% or close to 100%.
So, if a phone could do, say, 1000 full cycles until the battery reaches a certain stage of degradation, and now you used an identical phone, but with shorter cycles only down to 20%, then charge to 80%, you could not only do 1000 of those short cycles, but even 1000/60% = 1667, and still have the battery in a better shape than the one with 1000 full cycles.
I am not certain about this, though.
https://debugger.medium.com/wireless-charging-is-a-disaster-...
For you it’s easy - there are Tons of crappy chargers and weak power supplies you can use.
There is, for example the fact that the standard is set by comittee means large players have more say but cannot dictate the market. This allows innovation that doesn't benefit one party.
> purely for personal preference and convenience reasons
Not the reason behind the move
> not for reasons related to safety, or pollution, or security
Those are some of the benefits but not all
> especially for things that change as fast as phones
Connectors are standards, plus phones do not change that often, they get marginally better but most of them have looked largely the same for a decade.
> There's a long history of Apple using proprietary connectors to achieve performance specifications above what the currently available standardized connectors could provide
Previously there was also a long history of interoperability between Apple designs that no longer exists. And before that there was a long history of Apple being a tiny company constantly on the verge of bankruptcy. Long history is a pretty short time nowadays.
> Apple is likely to ditch a charging connection altogether in favor of wireless charging in the near future.
I cannot wait to have the slowest charging phone on the market as a selling point.
> he EU is mandating technological stagnation.
The EU mandating GDPR has increased security protection on data around the globe, and decreased bloatware. A large player like europe setting a standard means that companies follow that legislation to not have 2 products one for Europe and one outside.
Oh please, Apple has barely improved Lightning since its introduction a decade ago (2012!). Yes, back then, it was better than what was available, but the industry has moved on, and Apple has stagnated.
> Hell, in all likelihood, Apple is likely to ditch a charging connection altogether in favor of wireless charging in the near future.
Unlikely. For one thing, wireless charging is still much slower than what you can get with a cable, and for another, users will not tolerate needing to lug around a charging pad (with its own cable), or hope that someone nearby has one. Yes, I know similar things about tolerance were said about the removal of headphone jacks, but I don't think this is quite the same situation.
> The EU is mandating technological stagnation. They will always be behind the market.
I haven't read the text of the law, but I would hope that it's flexible enough to allow for embracing improvements to technology.
But even if that process is slow, I don't think that's a bad thing. Fast-changing technology generally does not really help users (it can, but I think more often it does not). Yes, benefits can be realized over time, but these sorts of changes create confusion and waste if not done well. I really don't care if Apple wants to put a new connector on iPhones, but it takes them 3 years instead of 1 year to do it because of legal/regulatory issues.
> Mandating a technology standard, purely for personal preference and convenience reasons -- not for reasons related to safety, or pollution, or security
Pollution is* a concern here, though I agree that's probably not the primary reason this law was drafted. I'm with you on the general discomfort around regulations targeted toward preference/convenience. But I think it's a little unfair to call it "personal preference". Lighting is inferior to USB-C in almost every way (the only advantage Lightning has is that it's slightly smaller, but not to a degree that really matters). Apple continues to use Lightning out of stubbornness and NIH syndrome, and that hurts consumers overall.
But consider all the places that have two cables. I've seen dual-cable setups in Lyft/Uber vehicles, and at friendly coffee shops and stuff like that (hell, I still see a few places that additionally have micro-USB cables). What a huge waste of material! And yeah, you can buy single cables that have multiple "heads" on them, but I very rarely see those in the wild. If there was actually a good technical reason why we have this split, then sure,
> especially for things that change as fast as phones
I don't think that's really true anymore. Most smartphones are basically the same as they were 5 years ago. Incrementally better camera hardware, incrementally better display technology, more RAM, faster processors, more storage. But I see very little change year to year. Maybe there will be some big new changes coming soon, but I don't see any evidence of that.
> is one of the most short-sighted and naive things any government could do.*
Heh, I think you underestimate government capacity for short-sightedness. This particular thing seems pretty middling and mediocre to me on that scale.
But users do accept carrying charging pads. Smartwatches, electric toothbrushes and shaving apparatus have charging pads/cables and no one complains about carrying those when going on a trip.
For the average consumer, the iPhone really doesn't need a port of any kind anymore. What it needs is all day battery life. As Apple doesn't really care about "pro" smartphone users who use external devices like DAC-s or IR cameras they will ditch the port at some point. If they cared about "pro" smartphone users, they would've come out with a USB-C iPhone in 2018 or 2019.
I kinda think "going on a trip" is a minority subset of the times when people bring charging gear with them. Regardless, I personally would find it a huge annoyance to have to carry a charging pad. Right now I just bring my laptop charger, and use it for both my laptop and (Android) phone. I don't want to bring a charging pad in addition.
You mean: in 20 years Apple has had only two connectors, and they worked and work extremely well. Meanwhile the industry "that moved on" invented 6 different incompatible connectors, didn't even specify a charging standard until 2010s (IIRC) and is now busy inventing USB 4 Gen 1x15 revision 16
Bottom line is that the industry has actually been converging on USB-C for some time now. And again, I think it's unfair to compare an industry with tens (hundreds?) of players having trouble agreeing on something, when we're talking about Apple -- a single entity -- obstinately refusing to drop their obsolete, outdated "uniqueness" in this case.
I get why Apple chose to do Lighting instead of microUSB back in 2012 (I have lost track of the high number of microUSB connectors I have broken), but the funny thing is that Lightning didn't really offer any technical benefits beyond the more sturdy form factor at the time. Lighting was USB2 (and more or less still is), and microUSB carried USB2 signals just fine. They went their own way there for pretty dubious reasons. Well, ok, one obvious reason: they wanted to restrict who could build an iPhone/iPad accessory, because using the Lightning connector required licensing it from Apple.
So basically Lightning exists for one physical sturdiness reason (which, alone, probably would not be justification to do something new), and one anti-competitive reason.
Apple should have just stuck with microUSB, and then switched to USB-C once that made sense. But no, that would have reduced their iron grip on what people are allowed to do with their phones.
Lol. Literally not possible.
The benefit will be better water/dust-proofing, and slightly more internal room for battery or whatever else. I have only just started charging wirelessly, but I find it works great for me. I know wired charging is faster, but only a handful of times a year do I care about that.
I know, ”akshually, you can use it, you just can’t hold it in your hand!”. Anyway, you can’t use it normally - it must be kept on the mat to charge.
Also, there are a bunch of accessories that require physical connection. Search for “iphone pendrive” for instance.
Bluetooth headphones still have laughable latency for music production, and decent quality full-duplex audio isn’t there either.
iOS developers will also tell you how reliable wireless debugging is. (Hint: it’s abysmal)
And if I were charging at a Starbucks or something, I could use the phone while charging, just flat on the table.
Those other two use cases of music creation and thumb drives are a tiny market on iPhone I could see Apple abandoning them entirely.
Well said!
So, force people to have more stuff and use the less power efficent option. As well as the glued-in non-replaceable batteries that were such a wonderful futuristic idea before.
Thank the flying spaghetti monster that the EU is "behind the market", because the market is consumer-hostile garbage.
My current phone has both usb-c and wireless charging. Removing the port is undeniably a downgrade, how can anyone not understand that?
These companies have been doing what they want for far too long like removing headphone jack, removable battery etc.
USB-C is forward looking. It will be quite a while before it will no longer be useful.
Seriously, is there an accounting of the environmental damage caused by cell phone cables (not power converters)? Everything I've seen points to the damage being substantially less globally than a single digit number of cars or batteries.
Additionally, it also protects the consumer by preventing companies from locking consumers into buying device-specific chargers at greatly inflated prices. It might even become common for devices to come without chargers: why have 10 chargers lying around when all your devices use the same charging connector?
I understand the e-waste and consumer protection argument for the charger (power converter), but why the cable?
Up until recently everyone used USB-A on the charger end, with a dozen different competing fast charge protocols. Chargers had the same connector, but they weren't fully interoperable. USB-C is slowly trying to fix this.
I completely agree that the cables aren't a massive deal. But on the other hand, if you are already standardizing chargers, why not do the cables too? Personally, I see no overwhelmingly good reason not to do it.
The default shouldn't be to place arbitrary restrictions unless there's a good reason not to. Governments should restrict behavior when the restriction is justified. It should be the EU government's responsibility to demonstrate that banning lightning cables is good, not the other way around.
This is the problem I have with this choice. USB-C isn't one cable. It's a big variety of poorly-labelled possible cables, complying with a ton of different standards.
USB-C can be just USB2.0 capable, 3.1 Gen1, 3.1 Gen2, Thunderbolt 3 capable, etc. Some cables can carry 3A. Some 5A.
When your 'universal' charging cable doesn't provide fast charging, is it because your charger doesn't provide the right voltages/wattage? Is it a broken USB-PD implementation (eg the Nintendo Switch)? is it that the cable is underspecced (and a lot of USB-C cables on the market don't actually meet the spec)?
I think the intention is good but USB-C carries so much complexity that I don't think this helps consumers as much as everyone is making out.
I can tell at a glance if a USB-A cable supports USB3.0 for instance.
I can't tell that for a USB-C -> USB-C cable.
The irony of, e.g., Brazil, passing laws that Apple can't leave the cable and charger out of the box.
Meanwhile, who with a current phone uses a cable to charge any more? Even before MagSafe the wireless is far more convenient, now with MagSafe and a zillion brands of stands that do phone + watch + AirPods all wireless, not to mention even MagSafe for cars that charge and don't drop the phone on bad roads, cables are redundant. And while they won't all do the same top speed, in general the coasters charge both Android and iPhone happily.
But, speaking of docks, that's the real issue -- lightning works beautifully when docking a phone into a stereo or alarm clock or etc, USB-C not so much. Basically, on lightning if the tab breaks you get a new cheap cable, on USB-C if the tab breaks, you need a new dock.
> But, speaking of docks, that's the real issue -- lightning works beautifully when docking a phone into a stereo or alarm clock or etc, USB-C not so much.
I mean, there are still docks out there that have the old 30-pin Apple iPod/iPhone/iPad connector (not many; I think I saw one in an old hotel last year, but that's it). If USB-C is the primary connector used, then that's what dock manufacturers will use. And, bonus, manufacturers that actually support more than one connector can eventually drop Lightning as an option, and save on costs.
> Basically, on lightning if the tab breaks you get a new cheap cable, on USB-C if the tab breaks, you need a new dock.
Er, what? If the tab in a dock breaks, you need to get a new dock with either connector. The Lighting connector tab is just as breakable (if not more so, as it's thinner) than a USB-C plug, and if the one in your dock breaks, you're just as out of luck.
To be clear: iPhones do not have a tab, so iPhones don't break, the lightning cable does. iPads now have a tab. Hopefully it won't break.
A USB-C standing phone dock effectively has a tab on both dock (to insert into a phone's socket) and in the phone (the tab that sits inside the USB-C socket), so that's 2 tabs for one docking experience.
I think you may be living in a bubble.
I mean ... the device requires charging either way. Unless you only use wired phones.
All old things are more common than new things until they're not.
I narrowed the audience to "current" phone, whatever the most recent model is. Folks carrying those tend to be the early adopters and tend to be using the new capabilities.
*(being less efficient while charging from wall might not matter to you as an individual but consider if everybody was charging with such an inefficient means... that might add up to a lot of waste)
Wireless power banks are already a thing, and they're great because you don't have to mess around with cables. For those of you not using iPhones, they support standard Qi charging as well as faster and more efficient MagSafe charging.
I care about wireless charging efficiency as much as I care about plug-in USB charging efficiency, which is not a lot. If wireless charging is half as efficient, it's costing me a couple bucks extra per year.
There will come a time when flashy new tech that everyone is drooling over will not be available in the EU due to this law.
The much more realistic reason for a new phone not being released here is the new proposal to enforce 5 years of replacement parts for all phones among other things.
There is nothing about a USB-C cable or port that mandates SuperSpeed (err, 5GB or higher) data transfer rates. Most compliant charging cables are still Hi-Speed (480 mbps), and capped at 30W (higher requires an active component in the cable).
Similarly, there is nothing about Lightning that restricts the transfer speed to Hi-Speed. There were iPad Pro models with lightning that supported a USB 3 adapter, which had (I believe) 5 Gbps transfer speed. However, the decision was made to switch the subsequent generations of Pro models to USB-C, leaving that part as a bit of a curiosity.
I suspect because of the sheer volume of lightning cables out there, Apple simply doesn't want to cause confusion by creating 'tiers' of certified cables that have the same set of plugs on the ends and which thus look identical, but which have different properties. If only the USB-IF considered such things.
> If we want to really be more environmentally friendly, wouldn't it make more sense to have no cable at all with the devices we buy, force the sellers to clearly tell the consumers about it and offer the cable on the side only if needed?
One could hope! This should also shrink the packaging down further, having a measurable cost reduction on shipping as well as packaging waste.
I go through a lot of phones, but have relatives who are on a 3-4 year upgrade cycle. Thus, I've been able to find good homes for any excess USB-C to lightning cables (and they've been ecstatic when I've given them powerful multi-port USB-C chargers as gifts as well).
Hopefully we'll see countries continue to change their laws so that you don't need to bundle cables, chargers and/or headsets with purchases. France I believe finally changed their laws requiring a bundled headset, and it went into effect this year.
> I would also add that all lightning cables won't suddenly go to the landfill in 2024. Many people will keep their iPhones/AirPods for a while after that date. Many would probably donate their old lightning cables to whoever needs them
I'd expect the vast majority to be trashed by 2029, along with the majority of USB-A chargers. I've had support issues where family has thought their devices had bad software or failing batteries, but it turns out they had accidentally switched to some cheap, low wattage USB-A charger.
I somewhat expect the wide array of differences between USB-A, USB-C power delivery support, and active vs passive cables will mean that devices may start to give troubleshooting guidance for slow charging. At this point, I would expect quite a few USB-A chargers and cabling to go to the trash.
Tim Cook: (40:20) Now let’s talk about iPhone. iPhone has forever changed the world. Every single day people rely on iPhone, from their most demanding tasks to capturing the moments of their lives, streaming their favorite TV shows, playing their favorite games, staying up to date with the news of the world and connecting with friends and loved ones.
Tim Cook: (40:42) This is what drives us to create the best iPhone possible. To create an experience unlike any other, with legendary ease of use, beautiful and durable designs with water resistance and great battery life, with industry leading performance and the world’s most advanced camera systems, and with privacy built in. People love iPhone, and we keep making iPhone better, more powerful, more capable, and even more fun to use. Today, we are thrilled to introduce our next generation of iPhone. Here it is.
Tim Cook: (41:54) [inaudible 00:41:54]
Tim Cook: (41:55) This is iPhone {15,16}. To tell you more, here’s Kianne.
Cayenne: (42:24) Let’s take a closer look at, iPhone {15,16}, starting with design. It has the sleek, flat edge design that people love. It also have a fantastic new charging port, featuring the same USB-C connector as our beloved iPad, developed in a tremendous effort to {fight against climate change and electronic waste,further enhance the connectivity of the iPhone {15,16}}.
So, Apple ditches the wired charging port, and continues to sell their MagSafe Qi chargers with Lightning.
Since when does Apple introduce new iPhones in the Spring?
All the handwringing about stifling innovation is on its face ridiculous as mandates to use micro-usb didn't stop android phones from adopting the new and better standard as soon as it was viable.
No they didn't, compliance is voluntary, just read the linked wiki page.
I agree with the point that it won't stifle Innovation though. The swift passing of the USB-C mandate has proven to me that the EU can move quickly, so if a new connector comes along they will be able to switch the law reasonably quickly.
I think 4 years is a reasonable time frame. Especially considering they weren't sitting around doing nothing for 4 years, most of it was research and surveys
Is compliance voluntary for this new ruling?
That's not really voluntary.
[1]: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=LEGISSUM...
That's a lot of money for a startup to burn on something inconsequential instead of using off-the-shelf stuff for the least important area where you can innovate.
