Apple exec confirms iPhones will switch to USB-C because 'we have no choice' Apple exec Greg "Joz" Joswiak has confirmed that the company will follow the European Union's requirement for mobile devices to use USB-C by 2024, which was signed into law on Monday. For now, the iPhone uses Apple's proprietary connector, Lightning. Although Apple is on the USB Implementers Forum, it began using Lightning …
Seems to me they're milking the PR opportunity. After all, if USB-C is good enough for Macs, why isn't it good enough for phones? Finiancially it probably makes little difference to them now to switch because the money saved on cheaper BOM and standardisation will more than cover what they make in the dwindling peripherals market now that so much stuff is done wirelessly.
"Sometimes, corporate behemoths don't have the last word."
I think that's actually the biggest part of the story. Apple being ordered to comply rather than them choosing to comply in their own special and often non-standard way. It would have been just as easy for them, once they saw the writing on the wall, to comply as soon as practicable and praise the new rules for standardising things for consumers. But no, not Apple. They have to sulk and then begrudgingly announce they "have no choice" LOL It makes them seem like petulant children.
On Politics Live today, the Tory Brexiteer was making all manner of claims that we can now rip up all the laws from the EU and make our own, and trade with other nations.
The perpetual ignorance or flaw by the Tories and Brexiteers, is that if you want to sell into the market, you have to comply with their standards and rules. To keep costs down, then creating a single product for all markets is much cheaper than a fragmented approach where you have to create a different product for each market.
In the end, you still have to comply with the EU rules if you want to deal with the EU. The Brexiteers false victories are quite tiresome.
In the end, you still have to comply with the US rules if you want to deal with the US.
In the end, you still have to comply with the CPTPP rules if you want to deal with the CPTPP members.
In the end, you still have to comply with the Indian rules if you want to deal with India.
The UK already has to comply with a myriad of rules if we want to trade, and do, and will continue to. Quite why some people think the EU is somehow special is quite beyond me.
None of which incidentally requires us to allow EU law to be the law of the UK. That is what's wrong, and that is what's being changed. UK laws set by the UK, as it should be.
Not sure what your point is? Yes, of course you have to comply with their rules if you want to seel into trading blocks, and the approach normally taken is to just to take all the trading blocks, find the most restrictive rules and comply with them, then you are covered and can sell one design into all of them.
And the most restrictive is frequently the EU. So in practice, if British companies want to sell into the EU (as many do) they need to comply. And coming the other way, making UK rules less restrictive (if that happens) will have no impact on global devices like the iPhone as there would be no logic in creating a specific model for the UK, so they'll just sell the model which complies with EU rules.
Whatever your views on Brexit (I voted remain, but am now largely ambivalent - I have absolutely no remaining respect for the EU, or the UK government, after the past few years) it cannot be denied that these fantasies of British companies 'doing their own thing' were always bollocks and never a realistic option in a global market.
You've heard of the UNHCR, right? According to you, you're going to throw out all of those pesky internationally agreed to human rights, because they weren't UK laws.
How about you FULLY think through your talking points for hypocritical bollocks before opening your ignorant trap?
We were discussing trade rules and EU laws. The UN High Commission for Refugees is not an EU body. UK human right predate the EU, and indeed were a formative input to the ECHR, the European Convention on Human Rights, which itself predates the EU.
The UK has always and continues to lead the world in human rights. It would be ignorant to claim otherwise.
Maybe because there is no breach in human rights in sending someone to a safe country that will provide them security and accommodation, and the ECHR are making bad judgements that don't factor in the basic human rights of British people to be safe and secure in their own country.
Meanwhile 12000 Albanian men illegally crossed the channel this year. Don't pretend to me that they've all had to flee persecution in France because I do not believe that.
But your Home Secretary has championed exiting the ECHR
You are confusing the European Convention on Human Rights, of which the UK was a founder member and has no intention of leaving, and the European Court of Human Rights, which the UK believes should not be able to overule the UK supreme court.
The idea of that Court was essentially created by Britain with other countries coming onboard later to make it happen and the single largest mover & shaker in getting it implemeneted was the grandfather of Alexander "Boris" Johnson
It's acted as a last resort in terms of preventing ideologically extreme laws from remaining on the books (or getting there in the first place) and removing it is eerily like steps taken by a certain other Western European country in the 1930s under a right wing populist government
"which the UK believes should not be able to overule the UK supreme court."
