The EU Wants All Phones to Work With Interoperable Chargers, Here’s What That Means for Apple's Lightning Port

I’m against this EU effort. Cables and ports are part of the innovation stack that keeps advancing devices. What if the EU had mandated all movies be delivered on the DVD standard or micro USB? Even standardizing on USB C is problematic in of itself, not to mention that as phones get thinner, the charging ports will have to change.

Obsolescence is the price of progress. Trying to regulate everything to make things fair and equitable has a long and disastrous history of stagnating markets.

Which makes me wonder if even our AC plugs could stand to benefit from new innovation that makes them safer and more efficient? Standards are great but they have a shelf life and gov’t regulations have a way of extending the shelf-life of technology far beyond their expiration.
 
It's so strange, the EU regulating the device end of the charging devices, but what about the wall sockets? they are all different in many countries of the EU. So when I buy a device in Europe, I get about 4 different adapters for the wall socket (GB, Italy, Germany, France …). I only keep one, isn't that waste too?
 
kingax1 said:
I can imagine if legislation like this was passed in the 80s shyt would suck today.
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I’m using the same wall outlets I used in the 80s.

however, there’s nothing in this that suggests it would be USBC forever. Rules and laws can evolve, and often do. Perhaps more so outside of the US which seems to treat some laws as utterly fixed for ever more.
 
cmaier said:
It takes the E.U. *years* to decide *anything.* They’ve been dicking around on this very issue for about a decade. They aren’t going to snap their fingers and move to the next thing.

Tell you what - how about Europe first gets its **** together and decides on a damned standard *wall outlet* before it sticks its nose where it doesn’t belong and worries about phone ports.
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Years aren't very long, compared with the decades over which such standards are relevant. The EU can move quickly when it is minded to.

It's not practical to have a common wall outlet across Europe, or indeed the world, as hundreds of millions of existing homes could need re-wiring, not to say modification of billions of domestic devices. Compounded by varying national wiring requirements. The UK requires ring main circuit installations, for example, where other countries do not. I'm not an electrician, but I've read that these kind of complications make a common wall socket impractical.
 
cmaier said:
They’ve admitted it. They want to be able to have things their own way - if they decide that the best iphone is an iphone with no ports, they don’t want to be stuck making ones with ports for the EU. If they decide that some new connector is fantastic, they don’t want to be prevented from innovating.

That’s what the EU is doing here - they are locking technology to what it is currently and preventing future innovations. They started dicking with this ten years ago. You can bet that when apple comes out with the next great thing in the Americas and Asia, it will take the EU politicians 10 years to update their law to allow out.
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No they haven’t. Many of us prefer lightning because it is more reliable (doesn’t get loose), smaller, and easier to insert.
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Wut. What are you trying to do, move a boulder out of the way when you insert a USBC cable?

Yes, Apple users have been asking for a unified port across their devices. You have the macbook pros, macbook air and mac pro all having USBC. The iPad Pro is usbc. The iPhone and iPad Air and iPad are the only ones left on that stupid ass connector.

For a company that touts itself on simplicity, having to switch to another connector, when than half it's product line uses another, is just ridiculous at this point. FFS dude, the Nintendo Switch uses USBC. My headphones use USBC.
 
LV426 said:
Years aren't very long, compared with the decades over which such standards are relevant. The EU can move quickly when it is minded to.

It's not practical to have a common wall outlet across Europe, or indeed the world, as hundreds of millions of existing homes could need re-wiring, not to say modification of billions of domestic devices. Compounded by varying national wiring requirements. The UK requires ring main circuit installations, for example, where other countries do not. I'm not an electrician, but I've read that these kind of complications make a common wall socket impractical.
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Wow. What a bunch of nonsense. Phones, which innovate quickly, must lock into a single standard because governments can move quickly to update the standard, but wall outlet technology, which changes never, must be a playground for a million different variations.

Put the UK aside (not in the EU Anymore) - the point is the EU could say “all new construction or remodels must use outlet standard X.“. But they won’t. Because they don’t really care. All they want to do is stick it to foreign companies that make phones.