Also, I haven't put a charging cable into my phone since... 2012 or something like that when the Nexus 4 came out. Ever since I tried wireless charging, going back to regularly using a charging cable feels like going back to the stone age.
So by the EU establishing a thing, any changes you make to it are ... by definition ... innovation :)
Once they establish a new standard, the thing that they established is no longer innovative, it is the new baseline for the next innovation.
At least, as innovation is actually defined (the colloquial usage is very messy, as you can see in this thread, making it very easy for people to talk past each other).
But let's be practical for a second - what exactly are you looking for? What is this next physical connector innovation you are worrying you need that won't exist now?
I ask because almost all desire in phone connectors has been the same since the beginning of phone connectors. It is not new. The change in connectors was not driven by change in desire, only around capability. people want them to be reasonably sized, easy to put in/take out, not easily fall out, not break ever, charge the phone fast, and send data from the phone to a thing fast (audio/video/etc are a subset of this).
That's it. That's always been it. For a long time, tradeoffs had to be made, and you could not achieve all desires at once. That hasn't been true for a decade. At this point, all desires are fulfilled.
Over fulfilled in fact - the capability of the connectors have well outstripped the need of phones.
There isn't anything left to do. It's done. Unless new customer desires come along, and they haven't for decades, there isn't innovation left to be had. The closest you come to difference is "should i make it be held by a magnet or by itself", which, while some are vocal about it, is a very minor preference (again, at least by data).
It's also easy to claim things like "well you don't know what will come along", but as i said, what comes along is driven by customer desire. What is the unfulfilled customer desire that physical phone connectors can innovate to achieve at this point?
Both the connector and port are too large and the tip of the cable protrudes too far. I have an assortment of 90 degree elbows for my growing USB device collection and the myriad of different features each cable has or doesn't have(Hdmi 4k120fps, Quest Link, Thunderbolt, etc) to keep my inputs flush and organized. When connecting to a laptop you're stuck with either dangling dongles or unsightly protrusions.
As someone who actually owns over a dozen or so USB-C devices they're nowhere near as interchangeable as promised and quite frankly they suck and are hardly done improving. The last time UsB ports tried to differentiate themselves was when they started painting them blue but nowadays you have no idea what a given port can and cant do(e.g PD) unless it's explicitly written somewhere.
How is that less confusing than "this is an iphone/airpods/apple keyboard cable and this is an everything else cable" to a consumer? The fact that all new improvements will have to go through some totally unbiased and impartial incorruptible committee is terrifying.
Well good news - unless something changes in material science or cost of materials dramatically changes, this won't change :) So you don't have to worry about this.
Recessing the connector does not require a change to the connector, but making them actually smaller would be very hard.
"The fact that all new improvements will have to go through some totally unbiased and impartial incorruptible committee is terrifying."
There are no new improvements coming that require a new connector. There haven't been for a long time. There is no evidence to suggest they are coming anytime soon.
For all the people who keep saying it will have to go to a committee, not a single person has said what the magic improvement they think this will block actually is
(you at least gave an answer, but your answer is not actually possible anytime soon)
All phones use 'thinner' and better chargers than they did 10 years ago.
It's unbelievable how people are default supporting this completely unnecessary intervention.
This is exactly the kind of bad regulation we worry about, because it might have immediate populist appeal, it's ultimately not really a win.
There are so many other things that need regulation aka app store rules, pay pal taking your money.
There's nary any real advantage in 'single charger' and it'll make evolution that much harder.
Maybe if Apple would make their lightning an open free standard, this would be now adopted, but since Apple is... well Apple their arrogance met the laws of place not governed by corporations (that much)
This is an extremely bad reason to support this legislation.
The government could legislate any number of product changes, they don't do that, because that's not their role.
Apple has always been a leader in these areas, and this kind of thing will definitely stifle from making the decisions they need to, in addition to the fact their are all sorts of unintended design consequences on these forced choices.
There are really only 2 kinds of charges floating around these days, and several mechanisms for handling both, it's not even a 1/10 on the problems we face.
This is really bad populism, the EU is running up the wrong tree here.
In many cases they do, because it is their role. They have done so now with charging cables. You can whine about it until you turn blue but the objective fact remains that the EU has now made regulation of charging cables part of their role.
Roles of governments aren't set in stone, they can in response to changing cultural and social norms, corporate practices, economic conditions, etc. The EU is not obliged to neatly confine itself according to your demands.
Why isn't it? Is there a certain "size" an issue needs to be before it becomes government-appropriate? How do you determine that size?
most annoying.
The way they fray near the connector. It is truly inovative how one of the worlds most inovative companies has been unable to figure out how to wrap plastic around a wire.
You could always grandfather in old construction and only enforce the standard for new construction or renovations.
Notable exception of course are British, but they are not part of EU as we all know too well.
It makes life so much easier. I can't understand why anybody would ever oppose this, either vested interest or butthurt ego?
The EU considered this years ago, and decided the switch wasn't worth the cost.
The type G plug is the best design available, by a very long way. If anything, that should be adopted by the EU and indeed the rest of the world.
- fused in the plug
- longer earth pin opens the live terminals to prevent accidental or inadvertent insertion into the live or neutral parts of the socket
- sockets are usually switched which avoids sparks when plugging in
They have multiple safety features that stem from ancient wiring systems used in UK, but they aren't inherently "better".
They don't even deliver more power, for the bulkiness of them.
The CEE 7/7 plug works both in the Schuko Type F socket and the French Type E socket. The former covers 30ish countries, the latter covers 5.
The only countries which do not use either E or F are:
- Denmark, which is the only country to use Type K. It (relatively) recently allowed installing E or F sockets too, so K will probably die out over time.
- Italy, which is the only country to use Type L. It is rapidly switching to L+F hybrids, as most devices sold these days are equipped with CEE 7/7
- Ireland, which uses the British plug. As far as I am aware, no intention to change. Doing so would probably start a civil war.
And outside the EU there are the UK and Switzerland.
I'm not sure I understand your logic here. Android phones were able to quickly move to micro USB because they weren't restricted from doing so by a government regulation.
If there was a government mandate requiring phones to have whatever connector came before micro USB, wouldn't that have prevented the Android phones from changing connectors/choosing the new innovation?
Or was there a location where micro USB was required by law before, and since I don't live there, I wasn't affected by it?
Edit: Strike that last sentence, since I see in other responses that there was, indeed, a location where micro USB was mandated. So my new question is: How does a company change to a new/better connector, if it's required by law to use an old connector?
Edit edit: Looks like other responses show there was no mandate, that's just something that people on HN assume. It was a recommendation, not a law, like it is now.
Dunno, we have a test case tho: how'd the Micro-B to USB-C transition go in EU markets?
But it’s going quite quickly, and most of the apple devices I bought recently already have USB-C in one way or another, and the actual problem for me is replacing power banks and chargers so that they support USB-C as well. Most of them assume USB-C == “high power slot”, when I just need a few of them for smaller stuff (AirPods and Apple Watch both came with USB-C cables).
EU is pushing for "One charger for all" for a long time. Here is an article from 2011 [1], so this is nothing new. I don't think they enforced it at the time, but the manufacturers (and the EU?) agreed to use Micro USB. Now they are going for USB-C, so they definitely are not in the way of innovation. I think if there is an agreement between manufacturers to support a new standard, it will be adapted.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/apple/2011/10/4/2469886/apple-relea...
Phone manufacturers signed a non-binding MoU, agreeing to use Micro USB. This was completely voluntary. That is why they were able to upgrade to USB-C without any issue.
This law is different. It would be illegal to upgrade to a better port. And the barrier to creating, testing, and having adoption for a new port just became way higher than it was before.
It would be like a nation state deciding to change its standard electric socket, like a country with US sockets switching to EU sockets. Doesn’t sound easy.
>>> From spring 2026, the obligation will extend to laptops
So this would force Apple to replace MagSafe with USB-C? How is that not killing innovation?
Standardisation should be a goal, but I just feel this particular effort is too specific and brings very little value to consumers. Why don't we standardise payment protocols instead? Or biometric identity verification? Or ID cards even (that the UK is allergic to)? I just feel the spirit of these efforts can be applied so much more successfully elsewhere.
It's not such a great innovation if it makes users life harder.
Just as you can with MS Surface.
Depends how the law is written.
"Must have at least one USB C port for charging"? Then current laptops with magsafe are already compliant.
"Must only have …"? Then I would agree it goes too far.
Like SEPA and PSD2?
> Or biometric identity verification?
Such as AFIS or maybe EU 2019/1157?
> Or ID cards even (that the UK is allergic to)?
EU 2019/1157 again?
It's not like EU standardisation of chargers is an outlier.
My last Macbook had 5? different ports on it, two of which were older USB standards.
Nothing stops apple from ALSO having a proprietary connector, as long as USB-C is still an option to charge.
> Why don't we standardise payment protocols instead? Or biometric identity verification? Or ID cards even (that the UK is allergic to)?
None of these result in hundreds of thousands of tons of plastic and copper or other metals being put in a landfill or dumped in the sea because they were only useful for 3-5 models of a single businesses devices.
Apple is still free to make this e-waste, but now their devices must support charging on USB-C, which they are free to NOT make their own chargers for, as long as it's standard-compliant and supported
As a sidetone it's astonishing how quickly a lie easily disprovable by publicly accessible information, in this case the EU's own website, can be spread around by people that otherwise seem like credible HN members.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.engadget.com/amp/2010-12-29...
Fully-cached AMP pages like the one you shared are especially problematic.
Maybe check out the canonical page instead:
https://www.engadget.com/2010-12-29-european-standardization...
None of it was binding or involuntary. Which is why Apple never released a micro-B phone and all other manufacturers were able to upgrade to USB-C.
Maybe you think the original nonbinding agreement had a threat of force behind it, but it had no immediate consequences if manufacturers changed ports. Manufacturers were allowed to upgrade to new ports. And they did. That is how we got the innovation of USB-C.
Manufacturers are no longer able to upgrade to better ports. People saying "this won't stifle innovation because we still got USB-C" have things totally backwards.
This law is by all intents and purposes a law directed at Apple, who is the sole hold-out of the large mobile phone manufacturers regarding proprietary charging connectors.
Apple didn't follow that Memorandum, the EU got pissed, so now we reached the "or else" part (it took quite some time considering the Memorandum was more than 10 years ago).
[1] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/MEMO_1...
Just to add a step: Samsung got pissed, and told the EU either regulate, or we do our own thing too like Apple.
[1] https://www.amazon.de/Original-Samsung-USB-lDatenkabel-ECC1D...
“Of course” also because Apple's 30-pin connector was only approved for purchase and use by certified (read: paying) third parties.
But yeah, I absolutely do not miss those 30-pin connectors.
Replying to sibling: that 30-pin connector predates the Memorandum. It's exactly such chargers that the EU wanted to regulate at the time. Every company had their own incompatible charger.
So all their ads in the EU would have to show a stupid dongle hanging off the phone, like a vestigial tail.
So this is a significant difference.
As a EU mandate implies that organizations can be prosecuted for ignoring it.
If that original legislation was binding, we likely never would have gotten USB-C in the first place.
... huh ? https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_11_...
> Following a mandate from the European Commission, the European Standardisation Bodies CEN-CENELEC and ETSI issued the harmonised standards to be adhered to by data-enabled mobile phones compatible with the new common charger as of 2011. The common charger solution is based in the Micro-USB connector technology
Or they would have spent the past 10 years fining Apple for violating them.
This is how self regulation can work. And in this case it nearly worked, Apple pretty much being the lone holdout.
It is sort of weird that they decided to mandate USB-C rather than creating an ongoing group to keep track of charging and update the rules accordingly (like in the US, where many of our laws create an agency to regulate something rather than having congress pass a new, slightly different law every couple years)
The law states that the European Commission shall monitor market development, market fragmentation, and technological progress, and report on it every few years.
Well. I'm lugging around one cable which charges all my devices from bike lamps to powerbanks. And there is a totally different cable I'm also lugging around to charge my iphone. Why is that necessary?
Also my iphone charging cable frays all time, while my "everything else charging cable" does not.
Because you chose to buy a phone that uses Lightning, rather than choosing to buy a phone that uses USB-C.
Similar to how I voted for Biden even though I don't agree with 100% of his policies. It doesn't mean I don't disagree with him often - it's just that I only get one vote, so I have to prioritize. It's perfectly consistent for me to complain and make my opinion known when his administration does things I disagree with.
I'm trying to vote for a device that runs iOS and uses a standard usb cable. Please specify the ballot box.
As far as I know, the marketplace offers no choice, so I need to use alternative voting to make it available
Why is any product feature necessary or not?
If you want to buy something with a USB-C then buy that. If you want Apple to change then let them know.
"Get the government to make a company make a choice I want" is really naive and glib.
There is no systematic issue here - if this were household wiring, there would be, but this is not that.
Every product has different configurations, different requirements. In particular, with smart phones, the extra thickness of the USBC actually makes it harder to design around - the issues has side effects.
Governments should be regulating where there is a material necessity or safety concern, not otherwise.
In particular - your 'bike lamps and power lamps' have totally different product requirements.
The government could conceivably help an Engineering body to promote a narrower set of clean standards, but this is too much.
That way regulation provides the stick to force standardisation, but allows whatever new innovations develop later to have a chance at gaining a foothold. If we find ourselves in this situation again (with a single holdout) we can force the standardisation for a period of time again.
> Reporting: the Commission would be required to report to the Parliament and Council on the application of the directive regarding new charging technologies every three years, starting from three years after the date of entry into force of the directive (article 47(2a) RED). By the same date, it would also be required to report on the impact of the possibility to acquire devices without any charging device and cable (article 3a(1) RED).
Perhaps the EU should step in to force industry to do what is right in all cases, not just charging cables:
- ban e2e encryption - pedos and criminals use it
- mandate client-side CSAM scanning on all devices, report directly to local police instead of going through untrustworthy Apple (they can’t even get charging cables right, can we trust them to protect your child?)
- require all new devices to be tamper resistant so you can’t get around EU laws
- require all phones to be the same shape and size so that citizens can re-use screen protectors and cases in perpetuity
- ban purple devices - it offends EU bureaucrats, and obviously the continued existence of purple phones is evidence of the industry’s failure to self-regulate. EU bureaucrats know better than the market and always have.
For micro-USB, they got the industry together in a "memorandum of understanding" to get them to self-implement it without regulation, and it worked great - everyone adopted micro-USB, and then could switch to USB-C, without thinking about legislation with the understanding that the industry would use common standards.
The whole rest of the industry adopted the common standard and are looking at Apple "hey if they can do it why can't we?". If the EU doesn't crack down on Apple now, we're going to end up back again with a Samsung charger, a Sony charger etc.
This doesn’t make the approach any less interventionist. “Either do what we want or we’ll pass an official regulation for you to do what we want” isn’t much of a choice.
Tell me, if Apple truly believes their lightning connector is better, what was the better play here? Intentionally make a worse product (from their perspective) or keep making the better user experience for as long as possible?
The better play would've been to open up the Lightning connector specification such that other vendors could standardize on it, and then all users of all phones would have been better off.
I believe the most likely reason they stuck with it this long is contracts with accessory makers. After they switched from 30 pin, there were probably concerns from third parties that they would soon switch again, so to ensure everyone was on board with the transition they probably signed agreements to keep it for a while.
Notice how it's been exactly 10 years since they launched Lightning and now we are getting rumors of next year's iPhone moving to USB-C, before this legislation comes into effect.
Bluetooth Audio and wireless CarPlay are now commonplace, so this is no longer an issue going forward, but wired accessories were a big market in 2012.
https://9to5mac.com/2022/02/28/lightning-launched-as-a-moder...
The EU's preferred way would let the industry continue to innovate freely as long as the market converged on common, open standards. But 30% of the market (=Apple) using a proprietary non-licensable plug was too far away from the idea of market experimentation.