Yep, as we're all seeing the shit-show that is the US Supreme Court, now full right-wing religious zealots, who are putting the country back 100 years - acting as puppets for a right-wing sociopath, who admires the leaders Russia, North Korea and China, as they are "strong".
Cause that is such a great place to be.. I used to have a lot of respect for UK courts, but part of that, what their was always recourse... now, they're open to political manipulation.
More importantly, EU rules aren't set into place without unanimous agreement - meaning that if Britain actually objected to any of them, they wouldn't have BECOME rules
In fact Britain was behind many of the locally unpopular rules it subsequently "blamed the EU" for - it's a convenient way of passing the blame for your own distasteful actions by obscuring the origin
Not that it matters, Britain is now out and the EU is unlikely to let it back in for at least another 50 years even if there's a change in government tune tomorrow. Britain is finding out it's a very small fish swimming alone in shark-infested waters and "the old allies/colonies" have zero interest in bailing it out this time (they still have memories of abuse under the Ottawa agreement and being left in the lurch in 1973)
We note how you leave laws being set by parliament out as current legislation effectively allows laws to be set by ministerial whim. So, "taking back control by the elites" seems to be fully on track.
In practice, a lot of the ideas are more than just bollocks, they will have tangible effects on people and business by removing legislation without replacing it with something equivalent.
I thoroughly and entirely support your desire to challenge Parliament on the laws it's passing.
Thanks to Brexit you're now allowed to.
As was stated in Parliament on Tuesday, "The laws with which we are dealing came in under section 2(2) of the European Communities Act. Either they came in with minimum scrutiny but could not be amended or changed, or they came in with no scrutiny at all."
Please, scrutinise the laws. I welcome this. The EU did not.
Are you aware that the UK sent UK people to the EU parliament in the form of MEP's that British people elected ?
In essence, we the UK people directly elected the UK MEP's who helped create the EU laws we accepted.
Are you aware that the UK negotiated many opt out clauses in the EU laws ?
In essence, the UK got what it wanted and was never really forced to accept laws it did not want, as it could have vetoed the laws.
The entire Brexit argument that we have somehow taken back sovereignty is false. A lie. We never lost it. We always had the final say to refuse any law from the EU, it is just that the UK never used it.
In essence, we the UK people directly elected the UK MEP's who helped create the EU laws we accepted.
Well, no. The MEPs get to talk about the laws over lunch, but they only get to vote on the rules that the (unelected) European Commission presents to them. The Commission has the power, the Parliament is just an expensive talking shop. Which is why turnout in European elections is so pitifully low almost everywhere in the EU.
"The UK already has to comply with a myriad of rules if we want to trade, and do, and will continue to. Quite why some people think the EU is somehow special is quite beyond me."
The EU/EEA/Europe is a market of around 500M+ people (including us on our 'special' island). It is pretty much the biggest developed market in the world, somewhat larger than the USA which has only 330M people. It makes good sense for businesses to follow the standards of the largest markets, and so decisions of the EU carry a lot of weight internationally.
(Yes, India and China are even more populous, but are not yet in a position to be buying iPhones and many other products in the same volumes. At some point they might be, and then it might be one, or both, of them setting the rules (which is perhaps a good "locally selfish" reason for the EU to be using its current soft power to be taking the global lead in this way). I can just imagine the little Brexiters' heads exploding if it turned out that other "even more" [sic] 'foreign' people (we are all human, remember) were setting the rules, and we had no input into the matter at all…)
The EU is also made up of our nearest neighbours, where we sell (or did sell, until we tied ourselves up in red tape) most of our exports, and it's of mutual benefit to all of us to have compatible standards and products.
"None of which incidentally requires us to allow EU law to be the law of the UK. That is what's wrong, and that is what's being changed. UK laws set by the UK, as it should be."
The UK did set the laws for the UK (and for the rest of the EU) by being an active member of the EU, and having its fair say; indeed, the UK was one of the main proponents of the Single Market in the first place. Something like 97% of EU laws were passed with the UK's approval, there were very few cases where the UK voted against, surely this is good evidence of the benefits of a collaborative process in developing legislation?
