Apple Stops Selling iPhone 14 and iPhone SE in More EU Countries

[FlyingDutch]

USB-C allows for both higher current and power - so it isn't.

USB-C is good enough for the foreseeable future and purpose.
Just like electrical wiring standards are.

Oh please stop worshipping EU this way. In EU we don’t even have a standard electricity connector for all the countries, but they fought a battle over smartphone chargers.

It's a witch hunt all right. And yes, the rule only applies to new devices. Older devices already on the shelves will be sold until everything is gone.

Except they removed from the store where it is safer for me to buy: Apple Store

It doesn’t sit as well as lightening, I’ve already had several instances when I’ve woken up to a phone at 10% battery because the usb-c connector didn’t catch - something that never happened during the 10+ years I used lightening connectors. I also have a couple of usb-c cords that won’t connect to the phone no matter what I do. Male-pin designs are also more robust.

It’s not a major downgrade, to be clear, but plugging in, checking to make phone is actually charging, then putting phone down is a slightly worse experience than plugging the phone in and just setting it down KNOWING it’s going to be charging. Again, I prefer USB-C because I have other stuff that charges with it, but it’s demonstrably slightly worse at actually being a connector.

I really can’t understand your difficulties in connecting an USB C power cable. It is as easy as a Lightning connector and it doesn’t move once inserted 🤨

Agree 100% - but the government “regulator” shouldn’t be mandating that.

It is absolutely their duty to do that.

Semantics. It’s an entity that makes rules for the area under its jurisdiction. And I’d argue when it comes to regulating big tech, they may think they’re taking care of the people’s needs but they are actually making things worse.

It’s not semantics if you don’t get the difference. And someone has to regulate high tech companies, otherwise the market will be a nightmare. The point is they should regulate everything, not only small things like power connectors.
There was nothing worse in replacing Lightning with USB C: everything became better.

 

[AppliedMicro]

And electrical wiring could be better had it been allowed to evolve. Wouldn’t it be great if every power plug could also provide data, for example? Who knows what better solution we could have?

But then, I can vividly imagine you arguing:

"Government should never be allowed to regulate power outlet sockets in homes. That would stifle innovation.

Since company A created the connector, they deserve to be compensated as they please. They're fully within their rights to charge the % commission/license the desire from every device manufacturer that wants their products to connect to them. If device/appliance manufacturers don't want to pay, they're free to create their own line of power outlets.

Mandatory interoperability certification enforced by the power socket manufacturer keeps me (...us, ...consumers) safe. Imagine how unsafe it would be if every device/appliance could just connect to any power socket!

Of course allowed to expand into the device/appliance business and self-preference their own devices over competitors.

Your appliances and computers won't work in your new home? You knew what you signed up to signing that rental agreement. If you don't like that walled garden, just vote with your $$$ and move into a flat/house that has 'open' power sockets that can be used by any device/appliance manufacturer


👉 Power outlets would be "DRMed" and gatekept by two or three companies - and we all just have less choice - in more expensive electrical devices/appliances. We'd pay more for them.

And bundling power with data transmission would also stifle innovation in both markets. Who would develop a better data transmission connector/protocol, if the eminent power socket companies have cornered the market through their vast ecosystem of compatible devices/appliances?

Secondly, they’ve now made significantly more difficult for a better connector to emerge

It won't anyway.
USB-C is a good-enough standard for a generation. And DMA or not, that doesn't matter.

 

[surferfb]

I really can’t understand your difficulties in connecting an USB C power cable. It is as easy as a Lightning connector and it doesn’t move once inserted 🤨

Maybe they’re bad cords, maybe it’s the design being less robust than lightening, I don’t know what to tell you. Again, it’s a very minor thing but it absolutely happens. And it didn’t happen to me with lightening.

It is absolutely their duty to do that.

It’s not semantics if you don’t get the difference.

It’s an entity that the people have given their sovereignty to. I’m not going to argue semantics, for the intents and purposes of this discussion it’s a government.

And someone has to regulate high tech companies, otherwise the market will be a nightmare. The point is they should regulate everything, not only small things like power connectors.

