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EU sends Apple stark warning over USB-C charging on new iPhones

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Re: EU sends Apple stark warning over USB-C charging on new iPhones

#91

Post by ohgodplsno »

tinus_hn wrote: post #37
misnome wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On what? This article is pure speculation, and Apple has been slowly moving more and more of their ecosystem to USB-C over time anyway. It sounds like good for the consumer that they don't have to throw out all of their existing cables at once. .... and as far as I can tell USB-C is a shitshow of an ecosystem anyway. This entire article could just be saying that Apple devices could charge "slower" on random USB-C cab…

If Apple just sticks to the specification to the letter they achieve exactly what they want and what HackerNews hates, only proper power supplies work and cheap inferior crap charges slowly. They can just put a logo on cables and chargers that work to the specification instead of cutting corners left and right in the race to the bottom. And there is no way for the EU to appear credible and restrict this.

https://www.macrumors.com/2023/05/04/eu-warns-apple-about-li...

Europe actually has some teeth. Playing dumb when Europe tells you "try me" is a sure way to be banned out of the common market.

>And there is no way for the EU to appear credible and restrict this.

And yet here we are.

Re: EU sends Apple stark warning over USB-C charging on new iPhones

#92

Post by chmod775 »

blokey wrote: post #70
orra wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, in other words, the EU forced one standard, which it is now abandoning (generating piles of micro-usb e-waste), This is hyperbole. Especially because a common retort on these articles is “surely this standardisation kills innovation”. A standard was adopted, preventing lots of e-waste. However, the old standard is now past its useful life, so a revised standard is being universally adopted. This is the best of…

That makes no sense. If USB-C is mandated, there will never be a newer standard to replace it, because no company will invest any time or money into developing it as it would not be legal to ship it until it’s blessed by the government and it won’t be blessed until it’s got a critical mass which it can never have! If the rest of the world mandated the Micro-USB standard at the same time as the EU previously, we would…

Even if that becomes an issue, it can be trivially fixed with grant money.

Re: EU sends Apple stark warning over USB-C charging on new iPhones

#93

Post by prettyStandard »

a13o wrote: post #78
Lapalux wrote: post #4

I don't understand why Apple are dragging their heels on this so much

The last time they changed their connector (to lightning) they invalidated a lot of third party accessories designed around the old connector. Not simple stuff, like cables, but docks galore; many in expensive long-term purchases like luxury cars and stereo equipment. It stressed a lot of partnerships that define Apple's luxury brand status.

I agree that switching creates waste, not switching creates other waste. If they wanted to minimize waste, they should have released lighting and usb-c iphones years ago and slowly phased out the lighting. Maybe even just update lightning to support USBC speeds. But alas we are stuck with this local optimum when there was a better global optimum that we missed for profit.

Re: EU sends Apple stark warning over USB-C charging on new iPhones

#94

Post by throwaway2990 »

kweingar wrote: post #24
have_faith wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate?

To be clear, I am pro USB-C, but I do get the arguments from the other side. If I have a lightning cable and a device with a lightning port, I can plug it in and not really think much about it. If I have a device with a USB-C port and a USB-C cable, I have no idea whether I can charge at full speed or even charge at all. As an example, I plug my Xbox controller into my PC via USB-C. It keeps it fully charged. Recentl…

USB-C is so frustrating. I have different cables to charge headphones, keyboard, switch, iPad. Cos they don’t “just work”.

And I’ve had more lightening cables break in the last 2 years than I have had lightening cables in the last 7 years.

Re: EU sends Apple stark warning over USB-C charging on new iPhones

#95

Post by a13o »

jon-wood wrote: post #22
bartread wrote: post #11

I recently bought an Apple TV. It's a great device, but comes with a remote that's USB-C charged. That's fine except that it doesn't come with a USB-C cable, nor does the device have a USB port that could be used for charging the remote. So I ended up having to buy a third party USB charger and cable (I just don't have that much USB-C stuff laying around). That pissed me off and I wasn't shy about, politely, letting…

You’re aware USB-A to USB-C cables exist right? None of your wall sockets are rendered obsolete, although admittedly you’ll need a few new cables/adapters.

GP's USB wall sockets will be obsolete in short order, not because of Apple, but because the USB Power Delivery standards are still rapidly evolving. The latest version can even power high energy devices like workstation laptops and displays.

But unless they bought cutting edge tech after 2021, chances are whatever got put in the wall sockets is low-power USB-A and destined for obsolescence in a handful of years.