The jobs of governing bodies is not to give "choice", they are here to make sure people and companies do what they should do, and take action when they don't and it becomes a problem. The UE wanted a universal connector, for a variety of reason, they never wanted to give "choice". However, they also understand that they are not engineers and inventors, and the industry has plenty of these people, so they said "get together and make the best universal connector". And the industry did, first with micro-USB, which was better than most of what was there at the time, then with USB-C, and the EU was happy. Except that one company was a problem, so the EU went back to the industry and said "I said I wanted a universal connector, why isn't the connector universal?", Apple said "Because blah blah blah (fuck you)", and the EU said "OK, we didn't want to do that but it looks like USB-C is good enough for everyone else, so if you want to continue to sell your gadgets in the EU, use USB-C".
Holy shit that’s not the point of a governing body. It’s to set very specific restrictions on what people and companies should not do.
Did consumers find this so onerous that they stopped buying iPhones?
multiple standards may well be easily avoidable, inconvenient and bad for the environment, but people aren't going to change their behaviour, solely because they like Apple's UX
If people want to get a practical, compatible phone, they don't get an iphone. iphone only exists as a signal. So while the EU is making a good decision for making iphone's more pratical, they are also misunderstanding what an iphone is imo.
I don't see any win besides a minor convenience. A lightning cable weighs almost nothing and it's not a big deal to have one around.
As to lightning port limitations, I question whether usb-c will give average iPhone users any other advantage other than charging their phone. What are people gonna do with it other than charge their phones or transfer files?
Feels like there's nothing to celebrate here. Just the EU using its influence to exert control over things that don't matter at all.
It's because consumers have rights too. Standardising something actually fosters competition (healthy capitalism), increases profit (as standardising something often leads to lower manufacturing costs) while reducing costs for consumers (due to increased competition). It also reduces waste which is good for the environment.
> I don't see any win besides a minor convenience.
You will, when you have to buy another USB-C cable for your iDevice. I recently had to, for an iPad Air, and I was able to buy a good quality replacement USB-C cable (of similar spec) from Samsung for Rs. 750 (around $10) rather than paying Apple an exorbitant Rs. 2000 (around $20+). (Past experience with Apple cables has taught me that the higher price charged by Apple is no guarantee of better quality, and other non-Apple cables from reputed companies are often cheaper, more durable and last longer than Apple's).
In contrast, I bought an usb-c cable from one plus 5 years ago, which is still in perfect condition. With the iPhones, I use cables from some company (forgot the name) that have lifetime warranty. I swear I could tow my car with those, _for the same price_
Apart from the cable that came in my iPhone 7's box many years ago (which still works perfectly and, excluding a little dirt, looks like new), all my other lightning cables are off-brand ones that cost much less than $20 apiece. More like 10.
Some of them (Aukey brand) developed a wonky connection after a while, or only work on one side. The others (Amazon Basics) still work perfectly, after spending uncountable hours in the sun and rain powering my phone on my motorbike's handlebars.
All this without any kind of law (I'm in the EU).
Lightening cables are not a standard and thus Apple dictates terms even with non-Apple lightening cables. As lightening cables are not an industry standard the prices are influenced by Apple and artificially inflated (even for non-Apple ones). And they can only be used with Apple devices. (Lightening cables have seen a recent price fall only after Apple shifted to USB-C for some iDevices, as the market fears Apple is already preparing to switch to USB-C).
USB-C cables will be even cheaper in the future as they are standardised, and since they can be used with multiple devices (due to such regulations) you need to buy fewer of them too.
What I can say, is that in France on Amazon, USB-C cables and Lightning cables had similar prices when I last bought mine a few years ago. I usually compare Amazon Basics and Ugreen / Aukey brands.
I’ve seen this argument a few times “yay now I only have to take one cable on holiday”. Sure, unless you want to charge two devices at once while you’re sleeping, perhaps… it’s an unrelated argument to which connector is better.
It is very inconvenient and a hassle to have 5 different cables for 5 different devices. It is a waste of space, materials... The economic gains by volume continent wide should not be underestimated.
I guess if I'm going to replace my phone I should do it soon while I can still use my existing cables with the new one.
...now, whether that's because it's that good of a connector or because we humans wipe ourselves out before we get around to inventing something better is another question altogether.
This literally just created a mountain of e-waste. We turned a hypothetical "what about when they switch" into a forced reality.
How will usbc lead to less waste?
If you wanna make that argument, wouldn’t it be better to force companies to opt you out of getting chargers and cables unless you explicitly ask for them when you make the purchase?
That is a natural step forward after the cables are unified. Even today, 80% of the electronic devices I'm buying are coming without a charger and this is all due to the fact that the market stabilized to USB charging (mini and now USB-C).
I still remember we used to have drawers full of old phone chargers...
> Unbundling the sale of a charger from the sale of the electronic device
But without a universal charger that doesn't make sense: if I still need a specific charger for a device, I'm going to have to buy that with the device anyways.
At least with lightning you know what you are buying, and maybe the overpriced cables that Apple sells will work better than the most cheap ones, which brand give you the warranties for the cable specs? does belkin and co sell also cables?
Cables (generally) don't go bad in a year or two and can last for quite a few years. Most long-term iPhone users probably have at least a few spare cables throughout their desk, house, car that they've bought over time that they'd now have no substitutes for and would need to replace.
You might have dictated a situation where people now have to throw away a pile of perfectly usable cables/accessories and buy a bunch of new ones. While well intentioned, this law might have otherwise achieved the opposite of what it set out to do.
PS: Whether this law exists or not, I'd have bet on Apple working to go fully wireless soon and this might just accelerate that effort.
I mean, or Apple could do the one thing they've done absolutely tons of recently (so it wouldn't be a surprising or unheard of move from them) and sell a dongle for lightning -> USB-C?
Now you don't have to do any of what you just said would be a guarantee.
So, now I'll have to replace the one in my car (with, I guess, a usbA to usbC cable?), I'll have to replace the ones all around my house.
Unless you are suggesting that I should only charge my phone in the one room with my Mac?
I'd say my argument is purely logistical - one less cable type would be quite a boon to me personally. I have a few lightning cables that only work with exactly one device that I own - my iPhone 11. I'm quite happy with my phone, and perhaps ironically for Apple, the best way they'd have to get me to replace it would be to make a new one with a USB-C port; it's the feature I'd most like at this point.
I'd also love to see touchid make a return, but I don't see that happening.
Some people need to remember that it's not all about them.
And your USB-C chargers and power banks were and are perfectly capable of charging Lightning devices.
I guess you'll have to figure out how to handle the slight inconvenience that Apple is putting their IPAD customers and laptop customers through.
1) You buy a USB-C to Lightning cable. Obviously. 2) Everyone bitches about Apple supposedly requiring all kinds of dongles, but of course, what caused that? Apple's insistence on putting only Thunderbolt ports on the Mac. Which of course use what connector? USB-C.
People need to figure out what they are bitching about before just mouthing words about dongles all the time.
Phones no longer have "dock connectors" do they? What about anyone who had a dock port?
Having an iPhone and android phones, Lightening is ANNOYING. Almost nothing uses it. I can charge my Kindle via USB-C, my headphones via USB-C but need an ancient lightening to charge my phone?
Lastly, can you outline what devices people have which are dependent on Lightning? AirPods? they could have been released with USB-C from the start, allowing Apple to move away from lightning.
Nowadays all laptops can charge over usb-c (including Apple laptops, mind you!). Did anybody have to force Apple to do this? No, because charging technology improved so much that what used to be a big brick is now a pocketable GAN charger. Even the new magsafe laptops still support usb-c charging. And iPhones support wireless qi charging as well as Apple's proprietary magnet based wireless charging solution. Thanks to cheaper chips all devices can now negotiate how much power they need from the power brick. That's a big win, and this just wasn't possible a decade ago.
We're in the final stretch of a 20 year trend towards universal chargers, and this EU mandate is totally unnecessary.
Not really, though. I'm using one and it's just fine. Nonsense aside...
> Nowadays all laptops can charge over usb-c (including Apple laptops, mind you!). Did anybody have to force Apple to do this? No
Yes. That's what the EU has been doing by talking about forcing the standardization. Dollars to donuts that apple would still be on their proprietary connector if not for that.
> this EU mandate is totally unnecessary
Disagree. Just look at the iPhones apple is still manufacturing, which they'll now be forced to change.
That said, the thing that seems to make old Android devices obsolete is Google Play Services. It takes up significantly more RAM over time, and it keeps getting updated even when your OS isn't. A degoogled older Android device stays about as useful as it ever was.
Did you forget it was the EU that asked phone producers to standardize (on USB-micro)?
We'd still have one charger per producer without that, since there was no critical mass to adopt one connector or the other.
Note that the threat of a law like this is what caused many other manufacturers to standardize. If Apple gets a pass, what does that signal to the manufacturers who caved, and to everyone else. I would wager it tells them "the eu makes empty threats". This was the result of Apple saying "bluff" to EU demands, and the EU deciding to follow through.
Apple could have prevented this. The EU sort of had its hands bound when it started the process of pushing everyone to one charging. That process was largely very valuable, for apple specifically it isn't that important. But leaving the process incomplete would send the wrong message. Hence I think that Apple is at fault for this regrettable law as the EU is.
This is a bad law that is the result of a process that was, on balance, still very valuable. This law is a small element in the minus column, that does not weigh against the many elements in the plus column. The process I refer to is the EU push to get manufactures to use the same charging port.
Got any source for that?
For dedicated professionals I can see it making sense and nothing should prevent Apple from offering new iPhone Pros with usbc.
But that’s not useful for an average person
It's not, we're glad SOMEONE is forcing them to take this direction, but it's really sad (and potentially damaging) it had to come to this.
> As to lightning port limitations, I question whether usb-c will give average iPhone users any other advantage other than charging their phone. What are people gonna do with it other than charge their phones or transfer files?
Lightning itself is also used for audio (analog audio dongle) and video. The one benefit USB-C could bring to the table is higher transfer speed since Lightning is stuck on USB2 speeds, USB-C doesn't imply USB 3 but they might as well try.
Because if it's the latter, as you say, there's no guarantee we'll see improved speeds because of the port change.
My guess as to why Apple hasn't implemented that is a lack of demand. Syncing/backup is expected to be handled on the device now, and USB 2.0 gives enough bandwidth for the majority of the other cases. And on iPads where more bandwidth might be required (eg. external data storage), they already have USB-C connectors supporting the higher speeds.
Plus iCloud is stubbornly not E2EE.
They hook you in with the $1 option, you see how useful iCloud is and then you'll fork up even more. Then you notice that your whole family can share the subscription and soon you'll be paying $10 for the 2TB option and are an Apple One subscriber.
That's just good business nowadays. All companies _could_ just sell stuff with an one-time fee and provide a service forever, but it's not fiscally responsible in the long run.
Subscriptions are what guarantees quality, you are paying for the service so you can expect a certain level of quality.
https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/product/MK0W2ZM/A/lightning-to...
Apple never made a USB3 to lightning cable.
I really need a cable to charge my phone while driving, for example.
Additionally, charging wirelessly is much slower, sometimes you just need to be able to charge quickly.
Am I to understand you're having issues with wireless charging while driving?
I was having high hopes for this for riding my motorbike because plugging everything in and routing cables is quite the pain...
Worse case you even have to make an access point which isn't a gui operation on most laptops.
https://old.reddit.com/r/applehelp/comments/un9rjb/airdrop_h...
It isn't. Even the upcoming Wi-Fi 7 will be a bottleneck for modern SSDs.
But the much bigger problem is interoperability between different devices and OSs for Wi-Fi transfers.
Wifi 6 bandwidth: 9.6 Gbit/s M1 SSD read speed: 6000 MB/s
So the read speed is about 6X faster than the Wifi 6 bandwidth.
This shouldn't be legislated. That's absurd.
Because the only balance the capitalism and free market introduce, is high balance on oligarchs' bank accounts.
The standardization is good for a lot of purposes:
- cutting down on the number of cables and especially chargers. Seriously, it's amazing to have one single Anker 65W power supply and a single cable on vacation and it can charge everything - tablet, work phone, laptop, power bank, drones, Nintendo Switch. I 'member the dark times where each of these devices had their own cable and for some even own charger.
- car and in-flight entertainment systems can now be relatively secure that USB-C is here to stay and be used for connectivity, which means less effort for this kind of appliance
- if a cable gets lost or damaged, spare cables are cheap and plentiful, and they will also be available in a few years of time
- devices can now be shipped without a charger and cable, which reduces package size and weight (and thus shipping efficiency, as more packages fit into a single container) and as almost everyone has chargers and cables, there is no need to produce as many chargers and cables before, which reduces resource consumption and eventually waste
- when devices break down, chargers still can live on. Even a plain old 5W USB charger is enough to charge an e-cigarette.
- interoperability between devices gets increased. No more micro-USB-to-micro-USB or whatever rare cables to interface, say, a DSLR camera with a phone to transfer photos, a plain USB-C cable is sufficient.
> Feels like there's nothing to celebrate here. Just the EU using its influence to exert control over things that don't matter at all.
Well... Apple refused for years to implement USB-C on the iPhone on their own, while the rest of the market converged first on micro-USB and nowadays on USB-C. The regulation was only established to force the hands of the largest player, which didn't like USB-C because it would destroy its lucrative MFi licensing - basically, rent seeking by preventing competition with a closed solution instead of an open standard.
If there is one thing that drives EU legislation ideas, it is the convergence towards open and common, market-wide standards. This reduces the barriers to entry for small players and leads to more innovation as a result. Additionally, since the 500M citizens of the EU are a market bloc that no manufacturer can afford to ignore and for most things except automotive it isn't worth to set up different supply chains, our legislation can improve the lives of everyone on this planet - just take the RoHS directive, which led to lead solder being phased out worldwide and less lead ending up in the environment.
Too many people don't understand that trade agreements are about common standards and accountability.
There is a lot of noise about EU regulations made by people who are stuck in 18th century mindsets about trade and who fancy themselves as "free traders".
Unfortunately, trade agreements can also end up being abused to enable price dumping. Yes, consumers may enjoy lower prices for goods, but if the cost is domestic industry being completely devastated or human rights being violated at large scale (e.g. children being enslaved in questionably legal mining operations or factories), is it worth it?
Most trade agreements at the time have almost no "equal standards" clause for manufacturing. Stuff like toxic materials (e.g. RoHS) is regulated, but lower work standards - minimum wages, child labor prevention, slavery prevention, fire codes (e.g. the horrible fires that regularly happen in Bangladesh [1]), disposal of waste, CO2 emissions - are not.
The result of that non-regulation is that nations like China, India or Vietnam flood European and US markets with goods that are only cheap (compared to domestic products) because the environment and the workers get exploited. We outsource our dirty industry.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Dhaka_garment_factory_fir...
and especially chargers
And for what it's worth, even the iPhone could benefit from not having to include an USB-A-to-Lightning cable any more.
When will the EU ban HDMI connections to monitors or force Apple to remove them from MacBooks? Why are dSLR cameras allowed to continue to use micro USB and SD cards when they could just use USB-C so we don't have to buy dongles and adapters?
The argument that Apple only provides one physical port (they also provide Magsafe and allow other wireless charging options) isn't sufficient with respect to your discussion point about market-wide standards. This really looks to me like the EU is just saying "we don't like lightning chargers and since nobody is going to defend it except Apple we'll ban it" while they also let plenty of other "standards" run amok in the market.
FWIW I much prefer USB-C and I want my next iPhone to include it (along with any other devices), but I really struggle with the logic of the decision to force it here.
HDMI is a somewhat-open-ish, widespread standard and for what it's worth Apple MacBook models haven't carried HDMI ports for ages now.
> Why are dSLR cameras allowed to continue to use micro USB and SD cards when they could just use USB-C so we don't have to buy dongles and adapters?
Again, the market seems to converge towards USB-C already (almost all the models on [1] and other buying guides have USB-C), and for memory cards towards SD cards and CFexpress (on the pro segment). Both of these are somewhat-open-ish again.
The EU usually only steps in when the free market is either stuck somewhere along the road and needs a push towards a specific standard (=> USB-C), profit incentives need to be overruled (=> RoHS / leaded solder) or the free market suffers from oligopolies that need to be broken up for actual competition or the creation of an actual single market (=> EU-wide mobile roaming).
