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EU Sets Official Deadline for When iPhone Must Switch to USB-C
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Yeah... good thing this forums is restricted to more mature accounts. That really works
Wrong...
"Apple is a public company, meaning its ownership consists of shareholders. According to Macrotrends, Apple had over 16 billion shares outstanding as of March 2022. Apple's largest share quantities are owned by organizations.Jul 27, 2022"
Who owns the most shares of Apple? Here's a look at the company's biggest shareholders.
As of February 2021, Apple's biggest shareholder was the Vanguard Group, which owned more than 1.3 billion shares of the company's 16 billion.
www.usatoday.com
I, for one, welcome our new EU overlords.
Yeah that is my confusion as well, and on a cursory search I couldn't find out if the law applies only to new products, so I presume it's a blanket effect.
As you point out a new SE, combined with the year-old 15 would cover most of the price points, though, so I don't think it's a huge deal for Apple if they migrate with the coming phone revisions as rumored. There's just a slightly bigger hole in the lineup temporarily, and people either go cheaper or more expensive (I'm sure Apple would like them to do the latter.)
If the EU was brave they would force Apple to make all screens 120hz immediately. 🙃
You can't keep the populace safe if you can't spy on their every move, thought and deed.
Try as I might, I cannot come up with a connection (pun intended) how making a law to standardize on a common connector for electronic devices has anything to do with morality. Help us out and explain.
Remember, that means every single iPhone on sale from SE to Ultra needs to have USB-C by January 2025, not just the latest device.
I support Apple going to USB-C now, as it seems to be the best connector available for the time being.
I oppose the EU mandating it because it stifles development and it is only the best for the time being.
I oppose the EU mandating it because it stifles development and it is only the best for the time being.
USB-C is just the type of connector homie. Thunderbolt 4 or USB Godknows.whatgen can use the USB-C connector type.
It was already planned, so this is like the EU setting a rule that the sun must rise in the morning and then pretending their regulation made it happen.
Ignoring the EU/USB-C thing, I gotta say a portless phone is a far worse idea.
If you have no choice but to charge wirelessly, it's now impossible to charge your phone while you hold it and use it, unless you get some kind of case that has a wireless charger built in and provides a cable connection - at which point you're back where you started, with a thicker device.
Also, wireless charging is actually hugely inefficient. You can use up to twice the power of wired charging just for the conversion to and from high frequency AC for the wireless coils. This also generates extra heat, which we all know is the enemy of lithium ion batteries. So you'll use more electricity and shorten the service life of your battery if you must always charge wirelessly.
And finally, Bluetooth still leaves a lot to be desired. If you strictly use AirPods then maybe it's OK, but try using any other device and you'll have to worry about "does this device support the highest quality protocols/does it support low latency/how easy is it to pair/etc". Some devices let you pair with NFC, but even that's not supported on most devices. Of course, this would be another way to get you locked into the Apple ecosystem (AirPods are naturally going to work the best with iOS devices).
Finally, did the EU actually specify that wireless charging devices must adhere to a standard? What's to stop Apple from just switching to a portless phone and redesigning the charging system to be proprietary - i.e. so that Qi chargers won't work, or will only charge the phone at extremely slow speeds?
Naturally Apple wants to maximize profits, but it always seems big companies start to ignore customer experience, or they simply depend on the fanboys who will buy whatever the company offers no matter how consumer-hostile it is. I don't think the EU was necessarily the right venue to force this upon Apple, but I can't think of any technical reason why Lightning is superior today than USB-C. At the time Lightning came out it was actually superior, but nowadays it's just a way for them to make royalties on the chargers they no longer include with the devices.
(And actually, iOS has had USB host support since the early days - the 30-pin to USB "Camera Connector" plug adapter was basically just a straight through connection. You could use MIDI keyboards and regular keyboards for example. A similar adapter exists for Lightning. And Apple even added USB flash drive support to Files--and by extension anything that utilizes their new storage APIs--a few years back. So the USB support has always been there to begin with. But until now they could charge you for a $29 dongle to access it.)
If you have no choice but to charge wirelessly, it's now impossible to charge your phone while you hold it and use it, unless you get some kind of case that has a wireless charger built in and provides a cable connection - at which point you're back where you started, with a thicker device.
Also, wireless charging is actually hugely inefficient. You can use up to twice the power of wired charging just for the conversion to and from high frequency AC for the wireless coils. This also generates extra heat, which we all know is the enemy of lithium ion batteries. So you'll use more electricity and shorten the service life of your battery if you must always charge wirelessly.
And finally, Bluetooth still leaves a lot to be desired. If you strictly use AirPods then maybe it's OK, but try using any other device and you'll have to worry about "does this device support the highest quality protocols/does it support low latency/how easy is it to pair/etc". Some devices let you pair with NFC, but even that's not supported on most devices. Of course, this would be another way to get you locked into the Apple ecosystem (AirPods are naturally going to work the best with iOS devices).
Finally, did the EU actually specify that wireless charging devices must adhere to a standard? What's to stop Apple from just switching to a portless phone and redesigning the charging system to be proprietary - i.e. so that Qi chargers won't work, or will only charge the phone at extremely slow speeds?
Naturally Apple wants to maximize profits, but it always seems big companies start to ignore customer experience, or they simply depend on the fanboys who will buy whatever the company offers no matter how consumer-hostile it is. I don't think the EU was necessarily the right venue to force this upon Apple, but I can't think of any technical reason why Lightning is superior today than USB-C. At the time Lightning came out it was actually superior, but nowadays it's just a way for them to make royalties on the chargers they no longer include with the devices.
(And actually, iOS has had USB host support since the early days - the 30-pin to USB "Camera Connector" plug adapter was basically just a straight through connection. You could use MIDI keyboards and regular keyboards for example. A similar adapter exists for Lightning. And Apple even added USB flash drive support to Files--and by extension anything that utilizes their new storage APIs--a few years back. So the USB support has always been there to begin with. But until now they could charge you for a $29 dongle to access it.)
Of course they can. Thunderbolt 4 uses the USB-C plug. USB-C dictates the physical characteristics of the plug, not the signalling protocols than run over it.
iPad Pro already supports Thunderbolt - it's not inconceivable that future iPhones (Pro/Max?) could as well.
No. Besides, this directive is about charging, not data connectivity.
USB-C is a connector. Nothing more. All sorts of things (charging power, display port, Thunderbolt, USB 3.2, etc) can use the USB-C connector.
In fact, devices do not have to support any kind of data transfer at all. The directive is about charging. They just have to support charging via a USB-C connector.
? Thunderbold 4 requires USB-C. USB-C is connector standard, base for Thunderbold 3/4 and USB 3+ transmission standards.
You should be more careful about tripping over your charging cables and that wouldn't happen.
At the top level of the EU sit 27 European Presidents/First Ministers whose governments have to sign everything off. If you're a little annoyed about what they are doing to prevent millions of different charging leads having to be made for different devices, when one type should be enough, blame the your government.
I really wish they had not left in a loophole that phones can be portless. It'd be just like Apple to try to force a portless phone on us.
USB ports are much more efficient for charging, and allow for bare metal OS restores when things go wrong. It would be a huge loss for them to go away.
USB ports are much more efficient for charging, and allow for bare metal OS restores when things go wrong. It would be a huge loss for them to go away.
Looking forward to it. One standard cable for most devices.
The consumer benefits.
The consumer benefits.