Oh, good, it sounds like we’ll basically be stuck in proprietary Apple-land then.
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Greg Joswiak: Apple Will Have to Comply With the EU and Switch iPhone to USB-C
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Good. Lighting is awful.
Apple's vice president of worldwide marketing, Greg Joswiak, today said that Apple will have to move to USB-C on iPhone and its remaining devices that still have a Lightning connector in order to comply with new EU rules.
Speaking at the Wall Street Journal's Tech Live event, Joswiak, also known as Joz, said that Apple ultimately respects the decision made by the EU to mandate a common charger across consumer electronic devices. "We'll have to comply," Joz said, indirectly confirming Apple will move to USB-C in the future.
USB-C will have to be the common port across a wide range of consumer electronic devices, including the iPhone and AirPods, by the end of 2024, according to the rules put forward by the EU. Apple is reportedly testing iPhone 15 models with a USB-C port.
Article Link: Greg Joswiak: Apple Will Have to Comply With the EU and Switch iPhone to USB-C
I don't think of it that way. I more or less look at it like certs for CAT 6 Ethernet cables, or HDMI cables that support 4K HDR. You can be free to buy whatever, but don't expect the world from it.Oh, good, it sounds like we’ll basically be stuck in proprietary Apple-land then.
The USB group themselves said they made the USB-C port to be a long standing design, I don't even think they have plans to make a new port type. It's highly unlikely we'll need to move from USB-C for decades to come hence this legislation. I'm just as skeptical about these proposals as anyone else but it's hard to see the downside here besides some imaginary idea about potential USB port innovation. Everyone is already adopting USB-C because it fits basically all of their requirements for a port.
Yep my biggest problem with USB-C is almost zero transparency regarding cable capabilities.
Actually, after this announcement anyone who knows about it is not going to buy anything Lightning including (possibly) iphones themselves, unless absolutely necessary for their particular situation. That would be the smart thing to do, imo. I know I am not going to buy anything Lightning going forward.
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Now let iPhone 15 Pro work with external displays over USB-C, full resolution - no mirroring
I have no background in material design, but I imagine Apple has the resources to design/make their port 'more robust than average'.
But the fact that regulations make them do it as opposed to an engineering decision is what rubs people the wrong way.
iPhone buyers outside of this forum (i.e. the real world) really don't care, and the average iPhone buyer in 2022 probably still has more leftover Lightning cables laying around than USB-C.
Agreed. Wasted many $$$, and hours of time figuring out what "works" for specific situations.
I mean, if you’re an iPhone user, yeah, you need(ed) to buy needlessly expensive cables. How long did it take third parties to make MFi Lightning cables? A while. Even took longer with the USB-C to Lightning cables. In the early Lightning days, if you wanted an extra cable, you were paying $19 plus tax for a USB 2.0 cable which only works with other Apple devices.
Or was your comment a way to say “Android was always an option”? If so, nah, don’t be silly. You knew what I meant.
I believe you. But it still transfers just fine, albeit slower, over Lightning. Again, it's a use case inconveniencing 1%. And it's not stopping them from transferring ProRes, it's just annoyingly slow.
This is obvious. The whole point of the EU regulation is to reduce waste. Why include chargers and cables (and include them in the purchase price, and take the environmental and monetary impact on shipping larger boxes) if they might already have them?
They make very little. You are talking about third party licensing for lightning to USB cables (which is pennies). The lightning accessory market (like alarm clocks, car diagnostic adapters, etc) is nearly completely gone.
Apple will make far more on just the people who decide they need to buy two official wall chargers, a third party car charger, and three USB-C to C cords as well as a nightstand when the iPhone launches with this port.
The problem is inertia. There's a lot of lightning stuff in the market. Most people don't want to spend money to solve an already solved problem (charging). The irony is the people who get pissy about this are likely often the same people who got upset at apple referring to the decision to remove the headphone jack as 'courage' - switching to USB-C is the same damn problem of messing with people's existing investments while not providing them any demonstrable benefits.