Humanity progresses better when we work together cooperatively, rather than pretending we are uniquely 'special'. If, for some reason, the UK now decided to use its "freedom" (Oh, the oppressive USB-C! What a burden 'tis to me!) to mandate the use of barrel connectors (or possibly even worse, something like the horrible old Apple 30-pin connector again), everyone would laugh at us (even more so than they are doing already), and would ignore us, saying: "We're not making a 'special' connector for a minor market, just buy the agreed standard product, or it's your loss…".
The UK went from being a big player in the big EU market to being a totally separate, smaller market dependent on the EU for it's existence. Everyone will comply with EU laws and if the UK's laws are different those products will either not be sold there or an inferior version will be available at a much higher price.
After Brexit the UK is no less beholden to the EU, it just gets no say in how the EU is run.
"The contact springs are inside the cable, not the socket, meaning that while your cable may wear out, your device socket won't"
Both contact surfaces wear every time a connector is mated or unmated. Consequently which half carries the spring contact is not a really valid criterion for life span for the pair. Particularly for these small connector types carrying power, it's primarily dictated by how long the gold plating lasts intact, as contact resistance rises smartly once it's worn through regardless of which half has lost its plating.
My laptop ethernet port failed after a few months of use. Somehow the sprung wires bent and crossed over. So i have to use a USB ethernet adapter.
If the port was contact only, and the spring connector was on the cable then the failure of the springs would not be an issue as cables are easily replaced.
How did you manage that? I've never had even the most ham-fisted of users manage to break an ethernet port (USB ports get broken periodically), and back in the days of PS/2 keyboard and mouse connectors they regularly got mashed by people trying to force them in without the pins lined up).
I haven't a clue how it happened. The sprung connectors are very brittle too. I attempted to move them back and they snapped. I was thinking about replacing the connector but it is a lot of effort and the USB ethernet adaptor works fine, so i will just continue as the laptop is 7 years old.
I had similar happen on an IBM Thinkpad 15 years ago. Was a royal PITA, and never could get them back to "normal". Wound up putting the hard drive in another laptop and being much more careful when unplugging.
All I could figure was the tips of some of the contact "wires" got hung in the grooves of the RJ45 plug and as I pulled it out, they got bent.
Yeah, it's pretty rare, but a PITA when it happens. I've seen it a few time in my years as a field engineering repairing laptops. I suspect, as you say, it's the grooves in the plastic of the plug not being quite perfect. Maybe some "flashing" left from the moulding process, or cheap tat from China[1] with a marginally narrower groove causing wear.
[1] I'm not saying Chinese stuff is all tat. Just that most tat comes from China :-)
I'm sure it'll turn out better than Ronnie Barker's effort!
Icon: I didbringabeeralong. ("and a couple bottles of sweet sherry for the ladies"...)
How to let someone know you've never experienced the joys of a damaged socket spring contact without actually saying so...
It's not the wear and tear on both mating surfaces under normal use that's the issue here, it's the potential (very much a real one, as many of us will be able to attest to, unfortunately) for something out of the ordinary to cause enough damage to the spring contacts such that it renders the socket (almost) entirely useless. Off the top of my head, I've seen it on RJ sockets of varying flavours, on mini USB, and on the cartridge socket Nintendo use for the DS...
So I'm very, VERY, much in favour of having the moving parts of the connector fitted to the thing that's going to be easier/cheaper to replace, than to the thing which would cost a bloody fortune to repair/replace.
I once managed to pull the plastic casing for two SATA data sockets off a motherboard, leaving just the bare "sprung" pins sticking out of the MOBO. No, don't ask me how I managed it either. I'd assume those things would be at least glued on, if not soldered.
I managed to thread the pins back through for one of the sockets, which was the one I needed to have working, but the other one was then screwed. Thankfully, the motherboard also had four others as far as I can recall.
So I'm very, VERY, much in favour of having the moving parts of the connector fitted to the thing that's going to be easier/cheaper to replace, than to the thing which would cost a bloody fortune to repair/replace.
OK, imagine you're the manufacturer of said product. What would you have the sucker buy more often: the cable or the motherboard?
You might have a 20W USB-C cable come in the box with your new smartphone, but it could be cooked if used with a 100W laptop power adapter.