> The argument that Apple only provides one physical port (they also provide Magsafe and allow other wireless charging options) isn't sufficient with respect to your discussion point about market-wide standards.
Apple can provide a MagSafe port on MacBooks or a Lightning port on iDevices if they want. All Apple has to do is to support the mandated USB-C port as well!
[1] https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/buying-guides/the-best-mi...
These ones do as they were re-implemented per customer demand: https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro-14-and-16/specs/
Because DSLRs are dead. If you look at the new mirrorless cameras, they're either doing USB-C charging, or take batteries charged from a device that uses USB-C.
The cameras are just a random example.
As soon as you look at the EU’s decision (which is one I like the effects of) you can see that this was just a very arbitrary ruling.
> The cameras are just a random example.
And you got your answer for it.
I have this now, except with 1 extra cable (which happens to charge my iPhone and AirPods).
> - if a cable gets lost or damaged, spare cables are cheap and plentiful, and they will also be available in a few years of time
Walk into any store or gas station today and you'll find all sorts of cable solutions for lightning. I was looking for a cable on vacation last year and had a harder time finding a usb-c to usb-c power cable. Everywhere had lightning though.
> - when devices break down, chargers still can live on.
Again, all my chargers have been usb-c for awhile.
Apple was clearly headed towards usb-c anyway, so I doubt this law changes much in their plans. But, a lot of the benefits were already there. Apple will need to include a lightning to usb-c dongle for a period of time as accessories shift over.
Highly doubt it. In any case, the aim of the EU was to create a standard or at least force the industry into coming up with one - and had Apple been allowed to keep their proprietary connector, the competition would be completely correct in claiming "why should we keep using the standard while Apple can get away with MFi licensing income?".
So, in order to actually keep the standard a standard, Apple now has to be openly forced. I doubt this regulation would have been done if Apple had signalled to be moving away from Lightning.
C'mon. Apple went all in on usb-c before anyone else. It hurt them with the laptop line and they reversed some. They have moved the iPad, include usb-c -> puck for the watch, and usb-c to lightning for the iPhone. They are transitioning.
Can you provide some examples of innovation that the EU has made in this industry in the last 20 years?
- mobile phone and data roaming, the most notable user-facing innovation
- the single market itself with all the associated side legislation (GDPR, VAT OSS) that allows every tiny small business to serve the entire EU
- Schengen free-movement zone
- Euro currency
- SEPA instead of national schemes (ties in into the single market aspect as well) with everything from card payments over wire transfers to direct debit covered. Strong authentication required for opening bank accounts. No more paper cheques. (Directly compare all of this to the hot mess that the US is)
- EPD PS2 that forces banks to provide APIs to third parties, e.g. budget planners
- unified drone legislation that allows me without tons of paperwork and individual permits to fly my drone everywhere reasonable in Europe
It would at least save me from carrying one power brick + usb cable. Steam Deck (USB C), Switch (USB C), MacBook Pro (USB C) and iPhone is the only odd one out. This does make a significant difference to what I can take with me on holiday.
Which is why the EU is just being dumb, here. They think they are accomplishing some amazing user-friendly enviro-friendly feat, but all they are really doing is making a lot of Lightning gear out there less useful.
And all this to switch to a port that is substantially larger, clunkier, and has no real advantages for iPhone users. Which is why Apple hasn't bothered changing up til now. That, plus Apple actually values what its customers REALLY need and what REALLY ACTUALLY benefits them.
Personally, I am happy to see that some governments still care about consumer protection.
This won't apply retroactively, new iphones after X date will have to be shipped with USB-C
No, but the parent’s point is still valid - many people own more than one lightning cable and/or lightning-enabled accessory (charging docks, stereos, etc) and as soon as you own an iPhone with USB-C, they’ll immediately become either useless or require yet another adapter.
This already happened once when the iPhone switched from the iPod connector to Lightning, and people revolted for this exact reason.
That was before USB-C existed (and micro-USB didn't have the same sort of accessory ecosystem that the 30-pin connector had). In this day and age, those same charging docks and stereos and such typically already support USB-C (because that's what most modern phones use, and it's kind of silly in this day and age to run two separate manufacturing lines for two separate SKUs instead of simply supporting both connectors in the same device), so if anything this would be the opposite of a reason to revolt.
In terms of progression, my phones since 2004 have gone:
proprietary flip phone stuff, 30-pin iPhone, micro usb, usb-c, usb-c.
Time will tell if USB-C sticks around, I suppose.
Please think about what you're saying for a moment
If they were mandated to do so by law, what were the conditions that have presumably un-bound them now?
Or are they all violating the Micro-USB law but being allowed to do so because it's obviously the common-sense thing to do?
In addition, Apple is known for making loads of dongles, so it wouldn't be remotely weird for them to sell/ship a lightning -> USB-C dongle. So the argument about mandating e-waste doesn't really hold up either.
So you have:
- It works - It doesn't lock manufacturers in forever - It doesn't mandate e-waste
Any other reasons you want to give? So far those are the only three I've seen and none of them hold water.
I would be happy to have Apple move to Type C, but I do question if an actual mandate (and not a recommendation) could prevent future USB connector adoption in the EU market.
It was basically a case of the EU saying "you need to choose one charging port that you all use, we _will_ create a mandate if you don't".
Importantly, the EU has already gone through a shift in charging standards, so they already understand how this stuff advances and have prepared for it in their own legislation (the EU tends to make laws with details on how those laws will be changed in the future etc. since they are at core still a large trade bloc). You can find a Q&A they gave here:
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/QANDA_...
Where the following section applies:
> Will the proposal be an obstacle to innovation?
The Commission's proposal aims at providing consumers with an open and interoperable solution and, at the same time, enabling technological innovation. The proposal encourages innovation for wired and wireless technology charging.
Any technological developments in wired charging can be reflected in a timely adjustment of technical requirements/ specific standards under the Radio Equipment Directive. This would ensure that the technology used is not outdated.
At the same time, the implementation of any new standards in further revisions of Radio Equipment Directive would need to be developed in a harmonised manner, respecting the objectives of full interoperability. Industry is therefore expected to continue the work already undertaken on the standardised interface, led by the USB-IF organisation, in view of developing new interoperable, open and non-controversial solutions.
In addition, larger technological developments are expected in the area of wireless charging, which is still a developing technology with a low level of market fragmentation. In order to allow innovation in this field, the proposal does not set specific technical requirements for wireless charging. Therefore, manufacturers remain free to include any wireless charging solution in their products alongside the wired charging via the USB-C port.
To summarize, they'll work with the USB-IF (made up of a whole bunch of companies, including Apple) when the USB-IF makes a new standard in order to ensure that new connection innovations will be propagated to new devices. What they won't allow is a company like Apple having an "innovation" then diverging from how everyone expects devices to charge.
Interestingly they've also said that there's a set of standardized fast-charging capabilities that need to be clearly labelled on products that require/support them. So if you buy a tablet it'll have a label on the box saying "can charge at up to 50w" or whatever, and a charger would say "can charge at up to 50w", so you know it'll charge at full speed. That's a little better than the previous "it supports fast charging" umbrella.
For now. Why wouldn't the EU be able to just change the law? This mandate passed relatively quickly. Why can't they just repeat this?
When would this mandate be changed? After the rest of the world has already moved on to Type D?
There was never a Micro-USB mandate, I've been replying to a bunch of comments around here that claim that such a mandate existed.
You can check for yourself, it was just a recommendation: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_external_power_supply
> When would this mandate be changed? After the rest of the world has already moved on to Type D?
The EU has already passed multiple recommendations previously about mobile phone port standardization. They were all passed in a reasonable amount of time. Moreover, this mandate was also passed in a reasonable amount of time.
Therefore, I have reason to believe that future mandates regarding mobile phone port charging will also be passed in a reasonable amount of time.
Apple has moved on to USB-C for almost every other product they have. They know Lightning is old and insufficient, even for their iPad Air.
The only reason why Apple keeps Lightning around is for phones and some portable accessories, and the revenue from those, and their certifications, is not something they are willing to dismiss. Technically speaking, if you want something as simple as a cable, you have to go through Apple and their MFI program.
So here we are, with Apple holding the keys to every Lightning accessory, and also keeping a degree of control of USB-C.
If anything, the EU is trying to keep Apple honest.
The other way of viewing this is that by not switching (yet) they haven't created instant e-waste out of every cable and accessory manufactured in the past decade. USB-C didn't exist when they released the lightning cable, and they have clearly been migrating every other product over the past several years.
Seriously, you don't need to invent a conspiracy for every single move Apple makes.
Well no time like the present since time is linear and unless they're going to stick with lightning _forever_ then they'll eventually have to create a bunch of e-waste.
How is this a “conspiracy”? It is literally what they are doing with the MFI program.
If anything, the e-waste theory is less credible, as Apple have changed the iPad and MacBook charging ports three or four times in the past 12 years. They have also a long history of preventing third parties from fixing their products, latest of which is software locking of replacement parts.
On the contrary, over-simplifying the motivations of a multi-trillion dollar corporation often leaves you as the fool.
USB-C is not much different than lightning for charging / connecting a phone, so the blowback from consumers will be huge when all their accessories are no longer compatible with the next phone.
Ironically enough, they come with a Lightning to USB-C cable. Users would need to buy their own USB-C chargers anyway.
And here we are, arguing about cables.
For sure, but only if Apple wouldn't provide such cables, which they do.
Currently, cables bundled with iPhones are Lightning to USB-C. It has been like this for several years.
I suspect that the kind of person who would buy a new $1,000+ phone with an USB-C to USB-C cable in the box, and bitch and moan about the $30 worth of Lightning cables about to end in the trash, is the same who vociferously complain on the Internet and then still buy the next years version.
As far as I understand, there are no Lightning cables that support anything over 18W. Data transfer tops at 480Mbps, or roughly USB 2.0 speeds.
These are specs many other companies have surpassed several years ago.
> ... so the blowback from consumers will be huge when all their accessories are no longer compatible with the next phone.
Apple is the same company that went through 4 different charging connectors for their MacBook line, in about 15 years: MagSafe, MagSafe 2, USB-C, and now MagSafe 3. Their iPad line is 12 years old and has gone through 3 different connectors: 30-pin, Lightning, and USB-C.
I fail to see how this one would be different.
If the iPhone had an USB-C connector, I could pretty much carry a single cable and charger for my laptop, my tablet, and my phone. So unless there is zero overlap between iPhone users and users of anything else, the point is moot.
Even worse, Apple stopped bundling a charger with their phones over three years ago. Instead, they ship a Lightning to USB-C cable, but they bundle an USB-C charger only for a year after the release of the iPhone X, effectively forcing their customers to buy USB-C hardware anyway.
If it doesn't matter at all, why is Apple still stubbornly refusing to adapt?
I'm sorry that we need a law to instil some common sense into some managers' thick skulls. But I'm happy that EU is showing that in, a sane democracy, no huge corporation can force its will on the people.
Having unified, standard cables and power bricks means more reuse, which reduces waste and cost. It means someone switching from Android to iPhone or vice versa doesn't need to replicate all their cabling. It means users can buy a third party cable without paying Apple for a licence or a patent. These are all good things.
And now imagine a step further, where all cars, mechanical pencils, toasters, wall sockets... everything is disposable because some small detail or component has just one supplier.
Imagine how much you'll spend to have things, and how much you'll have to throw away when any small thing of it gets broken.
School shootings - why do we have to enforce not commiting school shootings with the stupid law, surely everyone can get together and agreee murdering a 10 year old for fun is evil and just not do it?
Should a national government mandate only one method of security that every school must implement, or allow states/provinces/districts to experiment with what works for them? Even if the national government improves security in the short term, there is a strong possibility that the bureaucracy of national government's slowness to adapt will cause security to be worse in the long term.
this idea that it is somehow a bad thing to force mega-corporations to do things that are good for society. it's so widespread and yet - short of actual communism - I have literally never seen any evidence of public action against mega-corporate interests resulting in damage to society as a whole, beyond the inevitable political lobbying and media corruption that ensues
is it any surprise that entities whose entire existence has been justified by clever storytelling (i.e. marketing) have been successful at convincing people that rules for them are a bad thing, while rules for you on the street are perfectly fine and actually good?
people act like these mega-corps are weak, soft little babies that need to be treated with kid gloves. "no, but what if this law could do that to them? but what if this law means they make 0.1% less profit this year?". I absolutely understand this kind of reticence with actual babies, or individual people, or small-to-medium-sized businesses, but it makes me angry that people are so reluctant to act against these unaccountable mega-entities. it is hamstringing society
A minor inconvenience multiplied by the number of smartphones (7.33 billion) is not a minor problem.
It's not that it's a problem on the individual level, it's that we're roughly doubling the number of cables needed and halving their utilization at the same time. Yes I know android is more popular, but the issue is the two different cables needed.
https://www.bankmycell.com/blog/how-many-phones-are-in-the-w...
I really like USB-C. It's sooo convenient to charge my notebook, my headphones, my phone, my everything with the same cable. However what bothers me since someone pointed it out to me: for phones, which are used all day in all kind of situations, lightning has a big andvantage over USB-C. It's has no parts inside the port and therefore is harder to break. Maybe we get something like this with USB-D, but hopefully it will take a long time until then. Meanwhile I'll enjoy my Fairphone, which has a replacable USB-C port.
- http://www.righto.com/2013/06/teardown-and-exploration-of-ma...
- http://www.righto.com/2016/03/counterfeit-macbook-charger-te...
When I bought it i did the research and random magnetic cables on amazon were reviewed along the lines of "this burned my laptop". I ended up getting an (expensive-ish) one from my local apple dealer.
I'd rather have Apple do it thank you.
That first link describing how magsafe 1/2 work is what convinced me it should be fine :)
While Lightning may be a good piece of technology, I think Apple is largely to blame for its demise. Standardization is good for consumers. Apple had control over its fate. I don’t blame them for wanting to collect royalties, but they were the only major manufacturer on the market not playing ball with a standardized port. Yet even their other products use USB-C, and the MacBook was actually an early adopter.
Accordingly, I don’t think this law eliminates competition. It brings simplification to consumers for a simple, boring port that can now be shared with many of their other goods and a single cable.
This is unnecessarily snide.
Why? Your computers and one of your tablets already have USB-C chargers, so you could just use those for your phones. Further, USB-A to USB-C cables exist, so you could reuse your existing USB-A bricks, too.
I don't see USB-A going anywhere in the next decade or so, especially now that they're popping up in wall outlets and power strips alongside traditional wall plugs (at least here in the US; YMMV elsewhere). Hell, I was at a casino last weekend and pretty much every slot machine has a USB-A port specifically for charging phones (unfortunately, the casino's gift shop was sold out of USB-C and Lightning, but had lots of micro-B on hand - go figure lol).
Probably for longer than USB-A male connectors exist, knowing how fast things usually evolve in said industries :)
I genuinely believe that there’s only one real reason Apple resisted moving away from Lightning:
They saw the writing on the wall from the EU over the last few years, and - remembering the way people lost their minds over the switch from 40-pin to Lightning (“it’s a money grab! they want me to replace all of my accessories!”) - chose to wait so they’d have someone to deflect blame to.
Licensing revenue from Lightning MFi is a drop in the bucket. I’m not a manufacturing operations expert, but I have to imagine that the simplification of supply chains alone will nearly offset that loss over time.
Lightning ports have springs that wear out inside. They have issues with arcing, which damages the plug (look at a charging cable that has been in use for a bunch of cycles. One pin on each side will be burnt.).
But hey, the plug part is pretty, so it must be better
Never before have I dealt with such a poor connector. All my usb c is working fine. All my lightning cables work about half the time, need to be jostled. I know if I buy all new ones AGAIN it will sort out the problem.
I don’t understand this take and replies.
Also, lightning doesn’t power external devices. Love that I can run a midi keyboard off my new iPad. The same on my iPhone requires a powered usb hub.
