EU Proposes to Force Apple to Switch iPhone, iPad, and AirPods From Lightning to USB-C

[polyphenol]

I obviously have no way of really knowing this but what if Apple was about to introduce a new connector which was faster, smaller, more capability that the lightning? Maybe not ready yet which is why sticking with Lighting vs USB-C - but since they are going USB-C on iPads probably not true.
And now EU wouldn't let them introduce it without going public and trying to get approval.

How many of us would want to buy anything, from Apple or anyone else, that connects to absolutely nothing that already exists?

If Apple launched L2, I can't see anyone rushing to buy anything that has it. Unless L2 incorporates some reasonable compatibility with what already exists. Even if it is ten times as fast, can have a ten times longer cable, and goodness knows what else.

Maybe they could put a piece of optical fibre into a Lightning cable and achieve stonking speeds. But if it is only iPhones that have it, so what? Phone-to-phone isn't that common a requirement.

 

[msackey]

I find the EU law too prescriptive. As others have mentioned, USB-C is eventually not going to be a good standard to use. When Micro USB was made to be the standard port, I'm glad Apple didn't follow suite by replacing the Lightning port. Could the EU law be written more flexibly so that it both reduces e-Waste and attempts to encompass a changing future?

I think at the time that Apple went with Lightning cable, there wasn't any really good alternative to use, including Micro USB. USB C seems to be a good standard and even Apple has widely adopted it though not yet for iPhone or for the AirPods. Is it because the Lightning cable housing etc. has a smaller footprint than USB C? As far as I know, all iPads now use USB C ports and not Lightning.

 

[msackey]

Do you know why it took so long for the automotive industry to adopt LED lights on cars? It wasn’t because LED technology wasn’t ready, in fact, it was already possible in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s based on commercial LED lamps from the late ‘60s. It was because the regulations were written in the early ‘50s to specify a certain wattage and size of incandescent light bulb. It took decades for the regulations to be updated to keep up with the innovation the industry had already made.

I’m not saying there is anything wrong with USB-C or that Apple shouldn’t adopt it. But when you codify it in law, it prevents newer and better technologies from entering the market. [...]

I don't know about the veracity of the history of LED in cars, but you do have a point! I don't agree that codifying something makes it inflexible. There are ways to write good laws that allow for flexibility and there are some laws like that. But yes, poorly written laws -- perhaps those that are just too prescriptive -- will makes things inflexible and therefore cannot properly adjust to a changing future.

We already see things like HDMI 2.1 not supporting the USB-C/TB3 connectors and it’s forcing companies (maybe even Apple in the next MacBooks) to go back and add the full-sized HDMI to their computers.

Interesting! Is HDMI 2.1 already exceeding the bandwidth of what's possible with USB-C? If so, that's sad

 

[polyphenol]

Ultimately, the EU making sweeping decisions like this aren't good.

We now have a MANDATED popover on every single website because of the EU.

Do we really want them to make these choices about things where they obviously mean but have a history of failure?!

Do we really want every website storing cookies, passing date to others, etc., without asking?

If companies had never taken it upon themselves to grab anything they want and push whatever they want, we would not have seen an EU decision to do something about it.

Have to say, I'd much rather be able to decide that I only want what is essential in 99% of cases, and to express that without having a popup.

 

[msackey]

Even back in high school I knew there was no such thing as market decision and market self regulation. There is option A and sometimes option B and that's about it. Forget about C, D, E, etc.

Agreed! And, so-called market self regulation simply means that those with more bullying power will get to use them and win. So yes, we do need some regulation. Why do we expect a "market" to self regulate fairly?

 

[grandM]

Do we really want every website storing cookies, passing date to others, etc., without asking?

If companies had never taken it upon themselves to grab anything they want and push whatever they want, we would not have seen an EU decision to do something about it.

Have to say, I'd much rather be able to decide that I only want what is essential in 99% of cases, and to express that without having a popup.

Then the EU should have mandated the possibility of a one out click. As mentioned before these politician-lawyers don't get tech.

 

[I7guy]

Which is also USB-C, as well the second connector for the included adapter. Who wouldn't want one charger and cable for everything?

Lightning is smaller and more compact. To me better fit for iPhones.

 

[bookofxero]

No it's not a superior user experience. It's charging. No need to pretend it's anything more than what it is. Neither requires specific orientation to be used so the experience is virtually the same.

I will play mild oppositional advocate: ever get a bent pin on a Lightning cable? Extremely unlikely. They are less common now, but they have killed a few of my USB-C cables.

 

[vipergts2207]

I will play mild oppositional advocate: ever get a bent pin on a Lightning cable? Extremely unlikely. They are less common now, but they have killed a few of my USB-C cables.

No, but I have had more than one than one of my lighting cables have a pin corrode so that it now only works in one direction, rather than both, defeating the biggest benefit lightning introduced in the first place.

 

[slplss]

Lightning is smaller and more compact. To me better fit for iPhones.