Only if something is purposefully out of spec. All USB-C compliant cables are rated to carry 60W (3A @ 20V) - if it doesn't, its not a real USB-C cable. A to-spec USB-C charger initially gives out a max of 7.5W (5V @ 1.5A), unless the device requests more, either passively (by the device attaching a resistor to a specific USB pin), in which case you can get up to 15W (5V @ 3A), or actively negotiating, where you can get 15 - 60W (5V @ 3A, 9V @ 3A, 15V @ 3A, 20V @ 3A). To get those higher voltages, your device has to specifically request them.
To get 100W (20V @ 5A), you additionally need an active USB cable with a chip in it that effectively advertises that it is capable of it. No chip, no 100W.
So, if you plug your phone which came with an apparently not to standard USB-C cable (unlikely) and you plugged it in to a 100W USB-C charger, for you to have problems your phone would have to ask for more than 20W, which would be surprising for a device that shipped with a non standard cable that only supports 20W. Its never going to get 100W unless they shipped a cable with an active chip in it that advertises it can support 100W but is only physically capable of 20W.
In other words, a lot needs to go wrong before USB-PD fucks up. Its like they thought about this or something
I have a Belkin thunderbolt/USB-C dock, supplied by my work, for my work laptop. The thing cost so much money, I had to go through a different procurement process to get it, and it gets so hot, it's uncomfortable to hold your hand against.
I've seen ads for other similar docks, not made by Belkin, for about a quarter of the price. If I'd bought the thing myself, I'd certainly not have chosen that one...
In other words, a lot needs to go wrong before USB-PD fucks up. Its like they thought about this or something
They thought about it, but then there was that bloke from Google who had to trash a lot of kit to make sure people cared enough.
I wonder how many house fires Mr Leung prevented?
I really wish someone would explain the difference between "chargers" and "cables" to these people.
I am now going to have to chuck out my whole set of lightning cables and accessories when I upgrade from my iPhone 7. I won't need new chargers (none are provided with the current iPhones) as the ones I've got now will continue to work just fine when I replace all the cables...
I am now going to have to chuck out my whole set of lightning cables and accessories when I upgrade from my iPhone 7. I won't need new chargers (none are provided with the current iPhones) as the ones I've got now will continue to work just fine when I replace all the cables...
Indeed. The EU, in its infinite wisdom, has just ended up causing more waste not less. Chargers from every major brand, for at least the last decade, have been fitted with USB A ports into which a multitude of different cables can be plugged.
It pretty unfair to blame the EU for that, and when Apple does it is just disingenuous. The EU has been pushing for common chargers since 2009, well before Apple introduced Lightning connectors. And Apple was pretty much the only company not cooperating with the (at that time voluntary) rules. They could have conformed with the rest of the industry. They could have made lightning available for use as a common standard, instead of patenting it shut. But they chose to prioritize their own profit over the EU's desire to reduce waste. That's why all those Lightning cables exist and why the will now become obsolete, Apple did that knowingly and they can't blame anyone else for it.
From the start the EU has said they would prefer an industry driven standard and would only pass actual laws if that didn't happen. And it happened, all phones sold in the EU use USB-C these days, all the standards are publicly available. Except iPhones, I highly doubt this would have even become a law if it wasn't for Apple refusing to cooperate...
And which connector did they initially push?
The rather abysmal micro or was it mini ? Midget? One of those non reversible funky shaped misbegotten mistakes. Good job they lost that time, as otherwise how would we be able to get to the USB C ? A perfect example of why no government has any business mandating things like connectors for portable devices.
I suppose at least the USB C is flexible.
But what is supposed to happen when the next better standard comes around?
There was nothing wrong in mandating an adaptor to fit between an EU spec cable from a charger and any manufacturer’s possibly superior offering that isn’t invented yet, and now never will be.
"But what is supposed to happen when the next better standard comes around?"
If you read the legislation, or any of the many simplified guides to it, you'd know that the rules are set such that future changes in the technology has been allowed for. ANd never forget that, as posted above, almost everyone chose to follow the voluntary industry standard and it's because of the outliers such as Apple that the voluntary code has been made into a law. If it had been a couple of small, minor players, no one would have cared. But, no, one of the "big boys" had to claim they were "special".