I mean, it's stupid that if I buy an Iphone and an Macbook today, there is no cable in either box that can connect those two
And also the part where there are a billion specs for the same cable so you never know what you're dealing with. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the bluetooth team came up with the standards...
Micro-USB and USB-C both have the same minimum durability ratings, you may just be buying non-compliant cables (or you're encountering selection bias or something):
Micro-USB is an abomination from a durability perspective, and in no way does this reflect reality for the majority of Micro-USB plugs and sockets I've found in the wild.
Both Micro-B and USB-C are similarly rated for robustness.
I have never seen anyone do this with a USB-c port. I have never heard anyone complain their USB-C port wore out.
USB-C was designed for far greater durability & reliability & IMO it clearly & obviously shows.
This means that for USB-C you replace the cable when the springs wear out, but for Lightning you need to replace the port.
Cleaning lint out of a USB-C receptacle with a toothpick is safe, but sticking anything into a Lightning port could damage the springs.
Safe-ish because you can break off the inner plastic part. On USB-A this was a pretty common failure for me. On USB-C not yet
In my experience, cleaning the lightning port with the end of a paperclip was never an issue (dust from my pocket liked the spot; always helped when charging got unreliable).
Which means if you break it off, you need to replace the whole port, which might be difficult or expensive; instead of the (relatively) cheap cable.
I _love_ USB-C as a concept, but this alone makes, in my opinion, Lightning the superior physical connector.
And yes, I have had to replace / throw away entire devices because of a USB-C port breaking like this.
Sure, I should be less of a clumsy oaf around my electronics, but I also don't think "not bricking the entire device when extra force is applied to the port" is unreasonable design goal for a physical connector as universal as USB-C is.
You say that cleaning out a USB-C port is safe, but I know it’s not, because of that little snap-off wafer inside, which has broken on me twice before. It’s not safe, I promise. Don’t do it unless you have a good warranty!
Just because I've not had the center nub break in any of my USB-C devices that doesn't mean it's not a problem for someone else.
Similarly, I've had the springs in a Lightning port give out so that no cable worked and the port needed replacing.
I still think that having the springs in the cable connector is a more durable design but the USB-C center nub is probably too thin.
(edit) Here is the chief FireWire architect talking about the same design rationale for the FW400 connector http://www.johasteener.com/what-is-firewire.html#Why_the_4-p...
The only shame here is that companies consistently chose lock-in over open standards, even when it's clearly detrimental to the user's experience and the environment.
If the "adults in the room" can't figure it out (out of greed), it's fair game for governments to step in and make a choice for everybody. That's what a government should do: create clarity and accountability where there is none.
This idea that we need dedicated connectors for every little piece of hardware we own is simply not sustainable.
This is entirely subjective. Personally, I’ve never been bothered by the different port type. I’ve also never really known it to be a problem for friends and family.
That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t prefer USB-C for the iPhone. Just that for me it’s not been “clearly detrimental.”
What's positive about having to buy different cables, chargers and converters every year for your phones, cameras, laptops and whatnot? Maybe you're just used to it, but if you truly think about what it means and the implications of doing this at-scale, I seriously doubt there's any benefit to it.
I don’t think it’s some great positive, but I also don’t think it is “clearly detrimental” to the user experience, either.
> Case closed, apologist anecdata will not be considered.
Not sure this is your call to make?
Let me break it down for you, case-by-case:
> Apple has the opportunity to standardize all of their devices under one serial/power connector
This is objectively true. Apple helped design the USB-C standard to replace the ports on their own devices, and demonstrated this intent on the Macbook and later, the iPad.
> they have neglected to do this for over a decade
This is also true. While USB-C isn't a decade old, USB 3.0 is, and Apple has refused to update Lightning cables to reflect the newer standards in serial transfer technology.
> it overtly effects the user experience.
This is, undeniably and objectively, true. USB 2.0 is extremely slow - to the point that most users resort to slow wireless transfers to avoid an even slower wired one. Apple can fix this. They don't even need to get rid of USB-C to do this, but by switching to USB-C they will no longer have a choice. They had their opportunity to play fair, now they have to play by the rules instead. I'm closing the case because the EU has done so as well. Apple is negligent here, regardless of how Apple, their customers or other bystanders feel.
This really works for you? When I try charging my laptop with my phone cable/charger, it not only doesn't charge, but the laptop requires a hard reset to start turn on again. When I try charging my phone with my laptop cable/charger, it just doesn't charge. So while it's great in theory that everything is USB-C, it doesn't solve that much for me...
Unfortunately, I still need to bring a 6" microUSB cable as well, because my Logitech mouse, bicycle headlamp, and pocket flashlight (that uses 14500 lithium batteries) still don't have USB-C ports. I plan on upgrading all of them to USB-C when I can, but these rarely need to be charged so it's not as big a deal for me.
I do kind of get it though. It's probably better for a whole host of reasons if electronics all used the same cords, but I guess you could make that argument for a lot of things. There would be benefits if there was only one mobile operating system or if all mobiles used the same interchangeable batteries, for example.
When a standard makes sense companies will generally adopt it naturally. The fact so many manufacturers use USB-C today just proves that this probably doesn't need to be enforced. I suppose it's just strange to me this would even need to be a law or that there are people paid to pass laws like this.
I think in the case of USB-C it's not too bad just because USB-C is widely agreed to be a good connector that's already widely adopted, but there have been plenty of bad connectors in the past which in theory the EU could now be deciding consumer electronics companies are forced to use.
This also assumes USB-C is always the best option which I doubt. I'm sure there are products which given the application, size or price point might suite a different cable better. Technology also moves on and connectors change for a reason. Now we're going to be stuck with outdated hardware until EU regulators update laws. At which companies and you as the consumer will be forced to adopt that new connector regardless of your preferences.
Printer ink, razor blades, and so on are other examples besides connector cables where companies' `innovations' tend to make things worse for the consumer. Even if the new cable is technically slightly better, the other factors of price, availability, and lack of inter-operability ultimately make things worse for the consumer.
Also, you'd likely have more luck getting elected officials to change EU policies than you would have with mega company board members changing profit-maximizing strategies.
They have explicitly called out not regulating wireless charging for this reason.
Yours is a valid concern, but it's not grounded in reality.
Doesn't wireless charging present even more problems, given the meager efficiency compared to using wires?
> The following companies have signed the MoU: Apple, LG, Motorola, NEC, Nokia, Qualcomm, Research in Motion (RIM), Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Texas Instruments.
[1]: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=SWD%3A20... (Annex 2)
Oh, capitalism makes all these choices possible for me, how wonderful!
All those shady un-elected EU regulators...
Oh wait, which ones do you not elect again? Was it government officials or company managers?
Seeing the benefit to doing that kind of thing (which required developments in thought & practice in political economy) and being able to effectively enforce such decrees (which required various other developments in theory and technology, plus the right circumstances) on a large area is even seen as one of the hallmarks of the development of the nation-state, and a major stepping stone to our modern global economic system and the modern state.
What proportion of phone consumers have an informed opinion on charging technology? Why would the electronics companies work in a way that benefits everyone/the environment instead of themselves.
> I guess you could make that argument for a lot of things
We do, we have standards for a ridiculous amount of things no one ever thinks about.
> There would be benefits if there was only one mobile operating system or if all mobiles used the same interchangeable batterie
Standardising the operating system would create a monopoly and have no obvious society wide benefits. Whereas cables can be made by anyone competent. It would be more prudent to mandate user replacable batteries before thinking about if such a specific battery standard could feasibly work. Something you can probably make a good argument for.
Like the myriad businesses already making lightning cables?
This isn't something created by faceless bureaucrats behind closed doors.
The "regulators" are the EU Parliament, who are elected by residents in the various countries. The issue has been talked about for a few years, and was voted on 603 to 13, that's over 96% (including abstentions).
Then almost by magic everyone switched to micro USB. You could charge different devices from different manufacturers with the same cable. This wasn't some feat of magic, it was because the European Commission worked to bring manufacturers to an agreement on a common charging standard.
Well, everyone except Apple, who did actually sign the agreement. They just decided to bundle a dongle to be compliant.
Mini-USB was introduced in 2000, so manufactures had plenty of time to choose a common interface themselves, but decided not to.
Even amongst Apple's own devices it is a mess. To charge an Apple Pencil with an iPad Pro you need not one, but two adapters.
> When a standard makes sense companies will generally adopt it naturally.
My point was that manufacturers could have done so (with Mini-USB) if they wanted to, but chose not to. Until smart phones came around, most phones were more than thick enough to have a Mini-USB port (and a lot did).
I’m curious what you’re referring to. I charge my Apple Pencil while connected to my iPad, and my iPad chargers via usb c. No adapters for me?
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0276/6463/files/How-to-Cha...
One does not have to be that old enough.
Look no further than personal care and small home appliances (electric shavers – yes, Braun, I am looking at you; electric toothbrushes – and you, too, Philips! As well as household and kitchen appliances) the vast majority of which still come with incompatible proprietary chargers that are so hard, expensive or inconvenient (usually all of the above) to procure to replace that the entire gadget oftentimes gets disposed of because of the failed charger.
Governments ought to crack down on those ones as well, and crack down real, real hard.
It took this long for the EU to pass common standard legislation after talking about it for years. I can't imagine they will be any faster in updating it if USB-C becomes outdated.
No one can predict new technology. Ideally the law should have an end date or require regular renewal.
It's not that, it's that companies know what's good for them and consumers are a secondary consideration, if that.
Consider EU mobile phone roaming regulation: it's an unalloyed good. We've gone from expensive and inconvenient roaming charges and roaming add-ons to free roaming at almost no increase in prices. There was initially some increase in very low priced plans yet I have a 2.65 euro a month 1GB data only plan (with full roaming) which is a blindingly good deal.
These headlines make me proud. Let's reach a global standard for charging stuff.
I wish everything that had to be charged sometimes had a USB-C plug. But also I hope that the USB standard gets less messy in the future.
Amazing that people still don’t get it.
That's not how USB works.
Tech history, and human history in general, is littered with examples. Especially in the old Warsaw Pact states.
> why should the committee put any effort into developing anything better?
The EU is absolutely not in the business of developing any connector whatsoever. They wanted _a_ standard (for eco/market reasons), and asked the industry to create one. This became USB and the USB Forum. Now they make it mandatory to follow that standard. In the act they passed, the power to set the specific standard is deferred to the European Commission, to make it easier to update it if necessary. These are called delegated acts [0]. If a new physical connector is ever necessary, the USB forum will write the standard, ask the EU if they can update the reference, which is easy since it's only a matter of pushing paperwork. _Not_ hardcoding a feature like this, and following what industry wants is an explicit goal of the legislative process. It has worked extremely well in these sorts of circumstances. The only risk I could see is a technical innovation for connectors, which the USB Forum refuses to implement for some reason. This could happen, but I don't see it as being any different then current industry practices.
[0]: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=LEGISSUM...
I love the fact that there is a standardized port, and I can get devices of any type to charge with a single powerful charger. But connector and cables are wonky at best if you want to have a single cable for everything too (look up prices, thickness and lengths of USB-C PD 100W, alt-DP 1.4 capable, USB 3+ speeds cables, and then watch them break in a few months of "regular" use like in a car charger).
But I want a better, more robust standard than USB-C! Can that happen with the law in place? I don't know, but that scares me.
I’m aware of your sarcasm, but it did bother me that my Tesla used a proprietary port that made it more difficult to use other charging locations, such as the charger next to my apartment. Electric vehicle charging ports need standardization as well.
Perhaps having these laws standardizing ports will set the groundwork for a more robust standard in the future. I don’t think there’s ever going to be a perfect solution since there are so many differing opinions, but I do believe this is a good start.
This is happening in europe, tesla is switching to type 2 connectors. I think these laws certainly play a role in motivating the company.
Similarly for cars: as you push for faster charging, you'll need bigger connector pins, though I am sure (I hope?) standard EV ports are sufficiently over-engineered for the time being.
> Regardless of their manufacturer, all new mobile phones, tablets, digital cameras, headphones and headsets, handheld videogame consoles and portable speakers, e-readers, keyboards, mice, portable navigation systems, earbuds and laptops that are rechargeable via a wired cable, operating with a power delivery of up to 100 Watts, will have to be equipped with a USB Type-C port.
I don't know what to think.
Btw the same thing happened with the EV charging (SAE J1772).
I think France has the one where the ground pin sticks out? That can be a problem depending on which cable you have.
And then there's UK of course, though they're not part of EU anymore.
In tech circles like HN, I have seen the UK style plug and its fuse and local power switch lauded for its superior safety, but it's really just belt and suspenders added to make up for old, cheap not forward-thinking design. I like US style plugs because they are small, and for portable stuff often have a folding design that saves space. But I'm biased because I have only lived in Canada and Japan until recently so naturally all my stuff uses this standard.
In addition to that I am a huge nerd about plugs, chargers and travel adapters. Anything I have that is remotely portable is usb-c powered. I've hacked every old wireless mouse, keyboard, headphones that I own to use usb-c to reduce the number of cables and adapters I need for life and travel to the minimum[1]. I don't recommend this to you or anyone else but when I do end up with a UK plug power source, I use a plastic pen lid to brute force my europlug adapter into a UK socket.
Changing to europlug in Ireland is an interesting topic. It would be so tough to phase-in europlugs given that one of the differences is the UK plug with fuse is possible to use with ring circuits. And changing existing ring circuits to radial (each circuit goes back to the breaker box on an independent wiring run) would be expensive enough in wood-framed houses/North America but incredibly expensive in Ireland. Ireland is famously mostly deforested, so old houses are usually stone and new ones are usually concrete. On top of that, Ireland didn't experience recent destruction and rebuilding/postwar-rebuilding like mainland Europe did. A lot of houses[2] are very old, and many are protected cultural assets even if privately owned so you couldn't just send any old contractor in to start drilling holes and carving out channels or adding wall-mounted conduit for new wiring. It wouldn't be popular to spend on this or to potentially scar a lot of historical or family homes.
On the other hand, post-brexit there could be enough will to align more to the single EU marketplace. I don't want to be that guy that speculates "just do this" on a topic I am not an expert in, but I didn't find any serious proposal or discussion by googling it. I think the solution would be to require local outlets or permanent adapters that assume the function of the fuse in UK plugs at each outlet, and provide both EU and UK plug compatibility. You wouldn't want to allow temporary adapters because any unqualified person could make a working but unsafe configuration. You wouldn't want to force EU plugs on everyone because that would also encourage unsafe modification/adapters, or be unpopular/expensive by requiring modification of an antique device.
[1] If you are comfortable with soldering, filing, 3d printing and taking things apart, you can find usb-c sockets with the appropriate resistors installed, and tiny dc-dc converter boards with usb-c input on aliexpress, and easily update old low-power, stuff from micro-usb, barrel connector, etc to usb-c. I even added usb-c power to my NES, SNES, gamecube, wii and wii-u.
[2] I say houses and not buildings because I want to highlight the considerations for the average person, and I also presume anything commercial or open to the public already mandates using the latest building codes and safety features above all considerations. This is evident when you visit a beautiful ancient castle or church and see a jarring green exit sign, or handrails and conduit laid all over the place on top of ancient stonework. Of course, many of these places due their best to conceal modern things and keep everything beautiful except for the green exit signs. But Ireland would have to commit to funding the work to upgrade all of the family heirloom old houses.
Edit: usb-c is both the former and the latter. Macbooks and ipads had already switched, it seems likely the next iphone would have been usb-c anyway, or perhaps portless.
I'm not sure that other EU standards there would be that we don't have, being an EU member, except for decent cycling and mass transport infra, and that would be dramatic improvement.
Could be done, with adapters.
Also, basically all of the adapters say not for long term use, and they're nowhere near as stout or secure as either type of plug alone.
Anyway, the UK plug is the best one out there, except for stepping on them. They're worse than legos, and that's saying something. (and maybe size, weight, and cost. But electrically, they're good)
Also of note: you aren't required by national or state law to use any kind of electrical system in the U.S. The National Electric Code is not a binding document. It's up to individual municipalities to decide whether they want to adopt it (or some other standard, which they're free to do).
