USB-C on iPhone is good – but not as an excuse for a bad law | AppleInsider

AppleInsider may receive an affiliate commission for purchases made through links on our site.

In theory, the European Union is a force for good across Europe – just ask anyone in the UK who has now figured out how much the EU used to do for this country. But it’s still a political bureaucracy, and it’s still capable of making incredibly bad decisions, like its new USB-C requirement.

Apple protested the plan and lost anyway. It can still turn this from a loss to an opportunity to win.

The new law was created specifically to reduce the amount of electronic or electronic waste created by a range of incompatible chargers. Users may get a new charger with a new phone, they may buy a new one when they change phones, but either way, there are many chargers in the world and many cables.

That was another problem, the proliferation of chargers and cables that EU legislators objected to as being incompatible. In her opinion, people are so incompetent that borrowing a friend’s charger will no doubt suffer the scourge of incompatibility. In addition to e-waste, the EU also wants to relieve the population of this burden by eliminating all inconveniences for chargers by law.

He can do one of them. If everything goes according to the EU plan and timetable, at some point new smartphone users will no longer have to worry about which cable they need.

Except that the EU expects companies to switch to USB-C, removing user confusion. However, USB-C is already a confusing mess of speeds and standards, and that’s not going to improve just because the USB-C board really wants every company to label their cables better.

Admittedly, given the relatively lower power requirements on mobile, this is less of an issue. Still, this labeling and ambiguity about what cable can do will make a difference for people trying to transfer data to or from the device over the cable.

And of course, as Apple itself has pointed out, EU law will create more e-waste in the short term.

For example, accessories that use Lightning cables get a pass because they were purchased before the law went into effect. However, by then, if users have switched to USB-C cables, they will either throw away the accessories and create more e-waste, or they will face the confusion of incompatible cables for a long time.

There’s an argument that a short-term spike in e-waste is worth it if it means we’ll never see current levels again. If we accept an increase in e-waste today, maybe tomorrow things will settle down better than they were.

The problem with this is that even if it’s right, it’s going to be years before we see any real reduction in e-waste because Lightning and Lightning accessories are everywhere. To see an older example of this, every thrift store we’ve been to in the last five years has been inundated with 30 pin watches and the like.

It’s no longer a short-term problem, it’s a long-term one – and in the long-term it has its own problems.

Lightning was better than the old 30-pin charging standard, and in most situations, USB-C is better than Lightning. Each was excellent in its time, but days go by. USB-C could eventually be replaced by a charging cable standard that’s dramatically better, and it seems that’s going to be bad luck.

USB-C is 10 years old. Around the same time that USB-C was emerging, there were movements to standardize micro-USB.

The EU has said its new law is “future-proof” and has specifically said it “enables the development of innovative charging solutions in the future”. But the law is based on USB-C and any references to future technologies are weak.

Essentially, the EU’s full working document makes gestures about how future technologies might be negotiated, and then goes on to assume that future options will be wireless. In particular, the EU repeatedly points to the need to harmonize “interoperability requirements” for wireless charging – meaning it’s not yet covered by this law.

That would suggest that there would have to be a new law for wireless, and given that new wired has taken a decade to get to that stage, it could be in the 2030s before there is one.

In addition, there is already a harmonized wireless standard. It’s called Qi and even Apple’s own MagSafe is based on it.

So a new law on a common wireless charging standard would be pointless, but the EU keeps pushing for it. Money will be spent, legislative time will be spent, research will be done, and it will be years of utterly worthless waste of time.

There are parts of the new law that feel like they were either due to lawmakers being technologically uninformed, or more likely they were negotiated by politicians. Using this new law to lead to one about wireless charging is just plain ignorant.

The EU hasn’t explicitly targeted Apple with its new law, but it might as well have done so, as it’s the company hardest hit. In addition to the iPhone, EU law also covers devices such as keyboards, trackpads and mice, which Apple currently uses Lightning for.

Apple could back down and maybe pay fines, but at some point it will have to introduce USB-C to iPhones — unless it goes for a fully wireless version first. On the other hand, it’s hard to imagine the Apple Magic Trackpad ever going wireless, but even it – if it ever gets a new version – has to be USB-C.

What’s easier to see is that Apple is exploiting another aspect of this new law. It may eventually have to be challenged in court, but in fact the new law seems to mean Apple could stop integrating charging cables with iPhones.

The company has already stopped including chargers, but may now remove the included cable. It could convert iPhone to USB-C and then not include USB-C cable, buy it separately.

That might even be a good thing in the eyes of the EU, which might argue that people are only getting new cables because they choose to buy them.

And it would benefit Apple financially, as losing the cable means an even smaller box after downsizing after it stopped shipping an AC-to-USB charger. Apple saves on package size and weight, even in ounces, so it saves a lot on shipping costs.

Apple could potentially produce a Lightning to USB-C adapter, which it then sells separately with a cable and charger. There is precedent for this, as pending a change in the law, the French government has made Apple bundle wired headphones together.

Depending on how it’s bundled with the iPhone, a separate charger and cable could meet legal requirements in Europe, make Apple extra money, and mean a change for nowhere else in the world.

Apple could potentially still use a Lightning port for the US and everywhere except the EU. It’s perhaps more likely that Apple would switch all of its iPhones to USB-C for the iPhone 16 – although America’s bill, which comes closest to this new EU law, doesn’t specify USB-C. Still, no company wants to have to produce different versions of their hardware products in different countries, but many do – and Apple is already choosing to do so.

But if Apple decides to make a US iPhone with USB-C charging, it also has the political advantage of being able to say the EU is to blame for everything. Hopefully Apple is too posh to do that and it’s not a very convincing argument outside of the EU anyway, but it’s possible.

In this way, Apple could evade the regular criticism of proprietary cables. Apple could potentially make some money by bundling chargers and cables separately, and it would then save on freight costs too.

It’s not like Apple will enjoy this new law. The new law in the EU is both a short-term and long-term lemon, but it’s possible Apple will make a little lemonade.