No one is saying tech companies should operate without regulation altogether. We disagree over the amount of regulation. And I think they should regulate as little as necessary - certainly not to the point where they are telling companies what private APIs must be shared with their competitors and what phone charger they must use.

There was nothing worse in replacing Lightning with USB C: everything became better.

My charging experience is worse. Not significantly so, but it is. Again, on the whole I prefer USB-C because I find the one cord more convenient, but saying “everything became better” is flat out wrong. Like any decision, there were trade offs. Which is why companies, not Brussels, should be deciding if those trade offs are worth it.

 

[iGüey]

That doesn’t help if when I plug it in my phone doesn’t start charging which has happened more frequently in the year and three months my phone has used usb-c

That has never happened to me.

Maybe they’re bad cords, maybe it’s the design being less robust than lightening, I don’t know what to tell you. Again, it’s a very minor thing but it absolutely happens. And it didn’t happen to me with lightening.

May be you should check your cords or even your chargers. Sorry I insist, what you are pointing out has never happened to me.

I think you are the only one who is complaining about that.

 

[surferfb]

That has never happened to me.


May be you should check your cords or even your chargers. Sorry I insist, what you are pointing out has never happened to me.

I think you are the only one who is complaining about that.

Nope - not just me:

Example 1:

My USB-C charger falls out from the port from time to time from random wiggles when using while charging. I cleaned out some lint that was in the port and it’s a little bit better now, but it will still fall out of its connectors from time to time. The charger will still be in the port but I will notice my phone isn’t charging anymore so I have to push it back in. It can get pretty annoying.

Example 2:

yes it can get loose. Sometimes to the point that if you slightly move the phone the connection will stop or pop out. This happens in another phone of mine.

Example 3:

Been downvoted so much so many times for saying this. Most people don’t ever transfer data by cable so it was such a ridiculous point people tried to make for USB-C being better. My experience so far has been ****. The port is super loose (which lead me to finding this post) and no matter what cable I try, it requires almost no effort to wiggle it out enough that it doesn’t charge.

Had by phone plugged in for about an hour and just went to check on it, it had charged to 47% and stopped. That was because the ****** USB-C plug was 2mm short of being all the way in, even though it wasall the way in when I laid my phone on the floor.

I could go on. Again, it’s a minor issue, but just because something hasn’t happened to you doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen to anyone. It’s happened to me more times in my 1.25 years of a USB-C iPhone than it ever happened in 10 years with lightening phones.

And none of this changes the fact that having a regulator mandate what charging port phones are required to use is a bad idea. It was a bad idea when they tried to mandate Micro-USB, it’s still a bad idea now for USB-C, it’d be a bad idea if they’d mandated lightening, and it’d be a bad idea if they’d mandated wireless charging.

Trust me, you don’t want a phone designed by government regulators. They don’t know better than tech companies - if they were talented enough to be designing the iPhone they’d work for Apple making a lot of money, not as a government bureaucrat.

 

[I7guy]

But then, I can vividly imagine you arguing:

"Government should never be allowed to regulate power outlet sockets in homes. That would stifle innovation.

That is a really great deflection. Well done. Do you really want to play with your life when you plug something into a wall socket?

Since company A created the connector, they deserve to be compensated as they please. They're fully within their rights to charge the % commission/license the desire from every device manufacturer that wants their products to connect to them. If device/appliance manufacturers don't want to pay, they're free to create their own line of power outlets.

Mandatory interoperability certification enforced by the power socket manufacturer keeps me (...us, ...consumers) safe. Imagine how unsafe it would be if every device/appliance could just connect to any power socket!

Of course allowed to expand into the device/appliance business and self-preference their own devices over competitors.

Your appliances and computers won't work in your new home? You knew what you signed up to signing that rental agreement. If you don't like that walled garden, just vote with your $$$ and move into a flat/house that has 'open' power sockets that can be used by any device/appliance manufacturer


👉 Power outlets would be "DRMed" and gatekept by two or three companies - and we all just have less choice - in more expensive electrical devices/appliances. We'd pay more for them.