You would trade smaller port size over not having to carry separate cable and charger? Plus, the difference would have smaller than you may think.

 

[MartyvH]

As much as I would want iPhone to have USB-C I hope this never gets through. Imagine if they did this when micro-USB was the standard. We would have been stuck with that forever. At some point we will get a connector that's even better than USB-C but this legislation would not allow any new standard to be used.

Holds no water. New worldwide standard connectors have been introduced for decades. Look at the various new versions of USB and HDMI.

 

[visualseed]

That's very clearly part of my point. USB-C is not stuck at one moment in time either. It will certainly continue to evolve over time, as it has already done, while maintaining backwards compatibility just like USB-A has over the decades.

And what are you using for "SSD Storage, transferring data from SD cards at anywhere near their rated speeds, delivering power for computers and displays, etc.," if not USB-A 3.0, USB-C, or TB (which at this point is basically a marginally souped-up version of USB-C)? I don't understand your argument on that point.

USB-C can support HDMI 2.1 with DSC.

What is Display Stream Compression (DSC)? | Cable Matters Blog

If you’ve been following DisplayPort and USB-C technology, you may ask, What is Display Stream Compression? Read on to find out how 8K video over USB-C and DisplayPort is possible.

www.cablematters.com

And as we've already seen with USB-A and USB-C in the past, we'll almost certainly get further speed increases to handle speeds faster than 40 Gbps, while maintaining backwards compatibility. TB5 is rumored to be going to 80 Gbps, using of course the same USB-C connector.

Thunderbolt 5 Could Double Bandwidth to 80 Gbps, Intel Leak Suggests

An Intel executive appears to have unintentionally leaked details of Thunderbolt 5, the next-generation hardware interface protocol that is yet to...

www.macrumors.com

USB-C is going to be here for the long haul and I don't know what else to to tell anyone.

I’m not against the USB-C port (as USB 3.1, 3.2, 4.0 TB 3/4 or even just plain PD) I prefer it over any of the current ports on the market. What I am against is enshrining it in legislation. Things change and they are changing more rapidly as more of our lives become digital. Even the USB-A port didn’t last 25 years as you keep insisting. The current USB-A port is backwards compatible with (most) USB-A devices going back 25 years, but the original physical USB-A port from 1996 was not future compatible with all USB-A devices we have now. Certainly not with power demands. The physical port was changed in 2008 to the 3.0 spec. So basically, it had a 12 year run. And if it weren’t for FireWire 800, I would have lost my mind well before then watching progress bars inch along like molasses. The USB-C port can keep up for now and it may be able to keep up for years, but legislation does not get revisited very often in our lifetimes and I have witnessed demands on technology quickly outpace standards and new standards slow to gain market adoption.

DSC is not lossless (it’s visually lossless which is not the same thing) and adds latency. It also doesn’‘t support as many frame-rate options at a given resolution as uncompressed HDMI and the compression levels that are supported, if any, are determined by the display. For these reasons alone I believe Apple will reintroduce the HDMI port on their new MacBook Pros and future iMacs to allow a full-bandwidth uncompressed signal. There may be a future 80Gbs spec for TB/USB that may ship that may allow this. It may ship without requiring a change to the physical port. However, HDMI 2.1 is shipping today.

 

[Neodym]

Even more crazy - your 2021 computer and 1970 refrigerator can use the same wall outlet!

… however, your computer and my refrigerator probably can‘t, regardless of age. USB-C could become a truly global (charging plug) standard.

 

[springsup]

On the one hand, governments forcing particular connectors and such very much is against innovation. Apple’s right on that.

On the other hand, in this particular case their argument rings hollow. The top-end iPads switched from Lightning to Thunderbolt over USB-C, and Apple touted it (and still touts it) as a feature.

 

[Chloros]

Thank you EU. This should have done a long time ago. Fan bois here are laughable. Sucks to have apple as your only friend let alone paid friend lol

 

[Saskat]

Good for EU. Hope others follow suit.

 

[Michael Scrip]

How many iPhones does Apple sell in the EU?
How many MFI Lightning accessories does Apple sell in the EU?
How much money does Apple make in licensing fees from those MFI Lightning accessories sold in the EU?
And finally... what fines could the EU place on Apple for non-compliance?

It would be funny if Apple just paid the fines and kept the Lightning port... just to spite them.

I'm indifferent on this whole topic, though. I already have plenty of Lightning charging solutions all over my house dating back to the iPhone 6S era. They still work.

But my next laptop will charge over USB-C so it would be nice to have one solution for laptop and iPhone.

And yet... I will be using devices with a variety of connectors for years. I still have devices that use Micro-USB. And will for a long time. My Lightning iPads still work too.

So even if the iPhone gets USB-C... I'll still have at least 3 different ports to deal with.

And that's just the device-end. I still have some charging blocks with USB-A... though I'm starting to replace all of those with USB-C chargers.

iPhone 16 should be interesting...

