See, this is how you do it. Pass laws with teeth in big markets, as the EU has done for years now. The almighty dollar is what Apple and the rest care about it, if you want them to change you have to threaten that. It’s their only language
I’m still of the opinion that Apple benefitted from this legislation, and that they know it. They never fought this decision particularly hard — and ultimately, it’s only going to help Apple move forward.
I’m more than old enough to remember the last time Apple tried changing connectors from the 30-pin connector to the Lightning connector. People (and the press) were apoplectic that Apple changed the connector. Everything from cables to external speakers to alarm clocks and other accessories became useless as soon as you upgraded your iPod/iPhone — the 30-pin connector had been the standard connector since the original iPod, and millions of devices used it. Apple took a ton of flak for changing it — even though Lightning was a pretty significant improvement.
That’s not happening this time, as Apple (and everyone else) can point to and blame the EU instead. If Apple had made this change on their own, they would likely have been pilloried in the press (again) for making so many devices and cables obsolete nearly overnight — but at least this way they can point at the EU and say “they’re the ones making us do this” and escape criticism.
If Apple had made this change on their own, they would likely have been pilloried in the press
Changing from one proprietary connector to another pissed a lot of people off.
Changing to a standard USB-C connector would piss off almost no one.It’s worth remembering however that there weren’t a lot of options for a standardized connector back when Apple made the first switch in 2012. The USB-C connector wasn’t published for another two years after Lightning was released to the public. Lightning was much better than the then-available standard of micro USB-B, allowed for thinner phones and devices, and was able to carry video and audio (which was only achieved on Android phones of the time with micro USB-B by violating the USB standard).
Also worth noting here is that the various Macs made the switch to USB-C before most PCs did, and the iPad Pro made the switch all the way back in 2018 — long before the EU started making noise about forcing everyone to use USB-C. So Apple has a history of pushing USB-C; at least for devices where there wasn’t a mass market of bespoke docks that people were going to be pissed off at having to scrap and replace.
I’ll readily agree we’re in a better place today — I’m now nearly 100% USB-C for all my modern devices (with the one big holdout being my car — even though it was an expensive 2024 EV model, it still came with USB-A. I have several USB-A to USB-C cables in the car for device charging small devices, but can’t take advantage of USB-PD to charge and run my MacBook Pro). But I suspect Apple isn’t as bothered by this change as everyone thinks they are. They finally get to standardize on one connector across their entire lineup of devices for the first time ever, and don’t have to take the blame for it. Sounds win-win to me.
Apple doesn’t want this. Watch how long it takes for Apple devices anywhere else to change to usb-c… Won’t be overnight.
Apple recently removed the USB-A only SuperDrive, and replaced the Magic Mouse with a USB-C variant.
Other than perhaps old-stock, the only current Lightning device Apple is currently selling anywhere is the iPhone SE, which appears due for replacement soon.
What devices does Apple sell elsewhere with lightning? The only remaining lightning device I can find is the iPhone SE, the lower cost variant that has a legacy form factor including lighting and Touch ID. It’s is rumored to be seeing an update in the next few months.
Apple has spent half a decade implementing USB-C across its lineup, and was one of the earliest adopters of USB-C (to much criticism) back in the 2016 MacBook.
I feel like most accessories these days either use Bluetooth, or (for e.g. cars) have a phone-agnostic USB port so they can work with Android too. Plus cables aren’t that hard to replace. I feel like the days of the iPod speaker dock and the iDog with a proprietary cable stub are long gone.
Agreed — this is overall a really, really good thing for consumers. Now that my MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and iPhone Pro all use USB-C it’s trivial to swap devices between them and generally they all just work. The USB-C Ethernet adaptor I have for my MBP work with my iPad Pro and iPhone Pro. As do Apple’s USB-A/USB-C/HDMI adaptors. And my USB-C external drives and USB sticks. And my PS5 DualSense controllers. And the 100W lithium battery pack with 60W USB-PD output. Heck, even the latest Apple TV remote is USB-C.
AFAIK, this is the first time ever that there is one single connector that works across their entire lineup of devices. Even if you go back to the original Apple 1 (when it was the only device they sold), it had several different connector types. Now we have one connector to rule them all, and while the standard has its issues, it’s quite a bit better than the old days when everything had a different connector.