Garbage garbage garbage
 
This doesn't solve anything. It actually is going to make more e-waste in the beginning since everyone will have to buy every dongle they already have for lightning to whatever other connector all over again. And everyone complaining about dongles, they're going to exist in some way for quite some time whether you like it or not. It's either that or a whole different cable for each other device you connect to.
 
robinp said:
I’m using the same wall outlets I used in the 80s.

however, there’s nothing in this that suggests it would be USBC forever. Rules and laws can evolve, and often do. Perhaps more so outside of the US which seems to treat some laws as utterly fixed for ever more.
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But when you have to change the laws to move innovation forward, companies can lose their incentives to invest millions on the next thing since they would have to update the law and have any lobby from the other side accept these new standards since competition will also have to invest their own millions to update their designs/factories to meet these standards that were created by their competition. And then throw in that the other side may have their own innovation that they would want to move forward.

Its just not worth it.
 
This is such a politically driven legislation just to make it look like they have done something. All the players have started to make the move to USB C (even apple on their ipads and macbooks). Does it force Apple’s hand and make all of their customers buy new accessories and gear for their next device? Sure. And poor Apple and its partner ecosystem will make tons of cash selling the new gear. If they really wanted to get rid of adapter waste in the EU, they should have focused on consolidating the half dozen various outlet plugs that are used across europe.

Museum of Plugs and Sockets: plugs sockets in Europe

Plugs and sockets in Europe; map and compatibility table
www.plugsocketmuseum.nl
 
Arcane rules like this are exactly why England left the EU. The EU is government run amuck with its hands in everyone's business. The easy solution is to move to USB-C, but the fallout of doing so will be getting stuck with an obsolete connector 5 years from now. Were I Apple I would blow it off and include a wireless charger and put whatever connector I wanted on the phone since it would not be used for charging.

The Lightning cable is a far better design than the USB-C as it is way more durable and can be inserted by a blind person.
 
zorinlynx said:
It'd be nice if the EU regulations would ban having wireless charging as the only option. This is something idiotic that Apple would likely try to do eventually, given their obsession with eliminating wires. While wireless charging is convenient, it's also inefficient and should never be the ONLY option. Imagine charging with a portable power bank and losing almost half the energy as heat because you can only charge wirelessly.
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Wireless charging is the end game. There is nothing easier for me than laying it on my wireless charger and walking away. I also have a 12 South picture frame with a charger mat behind the glass that is a masterpiece of design.
 
What happens when USB-C is old and slow compared to what technology can do? What about phone manufacturers who want to support special features? What if a phone manufacturer wants to make their device as this as possible?
 
We'd all still be using CD-ROM's if the government implemented requirements like this mandating removable media at the time. No one would have invested in alternatives to push the market forward. It would have affected all sorts of things like design it didn't intent to. It always adds cost as well. This is locking in USB C forever without any need for any company to innovate because all would need to comply.

If there are any patent holders for say USB-C they will immediately substantially raise licensing fees because there is no competition.
 
cmaier said:
Wow. What a bunch of nonsense. Phones, which innovate quickly, must lock into a single standard because governments can move quickly to update the standard, but wall outlet technology, which changes never, must be a playground for a million different variations.

Put the UK aside (not in the EU Anymore) - the point is the EU could say “all new construction or remodels must use outlet standard X.“. But they won’t. Because they don’t really care. All they want to do is stick it to foreign companies that make phones.

Garbage garbage garbage
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You really need to educate yourself. Look up the varying requirements for ring mains vs radial circuits. You can't just build new houses to a different wiring standard. If your magic world was as easy as it sounds, don't you think the EU would have made such a directive a very long time ago.
 
This would be regulation taken to a ridiculous level. Governments shouldn’t be getting involved in such things; we aren’t talking about making sure that the hamburger which gets sold in grocery stores is safe to eat.

Why don’t we just let Apple decide what makes the most sense for its devices, and let consumers decide whether or not they want to buy those devices.

Private industry has demonstrated that, when standardization is really necessary, it is able to implement widely-adopted but voluntary standards. Would-be industry participants remain free - as they should be - to comply or not comply with those standards. But in not complying they’d typically suffer in the marketplace. Where that‘s not the case, standardization isn’t really needed.

It seems, unfortunately, that the degree to which we prioritize individual liberty relative to societal control over our lives (and those of others) continues to erode.
 
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