It's interesting to read the comments here from people that have equipment and stuff in their houses and cars and workplaces that are constrained by regulations and laws all around them, but are worried about a connector on their phone.
A "free" market needs regulation otherwise it develops into monopolies. Setting standards is a way to regulate to ensure a level playing field for competition.
It's not like the EU has rushed this decision, or that anyone is proposing some other standard that wasn't considered.
These are very well understood areas, there is only so many ways you can transport electricity. Also, there is nothing stopping innovation “after” the plug. It’s like saying that HTTP somehow stifles innovation.
Yes, I do. There would be no standard.
> Maybe the industry must have progressed without the need of outlets in the first place.
Wireless electricity? Maybe, maybe not. 99.999999% probability for the latter, though.
But at the same time, I think there may be a place for mandating interface compatibility.
To give some old-school examples, how differently might industrialization have gone if rail systems weren't mandated to operate under some shared standards? Or where would we be if every country had a handful of competing power grids with different voltages and outlet types?
So I am not sure the cable which plugs into our phones is the correct target for standardization, but in spirit I think it's worthwhile to consider how the public good of interoperability should be weighed against a handful of corporations' interest in building technological moats around themselves and their users.
First, market forces already standardized on two main standards.
Second, the interop problem is a $10 cable between wall-wart and device.
So the problem solved is a small one. I think this idea got its momentum from years ago when practically every model of phone had a different charger and wall wart.
Meanwhile, think about what you lose.
Is USB-C really the end-game of charging connectors? It has existing issues with labeling and capabilities confusion. What about mag-safe-style connectors? Does a phone necessarily need a charging connector at all and might there not be advantages to not having one?
As an aside, ewaste will increase in the short term, of course, as people will have to throw out their lighting stuff and buy USB-C stuff. (Don’t worry, it’s not a lot — small problem, remember.)
So, one standard too many. Especially when one of those standards is held hostage by one corporation.
> Is USB-C really the end-game of charging connectors?
It's close enough, we can already see that improvements have been incredibly incremental already. Hell, it would have been fine to stick to micro-B or even mini-B.
> What about mag-safe-style connectors?
You already have people building those as third-party dongles. Clearly it doesn't have to be part of the spec.
> Does a phone necessarily need a charging connector at all
Yes. Wireless charging is inherently far less efficient than wired charging.
> and might there not be advantages to not having one?
No. To steal a quote from yourself: this is unambiguously a bad idea.
EU sat down the manufacturers and told them that if they don't come to an agreement the EU will make the choice for them. Most of them came to an agreement. So you are right, market forces did make manufacturers to standardize on two main standards. That force is named EU.
> Is USB-C really the end-game of charging connectors?
No, and EU has no illusions that it is.
> Does a phone necessarily need a charging connector at all and might there not be advantages to not having one?
No, and the EU doesn't think that it does.
> As an aside, ewaste will increase in the short term, of course, as people will have to throw out their lighting stuff and buy USB-C stuff. (Don’t worry, it’s not a lot — small problem, remember.)
This is just stupid fearmongering. People won't have to throw their lightning stuff.
> This is just stupid fearmongering.
I guess if you can't make a good point, you can always hurl insults.
What do you think people who upgrade their iPhones in 2024 will do with their lightning cables which no longer connect to anything they have?
sell
But swapping a plug doesn’t buy us that. This is evidenced by the fact that no company is forced to use lightning to compete.
Almost everything uses USB-A at the outlet and choose your other end. We’re starting to see USB-C at the outlet, but same thing.
I also don’t see the e-waste argument. I haven’t had a cable outlive a device. My kids go through them every other month. No plug fixes that, it’s almost always where the cable joins the plug. (Except micro-USB, we shall never speak of that again).
My other biggest practical problem is that, despite appearances, USB-C != USB-C, and the off-the-shelf cables are awful, especially for normal humans.
In my dream world, I’d love to see clearly labeled device and cord capabilities, and USB-C all the things, and a reigned in USB-C spec.
I just think that government is a bad place to do it, and don’t see a necessary state interest case for their intervention.
My old Nokia Micro-B cables outlived their bundled devices by a factor of… 3x or so? And I only took those out of use because I don't have a lot of stuff that still uses Micro-B.
Actually, I don't think I've ever managed to break a USB cable yet. What on earth are you doing to the things?!
I imagine this is what GP experienced, based on my experience with it on iphones and apple laptops.
My kids keep their tablets plugged in while using a lot of the time. I think it’s the stress on the joint from having the cable taut or yanking it around or something.
I did change to making them pay for replacements. That definitely slowed the rate :).
I'm not sure that analogy holds particularly well. The UK did build rail systems without shared standards, and only standardised on gauge in 1846, which was very late in the industrial revolution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Gauge_War - Standards for other things like signalling also came late, and broad gauge was still in use until 1892. (Notably though, this did happen just at the turn of Railway Mania, so affected a lot of the new lines.)
Effectively, the UK let (mainly by omission, not intentionally) the solutions compete and then selected the most broadly used solution to standardise on.
(I'd love to see any scholarly research on this though; I haven't seen a huge degree of it. Obviously things are different outside of the UK, but given it's where (uncoincidentally) both the industrial revolution and railways were born, that's the clear case to look at.)
We're down to two connectors here, one of which is only used by a single vendor; do you think that hasn't already happened?
If anything this will increase the value of official apple chargers because at least those will be well designed.
They might still have other issues, but nothing that damages your device.
We have plenty of free market examples of why "innovation" in the connector space almost always spawns lemons and makes everything worse in the meantime.
I find laws like this problematic because measuring success or failure is super tricky. How do you know about innovation that hasn't happened? If in 5 years or 10 years we're using USB-C connectors is that great or does it mean there's some better idea that isn't being taken to market? I'm sure there are subject matter experts who might confidently weigh in on that but could they realistically get this law changed? Even if those experts agreed there was a better solution would the majority of the incumbent players in the space want that solution?
Laws like this create a situation where opposition depends upon people missing things they've never had and wanting things that they can't conceive of.
Power plugs (per country), audio jacks, gas plugs.
Or do you miss the experience of being able to plug your GM car in GM-Approved™ gas stations?
Yes, EV charging in the states.
How can free sharing of ideas stifle innovation?
(Minus specialized sockets like 240v, 30A, etc.)
It would be ridiculous to have adapters and specialized plugs for everything for such a basic purpose.
I wonder if they will just be able to ship iphones with lightning cables and a usbc adapter and a usbc to lightning port adapter so the customers can just throw out the adapters and use the lightning cables.
Besides, existing phones are obviously going to stay Lightning. Cables aren't going to be thrown out any earlier than the phones themselves
Depends on the device.
Standards for EV fast charging are a very good thing. North America has two different plugs and protocols for DC fast charging (three if you count CHAdeMO) and it's a mess. The EU has standardized on CCS Type 2 Combo so any brand of CCS charging car can charge on any brand of CCS charging network. That's good common sense and it benefits everyone.
Incompatible charging infrastructure doesn't benefit any EV owner. It's a drag on the EV market. Closed networks like Tesla's and Rivian's are continuing to be part of the problem.
Tesla is (very) slowly changing in North America:
https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/28/22596337/tesla-supercharg...
Rivian still hasn't got the memo. Rivian's chargers are at least CCS but because they're brand exclusive they don't see much use:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbvW0nK38j8
Those chargers could be earning more revenue right now instead of sitting idle. All they have to do is unlock the software.
All new Tesla stations in Europe use CCS and most of the older stations have been retrofitted with CCS connectors in addition to Type 2.
I have an adaptor for my 2017 Model S that allows it to use CCS instead of Type 2 and newer cars can be converted so that CCS connectors can be used without adaptors. All new EVs in Europe already use CCS and Tesla are slowly opening up their network to other brands of car.
So how is Tesla part of the problem?
Yes. You're restating what I have said. Tesla should hurry up and open them all.
> So how is Tesla part of the problem?
Because Tesla chargers are not open to all brands everywhere.
A better question to ask is why is Tesla not the leader in multi-brand charging. Other charging networks have delivered chargers which support all brands of EV with longer cables for more vehicle types and are faster than Tesla's chargers to boot.
How can I charge my Volvo truck on Tesla's existing chargers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UAttTG03WA
What about my bus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lNTjJW7HEY
How do I charge my Porsche Taycan on Tesla's chargers at 800 volts instead of this 400 volt business: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0F42jY3dD8
How do I charge my BMW without blocking another charger due to Tesla's short-sighted charger design: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y33AArvMUQ
Tesla's V4 chargers will apparently have longer cables, but Tesla is still no Alpitronic.
This is why we all (apart from Apple) settled on one standard
I still have a box of old phones with custom chargers, headsets and data cables. The Nokia barrel plug (different sizes), the Siemens comb style connector, the Ericsson break away type connector, the Motorola two prong, the Bosch connector and some really weird LG/NEC/SAGEM plugs.
Good riddance.
Is USB-C the best connector or form factor we could ever do?
You seem unaware that the government regulate a LOT of things and while this has stiffed some innovation, the cost is probably worth it.
When was the last time a house burned down due to electrical issues? In the past, prior to standards this was rather common.
If you want a general understanding of what things were like prior to "regulation".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knob-and-tube_wiring
Now ask how you would plug an appliance into this mess...
The EU addressed this by saying that they'll keep up with technology as it moves, but one thing that technology is famous for, and the EU is infamous for, is the speed at which it moves. 5 years is a blink of an eye in politics, and a lifetime in tech.
Thats not to say we'll never see another USB version, I just worry this will considerably slow things down.
It seems to me the more future-proof way to do this would be to force companies to use an open-standard. We'd still be stuck with the dreaded micro-usb, and possibly lightning if apple let everyone else use it too, but it solves the proprietary issue without locking us in for another ~10 years of just type-c
After all, why invest money in improving your charging connector if you are going to be mandated to use USB-C anyway?
USB-C's introduction was (and arguably still is) fairly disruptive because it invalidated the universal nature of USB-A (and to a lesser extent -B and Micro).
Personally, I hope USB-C will be here to stay for at least the better part of a decade going forward. Finding that what was once universal won't be universal tomorrow is annoying.
Someone needs to build a simple device you connect a cable to that stress tests it and shows a green or red light.
edit to clarify: ... because while Apple might still include a working cable, but if you grab one of the 10 cables out of your cable box, you don't know if it will actually work.
It would be funny if this ruling strengthened Apple’s position because no one knows which off-brand cable will destroy their device by not limiting current draw.
Without strong regulations on the usb cables themselves, it almost seems like putting the cart before the horse.
Cables aren't the ones limiting current draw, they're cables. And the millions upon millions of USB-C devices in the world right now have no such issues with USB-C charging so where are you pulling these silly ideas from?
You think the rockstar engineers of Apple aren't capable of designing a charging circuit with reliability of a 80$ Chinese manufactured Android phone?
Incorrect. All USB-PD cables, whether their connectors are USB-A, -B, and/or USB-C, are responsible for honestly declaring their charging power limit to the charger and to the device, and in the USB-PD specifications are specifically responsible for limiting current draw to the rated capacity of the cable. Per USB PD spec:
> Sources Shall detect the type of Attached cable and limit the Capabilities they offer based on the current carrying capability of the cable determined by the Cable capabilities determined using the Discover Identity Command (see Section 6.4.4.2) sent using SOP’ Communication (see Section 2.4) to the Cable Plug.
> The Cable VDO returned as part of the Discover Identity Command details the maximum current and voltage values that Shall be negotiated for a given cable as part of an Explicit Contract.
Cheap, lying, uncertified USB cables that declare their ability to support higher charging rates — for example, 100W which is 5A at 20V in USB — have been known to short out and destroy chargers and devices in the process of doing so.
This was discussed in a couple hundred comments across multiple posts when a Google engineer had to pressure Amazon through product reviews to enforce USB-IF certification on all USB-C cables several years ago:
>Cheap, lying, uncertified USB cables that declare their ability to support higher charging rates — for example, 100W which is 5A at 20V in USB — have been known to short out and destroy chargers and devices in the process of doing so.
Yes, HN loves to discuss and gripe about it over and over again (quoting the same kind of unconfirmed posts that are out of date by years)... it just fails to prove that this is still any kind of widespread issue worse than any other cable connector issue.
Compliant USB-PD devices honor those cable limits. Non-compliant devices do not, but ignoring them does not negate their definition as limits.
Apple only has one other USB-C <-> USB-C cable and that's the "Thunderbolt 3 Cable" which supports everything in USB 3.1 Gen 2
The 1m also supports 97W charging. I have the 2m (shipped with my MacBook Pro) and the 1m (shipped with my iPad Air) and I can confirm they charge my MacBook the same.
I can't believe people are celebrating the government getting involved with the design process of the only tech company that actually holds themselves to a standard on design. And by forcing them to use a port where the spec is such a mess.
I have dollar store Lightning cables that only have pins on one side and only charge and don't do data.
Also Lightning cables suck because you know that literally none of them can even do even 1080p video.
There is no EU law requiring any retailers to care, so far as I know, as long as the unsafe cables don’t have USB-IF logos printed on the connectors.
https://www.totalphase.com/products/advanced-cable-tester-v2...
Starting 2024, they'll have to only sell phones with USB-C in the EU.
Assuming the iPhone 15 has USB-C, where does that leave the previous generations that they keep selling for new?
Do they:
1. Stop selling anything but the 15 in the EU?
2. Make a change to all new iPhones, even 13, 14, SE to:
2.1 Take out the port completely and leave it portless, with Magsafe for charging
2.2 Change the 13, 14 and SE designs to USB-C just for the EU?
(1) https://cleantechnica.com/2018/11/14/tesla-model-3-in-europe...
I think Apple will find a way to say that the iPhone 12 was made before the law was enacted and therefore shouldn’t apply to this particular model.
I also think the iPhone 15 will be the one to have with USB-C. At the same time, they haven’t had too many problems to keep multiple SKUs of the same model - ie CDMA iPhone 4, mmWave only 5G phones in the US, eSIM only versions of later models.
> With respect to charging by means other than wired charging, divergent solutions may be developed in the future, which may have negative impacts on interoperability, consumer convenience and the environment. Whilst it is premature to impose specific requirements on such solutions at this stage, the Commission should be able to take action towards harmonising them in the future, if fragmentation on the internal market is observed.
So they left the door open to regulate also Magsafe etc.
Technology comes and goes, standards evolve and fall away as new ones arrive.
I don't think the law has any place in deciding who uses what connector in this fashion. They can make an e-waste argument all they want, but it's nonsense. All it does is stifle future work on connectors and devices in general.
The answer to your conundrum is thus quite simple: Apple must now work with the standards it has helped create.
Edit: It's actually the Commission, not parliament that's allowed to change standards.
What if there's more than 1 design in progress for a better cable and connector with competing tradeoffs? Designing stuff means picking the right tradeoffs. For instance, you could probably design a phone that is close to indestructible and has a battery that lasts for a month if you made it as big as a brick, but obviously nobody wants that. For cable connectors, there's all kinds of subtle tradeoffs that could be taken into account: data transfer speed, electricity transfer, size and weight of cable, how easy it is to connect and how secure it is when connected, its role in waterproofing, stability in heat and challenging environments, security, etc. Are you really comfortable with some parliamentary committee vote picking between the right design tradeoffs?
And what if there's a connector that's slightly better than the existing one today, but you know that something that's clearly much better is ready in about 1-3 years? Can a parliament have the judgement needed to make the right engineering decision in the face of loads of political pressures?
Their choice has to be right because no market alternative would exist. Do you genuinely feel comfortable with this? I sure don't.
Are you comfortable with the USB-IF picking between the right design tradeoffs?
> With respect to radio equipment capable of being recharged via wired charging, the Commission is empowered to adopt delegated acts in accordance with Article 44 to amend Part I of Annex Ia in the light of technical progress or market developments, and to ensure the minimum common interoperability between radio equipment and their charging devices, by:
(a) modifying, adding or removing categories or classes of radio equipment;
(b) modifying, adding or removing technical specifications, including references and descriptions, in relation to the charging receptacle(s) and charging communication protocol(s), for each category or class of radio equipment concerned.’