Apple switching the _other_ end of official cables USB-C was a way to start migration. That got people buying standard chargers, whether from Apple or from someone else.
I suspect that this year was the end of Apple's ten years of lightning anyway. But if they can point to the EU regulation as something 'forcing their hand', they'll likely let the EU be the scapegoat as to why people have to spend money to repurchase cabling and chargers, and as to why that phone will likely not include cabling.
But I also suspect they'll bump the max charging speed to 30W and support for operating directly with things like thumb drives, and promote those as benefits they have managed to eek out of the change despite the meddling of regulators.
Yeah, I’m holding off on buying AirPods Pro 2 because I know next year they will release the same product with a USB-C case.
All current AirPods models will be incompatible with next year’s iPhone charger. There’s no reason for them not to offer an option for a USB-C case today.
yes why don't we have USB 4 lightning? crazy.
If Apple doesn't want to make the port faster use USB-C? What happens when Apple adds 8k video on iPhone Pro.
Pro iPhones should have fast ports
Glad to see confirmation from Apple. Guess I'll be trading in my iPhone 13 mini for iPhone SE4/regular iPhone 15 next year.
The cars will use a standard type 1 receptacle, but the port is on the bottom - requiring the car to be flipped over while recharging.
Apple is free to whatever they damn well please. They just won't be able to market them in the EU. Guess that is more important to them than going their own way.
This right here. USB-C is no panacea. I too have at least 6 (maybe 10?) different kinds of USB-C cables here at my house that support different charging and/or data transfer protocols. Some only support 15w charging, even less than Lightning!
I do prefer USB-C, but only if the option is micro-USB or some proprietary port. I nerd out and buy the high-end USB-C cables so I get appropriate data transfer and charging support, but most people will never understand the variations.
the USB A size connector was released in 1996, popularised in 1998 and still in common use today, so I expect the same for USB C, even more with thunderbolt being backwards compatible with it. So it's both a wonderful and terrible thing about this ruling is that we'll have the same sized power delivery port for decades to come.
On the plus side we'll have a consistency for nearly all electronic devices around the world for decades.
On the negative side consumers are going to be totally flummoxed when their Thunderbolt 8 cable can't drive dual 16k screens from the random USB C shaped port on their device because the average consumer probably cant tell lightning from a USB C, let alone divine what generation of Thunderbolt port it might be.
Even Apple try to flummox us. I was shocked (well not that shocked) when I realised the Apple USB C cable is actually only rated for USB 2 speeds all to upsell you to a Thunderbolt cable. For shame Tim.
On the plus side we'll have a consistency for nearly all electronic devices around the world for decades.
On the negative side consumers are going to be totally flummoxed when their Thunderbolt 8 cable can't drive dual 16k screens from the random USB C shaped port on their device because the average consumer probably cant tell lightning from a USB C, let alone divine what generation of Thunderbolt port it might be.
Even Apple try to flummox us. I was shocked (well not that shocked) when I realised the Apple USB C cable is actually only rated for USB 2 speeds all to upsell you to a Thunderbolt cable. For shame Tim.
There's an assumption in the above post that in the absence of "government", there would be no standards. Thats certainly a possibility but its unlikely. Its historically proven that companies innovate in the absence of regulation, and very much in favor of the common man. Vanderbilt with his NY ferry service made it cheap enough for all but the poorest people to ride between NY and NJ. Rockefeller made his initial fortune by providing lamp oil far cheaper than anyone else, something that raised the standard of living for all people - up until then only the "rich" had evening light, in the form of expensive candles. Lysander Spooner brought mail to people for about a tenth of the cost of US postage. None of these people needed regulation to do this, and all of them faced serious uphill battles and even faced imprisonment for trying to do their service.
You're also making the assumption that what the government does is for the benefit of the people. I'll allow the broken clock axiom, but what about the other minutes in the day? How is it that the government is somehow exempt from the same temptations that seem to afflict these awful companies?