From here on out, all Apple devices will be Steam-based
finally a good OS on them
The title makes it sound like Apple did this of their own accord. In reality, this was the deadline for no longer selling these devices inside the EU.
And the asshats sold them up to the deadline day, instead of saying stopping sales 5 years ago. Penalizingly anal company.
Good riddance, historically the shittiest cables in existence in terms of build quality and design, and they polluted USB-C with that design, too…
What, you want the thing to be reinforced with a flexible brace near the plug so that the cable won’t fray? Fuck you. Oh, your cable frayed near the plug? Fuck you. Buy more cables, it’s just e-waste. Not like the environment’s going down the toilet or anything.
Seems like a bit of an overreaction. The complaint you’re making is about the cable not the connector. The cable can still fray near the tip with a USB-C given enough wear and tear.
The lightning connector was great for its time, moving Apple devices off the giant serial connectors present on the iPod and early iPhone. In comparison, the lightning connector was small, reversible, and durable. It’s still even smaller than USB-C today.
I don’t think making the end of a cable smaller is an important thing any more. We’re not dealing with SCART or serial cables any more. USB C is definitely small enough. Micro and mini were small enough too.
The complaint about the cables seems fine when the company the post is about profited from those cables. Design flaws boosted their sales.
As for the regular USB cables eventually fraying, sure, all things have wear and tear, but some things are designed to fail faster for profits.
I agree USB-C is small enough, but micro and mini usb were not reversible. I don’t think Apple was intentionally making cables that fell apart easily. I agree that they did, but I don’t think it had some profit motive behind it. Apple makes dumb design decisions some times because their designers like certain looks or materials. I just honestly think the designers liked the material of the cable and its feel. It was admittedly nice, but it just falls apart within a year of everyday use. Now they’ve changed to a cloth material.
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I’m honestly not going to argue against their efficacy as transfer mediums, because I didn’t have much contact with the Apple ecosystem other than for work.
But that is another mark against them in my book. What use is a good cable when it’s only usable with a single type of device? They could have the highest transfer rates ever and still wouldn’t serve, like, half of the people who use phones and computers. That’s to say nothing of the myriad other peripherals out there (even vapes use USB-C for charging).
That plus the really poor design/build quality of the cable itself are what make them bad cables.
Now you get shitty USB c cables.
They really don’t make stuff like they used to, pretty much nobody. And credit where it’s due, Apple have been leading the planned obsolescence movement from the start (their iPhone 3 cables were just as bad as the current ones).
On the other end of the spectrum, I own a single no-name MicroUSB cable. I’ve owned it for, I think, a decade at this point. Maybe even longer than that. It was the cheapest cable I could find over 2m in length, cost me about two bucks back then. I’ve used it for phones, MP3 players, external hard drives, mice - you name it, it’s been plugged in it. It still performs just as well as it did when I bought it, it hasn’t lost its shape, and believe me when I say it received zero preferential treatment.
I honestly lost count of how many USB-C cables have failed me so far. Seriously…
That’s weird. I’ve actually had the exact opposite experience as I have never had a USB Type-C cable fail on me at all. And yet I had many, many micro USB cables where the pins at the very end got bent out of shape and would not stay in the port any longer.
Hey, maybe I got extremely lucky with that one cable, but I don’t remember ever having had problems with MicroUSBs.
I even accidentally bent the whole MicroUSB plug by slapping my phone off the table, bent it back into place, and it was good to go! Genuinely felt so much confidence in that cable, that I gave away all other MicroUSB cables I used to get from whatever tech included one in the package.
I now own two 140W USB-C cables which were very expensive - I bought them thinking that I’d take better care of them knowing how much money I wasted. I barely even use them for anything other than charging, so they are hanging off of my nightstand 24/7, and that’s because I’m afraid they’ll snap at the joint if I use them too much.
Trauma dump time, it all started with my first USB-C cable, a OnePlus one. First one lasted for about a year. Bought a second one which lasted about the same, official OnePlus gear. Luckily, everything started coming with its own cable later on, so I didn’t feel the need to stock up. But the two expensive ones are the only USB-Cs I’ve owned for more than a year, because most of the other ones started getting busted joints.
Maybe you did just get a really good micro USB cable because I spend less than $10 on a Type-C cable and am able to use it for years. And as I said, I’ve never had one break.
