The beauty about laws is that when circumstances change,
the laws also change.
The beauty about the industry working voluntarily is that large important changes can be adopted without laws. And, as those companies understand their users, they can ensure that the change brings the least impact to their users.
“A June 2021 study done for the Commission estimated that in 2019, 44 % of mobile
phones sold in the EU had a USB-C connector at the device end, while 38 % (mostly older and lower-
end phones) had a USB Micro-B, and 18 % had Apple's Lightning connector. According to the study,
without any regulatory intervention, USB Micro-B is expected to be completely superseded by
USB-C connectors by 2026, while the Lightning share will stay the same.”
The EU found that WITHOUT intervention, the industry was moving to USB-C. They could have done
nothing and we’d have the same result. However, they still felt
compelled to, as I indicated, enact regulation that essentially said,”That thing you’re doing voluntarily? Yeah, now we force you to do it!”
And, even though public comments available indicated that Apple would be supporting Lightning for 10 years (the plan that, in reality, they followed through with) because Apple doesn’t comment on unreleased products, the EU regulators felt that they had to pass a law JUST for Apple. They felt this would be cutting the transition time by two years (as they thought that Apple would be using lightning
14 years later. Even though, for anyone paying attention, Apple didn’t even support the 30 pin connector that long AND had said that Lightning would be the “modern connector for the next decade”.) The law, in effect, gave Apple an additional year before needing to remove lightning from the iPhone (the law was for December 31, 2024, Apple switched on their timeline in Sept. 2023). The passage above says that the rationale for the thinking that the Lightning share would “stay the same” in 2026 (even with evidence to the contrary) can be found on page 25. That document only has 11 pages… sooooo, no need to show your work, I guess.
😀