And bundling power with data transmission would also stifle innovation in both markets. Who would develop a better data transmission connector/protocol, if the eminent power socket companies have cornered the market through their vast ecosystem of compatible devices/appliances?


It won't anyway.
USB-C is a good-enough standard for a generation. And DMA or not, that doesn't matter.

Of course, plugging a device into a 240 volt outlet and having something go wrong is much different than a connector on a small consumer electronic device that carries around 5 volts. Either way you slice it, the EU is hamstringing itself.

 

[WarmWinterHat]

That is a really great deflection. Well done. Do you really want to play with your life when you plug something into a wall socket?

Of course, plugging a device into a 240 volt outlet and having something go wrong is much different than a connector on a small consumer electronic device that carries around 5 volts. Either way you slice it, the EU is hamstringing itself.

If these regulations were immutable, sure, but they are not, and its ridiculous (and disingenuous) to act like they are.

 

[jlc1978]

And electrical wiring could be better had it been allowed to evolve. Wouldn’t it be great if every power plug could also provide data, for example? Who knows what better solution we could have?

Actually, you can send data over home power lines, but WiFi eleminated the need for that.

Power outlets would be "DRMed" and gatekept by two or three companies - and we all just have less choice - in more expensive electrical devices/appliances. We'd pay more for them.

Interestingly, the early phone and power industries in the US were like that, everyone strung their own wires and had their own plugs/lines with little or no interconnectivity. Eventually, they decided they needed to standardize and become regulated monopolies to grow and end price competition.

And bundling power with data transmission would also stifle innovation in both markets. Who would develop a better data transmission connector/protocol, if the eminent power socket companies have cornered the market through their vast ecosystem of compatible devices/appliances?

Utilities do (did? Not sure if still done) that over power lines but generally for their own use.

That is a really great deflection. Well done. Do you really want to play with your life when you plug something into a wall socket?

Codes are important and should set the standards for what is deemed a safe installation; however to a certain extend defining sockets means switching to a better design becomes nearly impossible since all the current devices are designed for a specific plug, and using adapters is a pain. Europe is a great example of that with various plug designs by country, which results in my having various cables designed for UK plugs as eWaste since my wall outlets are not UK ones, but the cord gets packaged with the others because it is easier to have 1 SKU with multiple cords than separate SKUs and stock levels. At least there is some common 2 prongs that work with Schuko, E and F so you don't need to replace sockets with newer cords.

 

[Baslea]

Stop whining about EU forcing USB-C. Better be thankful about it that at least one country/region is doing something against Apple's monopoly abuse...

 

[FlyingDutch]

My charging experience is worse. Not significantly so, but it is. Again, on the whole I prefer USB-C because I find the one cord more convenient, but saying “everything became better” is flat out wrong. Like any decision, there were trade offs. Which is why companies, not Brussels, should be deciding if those trade offs are worth it.

What you are missing is Companies are not interested in protecting customers, but just in their revenues, while regulators are there to protect citizens and their rights.
So I disagree: companies are free to design their devices, but within regulations.

 

[FlyingDutch]

Stop whining about EU forcing USB-C. Better be thankful about it that at least one country/region is doing something against Apple's monopoly abuse...

Apple is far from being a monopoly, anyway. There are plenty of alternatives.

 

[Baslea]

Apple is far from being a monopoly, anyway. There are plenty of alternatives.

If you say so. Luckily more and more countries are seeing it differently.

 

[titanium alloy]

gone in the netherlands, cant say im surprised

 

[surferfb]

Stop whining about EU forcing USB-C. Better be thankful about it that at least one country/region is doing something against Apple's monopoly abuse...

If you didn’t like Apple using lightening, the solution is to vote with your wallet, not have the government come in and mandate your preferred solution.

Apple has 25% of the phone market in the EU, so absolutely nowhere close to a monopoly.

 

[switz]

A few years back, we had 120/240 VAC at 60 hz in the US and other world locations and then we also had different voltages at 50 hz. Devices then would not work on the different frequency from their original design.

Today we have power adapters that, with plug configuration adapters, connect to any voltage at any frequency and output the same correct power for a specific cell phone power requirement regardless of the source.

