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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

#741

Post by nawgz »

nickpp wrote: post #730
fbdab103 wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was exactly the phone charging situation before the EU made a similar proposal[0]. Previously every phone brand and model used a bespoke charger so that you were forced to buy a spare charger from the vendor. Of course Apple continued to do its own thing by skirting the intent of the law. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_external_power_supply

That hasn't been true in quite a while, the market has unified around two standards (lightning and usb-c) without EU's intervention. Their previous recommendation from 2010 was for micro-usb and it was toothless as it wasn't a mandate. The current authoritarian power play for pushing usb-c on Apple is completely unwarranted by the market conditions. It's pure politics.

Pretty disingenuous representation. The market unified around USB-C, except for Apple, who continued to be the sole player pushing proprietary charging ports

Therefore, regulation is actually only impacting one player, and is extremely likely to reduce electronics waste, which makes it quite a nice political move. The claim of "authoritarianism" makes no sense, because governments are regulatory bodies and this regulatory move has clear motivations and positive expected outcomes, plus is incredibly easy to enforce.

Nice try though.

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

#742

Post by gumby »

charrondev wrote: post #723
gumby wrote: post #720

Apple can defend itself, but that being said, I think the hype here is absurd: > which had led many – including us – to speculate that these Apple-produced chargers would enable faster charging speeds on the iPhone 15 than third-party chargers from other manufacturers. I believe the hysteria comes from a no-technical blogger not understanding the difference between the USB-C e-marker chip and MFI. Apple has nothing t…

> Also I will buy an iphone 15 if it has USB C and will wait another year if not. I have a 13 and I’m in the same camp. Similarly I will buy a new pair of AirPods if they switch to USB-C. These 2 devices are the last devices I have that don’t charge with USB-C

I'm on a 12, but iphones last long enough (I jumped from a 6 to the 12) that I can wait longer unless I have a good reason not to.

And like you, it's phone+ipods for me. If they don't upgrade both to type C I'll wait, since in that case I'll have to keep a lightning cable around.

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

#743

Post by vidarh »

troad wrote: post #728
vidarh wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU tried the soft approach for many years, and Apple stubbornly refused to play. "This authoritarian method" of representing the populations they are meant to represent as part of a democratic society rather than letting companies continue to do what they want came with ample warning. EDIT: Someone asked about the mandate for it, and deleted, but worth pointing out that the EU parliament supported this with a maj…

> The EU tried the soft approach for many years, and Apple stubbornly refused to play. "We tried giving you an option, but you kept picking wrong, so we're taking your right to choose away."

Yes, a completely reasonable choice when they made the goal clear (reducing waste) and literally everyone else managed to work together and Apple was the only one who decided to play stupid games.

We may tolerate the fiction of corporate personhood in some circumstances, but companies are not people, and their "rights" should be strictly limited - especially when they purposefully ignore the wishes of elected representatives for a decade.

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

#744

Post by bj-rn »

iso8859-1 wrote: post #599
aetherson wrote: post #477

I think Apple should just make USB-C the norm for iPhones. But the idea that a trans-national government over 750M people should be trying to regulate in this level of detail is just obviously a recipe for disaster. For every one time they successfully push a company to do something correct -- but ultimately trivial, like this thing -- there are going to be 10 cases where some bureaucrat makes a bad decision and they…

> 750M people Where are you getting this figure? It's below 450M AFAIK.

The population of Europe (continent/region) is ~750M. The EU (political/economic entity) has ~450M.

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

#745

Post by Symbiote »

Aerroon wrote: post #731
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if the whole world adopted this kind of regulatory stance, there would be much less incentive to invent that better cable because you now have huge regulatory bodies Imagine you didnt have law on shape and voltage of ordinsry power plugs in a house, and if you buy a samsung power socket to ibstall in your house, you mist buy samsung fridge and samsung washing machine and samsung hair dryer

But we already kind of have this problem. If I order a microwave from the UK and ship it to my other European country, then I'm already dealing with a power plug that is incompatible. This also means that the power plugs can't be optimal (ie there's room to improve), because all the different variants can't all be optimal at the same time. And yet, actually ever improving the power plug design is probably never going…

Within the EU, if you order a microwave from France to be delivered to Ireland it should be provided with the correct plug.

Generally, something larger like a microwave or TV would come with an alternative power cord. Something smaller comes with a 2-prong European plug and a semi-permanent UK/Ireland adapter.

(Incidentally, the EU considered changing to a single mains plug, but wisely decided it wasn't worth the hassle.)

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

#746

Post by Symbiote »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #729
sokoloff wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That brings up an interesting question: “Is NEMA 5-15 in fact standardized by force of law?”

Funnily enough, power plugs are far from standardized within EU, and there are multiple non-compatible variants (well, one less after the brexit).

Ireland, Malta and Cyprus use British plugs and other electrical standards.

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

#747

Post by Symbiote »

robertlagrant wrote: post #709
xorcist wrote: post #707

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They absolutely did. "Sort it out or we will make a law" is what enforcement looks like. Before that, everyone had their own variant of the barrel plug. A few crappy low price vendors just used micro usb instead, since they couldn't possibly have a proprietary moat to speak of anyway. It's one of the examples where consumer legislation worked.

That wasn't legislation or enforcement.

That is the European way. Ask nicely first, push a little harder, threaten, then finally pass a law if the result hasn't been achieved.

You will note everyone except Apple did what the EU wanted early in this process.

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

#748

Post by cf100clunk »

philistine wrote: post #336
sokoloff wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That brings up an interesting question: “Is NEMA 5-15 in fact standardized by force of law?”

I think you can make a legal arguement that the way the standards are enshrined in law and there are legal consequences for straying from agreed upon standards, that it is indeed standardized by force of law.

Further to the de jure standardization related to consumer safety laws and civil cases, the insurance industry has created a de facto standardization by refusing to cover or pay out if non-standard electric plugs and receptacles are or were used.

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

#749

Post by least »

csunbird wrote: post #668
Aeolun wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone else has the problem 100% of the time, and you have the problem 0% of the time, I think it is reasonable to presume the fault lies with them or their environment (or at least, not the hardware).

I have exactly the same problem, the middle connector on one side always gets burned. A quick search on google shows that this is a common problem, so I would actually check if this is a common problem or not before defending Apple.

A quick search on google would only indicate that there is a nonzero amount of people who have encountered the issue, not that it is common.

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

#750

Post by gcanyon »

anigbrowl wrote: post #637
sharedbeans wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you help me understand what you're saying? It comes off as so over the top that I find it absurd, but maybe we just have different backgrounds/experience. 1) Companies are not incentivized to produce incompatible cables, the industry has done a remarkably good job of settling on basically a single standard, so the incentives seem to run counter to what you say. The major hold out introduced their own cable standa…

struggling to see how it's a "staggering" amount of waste multiply the quite low volume of cable/adapter trash the average individual consumer has by the very large number of consumers. Now picture all that junk in a landfill taking up space and leaking various chemicals as the sun and weather slowly degrade all the plastics, glue etc.

I'm not disagreeing that less waste is good, but really, we're talking about an area about 500 meters on a side and 10 meters deep -- for the entire world. Car tires take up roughly 30 times as much space.
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