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EU Passes Law to Switch iPhone to USB-C by End of 2024
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No, the EU recognizes that USB-C is the current standard. When USB-D becomes the new standard, they can require devices adopt USB-D. It's not like these things change everyday.
You only have to look at the 2.5, 3.5 and 6.35mm headphone jack to see that. Been around for decades. Or HDMI - designed 19 years ago.
If it's designed properly with consideration for future improvements, then there's no reason something can't be used for a long time.
Any government can regulate standards for goods sold in their jurisdiction, regardless of where they are from. Your comment, taken to it's end, would mean that the FDA can't regulate food stuff coming from Chinese companies. Think about that.
USB-D will come about. And like -C will eventually become dominant, at which point manufacturers will lobby the EU to include -D as a standard. And imposing a deadline would come along only if a manufacturer is stubborn. You also assume that -D will not be physically compatible with -C. Standards aside, the evolution of USB connectors was always towards smaller. the -C standard being reversible, I can see that until we get to a point where the 24 pins are not enough, the physical connector will remain. And that current pin assignment need not change.
It's funny people have no problem paying $800.- or even $1800.- for a phone, but get a $5 USB-C cable, noooo cancel europe for this!
Please describe exactly how the bolded part would happen, given that manufactures won’t be able to use something other than USB-C?
That's medical and safety regulations. Different from controlling how tech companies make charging ports.
You can design charging ports without accreditation, but you can't practice medicine without it.
Usefulness. At some point a new port standard will emerge for things other than charging. And will become the new standard. Now, if it remains backwards compatible with the current form factor and pinout of USB-C, then nothing changes. But if it is different, manufacturers will ask the EU to change the requirement.
The EU legislation is not so much about capabilities in moving data as much as a physical charging standard.
Canada controls what information and languages must go on labels. Any jurisdiction is free to specify what they want on goods sold in their countries.
Again, I don't know why people can't tell the difference between "the EU can do this" and "the EU should do this".
Lets be honest this legislation probably wouldn't exist if Apple had actually adopted modern I/O for its very expensive smartphones.
If Apple had adopted USBC in 2018 this law likely never gets passed, there would be barely any need for it.
Sure. It doesn't mean Apple and the EU can't both be wrong at the same time.
I don’t think it’s entirely aimed at Apple. I looked at GSM Arena. Since 2021, they recorded 1098 smartphones, of which 843 phones had usb-c connectivity. That’s 255 phones that probably still use micro usb.
Unfortunately, their search doesn’t allow excluding of usb-c equipped devices, making it hard to tell which phones don’t have it.
Let’s be honest, apple marches to the tune of its own drum. For reasons only they are privy to they have a mix of usb-c and lightning. Any other guesses are just that.
It may become _a_ standard, just as USB type A, type B, type B mini, type B micro, type B micro USB3, and type C connectors are all standard.
What's not a given is that any future type D connector would become dominant for power input given that manufacturers would gain no competitive advantage by implementing it in their mobile devices - in the very best scenario the industry as a whole might switch over to a new connector much later than if companies were free to implement it on their own, driven by the interest in gaining a competitive advantage over their rivals.
That's essentially the reason we even have USB Type C on many phones in the first place rather than micro-B - at first some companies implemented it as a feature competitors didn't have, and later many competitors implemented it to catch up with the competition. Remove that ability to choose independently - by forcing most manufacturers to lobby a government entity over several years to effect a change - and you remove both the incentive to implement a newer/better technology and you drastically slow down its potential rate of adoption.
What if I develop a new port that's primarily useful for charging? A stroke of genius. A generational jump. The EU has made it so I have exactly one option - license the tech to the USB consortium. That's simply wrong.
Modern? Lightning is only two years older that USB-C. By the time this regulation goes into effect, USB-C will be more than a decade old.
I completely disagree. The primary benefit of this law is eliminating older USB connectors that were just, plain awful. If the EU simply wanted to accomplish its stated purpose, they would have simply outlawed the older USB connectors. Modernization and consistency without impacting future development.
While USB-C is that old, has the standard been static? Could you charge at 100W through the same physical plug 10 years ago?
Has the Lightning connection made the same improvements over the last 10 years?
When there is a USB-D (if ever), then the USB standards body would push for that adoption and I'm sure the various hardware companies would follow along. Maybe Apple would stay out again but who knows. The regulation doesn't need to be static 10 years from now.
The connector is a separate issue than the protocols supported by the port and cable. For example, the lightning connector can support USB3, Apple just chose not to add it to the iPhone. The fact that different USB-C cables (with no standard way to distinguish between them) support different features is a negative to me.
I agree with you. From my understanding, the EU mandated the plug type with minimum standards that USB mandates. It's really up to the USB group to have tighter controls on what the cables can carry with better labeling. But for most people, they are charging their phones so the cable that comes with the phone or any decent cable should work. When you're talking about charging a laptop then it can matter more.
Minimum standards? I don't follow. USB-C is a connector. It's the same in every USB-C device.
Like I said, the ports and cables can support various protocols, but that's not a part of this regulation.
Sure. I'd argue that "for most people" as you describe them, lightning is a better connector for charging their phones.
I could have been more clear. The plug is the plug. I was talking more about the various cables they sell. I could be wrong but the people making USB C cables have minimum specs to meet. There is no standard advertising requirement that the speed of the cable is obvious. So people buy a cable without much research and think it can handle the fastest data transfer.
The regulation is simply meant to unify under one physical plug. For better or worse, that's the way they went. Most people don't have iPhones so moving to USB C overall won't be a bad thing. I think Apple was moving this way anyway.
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Correct. You had said the EU mandated minimum standards, but they just mandated a connector.
I disagree. There are more that a billion iPhone users. That's a lot of waste for what could prove to be a needless transition to a connector that is arguably inferior for what you acknowledge is the primary use case for most people (charging).
And we don't know how this will effect the development of a next-gen connector since deployment of a private solution would be limited.
Maybe, maybe not. I think Apple's decision to put USB-C in iPads was influenced by the inevitability of this directive.