Indeed, as anyone who deals with EU standards knows, they can and do change as required to keep up with the times.
Whilst there may well be an element of "designed by committee" about them, I've come to regard them (at least the ones I have to comply with at work) as generally quite well thought out and sensible. Something I really wish I could say the same about for some of the equivalent standards from other parts of the world that I also have to comply with...
... up until the point where the collective market can't actually come to a standard, which is when governments step in.
"Business", collectively, will generally do whatever they can to make a buck, starting with "I'll invent a new type of <foo> and corner the market!" and going downhill from there.
The EU has been pushing for common chargers since 2009
do you understand the difference between a "charger " and a "cable that plugs into the USB-A port of a charger ". Whle it is a good idea to standardize on "chargers " with a standard USB-A plug, why impose also the other end ? Each device comes with a cable anyway, so whether it's a USB-A/USB-C or USB-A/Lightning or a USB-A/WhatEver cable, it doesn't reduce electronic waste a single bit.
Because once you've achieved a critical mass of devices all charging using the same type of cable, you don't then need to supply a cable with each new device as it'd be reasonable to presume the owner already has enough of them already...
Also, if right now you lose/break the only cable you've got available to charge a particular device, then you're going to place a fairly high priority on getting a replacement asap. OTOH, if one of your myriad of equally capable and interchangeable cables gets lost/broken, I suspect you'd be rather less bothered about replacing it at all.
How much waste did Apple create when they switched from dock to lightning?
Also, consider the wider aspects of this move, rather than just the immediate ones. Yes, in the short term it'll mean anyone upgrading from an older to newer iPhone will have to get a new cable/adapter and maybe replace some accessories, but those are all one-time hits. Longer term, once those Apple users are set up for USB-C operation, it allows them to intwract more freely with whatever other devices they've got which are also using USB-C, reducing the likelihood of needing to buy more cables etc in future.
Eh. I had to chuck all my Mini-B cables when I got my new Android Pixel
Which sucked because I had a couple expensive 10ft ones that could actually reach the charger. This American sh*thole does not have enough wall sockets.
I then had to track down and buy some 10ft USB-C cables, which was NOT EASY, at least when I needed them.
How are they still sticking with this "innovation" argument? What's innovative about a connector that delivers the same data rate as USB 2.0 and 20% of the power of even standard USB PD? If they ever bothered to update Lightning for anything other than an Apple camera for the iPad they might have a point.
Not sure what you are talking about, but my two year old iPhone charges at about 19 Watt with an Anker USB A charger and USB-A to lightning cable. And at 30 Watt with USB-C to lightning cable. All this rubbish does is make sure that when either my wife or I gets their next iPhone we need two cables to charge at maximum speed. And I have a 4xUSB-A plus 1xUSB-C charger.
Today it's the standard finger to hide behind whenever they need to hide something they don't like because it kills some easy money making, instead of true innovation. Standards never stifle innovation, they promote it. Remember when each PC had its own peripherals not compatible with other brands - sometimes even not within their brands? When the IBM PC set a standard architecture, a lot of new products came to the market, because there was a larger customer base. The iPhone wouldn't have gone anywhere if there wasn't standards for the cellular network and for the internet - or Apple did intend to create its own "Apple Network", just like Microsoft attempted? What if Macs still attempted to use AppleTalk connectors, instead of Ethernet ones, and WiFi?
Seems that Apple have forgotten the success of the Apple IIe which became the must have computer on the back of the expansion slots which allowed anyone to develop their own interfaces and hook up peripherals. It featured in almost every Tomorrows World report with a stream of ribbon cable hooking it up to the wizzo gizmo. It dominated the market for twenty odd years.
It is no accident that the IBM PC had an open bus and a case with nice cutouts for your expansion cards.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II_series#Legacy
Agreed, but a second bin that's drop-only might solve that. I know, I know... You want us to operate two bins?!?!? And there are the lazy and/or ignorant twats who would dump their old charger in the wrong bin, accidentally on purpose just for shits and giggles.
Actually, that's the end idea behind that law.
But like for the common USB plug, they don't want to force the issue right away.
At some point the companies that provides USB-C powered/recharged equipment will stop providing a charger/power supply, since they will assume everybody has one, and just mention the power the charger/power unit needs to deliver for the equipment to work/charge.
