EU Moves One Step Closer to Mandating Apple to Switch iPhone, iPad, and AirPods to USB-C

[ApplesAreSweet&Sour]

This is going to be a mess. The next standard will come along and it'll take years and years to adopt it because they won't bother to pass new legislation to update things.

It's rarely good when government regulates tech. It generally leads to holding everything back.

Exactly how is government “holding everything back” when this is specifically about enforcing USB-C, a technology that offers the same or higher charging and transfer-speeds as Lightning while also opening up the possibility to use essentially any USB-C cable from any device you’ve bought.

Even Apple isn’t doing Lightning for it’s high-end devices, like MacBooks Pro or iPads Pro.

Lightning was a good solution in 2012. But it’s not 2012 anymore.

 

[NastyMatt]

If USB C was as bad as some of you are making out - why has Apple put it in a lot of their products?

The sooner Apple adopts USB C on the iPhone the better. Lightning is a cash cow that they want to protect.

 

[BuffaloTF]

Good news. Lightning is one of the worst technologies I've ever come across - the connector and cables are horribly fragile and poorly designed to stay in place. As a family we must have gone through 50 or so of the things.

Dude, what?

Lightning is the most rigid connector available. It was purposely overbuilt because it needed to support the weight of phone and iPod in the vertical stands, replacing the old 30-pin stands. If you’re destroying the cable, the sleeve of it - which is what you’re describing - it’s because you’re yanking the wire and pulling apart what I’ll call “the turtleneck” of the sleeve that they put there to prevent against exactly that. You need to pull the rather large hard plastic piece instead.

The same holds true for USB-C cables, which aren’t nearly as rigid, don’t snap together as tightly, and are flakey on connection. You need to handle them with the large plastic piece. But for how flakey they are… just go lightly tap something plugged into your computer and it’ll register as a new USB device to recognize. And compared to the Micro USB that C replaced? Lord help me, those bent and became unusable with light sneezes in their direction.

 

[TxLoneRider]

My 2021 iPad Pro and MacBook Pro both use USB-C (thunderbolt) for charging/data, but my 2021 iPhone uses Lightning (with a slow 480 Mb/sec connection). Make it make sense. The iPhone is the only modern device in my house that doesn't use USB-C for charging. Everything else including my PS5/Xbox controllers, tablets, phones, laptops (both windows and Mac) etc use USB-C. It's time for Apple to transition, they should've done so years ago in my opinion, when they introduced USB-C on the iPad.

So how often does you iPad Pro or MBP flop around your car with USB-C. I guess never, same as mine.

But my phone daily. I can't afford to purchase a car that has wireless AirPlay.

So many people disregard real world use cases, those use cases are probably closer to the norm than exception as well.

 

[akempf]

A bunch of bureaucrats with only superficial understanding of tech and/or simply not good enough to get a real job in tech decide what the technology look like. What can go wrong?

I'm glad you're such a qualified techie to make such a well informed statement.

What can go wrong? Hm. Perhaps a company that's locked into its obsolete Lightning port, not being able to move on for "backwards compatibility" reasons, might be forced to embrace a modern standard? Providing customers with connectivity and a free choice in displays, chargers, mass storage, networking, personal health devices, power banks, ... Bugger, that would be annoying, bloody bureaucrats, give me back my floppy disk drive!

 

[TxLoneRider]

If USB C was as bad as some of you are making out - why has Apple put it in a lot of their products?

The sooner Apple adopts USB C on the iPhone the better. Lightning is a cash cow that they want to protect.

Again, look at use cases.

How often does your MBP or iPad float around in a car tethered to the dash by their USB cables? I would guess NEVER.

Many people have their phones tethered to a charger, or dash often. I want the lighting port as it is far more rugged.

USB-C is great for the MB, iPad, and beats headphones, but that's it.

 

[Analog Kid]

There is no justification for government to make product decisions like this.

 

[akempf]

Not RS232?

Just think of all the cables that would've been saved over the last 62 years.

I have an even more obscure one for you - Lightning... ;-)

 

[dba415]

Again, look at use cases.

How often does your MBP or iPad float around in a car tethered to the dash by their USB cables? I would guess NEVER.

