Apple gets $19M fine in Brazil for not selling iPhones with charger

That makes no sense, Lightning was introduced in 2012. And the older Dock Connector chargers had detachable USB cables (I don't remember Apple ever using bonded chargers), so you could have used your existing charger with a new cable.

And an other commenter reports that the judge commented:

> telling Apple that it could help the environment in other ways, such as giving its devices USB-C support.

But Lightning predates USB-C by 2 years. There was no USB-C to switch to when Apple introduced Lightning.

And I can understand and emphasise with immediately switching over from and obsoleting all the "brand new" Lighting-based docks & co.

Apple has started the switch with a few ipads (and obviously all the macs), and I've been expecting the deprecation of Lightning this year or the next, as it's been a decade, which is about how long the Dock Connector existed before the introduction of Lightning (though it survived Lightning for a few years in older devices and developing countries, IIRC Apple stopped selling the last dock connector device around 2015).

> 4. If Apple doesn't give the charger, or sell it really cheap, Brazillians WILL use chinese knockoffs that set themselves on fire, it is just the reality in the country where all tech is crazy expensive.

But how is that Apple's responsibility? And surely they'll do that either way so they can have multiple chargers?

- it wouldn't be a problem if Apple did use USB-C, because "good enough" USB-C chargers are "everywhere" (e.g. come with your laptop, tablet, previous phone, etc.). And aren't too expensive either.

What if they required some “expensive” proprietary battery that was sold separately? (Power tools do this in the US)

For me, I don’t know anything about Brazil, but this lawsuit only makes sense if they misled the public into believing there would be a cable included. Likely, it was very clear about was actually included and people just didn’t read it or care enough (already deciding they’d buy a knock-off). I remember this moment in time and it was pretty well known in the US from my recollection. Even my non-tech friends knew about it and were kind of upset that it would cost them more and all their existing cables and accessories would be obsolete.

It would be a pretty interesting law: Supposing it were wealthy enough, what if the government gave everyone an iPhone?

It could have so many positive effects.

“People” everywhere else do not replace their iPhones every generation either.

https://news.mongabay.com/2019/06/brazil-guts-environmental-...

But here we are only talking about Brazil. Maybe if they project 1000 of years of future sales the figure would make sense? It is also unreasonable to assume every charger is wasted. Some would be used or recycled.

861,000 tons of copper, zinc, and tin sounds like a lot of metal to me. Is it minuscule at Apple's manufacturing scale?

> Existem bilhões de adaptadores de energia USB-A já em uso em todo o mundo que nossos clientes podem usar para carregar e conectar seus dispositivos. [1]

> Translation: There are billions of USB-A power adapters already in use around the world that our customers can use to charge and connect their devices

Those "billions of USB-A adapters" however won't work with the cable provided in newer iPhones, which is lightning and USB-C.

[1] https://g1.globo.com/tecnologia/noticia/2022/09/06/ministeri...

There are definitely situations now where I really don't need a new charger when I buy a device, so if I can just pick the "no charger" option, I will. But most likely - we won't get the choice. Because it costs more to Apple and other corporations.

I was a bit surprised that my S21 charged super slowly on my OnePlus 30W charger, so I had to buy a Samsung 25W charger. (There are others that work, but they were all roughly the same price as the official one.)

There's already an Apple extra margin here over the US retail price.

A USD 1000 Dell notebook here is about BRL ~9000 with all taxes. A USD 1000 Apple MacBook is BRL ~20000.

So there's something they charge extra above the well known govt taxes.

That's why no one will say sorry to Apple.

However, in Brazil this sort of fine has upper limits established by the consumers protection law -- the fine must be based on losses caused to customers; it can't be proportional to revenue or profits.

However in practice imported electronics tend to cost up to about 100% then their original price abroad for several reasons, usually but not exclusively related to difficulties in 3rd world countries e.g. bribes necessary to get the shipment, insurance over shipment theft, margin risk due to volatile forex, etc

For example, atm an iPhone 14 costs 800 USD in the US Apple Store and 7600 Brazilian Reais in the Brazilian one. With the current exchange rate at ~5.20, that's around 80% more. Not that bad actually, that ratio has been worse in the past.

iPhone: $800 iPhone in Brazil: $3000

Now with the currency in the toilet and companies "manufacturing" in Brazil (basically just assembling ready-made kits shipped from China) the multiplier is no longer valid, but still, an iPhone 14 basic model is $1461.

For purchase parity calculations: $1461 is about 7 minimum wages in BRL. If that held for the US, an iPhone here would cost some $7500.

Harsh.

When the currency was strong, it was even worse. When I moved back to BR in 2011, BRLUSD was something like 0.9 (strong BRL), and a VW Jetta cost around USD 45000.

Harsh.

1. taxes, although it varies. Imported consumer electronics are taxed more heavily. However, there are regions with fiscal incentives for companies to install their factories here. Products manufactured in such regions are not as nearly expensive;

2. an excess of credit offered by banks. This created an extremely pernicious cultural habit: people don't evaluate the product's price, but the loan's installment size -- regardless of how expensive is the product, the interest paid to the bank, the number of installments etc.

3. there's a fetish for fancy and expensive stuff, they bring social status, and people are idiot enough to accept the prices -- and, with the aforementioned excess of credit, no lack of money can prevent them from shooting their own heads.

These are essentially the same reasons why cars are also so expensive here. Manufacturers say it's because taxes, and ~ 100% of customers buy this bullshit, but this has already been proved wrong a number of times. For any brazilians doubting it, I invite you guys to:

1. look up any article comparing prices of Brazilian-manufactured cars sold locally vs their prices when exported to Mexico. The difference on taxes don't explain the end prices, and the manufacturers and ANFAVEA never provided an explanation for that

2. a statement from Toyota's CEO when visiting Brazil, probably unaware of local idiosyncrasies and the fib told by manufacturers, including themselves: "why should we charge less for our cars if they are paying?"; and then he tried to fix it with a "the prices we charge in Brazil are the fair ones, it's the rest of the world that forces us to charge too little."

3. Nintendo closing its factory due to "an excess of taxes and bureaucracy" while Sony and Microsoft local factories were doing pretty well in the very same market

4. The small credit crisis from 2011 that made car prices to drop extremely sharply within 1 month or so

They both know it's a symbolic amount for now.

It didn't work in Europe. What makes you think it will work elsewhere?

But we aren't "most people". Surely there's a middle ground here.

And I have to say it, but one piece of the solution needs to be "Apple stops selling junk with proprietary connectors". The space of people who have an extra USB-C charger is MUCH larger than folks who have an extra lightning brick. I've stopped carrying extra bricks around when travelling with the family because the laptop charger does quadruple duty on all the devices.

They what now?

Lightning has been a thing for quite a while.