Totally wrong in every possible way
The regulation is that if the device uses a detachable ELV cable for power, the connector must be USB-C.
So if it does not use a cable at all, it complies.
Of course, this would never have become law if Apple hadn't been taking the piss and wilfully ignored the previous voluntary agreements.
I can't believe people seriously believe this is about money. They also sell USB-C cables for $19, so they will be making exactly as much as they did before from selling cables. Not many people buy Lightning cables since you get them free with an iPhone, so just about every iPhone owner has more Lightning cables than they need. I bought a pack of 3 for $4 when I got my first Lightning iPhone years ago so I'd have spares, and they were MFi certified so Apple can't be making more than a few pennies on a licensed cable.
I would actually need to buy USB-C cables to have spares when I get an iPhone with USB-C, because I currently own zero USB-C cables!
Back in the days of the 30 pin iPod dock connector there was a big market for accessories like speakers and car docks, so one could argue there was a real degree of "lock in" in those days, but once Bluetooth accessories become common no one was using the connector for anything but charging so whatever licensing revenue Apple made back when it seemed like everything could be had in a version with a 30 pin dock is long gone.
I’ve had to buy several lightning cables because of the lightning connector blunder. Exposed contacts sitting at the end of a connector subjected to real world use. What could possibly go wrong? Let me count the ways. Good riddance, I say.
That's far superior to USB-C's design with the tongue in the port itself. When that breaks off you have an expensive phone repair. Throwing away a $2 cable is not a concern.
I've been using Lightning cables since day one and I've never broken or had a connector wear out on me. Maybe you're getting lint in the connector and that's why are seeing problems?
"I've been using Lightning cables since day one and I've never broken or had a connector wear out on me. Maybe you're getting lint in the connector and that's why are seeing problems?"
That's mainly because some people are less ham-fisted than others. I can say, hand on heart, that I've never broken a USB port or cable, either A, B, C, mini or micro. As a field engineer mainly fixing laptops these days, I deal with many, many devices that have broken ports though :-(
I was talking about the licensing fee for Lightning ("made for iPhone" or MFi) for third party cables.
Yes, they are making plenty of money on the Lightning cables they sell for $19, but they are making the same money on the USB-C cables they also sell for $19, so the argument that they want to hold onto Lightning because of all the money they're making on it falls apart.
Samsung sells USB-C cables for $19 for 3A (15W max) or $24 for 5A (25W max) and probably other phone OEMs who sell high end phones are charging similar markups. Don't buy from a big OEM if you want the best price for USB-C cables - but on the other hand you never know what you're getting when you buy $2 cables from a no name supplier since there is no one policing the quality of USB-C cables. Not even Amazon, who will basically let alone sell anything until enough complaints come in, by which time a fly by night company has closed down and is already selling on Amazon under a new name!
Erm, did you read your first paragraph?
Apple make a licencing fee on every Lightning cable and every Lightning device sold, on top of the annual fees for being permitted to manufacture Lightning cables or devices.
That revenue stream will disappear.
Sure, but there are very few "Lightning devices" sold anymore. This isn't 2010, when everyone had a Bose speaker with a 30 pin dock connector. Nobody plugs stuff into their phone anymore except a charger. And chargers don't have a Lightning port - never have had one.
Basically the only licensing business left is for cables, and Lightning has been Apple's standard now for a decade. Every time you get an iPhone you get another Lightning cable. Who is buying new Lightning cables these days, whether from Apple or a third party?
So that "revenue stream" you say will disappear is gonna be pretty tiny these days.
I'll put my hand up and say that I am one of the people who has to buy a new Lightning cable every so often, because the 1 m cable that you get with a phone isn't really long enough. I need 2m, or ideally 3 m, in order for the cable to be long enough to reach from my bedside table to the charger.
Apple cables cost stupid money, so you do what everyone does and buy a cheaper cable from the supermarket or an online tat bazaar. You hope that you (or the supermarket's supplier) chose a reasonably professional and good quality brand, but sadly it is often the case that the cable stops working at some point between 3 and 24 months, and you have to buy a replacement. It's stupid, and a damning indictment on the quality (or lack thereof) of too many tat manufacturers, but it's still cheaper than buying an Apple cable (so far).