Many people have their phones tethered to a charger, or dash often. I want the lighting port as it is far more rugged.

USB-C is great for the MB, iPad, and beats headphones, but that's it.

Okay then tell me how many people with Samsungs, Pixels etc complain that their USBC cable is not rugged enough.

 

[norbinhouston]

I agree, my 12inch MacBook only has one USBC/thunderbolt port and its loose as heck. Have to wiggle it sometimes to get it to start charging.

 

[Analog Kid]

give me back my floppy disk drive

Which is exactly what you’d have been screaming when the EU mandated all computers only use Iomega Jazz drives…

 

[Macative]

I fully support this. Everything else in the house uses USB-C, even my damn iPad. There's zero good reason for Apple not to do this other than being greedy for the accessory dollars. If they won't do the right thing, let the EU force them.

Wrong on every single point.

 

[Bobcat32]

If Apple truly cared about electronic waste as they claim then they would have made the iPhone USB C the same year they decided not to include adapters. Instead now we have friken USB C cables with lightning on the end that will all be made redundant and trash. Frankly its criminal what they are doing so yes Im glad legislation is coming forward. Because it’s clearly needed.

 

[BeatCrazy]

So, it's time for regulation - to support consumer choice, convenience and to avoid waste (chargers).

"Regulation" of a USB-C standard is in direct conflict with each of those things:
1. Consumer choice - I've been choosing iPhones with Lightning over Androids with USB-C for years now.
2. Convenience - I have plenty of Lightning cables around the house. It's not convenient for me to replace them all with USB-C when my family goes through an iPhone upgrade cycle.
3. Avoid waste - You're regulating that I'm landfilling all of the Lightning cables I've accumulated over the years just because the EU wants my iPhone 15 to use USB-C. If Apple makes the change on their own accord, then it's Apple generating the waste. In this scenario, it's the EU generating waste.

 

[ApplesAreSweet&Sour]

I’m all for one standard (USB-C), but come again in 25 years when that standard is hopelessly outdated and hobbling future tech…

So because new, superior tech will inevitably emerge we’re just supposed to let businesses do proprietary in whatever direction they choose for something as arbitrary as charging and data transfer?

Yes, power input and data transfer speeds will increase in the future. That’s inevitable.

But this isn’t rocket ships or nuclear reactors the EU is trying to regulate here. It’s charging ports and cables, nothing else. It’s plain old plastic and rubber insulation and copper wire paired with transistors and chips for getting electricity and data transferred to your phone.

If Apple can give you the exact same charging experience on iPads Pro as on iPhones but higher data transfer than Lightning then surely they can do the exact same thing on iPhones. What would get in the way for this or make it bad on iPhones?

Why not look at the upside -If anyone can take USB-C and make it even better than the competition and Lightning then it’s Apple.

This regulation cannot happen too fast. I’d want it from tomorrow if it were possible.

Nothing has ever been more common sense.

 

[akempf]

There is no justification for government to make product decisions like this.

You know, we elect these governments to improve our lives. To protect us. To protect the environment. To permit a live in freedom. To protect us from monopolies. To stop bad developments that markets fail to correct.
And to provide an environment in which innovation can flourish, by standardizing and regulating what's necessary to enable the development of new products, and so that innovation can built upon. Or would you like to have a 314V power system? Passenger cars wider than 3meters? Non-standardized wall power outlets? Non-standardized currency units? Sounds like great fun...

 

[BeatCrazy]

If USB C was as bad as some of you are making out - why has Apple put it in a lot of their products?

The sooner Apple adopts USB C on the iPhone the better. Lightning is a cash cow that they want to protect.

It's not "bad", USB-C serves a different purpose on iPads/Macs, which doesn't necessarily make it the ideal port for a phone.

 

[usagora]

I honestly don't care what friggin' cable they use. I'm just amazed that so many people get emotionally invested in such trivial matters and that people support government overreach to regulate things like this.

 

[centauratlas]

They actually only cost a small fraction of the national administrations. EU bureaucracy is comparatively quite lean.