Where are the regulators in the EU for having a common power plug/receptacle design with the same voltage and frequency everywhere?

Ah! Those power generating companies are EU companies and each has its own turf. Forget the public's inconvenience of having to have different plugs to deal with the variety on offer.

But a non-EU company must adapt their proven power/data connector to a standard of the EU's choice does seem at odds with their electrical generation policy.

A bad aroma is associated with this thought...

 

[Baslea]

If you didn’t like Apple using lightening, the solution is to vote with your wallet, not have the government come in and mandate your preferred solution.

Apple has 25% of the phone market in the EU, so absolutely nowhere close to a monopoly.

No why? I'd rather decide by myself how I do it. And if I got EU backing it up, then it's fine for me. There's absolutely no reason except letting others pay for that MFi-****. So yes, that's monopoly abuse.
Same goes for Sideloading. Let people do whatever they want with their devices...

 

[FlyingDutch]

If you say so. Luckily more and more countries are seeing it differently.

It’s not me saying anything. It is a matter of fact. Apple has less than 30% market share, so it is FAR from being a monopoly anywhere.

 

[FlyingDutch]

If you didn’t like Apple using lightening, the solution is to vote with your wallet, not have the government come in and mandate your preferred solution.

Apple has 25% of the phone market in the EU, so absolutely nowhere close to a monopoly.

You seem confused. EU is not mandating any PREFERRED solution. EU is mandating a viable solution to :

• Increasing consumer convenience: You can charge your mobile phone and other similar electronic devices with one USB-C charger, regardless of the device brand.
• Reducing e-waste: Discarded and unused chargers account for about 11 000 tonnes of e-waste annually. The new rules encourage reusing chargers, which helps to reduce the environmental footprint.
• Saving money: You can now buy new electronic devices without a charger. This will help consumers save approximately €250 million a year on unnecessary charger purchases.
• Harmonising fast charging technology: New rules help to ensure that charging speed is the same when using any compatible charger for a device.

Everything is explained here: https://commission.europa.eu/news/e...all-your-devices-single-charger-2024-12-28_en

 

[WarmWinterHat]

If you didn’t like Apple using lightening, the solution is to vote with your wallet, not have the government come in and mandate your preferred solution.

Apple has 25% of the phone market in the EU, so absolutely nowhere close to a monopoly.

Why? Literally why?

The government is an institution built to impose the will of the people. It was and is doing exactly what it is supposed to do. Apple wouldn't comply, so the people's representative imposed their will, within their borders. The will of the people are saying that the market isn't enough and if you want to continue to operate here, do this.

The market has no care for the environment, or interoperability or the like. The market failed, and the EU stepped in. That is EXACTLY what governments were created to do.

It’s not me saying anything. It is a matter of fact. Apple has less than 30% market share, so it is FAR from being a monopoly anywhere.

Monopolies are irrelevant in this case. Their borders, their taxes, their economy, their land, their populace, their rules. Apple can take it or leave.

If they have 0.1% or 100% market share, the rules should apply the same.

 

[Baslea]

It’s not me saying anything. It is a matter of fact. Apple has less than 30% market share, so it is FAR from being a monopoly anywhere.

Still, there is not a single (consumer friendly) reason, why Apple would stick to Lightning. It's outdated as hell. Why are people still debating whether it was good or not forcing them to move to USB-C...

 

[turbineseaplane]

Still, there is not a single (consumer friendly) reason, why Apple would stick to Lightning. It's outdated as hell. Why are people still debating whether it was good or not forcing them to move to USB-C...

That's what I don't get ..

Apple had over a decade to come up with a far better "Lightning 2" and .... never did

USB-C is unquestionably a better overall choice vs very old Lightning as it currently is.

Is it a win in 100% of comparison points? - of course not

Again, let's not let perfect be the enemy of good here

 

[surferfb]

You seem confused. EU is not mandating any PREFERRED solution. EU is mandating a viable solution to :

I am not confused at all. USB-C is my preferred solution. It’s still wrong for the government to force it on companies especially when it will prevent better solutions from being developed. Remember they wanted micro-usb to be the solution. Why are you 100% convinced usb-c is the be all and end all of device chargers?