Is this sentence intended to be sarcastic? I can imagine nothing more draconian and backwards than having to lobby a political organization for permission to do something innovative and outside the norm.
They are explicitly trying to avoid this, where everyone has their own "innovative" proprietary charger.
It is fairly easy for an organization such as USB-IF to put it forward to the commission when they have a new standard, considering it means that the industry has already decided on the new standard. If a new cable is improvement enough that it warrants a new standard, I don't doubt that the industry as a whole will try and make a push for it.
It would be one thing if we were stuck on Micro/MiniUSB and the EU wanted apple to use a clearly inferior technology, but USB-C stacks up very well against lightning, possibly even better.
I don't see this as the EU saying "you must start using USB-C" and more "look you can't use your proprietary cords anymore that we have very good standards, considering you are the biggest phone maker on the planet"
And that's exactly the point! Stop pretending you are special and use the same connector as anybody else.
If you really, really need a new connector:
1. propose a new standard;
2. make it retro-compatible with all the existing devices;
3. leave some slack for the next one who will need some more capabilities;
4. the parliament will declare your standard the new one.
The EU literally did mandate USB-A/plug + micro-USB (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_external_power_supply).
The successful development & widespread use of USB-C afterwards, culminating in this updated directive standardizing it, is a very neat demonstration that it didn't stifle innovation at all.
Surely there must be a difference between the old and the new law. And this difference can then still be stifling innovation.
Also, here is the final report commissioned by the EU: “Impact Assessment Study to Assess Unbundling of Chargers (July 2021)” [0].
[0] https://op.europa.eu/o/opportal-service/download-handler?ide...
Apple is going completely portless with their devices.
By the time this law is in effect there will be no external ports on Apples devices.
Anyone want to take bets on whether Apple introduces its own wireless charging standard at that time or the following year?
Only in the US, I believe. My UK iPhone 14 certainly has a SIM tray with a physical SIM in it - lucky, really, because my provider doesn't support eSIMs.
[edit: just checked and it seems my provider is the only big one that doesn't support them.]
And how about the small ones? I see eSim as limiting choice.
First the provider must support it. Second they have to support it and be compatible with my phone.
Third, how do you switch providers with an eSim? Do you need to contact servers for both the provider you're leaving and the one you're switching to? What if one of them is not reachable?
How likely is it that the provider you're turning off can put in some innocent administrative hurdles?
Physical sims seem to give me a lot more choice since no one has any say in what I plug into the phone.
I think most of the UK's small providers are just virtual providers (MVNOs)backed onto one of the big ones - eSIM support would presumably just be an option they select.
> Third, how do you switch providers with an eSim?
Haven't checked but I suspect it's exactly the same as porting your number with a physical SIM which, in the UK, is basically either a webform or phoning up to get a code from customer service.
> How likely is it that the provider you're turning off can put in some innocent administrative hurdles?
In the UK, zero, because they are explicitly prohibited from putting up any kind of obstruction to people wanting to move providers.
Not of when you port your number.
> I think most of the UK's small providers are just virtual providers (MVNOs)backed onto one of the big ones - eSIM support would presumably just be an option they select.
And are they big enough for Apple to talk to them? :)
I hope this has an expiration date, or they have a provision for easily updating the law when somebody develops a better standard. Otherwise this could mean we would be stuck with USB-C forever.
(As a developer, writing "USB-C" in a law this seems to me like hardcoding a magic string in source code. Often, it is better to have your data separate from code. Maybe it would make more sense if the law would defer to some standards body, that could update the technical decision more easily.)
Between various generations of Qualcomm Quick Charge and USB PD at various wattages for charging alone, and then USB 2.0, 3.0, 3.1, 3.2 Gen 1, 3.2 Gen 2, 3.2 Gen 2 2x2, Thunderbolt 2, Thunderbolt 3 and Thunderbolt 4 for data, it seems like they have plenty of room for future movement/fragmentation.
How will this legislation be maintained? Are Europeans going to be stuck to USB-C in 30 years, when the rest of the world has phones that charge wirelessly in 10 seconds and last for weeks?
Read the directive for yourself: https://oeil.secure.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/popups/ficheproc...
I do wish there were type C USB condoms that passed PD only but they are hard to build.
EU previously required USB mini A, and permit wireless (which isn’t completely standardized) so I wouldn’t worry about the “30 years” problem, though it’s a good problem to have: IEC 60320 is over 50 years old: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_60320
Connectors in my devices also look a bit fragile.
I am all for sharing connectors and standardization in this space (and I check if a device has an USB-C port before I consider it), but I surely hope this does not stop improvements to the charging port which are highly needed!
Physically, Lightning is a much more robust solution.
I want USB-C instead of lightning as much as anyone on my phone but I wonder what this will mean for innovation in the future.
That said, even if the upgrade path is not expressly defined, I think on balance this is still a good thing. In a "best time to plant a tree was yesterday; second best time is today" kind of way, when it comes to reducing e-waste.
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/A-9-2022-0129_...
Hand-held mobile phones, tablets, digital cameras, headphones, headsets, handheld videogame consoles and portable speakers, in so far as they are capable of being recharged via wired charging, shall:
(a) be equipped with the USB Type-C receptacle, as described in the standard EN IEC 62680-1-3:2021 ‘Universal serial bus interfaces for data and power - Part 1-3: Common components - USB Type-CTM Cable and Connector Specification’, which should remain accessible and operational at all times;
I believe the EU are saying they'll keep up with new standards as they come in. The problem I see is, how can a new standard come in if nobody is allowed to use it. Its a chicken & egg problem, the EU will allow new standards as they're used, but nobody is allowed to use new standards until the EU allows it. Thats aside from the obvious problem that the EU isnt exactly famous for its speed.
The only ways around it I can think of is either if new standards become popular in markets foreign to the EU, or if some company decides to add both USB-C and USB-D to their device, which in a world of needlessly removing the headphone jack I cant see happening.
It's just like we have new modern electronics, but they are all able to plug into the same wall sockets. I don't have to remodel my home.
From the amended text:
> The Commission shall review the application of this Directive in relation to new charging technologies and, report thereon to the European Parliament and to the Council by ... [three years after the date entry into force of this Directive], and every three years thereafter. That report shall be accompanied, if appropriate, by a proposal to amend this Directive to introduce mandatory unbundling.
If the USB Implementor’s Forum want’s to change from USB-C or USB-PD it can speak with the European Commission. It’s an organization with telephones and mail and an address and – I fear – fax machines. Not some weird angels in the sky.
I'm all for a great charging standard but USB-C ain't it.
(Seriously, why am I constantly seeing these utterly ridiculous comments in Apple topics? Do you not think for half a second before writing something utterly misguided?)
The cynic in me would think it's to force people to pay for iCloud storage instead of having to plug their phone into their computer for several hours to backup locally.
Who puts the weak point of the connector inside the more expensive of the two objects? That was a terrible design decision. Maybe Apple's patents prevented USB from doing a similar design, so they had to come up with one that was objectively slightly worse?
Then USB-C went and added that "tongue" in the port to break.
Neither standard is very good...
E.g. I hate it when the 3.5mm audio jack cord of expensive headphones is soldered stuck to the headphones. When it breaks, and it will, I have to replace the entire headphones (or do a lousy soldering job) rather then just the cord. Computer chargers are the same.
Quoting from the press release (https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20220930IP...):
> This future-proof law allows for the development of innovative charging solutions in the future
Also says they're already looking at how to support interoperability during a future migration to wireless charging too.
There should be a work group that takes more of these decisions with the aim to reduce waste says the dreamer in my but the circumspect thinks otherwise. If Apple invents a revolutionary port what happens next? Do they need EU approval?
For one thing, I suspect it is harder to the make the phone as thin, or as waterproof, with the bigger connector.
Apple also doesn’t have a monopoly, Android has far larger market share globally than they do.
I’m confused what is supposed to happen as new connectors are developed, will the Eu prevent progress on phone connectors or does this law have a sunset?
I’m having trouble seeing a bright side here. If we’d had this law before we would all be stuck using mini-usb.
I believe it when I see it! My Surfacebook has USB-C Charging but its not enough to run the GPU at max. I hate the surface dock that I need to use but from my understanding -i do have to use it- because of the power requirments.
But who knows with the new GPUs... Maybe should be a bit more headroom?
Mobile GPU max power (using Geforce examples)
80W GTX 1660 Ti (mainstream/high end before Geforce RTX took off)
115W RTX 2060 (if OEM tunes it that high)
140W RTX 3070
175W RTX 3080 Ti
Also sadly there are multiple reports about this issue with microsoft products too. That and coil whine...
If I could connect my SB1 directly to my monitor I totally would :/
source : https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2021/6988...
This will slow any innovation in charging cables until enough powerful companies need something new. Small innovators are SOL since they won’t have the influence to get the EU to allow it.
Apple has reached sufficient scale where their anti-competitive practices can be hugely detrimental to society... we don't need regulation if they would opt into consumer friendly practices to begin with.
Obviously any regulation needs to be implemented in such a way to avoid stifling innovation. Connectors have been pretty much standardized without the need for any regulation, barring Apple. Is there any logical justification for their design choice?
> Connectors have been pretty much standardized without the need for any regulation, barring Apple.
In reality, Apple took a leading role in USB-C adoption starting with 2015's MacBook Pro. Do you really think Apple wasn't going to adopt USB-C everywhere anyway?
The cool thing is that this is an absolute P.R. coup for Apple. Apple now gets to go all-USB-C, and can redirect blame for the unimaginable amount of electronic waste that this will create to the EU.
The fact that they didn’t strongly implies they didn’t want to give up the revenue from their proprietary connector. Because there is no technical reason not to use it.
Cables being sold for a dead protocol are the real waste. There is far less waste in the long run having all devices use the same connector. There’s not even an argument otherwise
How so?
Do those count as wired or wireless charging? To me, that's the only tricky part. My bet is that it would count as "wired" (and thus be illegal in the EU).
My knee-jerk reaction to the law in general is "but why...", but after reading more and the comments in this thread, I think this is a major win.
Maybe they'll stick C in a couple more devices, maybe one iPhone gen, but in all likelihood I'd say they're gonna go portless - something I wish other manufacturers had just done already, but Apple will tout it as a technologically advanced, "bold" move or something.
A bunch of politicians thinking they know what is best for consumers across dozens of countries better than the companies operating in the free market.
*elected* politicians is the key. The member states voted them in, they have a democratic mandate. No one running these companies have anywhere near the same level of responsibility to people as someone that's actually elected.
This is just another regulation on that free market, decided for by democratically elected people and not by the companies choosing not to be regulated.
Signed, happy iPhone owner.
The trade off for the CCS2 plug is mainly that it is a bit bigger than other plugs, but it's really nice to have a standard across almost all of Europe.
Besides, this EU regulation is for small portable electronics. Last time I checked I didn't carry my car in my back pocket.
Legislation to require CCS on charging points has been active in the EU since 2014, 8 years ago.
For car charging, the industry appears to be self-regulation well enough.
But at least for me, USB-C feels way more sensitive/fragile compared to Lightning.
While Plugging-in the USB-C Cable into my steam-deck i’m a bit afraid to break the port. Ramming in a Lightning Cable to any matching device doesn’t give me that feel.
Besides the obvious benefit of a single connector, do you really think USB-C is a good connector for phones/portables?
Now with them being made actually useless rather than not what I'm using right now, it's going to create so much e-waste when every iPhone user switches cables.
Seems like it's doing the exact opposite of what it's intended.
I don't understand why people are cheering for this. Why is a government body telling companies what kind of power adapter to use?!
I can't help but feel like USB-C may be superceded by something better by then.
Also HN: government bureaucrats dictating standards in a monopolistic manner is good
Also HN: choice good
Also HN: the government must protect us from choice
Yeah, sure. This is just psychotic nanny state behavior. Millions of Europeans cried out in unison: protect me from myself, I can't make decisions on my own, I'm not well enough informed to know what to do!
Typically on HN it's "Corporation enforcing closed standards is bad. Unless it's Apple. They for sure do this for innovation".
I've seen people saying that iMessage is closed for "security", where there are literally emails from Apple execs denying that. Now tons of people state that USB 2.0 molded into different plastic was vastly superior to USB-C.
The EU has enough problems right now, they don't need to try and help Apple design iPhones.
They let the industry regulate itself before regulating, Apple didn't play ball, leading to samsung saying either regulation or we do our thing too, so, regulation.
I prefer a slightly worse technical solution and a regulation that needs to be updated every few years, than every phone going back to the waste hell that used to be the cellphone charger/cable market.
Thank goodness for the EU parliament, protecting their citizenry from accidentally being exposed to the best technical outcome? Wouldn't want that. If people can't confidently say that the EU is making the best technical choices then the EU shouldn't be legislating technical outcomes. And they can't say that, because this isn't going to be the best choice - the best choice is flexible and context dependent. There are going to be better options than USB-C in some use cases. Possibly many use cases as technology improves. The legislators can't see the future - if they could they'd make better decisions.
I bet this doesn't have any material difference on waste. People will still lose and throw charges out at the same rate they always have. And manufacturers are going to turn out to be less efficient, the market is absolutely cut-throat at dealing with manufacturing processes that generate unnecessary waste. It won't be better than it is now, and they've locked out anyone doing a cheaper and less material-intensive charger than USB-C.
That is a nice way to completly miss the point and how we got there, but you do you.
> I bet this doesn't have any material difference on waste.
I bet it does, you're again missing the point, it's about not going back to what we had before, and what we have now made a significant different to what we had before.
> the market is absolutely cut-throat at dealing with manufacturing processes that generate unnecessary waste.
Ah ah ah ah. Pretty much every phone until very recently had a paid of low quality headphones that were instantly thrown out or put in a box and forgotten, and it only disapeared because jack is going away, so your own exemple doesn't work.
> There are going to be better options than USB-C in some use cases. Possibly many use cases as technology improves. The legislators can't see the future - if they could they'd make better decisions.
Yes, so the regulation will need to be kept up to date, just like regulations on things like food, pesticides, industrial processes, ... Still, parliament recognized the inferiority on the technical level of a system driven by regulation in this specific case and offered manufacturers to handle it themselves without involving them, but they couldn't (more specifically, apple refused).
Anyway, each his point of view, these people are elected and I personnaly consider this a big issue that I'm glad to see resolved by my representatives.
On what basis do you believe that? It probably isn't true, and nothing about this legislation will change the situation. They're still going to include headphones with the phone if they think it makes sense to.
> I personnaly consider this a big issue that I'm glad to see resolved by my representatives.
There is a land war in Europe right now, that triggered an energy crisis which could see governments toppled and reformed. We've already seen some pretty impressive elections in Italy and Sweden for example.
I put it to you that while you might see headphone jacks as a big issue worthy of their time you're a bit out of touch and your representatives could end up getting you killed if they agree with your priorities.
They're going to have to send investigators to more advanced foreign countries to figure out what charger to use.
The EU is never going to produce a charger that isn't backwards compatible with USB-C. They'd better hope nobody comes up with a cheaper alternative that catches on in Asia.
Creating something in isolation, with virtually no chance of it becoming "allowed" by an hostile state actor is nice, expensive, and thus won't happen. If you want to figure out if an idea works, lots and lots of field tests are what you want.
And yet, we managed to also adopt USB-C after that.
This is a law that mandates USB-C.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_external_power_supply
So the fear that somehow the EU will freeze in time while the rest of the world adopts futuristic connectors is unfounded.
As a EU citizen I benefit each time EU forces big companies like banks, telecoms to do the right thing for the citizens and be just a tiny bit less greedy. I was not on HN when telecoms were regulated to have small roaming charges , or when companies were forced to print clear information on their product labels, or when banks were forced to have some limits on the ATM charges but something tells me americans predicted a big collapse in EU and that we will have no telecoms and banks anymore. But reality shows that for telecoms we have even better prices then US, so for some reason regulations did not collapse this giants.