In the 19th century the true free market had to compete with Clay's "American System", which was westward expansion under mandate, financed by wealthy bankers who would then derive the first fruits. Consider the example of two railroads. The Great Northern Railroad, founded by JJ Hill, refused to take land grants from the US govt. Every right of way was purchased fairly, whether it was from the government, private land owners, or indigenous peoples. He took a conservative approach to building only one leg at a time, moving to the next only when his previous work became profitable. He sold sidings to locals for a reasonable price, enabling towns to flourish along the way and bringing a lot of wealth to them. Contrast that with the Union and Pacific lines, which were seized by eminent domain and outright combat. Long stretches of the lines had to be guarded by federal troops, as the Indians could only be pushed so far before they'd return fire. The crony system ensured that the best siding stayed in the company, or was sold to politically connected clients. But hooray for those regulating authorities - they generally come in after the targets have completely raped a market, literally and/or figuratively, and the regulators "correct" something that was caused or at least permitted by their rules in the first place.
I could also make an example that the more draconian the rules, the more it drives innovation, up to and including the creation of a black market. In fact thats usually the end result. Vanderbilt carried passengers even under direct gunboat attacks by the NY Port Authority. Or witness the terrible privation caused by the Soviet command economy and its limitless list of banned western products, and how that drove a tremendous black market in things such as Levis, Coke, and American music.
Your example of the phone company neglects that their rules generally came from their government-protected "limited monopoly" to begin with. The Bell System was the number one phone company in the nation, initially due to innovation, but later due to their lobbying efforts. Ma Bell never did anything it wasn't already considering, regardless of government "force". I have a sneaking suspicion that they allowed the break-up to happen, because that was a cheap way to spin off all those RBOCs without doing a lot of SEC paperwork. Once free of the original company, the RBOCs built up their own businesses into behemoths before ultimately recombining into something that was much more malign than before. And nary a word of antitrust now.
Regulation might indeed guarantee that a bottle that says 'snake oil' is snake oil, but then that demonstrates in two words just what is wrong with our system. A lot of product regulations are backed by the very companies that the laws are supposed to affect in the first place, and in some cases the laws are drafted by them and handed to legislators by lobbyists. They use those laws to create regulated monopolies and stifle competition. That law will be used by established snake oil manufacturers to keep new competitors out of their market. Eastern Air did it in the 30s when they lobbied to have a monopoly over the European air routes, the auto manufacturers did it in the 40s to keep Preston Tucker out of their sandbox, and it still goes on today.
I do agree that Apple should have made the iPhone 13/14 Pro Lightning ports support USB 3.0 transfer speeds. Even though it's niche, Apple does advertise ProRes as a prominent feature, and even restricts it to the higher capacity models. So the least they could do is improve the data transfer rate.
When they asked the EU "Why?" they replied, "One word: Courage."
You must have missed where it said USB-C Charging Cable - e.g. meant for power, not meant for high-speed data transfer.
Apple really only sells charging cables and thunderbolt cables (for charging with data transfer) first-party. Any gaps for cheaper cables at lower power levels/speeds get filled in by third parties.
AFAIK only way you get a high speed data cable included from Apple is with a monitor purchase. The only way you get a USB-C charging cable included is if the port is nonstandard (e.g. USB-C to lightning) or if they are also bundling a charger (MacBook Air/Pro).
It’s understandable Apple wanted to protect its ecosystem, but the writing was on the wall years ago. They should have switched everything over in one swoop.
Now we’re stuck with:
- USB-C Macs with lightning accessories including the mouse and keyboard
- USB-C iPads with a dongle to charge a 7 year old lighting pencil. But the keyboards are USB-C.
- Lightning iPhones and Lightning AirPods.
It will take years to clear out this mess. It has become one of the biggest stains on the entire ecosystem. So great that the EU is stepping in!
Now we’re stuck with:
- USB-C Macs with lightning accessories including the mouse and keyboard
- USB-C iPads with a dongle to charge a 7 year old lighting pencil. But the keyboards are USB-C.
- Lightning iPhones and Lightning AirPods.
It will take years to clear out this mess. It has become one of the biggest stains on the entire ecosystem. So great that the EU is stepping in!