Re: EU sends Apple stark warning over USB-C charging on new iPhones

#96

Post by dan-robertson »

have_faith wrote: post #10
nachteilig wrote: post #7

I would basically never assume that the EU actually understand the technical parts of these regulations. On its face it sounds pro-consumer, but USB-C is hardly a unified experience and I am almost sympathetic with Apple here from a user experience perspective.

Can you elaborate?

The general problem with USB-C is that the connectors support multiple different protocols, cables are allowed to not be of sufficient quality for all use-cases (the worst example is probably high-bitrate cases like cables for computer monitors) including high power charging. Similarly, the devices on either end needn’t support all the potential protocols/uses. Furthermore, many USB-C devices that are sold are low quality and can damage devices that are plugged into them by failing to follow the specification (eg delivering too much power). So, if you’re a consumer and you have two devices with USB-C ports, and a cable with USB-C on both ends, connecting the two together might either work fine, work with poor performance (without telling you this), not work, or damage your device. And there isn’t really a good way to tell this will happen.

Lightning isn’t that much better though. You can get lightning to USB-C cables so you can plug into various bad devices and have other USB-C problems, though you likely won’t try to plug into a monitor for example.

There’s maybe an argument to be made about the ports too. I think it would be harder to clean dust/fluff out of a USB-C port and maybe they could be more fragile too because of the spike in the middle of the port.

It still seems to me like Apple probably also like that they have a lot more control over lightning. And they already have USB-C on iPads and computers so they clearly don’t think it is totally terrible. But there are a lot more iPhones in the world than other Apple devices and I can imagine eg Apple having to spend a load of money on customer support, etc, due to the USB-C issues, or getting blamed when things go wrong because of the cable or device on the other end.

I think it would be better if the possibility of connecting two devices with a cable implied that they would work together, but I’m not sure how that could be done without either more ports or more expensive cables/charging bricks. And I don’t know why a USB-like organisation would have more success at ensuring things follow the standards than USB currently have.

Re: EU sends Apple stark warning over USB-C charging on new iPhones

#97

Post by rmm »

I just realised I rarely plug a cable into my phone at all these days. Genuinely I think the last time I did was in a hire car that only had cable CarPlay. At my desk I got a wireless charger as well as my bed side. Data is over the cloud now etc

Serious question how long until they drop the port full stop? Like what if they achieve serious wireless charging speeds

And actually does anyone know if that’s allowed with these new regulations? Like what if the iPhone 16 they drop it entirely???

Re: EU sends Apple stark warning over USB-C charging on new iPhones

#98

Post by Gigachad »

a13o wrote: post #78
Lapalux wrote: post #4

I don't understand why Apple are dragging their heels on this so much

The last time they changed their connector (to lightning) they invalidated a lot of third party accessories designed around the old connector. Not simple stuff, like cables, but docks galore; many in expensive long-term purchases like luxury cars and stereo equipment. It stressed a lot of partnerships that define Apple's luxury brand status.

I remember there used to be a huge number of these speakers where you would sit the phone or ipod on the connector/stand. And all of those got obsoleted by the switch to lightning, but I don't think I've seen a single design like that since the 30 pin connector was dropped. It's all bluetooth now. And with the more even split between iphones and android these days, no hardware maker would put a fixed lightning stand on a device now.

Re: EU sends Apple stark warning over USB-C charging on new iPhones

#99

Post by zimpenfish »

kstenerud wrote: post #58
tinus_hn wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple doesn’t use ‘Apple connectors’ on the phone chargers, they are universal USB adapters.

Really? So you mean I can take my Apple lightning cable, plug one end into a charger and the other end into my Android phone? Or my laptop? Or my TV box? Because no, you can't. And that's the whole problem.

> So you mean I can take my Apple lightning cable

GP specifically said the chargers had standard USB ports - and they do. Either A (old) or C (new). You're talking about the cable which is a completely different thing (obvs.)

Re: EU sends Apple stark warning over USB-C charging on new iPhones

#100

Post by Gigachad »

kstenerud wrote: post #58
tinus_hn wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple doesn’t use ‘Apple connectors’ on the phone chargers, they are universal USB adapters.

Really? So you mean I can take my Apple lightning cable, plug one end into a charger and the other end into my Android phone? Or my laptop? Or my TV box? Because no, you can't. And that's the whole problem.

You mentioned the transformers, those brick ends. You can absolutely use those on any usb c device since the cable is not fixed to them.
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