Meanwhile, I have a box full of chargers for all kinds of old stuff. Replacing them all with 1 standard is great. And USB is doing just that, not only for cell phones but for all kinds of gadgets. Even if I only require an USB micro and an USB C charger, that's a ton of chargers not in my house, and a ton of time not hunting around for the right one.
The main problem here is Apple. The EU went to all cellphone makers and told them to either agree to a standard voluntarily, or the EU would decide from them. This kind of process is quite normal for technology decisions in europe, BTW. Most manufacturers agreed on an USB variant( might have been micro at the time, don't know if C already existed ). Apple refused to join the club or come with an other acceptable proposal.
If a kid refuses to play along, the adults have to force the situation. The kid might not like the result and whine a bit afterwards. What surprises me is that it took so many years before this happens.
Europe is technologically backwards. They got destroyed by Shenzhen and Silicon Valley because their bureaucrats keep rolling in with this sort of idiocy. They feel a need to bring this backseat design process because their local companies aren't up to the challenge of competing with more-nimble American megacorporations.
Their phone company (Nokia) was the market leader until they got wrecked by an inability to innovate. This policy will make that outcome even more likely for European companies.
Then to add insult to injury, Huawei comes along and showed that they could operate at any standard you care to ask them to. If you get outcompeted by authoritarians and communists, it is worth asking what is wrong with your economic policies.
I suspect that forcing modular designs would not have helped the Europeans get products out that consumers wanted.
Until they got wrecked by ex-Microsoftie North American Steve Elop - who drove the company agains the wall so hard that many people who looked at it at the time said that it couldn't have been accidental...
They didn't bring Elop in because they thought they needed a steady pair of hands. They'd been caught out doing what great-grandparent says they do - sticking to the herd, playing safe, doing things the standard way and not innovating too hard.
Also consider: USB-D is going to have a much harder time reaching the market penetration it needs to be relevant. It creates a chicken and egg problem. No manufacturer will want to upgrade if they are required to use USB-C, and the EU will never update the legislation if USB-D isn't widely used.
The EU has traded some extra convenience now for severely limited innovation later.
USB B micro was what the manufacturers were deciding amongst themselves (except Apple). The EU would not have created a law if they managed to agree, and some representative industry consortium could then upgrade the standard on their own. Nobody likes how the situation is forced now, including the EU. Apple foolishly fucked over everyone.
Also note that USB 4 had no touble reaching market penetration, as it was backward compatible. A backward compatible connector is still possible. So is multiple charging methods like wireless charging. It's just that a minimum has been enshrined in law.
California did something similarly stupid in 1990s. They mandated the selling of EVs. Car makers asked the courts to limit the law "in case no one wanted them." Then car makers tried to prove no one wanted EVs and then tried to convince everyone against buying the very EV they were making!
Against:
ECR (European Conservatives and Reformists ): Ilčić (Croatia), Jurzyca (Slovakia), Zahradil (Czechia)
ID (Identity and Democracy ): Haider (Austria), Kofod (Denmark), Mayer (Austria), Vilimsky (Austria)
PPE (European People's Party Group): Herbst (Germany)
[1] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/PV-9-2022-10-0... page 16
I am waiting for the web... critical sites working with noscript/basic (x)html browsers, and not requiring those grotesquely and massively complex and huge big tech browsers with their similar SDK.
They did something for "whatsapp", but it seems it does not handle account creation.
The EU really fucked this up bad.
Luckily, I suspect that Apple will continue selling their highest-end phones with the superior lightning connector as an option.
1. Stop selling in the EU, but this is unlikely due to it being 20% of their market
2. Make a new model of iphone for the world with USBC
3. Add a premium to EU market phones to pay for the regulations
I'd like to see 2 and 3 implemented with 3 making the iPhone cost 1.5x or more in the EU
Way easier than trying to fiddle with a tiny door covering a USB port like on some of my headphones.
>> Exemptions will apply for devices that are too small to offer a USB-C port, such as smart watches, health trackers, and some sports equipment, but the legislation is expected to be expanded to other devices over time. Companies will also have to ensure that dedicated labels clearly inform consumers about the charging characteristics of devices they buy.
[Apple Employee]: What other great product ideas do you have for Apple? [Legislator]: BRING BACK MY HEADPHONE JACK YOU FREE MARKET BULLY!
Considering Apple was enforcing USB-C on their MBPs back in 2016 to try to impose innovation.
I am glad that Apple will finally come around, even if by force, but I worry how much this could stifle innovation.
The dongle should have the phone numbers of those who passed this law etched into it.
Just let me keep my Lightning port as an American.
Except that it isn't obvious. You're essentially at the end of an extremely long and complicated supply chain for a multi-million device pipeline. You have no idea what a change, any change, involves. And because you don't know this (assuming you're not a supply chain engineer of design for manufacture specialist) you cannot state that it is obvious either.
What is obvious is that some people would have liked it sooner, and what is also obvious is that the manufacturer (Apple) has been moving in that direction for years (on other lower-volume lower-risk devices).
Tim Cook made himself a legendary leader in logistics and manufacturing before taking on the CEO role for being able to do just what you say he would have problem doing.
If you nuke lightning from iPhones, you have the same problem as with the 30-pin connectors: entire cars suddenly don't work with your phone anymore, many years worth of produced lightning devices no longer connect and everything from charging and data exchange to debugging and alternate output modes will no longer work. This is not a technical problem to solve, since they already wrote tools and created workflows for doing that on the less risky product lines (Macs, iPads etc.) where the impact of a bad port implementation is much lower. But phones are still carried around all day (in pockets no less), charged/plugged a lot etc. which while seemingly slightly different makes for additional risk when implementing.
Considering that seemingly insignificant changes (like that dumb antenna shorting problem when holding the phone in the iPhone 4 due to a small case change) can lead to huge and very expensive problems (like replacing all panels on the first white iPhones due to the paint not sticking well enough). If you have 70 million iPads and 1% has the issue, that's not great but also not too bad. If you have 200+ million iPhones and 1% has an issue, that's pretty bad, and you also get a lot more flak because people are very emotional about their phones, as well as phones they don't have and would never buy but still complain about.
Back to the supply chain and logistics, all fixtures, machining workflows, testing and component sourcing would have to change, which isn't too bad on its own, but because there are still many many years of supported phones out there, you have to keep the old method around as well. This problem doesn't exactly go away, regardless of how long you stall, but if you work on a method to make that less of a problem (i.e. make sure the next revision of test harnesses and repair fixtures account for it when they get cycled), while also growing your ecosystem (other devices with USB-C within your brand) you can build up knowledge and specialism in your workforce (i.e. the people that make the manuals for the people that work in the store can lean from inevitable mistakes they will make in the initial USB-C versions of iPads). That means that when you do finally make the seemingly tiny change (which for charging really is just a bunch of B.S. since it's not about the port on the device but the plug you stick in the charger) and get those internal USB-C models they probably have had for years up in the design for manufacture and retail phase, the risk is much lower.
It is however, just as likely that they will go full iPhone X again and make a portless phone instead. Going portless has the same ecosystem risk (mostly marketing risk) since they would be breaking compatibility with lighting anyway, but because there won't be a new port, there isn't going to be a change in material thickness, ingress points in general or new chips to add to the design. So perhaps that would be half the risk of another connector migration.
And Apple has been cruelly blindsided, as the EU has only been pushing this issue since 2009, giving Apple a mere 13 years to prepare.
It just wasn't reasonable to expect them to conquer the massive challenge of USB charging in the iPhone 4, 4s, 5, 5c, 5s, 6, 6 plus, 6s, 6s plus, 7, 7 plus, 8, 8 plus, x, xr, xs, xs max, 11, 11 pro, 11 pro max, 12, 12 mini, 12 pro, 12 pro max, 13, 13 min, 13 pro, 13 pro max,13, 14 plus, 14 pro, or 14 pro max.
- https://www.androidauthority.com/state-of-usb-c-870996/
- https://www.pcworld.com/article/424287/beware-bad-usb-c-cables-google-engineer-warnswhile-naming-names.html
- https://pocketnow.com/usb-c-compatibility-problems/
- https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/fix-usb-c-problems-in-windows-f4e0e529-74f5-cdae-3194-43743f30eed2
- https://hackaday.com/2021/03/22/cursed-usb-c-when-plug-orientation-matters/ (this one is for the USB2 compatibility pins which are orientation-specific)
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30911598
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29445458
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23435805
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21533862
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15473777
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24650718
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12824366
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11021665
Also, suggesting someone was blindsided is just a dumb flame bait and you know it. If you can't properly discuss this, why are you even here?
Can't replace old diesel trucks with green fuel trucks because the act of replacing them causes some pollution.
It's entire raison d'être of the law is to mandate that devices themselves and their charger share a common standard. So an example e.g. Annex 2a clarifies that:
> The requirements in points 2 and 3 below shall apply to the following categories or classes of radio equipment [mobile phones, tablets, cameras, headsets, mice, etc, ...]
> [They shall] be equipped with the USB Type-C receptacle, as described in the standard EN IEC 62680-1-3:2021 ‘Universal serial bus interfaces for data and power - Part 1-3: Common components - USB Type-C® Cable and Connector Specification’, which should remain accessible and operational at all times;
Now defactor I'd never seen before.
I assume it will take ten years or so.
Really I would just love a small usbc female to lighting male. Would solve all my cable problems basically.
The one true universal charging port is a round DC plug. USB power delivery should only be used to power external devices.
The law forces them to support the USB-PD standard, which they don't at the moment.
Personally I had 1 charger per device I had, each with their own weird connector, and each cable sold at $20+ a pop, and definitely more if you wanted a "data-cable". These days I only have 2: USB for almost everything, and Lighting for the Apple-thingies only.
With a move like this, I can be down to having only 1 type of charger and connector. It'll be great!
And it will after this move too. You'll just need to use a regular USB-A -> USB-C cable instead of a USB-A -> Lightning cable.
At least a shared standard connector cable will still be usable with other devices. I still have devices that take mini-USB, micro USB, and USB B. Give it 10 or 15 years after iPhone switches off Lightning, and no one will even have a lightning cable anymore, because no one is interested in using a 10 year old iPhone, and no other device uses Lightning.
For me Lightning is just another in your list of connectors that I wish would go away and standardise to USB-C.
As someone who is travelling right now, with a two port charger and two iPhones, an iPad, a laptop, a Switch, an Apple Watch and two sets of USB-C headphones between us, one connector would actually be a significant quality of life improvement (though an even better one would be hotels not killing power to the socket when I’m not in the room so I can charge my devices while I’m out!)
Removing the port entirely is not an option.
Pretty much like they should have done with computers and OSes in 2009.
Mind you, split sale = two items at checkout and the oppotunity to buy separately.
> Unbundling the sale of a charger from the sale of the electronic device
Why does EU think it's so important to have USB-C on iphone that they must pass laws dictating apple's business strategy?
It feels the EU is overreaching here, by alot. There are alot of other e-waste that's much worst than iphone cables and they serve as a solid competitor to the usb-c clusterf%^$ standards that's going on right now.
Can't be passing consumer laws imo to make things slightly more convenient for the end user.
Then I bought a new phone. I had a USB-C port. Suddenly, I couldn't charge it up just anywhere. If that phone had a Micro-USB version, I'd have chosen that one in a heartbeat.
Yes, USB-C is nice. Better than Micro-USB. So good that it compensates for the hassle? No.
I think USB-C is one of the first "good enough" connectors we have had for the arbitrary use-case. It's reversible. It's suitable for high-power and high-bandwidth use-cases. It's robust. micro-USB works ok for charging small devices, but would it really make sense to replace USB-A with it for plugging peripherals into your PC for example?
Yes, being able to plug in the connector both ways around is nice, but it wasn't that inconvenient not to be able to do that, especially when put against the inconvenience of needing these extra heads.
I can certainly imagine someone having similar frustrations when Mini-USB gave way to Micro-USB. I can only hope that when USB-D connectors come around, there's more than only small incremental improvements to get me on board.
If USB-C has the same longevity, and can also replace small-form-factor connectors, that's a pretty big win right? It's not too bad to put up with a connector change 2-4 times in your life.
USB 4 on iPhones, and ideally Thunderbolt on the Pro iPhones that shoot large videos, would be amazing.
I didn't read the texts, but wouldn't something like mandating companies to release a version of their products with USB-C better instead of only allowing USB-C? Say for example Apple wants to release iPhone 20 with Lightning, or full wireless, then force them to also release iPhone 20 with USB-C and leave the choice to consumers? Is this allowed by the texts?
So pretty much nothing, a manufacturer can go straight to wireless charging.
This is a victory for “Orderly but Dumb.”
For the essential read, see: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Like_a_State
Am I understanding this correctly that the first required iPhone to be updated would be the iPhone 16 (2025), given that next years iPhone will most likely be released before this effective date.
1) it is additional attack vector, what if maid in my hotel enhanced my charging brick with rubber ducky?
2) mag safe is very convenient
Also, who cares about magsafe? Only Apple laptops have it.
I think the move to USB-C is a smart one, it can even reach 100W. Speeds are insane too.
From: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20220930IP...
Compare that with the traditional barrel connector which is usually an easy repair. Most designs have the barrel connector on a cable assembly rather than having the connector soldered to the motherboard.
I wish more laptops had it. My old work HP laptop's USB-C port started having some play, so my monitor wouldn't always connect properly to it. Bump the desk, and the screen would start to flicker. The same monitor / cable works perfectly on other PCs.
My new HP work laptop has the USB-C port so tight, that whenever I need to unplug the charger, it counts as arm day.
And while I, personally, don't do it all the time, it does happen from time to time that I grab my foot in the power cable and drag the laptop with it. I usually realize it quickly enough to not pull it completely off the desk, but it's the kind of fear I never had with my MBP.
I've never heard of anyone complaining about the connector wearing out or otherwise working less well after a while. What usually happens is that the cable frays around the connector, but I'd say that's not a connector problem, but rather thin plastic without enough tension relief.
2. I think mag safe chargers will be allowed to continue. Note that even now you can charge the macbooks with magsafe with usb-c charger..
I'm sure these will be available in iPhone design soon:
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/usbharpoon-is...
A charger has one job, namely to charge. Stop this "thin hardware design" mania and design a proper plug.
Also I wonder if this will push Apple to go wireless-only.
Fuck off! Barrel plugs are great.
That really improved the web and the reduce tracking!
Reality: Laws are the only way to civilise mankind.
Two, if you wait until everything is perfect and there are no issue to fix the everyday things, then you never do.
Your comment makes no sense.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB4
It's just like we have new modern electronics, but they are all able to plug into the same wall sockets. I don't have to remodel my home.
Is the USB-C connector going to be the best connector for everything on into the future?
What about mag-safe-like connectors? Wireless? Something you and I can't even think of right now?
Introducing such a connector won't be an engineering challenge so much as a political one. The barriers and cost will be much higher, and quite possibly insurmountable from a practical perspective.
And you can always add another type of plug next to the existing one. <- this answers your question
Because Apple doesn't make entire homes, I guess.
> And the idea of just installing two is particularly beclowning.
Why? A connector does not consume a significant amount of resources.
10 years to lobby the EU to update the law.
Keep complaining and they're going to remove screens next to be super super duper innovative.
Clearly, there should be also no reason why EU should not know what is the best way to source these items and manufacture it as well since EU is represented by the people.
So why stop at the USB-C regulation?
Why can't EU manufacturer the phone as well? How do I sign a petition for this?
And “empower consumers to make more sustainable choices“. typical gov speak. If I was Apple I’d build in a lightning to usb-c adapter to the bottom and add a chin to the phone that resembled the older Pixels and engrave on it EU mandated.
The fact that stupid website designers and even stupider web marketers want to collect useless information to the point that they have to have complicated cookie acceptance banners is not the EU's fault.
The GDPR forces system designers to actually work out how to deal with their customers saying "forget about me" and the regulations have the force of law and fines behind them.
It makes it much easier as a designer to say "No you can't collect random information and make a profile of the customer that we can sell to unrelated companies, because otherwise we'll get a huge fine."
Also regardless of what websites say in the notices that I must click through I still manage privacy settings on my side through browser controls.