Well, maybe I spent all my good fortune on that MicroUSB, because I sure haven’t had the same luck with other cables… The only other good one seems to be from my Sennheiser headphones, but that doesn’t get used much, either…
So in rope manufacturing they have the “average breaking force” and the “safe working load” the ABF is the amount of force it takes to break a rope on average whereas the SWL is what it sounds like and is what the rope is rated to hold safely. The ABF is usually 2-10 times the weight of the SWL depending on the material but that’s because there’s a huge amount of variance in how much force different ropes that were manufactured in the same way take to break. If the ABF is 10 times the SWL, that means there were likely ropes that broke at twice the ABF. My hypothesis is that you got one of these ‘top tier ropes’ as your cable, so to speak.
This has been the literal opposite of my experience, I’ve literally never had a USB-C cable fail, but I throw out at least a dozen broken MicroUSB cables every single year ranging from having the metal plug literally just fall out of the cable to looking brand new yet simply not working to cables that only work if you apply downwards pressure at the connector, I honestly don’t think I have a single one that works right now and I replaced every microUSB device I owned as quickly as possible.
I’m still using my flat OnePlus usb-c cable that I received with my oneplus 3t in 2017.
Somehow the flat cables seem to last longer overall.
The flat type was the second to fail, my first was a standard tube-y one… Granted, I bought mine in 2020, I think, so it may account for a drop in quality.
Bought it exactly based on that rationale, no dice in my case. Started developing a crease right where the cable met the nub toward the USB-C end, then it devolved into severed connections - would work if I wiggled it. And I really didn’t rough it up, it was either plugged into my PC, or plugged into a wall charger at night, with "normal’ amounts of flexing (I feel there’s a word for this, but I’m missing it).
It was my favourite from an aesthetic standpoint, too…
The cables Apple includes now are very flexible braided cables and they are excellent for their purpose. Haven’t had one fail yet, or even show major signs on use. Would like to find any other company making a comparable product, but all the “ultra flexible” cables I’ve found seem to not be as flexible.
Next will be usb copyright chip. Mark my words.
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Happy about this overal! Just hope I will still be able to buy replacement cables once my current ones die, as I do not plan to replace my iphone SE or gen1 airpods until there is any life in them left. If not, I guess tape will have to do the trick.
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I wonder what happens to all those devices that are brand new, but can’t be sold any longer due to having the lightning port. My guess is that these devices will be shreddered and land up in a landfill - better for the environment than having to use a different cable (/s).
This EU Directive only applies to devices sold as brand new. Frome here on devices sold as new have to be equipped with a USB C charging port.
You still can buy a refurbished device equipped with a lightning charging port from a second hand market seller.
Nothing changes for most people. If you own a device that still has a lightning port, you probaly also have a lightning cable for it. The three most common types (USB C / Lightnin / Micro USB) will still be around for a couple of years.
From the enviromental point of view it would be best to keep any device until it is not usable any longer.
I’d rather would like to see that Apple is being forced into revealing the software code for end-of-life devices than having to switch to a new charging port. That would have a more severe impact, as devices often still work well hardware-wise, but are outdated software-wise. Even Apples glued-in batteries can be changed (albeit it is very complicated), in order to prolong a devices lifespan. If outdated Apple devices could be revived with a FOSS software solution to be still compatible for a longer time, it would be way better for the environment - given, protecting the environment was the goal all along.
I wonder what happens to all those devices that are brand new, but can’t be sold any longer due to having the lightning port.
The law was passed years ago and only came into effect now exactly so that Apple could sell the old stock. If they kept making new ones until the deadline, its not the laws fault. Also, they can be sold outside the EU.
I think they just ship the phones to places where they can still be sold like the UK.
They’ve also known about this deadline for years and were always allowed to switch to USB-C at literally any time before then (like they did years ago with the iPad Pro and Macbook).
If any e-waste occurred, it is squarely because of Apple’s utter pettiness.
I doubt they still have that many lightning iPhones. This is mostly about lightning accessories.
I really hope so.
You are not making bad points in your comment, but your first paragraph threw everyone off. As it should.
I get where you are going to let Apple reveal software code for end-of-life devices, but I can’t see why it is related to the USB-C law. The law is not about Apple, but all devices. That’s why it’s good for e-waste.