All that will happen is that in a couple of years time, Apple/Samsung/Insert-your-chosen-vender-here will release a device that has both USB-C AND their new "son-of-lightning" connector marketed as way more whizzbang than USB-C and with a new charger bundled supporting said new whizzbang-son-of-lightning port
Nothing in the EU law says this can't happen - in fact I'd be surprised if Apple aren't already thinking along these lines...
Vendor marketing will simply be "use the crappy USB-C standard if you want, but ours is better because blah blah blah..."
And back to square one - same as PC vendors bolting RS232 ports into PC's for 20+ years after 99% of peripherals had moved on "just in case"
First of all, no device manufacturer is going to take up space for 2 connectors on a small electronic device if that's what you're suggesting.
Also, other protocols can run on the USB-C type port. Thunderbolt 3 & 4 use a USB-C connector. Apple has been using it on their laptops for years. I suspect if they need the speed of Thunderbolt for data transfers, it will be on the premium iPhone at first. But honestly, I don't know many people that plug in their iPhone to transfer or transmit data ever. So I think Apple will probably use a standard USB-C port.
Apple could make the next iPhone wireless charging only and supply a shiny new charger pad with each phone.
The charge pad can have a fixed wire to the power pack and outside world and the EU Law would be met. Of course the charge pad would need a bespoke handshake protocol before the phone could be charged maintaining the walled garden and protecting accessory revenue.
They could then fit any connector they like on the phone for data connectivity - just so long as it is not for charging.
It might be a controversial thing to say - but I think that Lightning was a great port for its time . I could plug it in without looking at it, or even with the light off, and I really value that attention to detail. USB of the time was a hopeless standard.
USB-C is a different kettle of fish entirely. It does everything that Lightning does - but faster. It supports more peripherals. It’s cheaper. Lightning is now just a case of ‘Not Invented Here’ syndrome, the twiggy drive of the 2020s. Apple should know better. Good riddance to it.
It funny how Apple didn't have a problem with the e-waste they created when switching from the 30pin connector to lightening with the Iphone 5.
They are clearly annoyed they will loose money on licensing of lightening to 3rd parties going forward and that its one less vendor lock in they have on Apple devices
It would seem that Apple put themselves in this situation a long time ago when they created the lightning connector but decided not to license it out to the industry (or too make it too expensive to consider).
Imagine if they had licensed it at some sensible rate, that form factor might have become the standard and not USB-C.
namely that it would render the billion or so Lightning connectors in circulation as e-waste
I disagree. Apple can "strike while the iron is hot" and can come up with an Apple-branded lightning (female) to USB-C (female) cable/converter.
Apple can even make even more money by pricing one for $100.
I’m waiting for all the Fandroids who have been cheering this on to ditch their device and buy a new Apple phone with USB-C. They were all saying “I don’t buy Apple because they use lightening”.
Or will hell freeze over first?
I’ve never had a problem with a lightening connector, though one cable wore out, replaced with a spare I already had. I’ve used the same charger for all my devices for years.
I guess there will never be a USB-D as they would need to get the EU to update their laws first.
"They were all saying “I don’t buy Apple because they use lightening”."
I've never ever heard anyone give THAT as the reason for not buying Apple. Stupid interface, walled garden, cost, cultishness, ugly design, etc, yes all of those, but "they use lightning connectors"? Absolutely never.
I'm a bit confused. A lighting cable usually has a USB connector at the other end, no?
What they should legislate is that captive cables on chargers are bad, and chargers need much more readable current spec ratings. (And voltage, perhaps, for USB-C.)
And that cheap chargers that ruin equipment and endanger people need to be eradicated. (Go after fake certification logo usage.)
Well, this is one way of breaking the back of apples long standing practice of selling a charger for 50 dollars.
The accessories market is a big deal to apples bottom line, because the raw phone hardware is not desperately different otherwise to anything android. ARM chip, a bit of RAM, SD card and a screen.
Expect price point of next iPhone to go up a bit to make up the loss in accessory bs.
Very selective recall from Apple.
Apple have always had the choice to support the current market standard in terms of connector. They have always chosen to go with their own proprietary, patented home-brew (at 3 times the price) as a part of their walled-garden strategy. The EU legislation is just their customers way of telling them we've had enough of that shit.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