 

[I7guy]

You would trade smaller port size over not having to carry separate cable and charger? Plus, the difference would have smaller than you may think.

Yes. usb-c does not provide any additional capabilities for me for iphones. I already carry around multiple cables...one more won't make a difference. I have usb-c connectors for other devices, lightning is measurable smaller.

 

[vipergts2207]

I’m not against the USB-C port (as USB 3.1, 3.2, 4.0 TB 3/4 or even just plain PD) I prefer it over any of the current ports on the market. What I am against is enshrining it in legislation. Things change and they are changing more rapidly as more of our lives become digital. Even the USB-A port didn’t last 25 years as you keep insisting. The current USB-A port is backwards compatible with (most) USB-A devices going back 25 years, but the original physical USB-A port from 1996 was not future comparable with all USB-A devices we have now. Certainly not with power demands. The physical port was changed in 2008 to the 3.0 spec. So basically, it had a 12 year run. And if it weren’t for FireWire 800, I would have lost my mind well before then watching progress bars inch along like molasses. The USB-C port can keep up for now and it may be able to keep up for years, but legislation does not get revisited very often in our lifetimes and I have witnessed demands on technology quickly outpace standards and new standards slow to gain market adoption.

DSC is not lossless (it’s visually lossless which is not the same thing) and adds latency. It also doesn’‘t support as many frame-rate options at a given resolution as uncompressed HDMI and the compression levels that are supported, if any, are determined by the display. For these reasons alone I believe Apple will reintroduce the HDMI port on their new MacBook Pros and future iMacs to allow a full-bandwidth uncompressed signal. There may be a future 80Gbs spec for TB/USB that may ship that may allow this. It may ship without requiring a change to the physical port. However, HDMI 2.1 is shipping today.

HDMI 2.1 may be shipping today, but that doesn't do anything for the old USB 2.0b devices you probably already have lying around. However, your new HDMI 2.1 devices will continue to work with the old ones. And that's the point here right? It's not as if HDMI 2.1 shipping today somehow upgraded all of your old devices to the new spec. This is no different than how USB-C or frankly any other connector would work either. It's not as if the EU would be mandating every specification and parameter around the chosen connector so as to freeze everything in place as it exists today, rather than simply stating that USB-C in general must be used, whether that's 3.2, 4.0, or whatever future version number may come out. The fact that new iterations of HDMI (as well as DP, TB, and USB-C) continue to come out while maintaining backward compatibility only furthers my point that the EU mandating USB-C isn't going to doom the future of tech. The argument boils down to a largely unfounded fear that some new non-USB-C connector will be introduced in 10, 15, 20 years, whatever timeframe, and that the EU will be intransigent and not allow tech companies to move to it. It may be a popular belief that governments can never do anything right, however I find that scenario exceedingly unlikely, particularly if one takes anything but a completely cynical and jaded viewpoint.

 

[MartyvH]

And no innovation within Lightning for 10 years. And lots of innovation within USB and HDMI. And new worldwide M.2 and NVMe connectors for SSDs.....

 

[Hunter5117]

It's a slippery slope. I hope Apple resists in every way they can.

 

[amartinez1660]

Why so authoritarian, EU? It's like you want to be up in everyone's business... let the market decide.

USB-Crybabies go home.

Or instead of state thuggery, how about this: Make a device with a port people hate? Ok, you won’t sell many and will consider changing it.

This thread has gone so deep but I feel compelled to throw one more stone on the sea of stones… what is going on this decade, why are private companies forced nowadays to give service, adopt technologies or create technologies by force?

It’s like if I have a cheese sandwich shop corner for adults and the government forces me to have them be ham sandwiches for kids. What happened to the freedom to reserve the right of service? To work and explore as compelled to (within the reasonable limits of morals, work ethics, etc etc)? The market will decide if the shop corner collapses or not, doesn’t it?

It feels sometimes that this “for the benefit of the customer” is used as a scapegoat sometimes.

 

[aevan]

For people in the states I’ll tell you this, the EU has no power so don’t worry, in the U.K. we left them; they can’t force apple to do anything

They have no power over UK because UK left, not the other way around. Besides, UK always pretended it was not actually part of the EU anyway. But it’s not the same in the rest of Europe who actually follow the rules and work together and all that. Now UK has no say in what happens in EU, but EU can very much force Apple to do this - if Apple wants to do business in EU, that is (hint: they do).

 

[Onexy]

You have not read my post? The point I am making is that Apple gets all this attention because their phones are not USB-C, however more devices are using micro USB, hence that is a bigger problem.

You are… on a Apple News website. Dude.

 

[profcutter]

Because that was never the way the market worked. Regulation has been a central figure in the US economy, especially since the Great Depression of the 1920s. The language that companies use suggests that regulation is something new, foreign, and evil. Wonder why you have seatbelts in your car? Regulation. Why you have grounded outlets in your house? Regulation. No asbestos in your kids new school building? Regulation.