And it’s true - no current owner of an iPhone with lightning will feel this. It’s harmless for consumers. But as soon as they get the USB-C port, they’ll know what they missed not having to bring their charger freaking everywhere.
Don’t get me wrong - I’m all in favor of the EU Directive that states that all such devices must have the same charging port from now on. I think that this should have been introduced way earlier.
I also realize that this law doesn’t apply to Apple exclusively, but you don’t find the Lightning port on any other non-Apple devices. If the Lightning port didn’t exist at all, Apple devices probably would have been equipped with USB C ports instead.
But one thing that affects all kind of devices is that they will be outdated at least software-wise mostly deliberately, no matter what charging port they are euqipped with. This even happens with Android-based phones, as there is a wide range of phones that can’t be fixed with alternative software (ie. Graphene, LinageOS and similar).
In my opinon it should be law that manufacturors should allow for end-of-service-devices to be opened up and upgraded with an alternative OS/ software, to extend liftime and to avoid being discarded. This affects mobile phones as well as smart lightbulbs, headphones, or vacuum robots and many more. This indeed has nothing to do with the EU Directive for charging ports, but it could have been another step towards keeping devices longer in the life cycle and thus avoiding landfill.
Too many devices are being bricked by manufacturers deliberatly, and there are barely any ways to repair such devices, because manufacturers do not let it happen.
It was introduced long ago and in the spirit of the law it gave manufacturers a decade to switch to the new standard, phase out the old connectors and sell off their old stock. If manufacturers chose to stick with the old until the last minute…
The same happened with GDPR. It was introduced with a lead in time of 5 years… everyone ignored it until it was mandatory and then everyone panicked and scrambled. If you wait to start your homework until the evening before it’s due, there will be stress.
I doubt even Apple is stupid enough to end up with a significant quantity of un-sellable stock just to ‘make a point’. Or that major vendors wound not have an agreement to rtv merchandise they can’t sell after a certain date. Apple will either use them for parts or reflash them if possible to meet different jurisdictions’ regulations and sell them there.
In regards to existing devices continuing to be used being better for the environment, the law allows that (which), it allows lighting cables (or micro-usb) to be continue to be sold so you can keep charging your working device. You won’t however have to buy new cables and chargers for a new device if you already have a usb-c cable (and compatible charger), nor will it have to be bundled with every new device.
The software code issue is out of scope of this law. There are initiatives that do somewhat help with planned obsolescence such as requiring manufacturers to allow app installation from alternative sources. Of course they could go further, such as allowing to boot an alternative OS, or preventing malicious compliance better. But that cannot be criticism of this directive.
It all comes down to numbers. What’s cheaper: recycling brand new phones and accessories for materials, harvesting parts, selling as refurbished, or shipping them to another country (if possible, because they might be targeted to certain markets). Whatever option is the most profitable, is what they’ll chose. Sometimes the landfill is the cheapest option.
If the number of phones is small maybe. Though I doubt they can just throw lithium batteries in a landfill in the EU.
There are manufacturer’s that produce different phones with the same name and different hardware for different regions but I could not find concrete info if there’s actual hardware differences for iphones.
I used to work as tech support and can say that there isn’t.
For instance, in some Asian countries the shutter sound is legally mandated. Apple accomplished this by checking where you are. If the phone’s region is one of those areas, It’ll always make a shutter sound. If your region wasn’t one of those areas, and the phone could still tell it was in the area (like a UK phone taken on vacation) It’ll make the sound while it was there.
There’s a bunch of ways to implement that, but the employee-facing article detailing this feature specified that a user who was from one of those countries but moved here could factory restore the phone to get it unregulated again.it had employees who were asked to do that to verify they weren’t in the original country anymore as a “cover your ass” legal disclaimer kind of thing.
This was multiple iPhone generations ago, now, but I doubt they’ve changed. Economies of scale say having one process is easier.
There are different hardware models but it’s mainly based on the radio and there are only 5 different models https://www.apple.com/iphone/cellular/#iphone-se
You have the Americas model, the Japan model, the China model, the Russia model, and then the model for any other country. So the EU ones could be sold in a large part of the world. They don’t even come with power bricks any more so you don’t need to swap out the plug or anything. Maybe some warranty paperwork?