That is kind of like saying Oprah or Rosie O'Donnell is quite lean compared to Michael Moore.
(I am not sure where you are located, but if you don't know who those 3 are, the gist is that they are all fat, none lean).

There is nearly a 100% certainty that Apple is working on some type of connector to replace lightning and USB-C. The only question is when it will be released. Having people who are uninformed - or worse, bought by other people in the industry - making technical decisions is not ideal.

This ends up having the rest of the world being held hostage to the lowest common denominator in the EU.

 

[kenaustus]

Ap]ple doesn't need to be concerned about this. Make small converters that moves a Lightening to US-C and the will handle most situations. The USB-C is actually pretty flimsy - I'm needing to replace my 4th in a couple years so will AGAIN order 2 more. A real piece of crap IMO. For some larger products like Macs Apple can simply keep the Lightening port and die hard USB-C users can still use a USB-C port for charging if they want. The EU demands appear to require a charging option via USB-C, it doesn't forbid asldoding the lightening port if desired. zBFD.

 

[Ateam043]

This is great news. Slowly and steady! There is hope. I have a feeling Apple will move towards portless iPhones and iPads in the near future. We are not far off.

I’m on the fence on this.

On one hand it would be nice to one cable for all my items.

On the other end, this puts a firm stiff on innovation

 

[akempf]

"Regulation" of a USB-C standard is in direct conflict with each of those things:
1. Consumer choice - I've been choosing iPhones with Lightning over Androids with USB-C for years now.
2. Convenience - I have plenty of Lightning cables around the house. It's not convenient for me to replace them all with USB-C when my family goes through an iPhone upgrade cycle.
3. Avoid waste - You're regulating that I'm landfilling all of the Lightning cables I've accumulated over the years just because the EU wants my iPhone 15 to use USB-C. If Apple makes the change on their own accord, then it's Apple generating the waste. In this scenario, it's the EU generating waste.

1. So you chose the iPhone for it's cable only?
2. How many USB-C cables do you have at home? No recent iPads, MacBooks, HomePods, tablets, Notebooks, storage systems, ...? Honestly?
3. This argument would make sense if the iPhone was sold WITHOUT a cable. (Anyways, to avoid waste, you should continue using your current phone instead of upgrading - you can even stick to Lightning this way.)

 

[minik]

I hope it doesn't happen. Lightning + contactless Qi charging are fine for the iPhone and smaller devices.

 

[BeatCrazy]

Dude, what?

Lightning is the most rigid connector available. It was purposely overbuilt because it needed to support the weight of phone and iPod in the vertical stands, replacing the old 30-pin stands. If you’re destroying the cable, the sleeve of it - which is what you’re describing - it’s because you’re yanking the wire and pulling apart what I’ll call “the turtleneck” of the sleeve that they put there to prevent against exactly that. You need to pull the rather large hard plastic piece instead.

The same holds true for USB-C cables, which aren’t nearly as rigid, don’t snap together as tightly, and are flakey on connection. You need to handle them with the large plastic piece. But for how flakey they are… just go lightly tap something plugged into your computer and it’ll register as a new USB device to recognize. And compared to the Micro USB that C replaced? Lord help me, those bent and became unusable with light sneezes in their direction.

Also, Lightning doesn't suffer the same "port" wear after hundreds of connects/disconnects. I literally have laptops that are unusable after a few years due to inability for the connection to remain seated because of the wear from friction.

 

[WP31]

You know, we elect these governments to improve our lives. To protect us. To protect the environment. To permit a live in freedom. To protect us from monopolies. To stop bad developments that markets fail to correct.
And to provide an environment in which innovation can flourish, by standardizing and regulating what's necessary to enable the development of new products, and so that innovation can built upon. Or would you like to have a 314V power system? Passenger cars wider than 3meters? Non-standardized wall power outlets? Non-standardized currency units? Sounds like great fun...

Hey BeatCrazy, I agree with your thoughts but disagree with the rhetorical conclusions you made at the end. We def elect, want, and need our governments to do those things. The trouble is mandating a USB standard is counter to them. It's exactly what we do not. When governments do things like that, we are stuck with weird things like 314V systems not the opposite. I can 100% guarantee that what appears good, useful, or best now will not be in 10 years.