Increasing consumer convenience: You can charge your mobile phone and other similar electronic devices with one USB-C charger, regardless of the device brand.

I agree this is nice, doesn’t rise to the level of something the government should be mandating though.

Reducing e-waste: Discarded and unused chargers account for about 11 000 tonnes of e-waste annually. The new rules encourage reusing chargers, which helps to reduce the environmental footprint.

The mandate does nothing to address this. I haven’t bought a charger in years. I did throw out about 15 lightening cables though. I also remember people on MacRumors complaining about evil Tim Cook only caring about profits when Apple removed the charger from the box.

Saving money: You can now buy new electronic devices without a charger. This will help consumers save approximately €250 million a year on unnecessary charger purchases.

Again, I haven’t bought a charger in years.

Harmonising fast charging technology: New rules help to ensure that charging speed is the same when using any compatible charger for a device.

The rules do nothing to demand this

Everything is explained here: https://commission.europa.eu/news/e...all-your-devices-single-charger-2024-12-28_en

I’ve read it, still disagree that the government should be getting involved here.

But good news for you - your nanny state won! The fact that I think it’s a stupid idea won’t change anything.

 

[Baslea]

That's what I don't get ..

Apple had over a decade to come up with a far better "Lightning 2" and .... never did

USB-C is unquestionably a better overall choice vs very old Lightning as it currently is.

Is it a win in 100% of comparison points - of course not

Again, let's not let perfect be the enemy of good here

Yea, the only reason is $$$. Why would they need to come up with Lightning 2, when there are enough dumb people buying overpriced MFi-stuff. I remember some 32GB SanDisk with Lightning costing over 50 francs/€, compared to 15-20 for USB-C.

Also, it's not like Apple swapped to USB C to iPad many years ago. Why not for iPhone too?

 

[surferfb]

Yea, the only reason is $$$. Why would they need to come up with Lightning 2, when there are enough dumb people buying overpriced MFi-stuff. I remember some 32GB SanDisk with Lightning costing over 50 francs/€, compared to 15-20 for USB-C.

Nope. Multiple sources reported to Gruber that the amount of money Apple made licensing MFi was equivalent to “a rounding error” on Apple’s books. The idea that Apple would make an iPhone they considered worse for the majority of their customers for pocket change is laughable.

I know it’s hard for tech nerds to believe, but USB-C isn’t a huge win for the vast majority of Apple’s customers. Apple was right to take it slow transitioning their biggest and most important product. Especially considering the reaction they received the last time they switched - which unlike this change, was a significant improvement over the previous connector.

And if you were right that it was all Cook or his lieutenants picking Lightening over a superior option for money, I think people inside of Apple would have absolutely leaked that. I think the far more likely scenario is there was a vigorous debate inside Apple every year about whether the time was right to switch and Apple was just more conservative than all of you when it comes to switching out the connector on its most important product.

Also, it's not like Apple swapped to USB C to iPad many years ago. Why not for iPhone too?

Remember, Apple is estimated to finalize the design of iPhones two years prior to release. So, whichever year you think Apple should have switched the iPhone over to USB-C, subtract 2 years from that phone’s release date to determine when that decision was made. iPhone 14? Connector decided in 2020. 13? 2019. 12? 2018. etc. Maybe you do think USB-C was ubiquitous enough for Apple to make the switch in 2018 or before, but can you understand why, particularly after the reaction last time they switched (which was a switch to an actually far superior connector), they might be conservative about this?

And remembered, they promised Lightening would be the connector for the next ten years when they introduced it.

Now you may disagree that it was better for most customers, or they should have broken their promise and switched sooner, but that was Apple's decision to make. Or should have been rather.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Also, it's not like Apple swapped to USB C to iPad many years ago. Why not for iPhone too?

And they had gone all in on USB-C only (even for power) way back in April of 2015 with the 12" Retina MacBook
That's nearly a full decade ago now

There was an alternate universe where I think Lightning might have been killed off for USB-C, by Apple themselves, quite a while ago ... simply because it's better overall for them and customers to simply have "one connector"