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EU Passes Law to Switch iPhone to USB-C by End of 2024

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Re: EU Passes Law to Switch iPhone to USB-C by End of 2024

#861

Post by gnicholas »

aaaaaaaaaaab wrote: post #830
codexb wrote: post #706

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing wise or moral about this decision. Mandating a technology standard, purely for personal preference and convenience reasons -- not for reasons related to safety, or pollution, or security -- especially for things that change as fast as phones, is one of the most short-sighted and naive things any government could do. There's a long history of Apple using proprietary connectors to achieve performance sp…

>Hell, in all likelihood, Apple is likely to ditch a charging connection altogether in favor of wireless charging in the near future. Lol. Literally not possible.

Why? I can definitely see Apple rolling this out to the Pro line first, then the regular iPhones, and then the SE. It could be like the home button, which disappeared on the X and then rolled through the 11s, and the SE will be the last to go.

The benefit will be better water/dust-proofing, and slightly more internal room for battery or whatever else. I have only just started charging wirelessly, but I find it works great for me. I know wired charging is faster, but only a handful of times a year do I care about that.

Re: EU Passes Law to Switch iPhone to USB-C by End of 2024

#862

Post by ddoolin »

ruuda wrote: post #666
ddoolin wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a phone charging port. It's not that serious. It's better for consumers if we all have the same one for everything, if possible. Unless you can tell me why not?

Imagine this happened a few years ago, and the EU had instead demanded micro-USB. Then we would still be flipping plugs twice, and I wouldn't be able to use my laptop charger to charge my phone. It's not clear to me that USB-C is good enough to be the "final" connector, especially with the mess around USB versions, Thunderbolt, Displayport, etc. Unlike e.g. power sockets, where I am pretty confident that the current…

I don't really see how this is any worse than the current "do whatever you want regardless of what everyone else is attempting" that manufacturers currently go by.

But as other commenters point out, provisions exist to assist with this.

Re: EU Passes Law to Switch iPhone to USB-C by End of 2024

#863

Post by ddoolin »

School-Cotton wrote: post #698
ddoolin wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a phone charging port. It's not that serious. It's better for consumers if we all have the same one for everything, if possible. Unless you can tell me why not?

USB-C only exists because Apple proved to everyone how nice a reversible connector is, and USB caught up years later. Lightning has some other advantages like being thinner and less difficult to break. If Apple caves and moves to USB-C everywhere it’s very unlikely that future innovation in connectors will happen.

I'm highly certain that a reversible connector would've come regardless of what Apple did.

Re: EU Passes Law to Switch iPhone to USB-C by End of 2024

#865

Post by pySSK »

Moru wrote: post #792
arcticbull wrote: post #708

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple hasn't changed the 'fast-changing' lightning connector since 2012, and USB-A lasted from 1996 to, well, present. USB-C came out in 2014 and is likely going to outlive us both. Connectors simply don't change that fast, and I'm not sure why people think they do. I think even the EU can regulate on that kind of schedule.

The only reason connectors would change fast is to sell another cable and charger every time you buy a phone.

iPhones don't even ship with a charger anymore and they definitely did not lower their prices when the decision to leave them out. It's a win-win for them – they can claim to be more environmentally conscious etc. while reducing their BOM cost.

Apple and other phone companies don't depend on selling cables and chargers. If they did, they would have been doing a much better job and they'd be more like Anker and Griffin.

Re: EU Passes Law to Switch iPhone to USB-C by End of 2024

#866

Post by viraptor »

Fiahil wrote: post #641
blue_light_man wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a short sighted view. What just happened is, EU, a political organization enforcing the use of a technology on a company which operates on free market. It's Apples best interest to make technology that the consumers want so that they can sell more units of that. A political organization like EU has no say in this. EU citizens already make this decision for themselves by voting with money and choosing to…

> by voting with money "voting with money" or "voting with your wallet" is a complete non-sense. There is no -absolutely no- way for anyone in the industry to attribute a lost sale to a "missing" feature. I think this also a symptoms on how Americans view the world through means of consumption. Everything HAS TO be consumed one way or another.

> There is no -absolutely no- way for anyone in the industry to attribute a lost sale to a "missing" feature.

There's a whole idea around it called market research. It goes as far as... surveying people post-purchase to find out what features became the deciding factors. So yes, it is possible, just with very small sampling rate.

Re: EU Passes Law to Switch iPhone to USB-C by End of 2024

#867

Post by 2III7 »

kelnos wrote: post #826
codexb wrote: post #706

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing wise or moral about this decision. Mandating a technology standard, purely for personal preference and convenience reasons -- not for reasons related to safety, or pollution, or security -- especially for things that change as fast as phones, is one of the most short-sighted and naive things any government could do. There's a long history of Apple using proprietary connectors to achieve performance sp…

> There's a long history of Apple using proprietary connectors to achieve performance specifications above... Oh please, Apple has barely improved Lightning since its introduction a decade ago (2012!). Yes, back then, it was better than what was available, but the industry has moved on, and Apple has stagnated. > Hell, in all likelihood, Apple is likely to ditch a charging connection altogether in favor of wireless c…

> Unlikely. For one thing, wireless charging is still much slower than what you can get with a cable, and for another, users will not tolerate needing to lug around a charging pad (with its own cable), or hope that someone nearby has one. Yes, I know similar things about tolerance were said about the removal of headphone jacks, but I don't think this is quite the same situation.

But users do accept carrying charging pads. Smartwatches, electric toothbrushes and shaving apparatus have charging pads/cables and no one complains about carrying those when going on a trip.

For the average consumer, the iPhone really doesn't need a port of any kind anymore. What it needs is all day battery life. As Apple doesn't really care about "pro" smartphone users who use external devices like DAC-s or IR cameras they will ditch the port at some point. If they cared about "pro" smartphone users, they would've come out with a USB-C iPhone in 2018 or 2019.

Re: EU Passes Law to Switch iPhone to USB-C by End of 2024

#868

Post by smoldesu »

chroma wrote: post #790
sbf501 wrote: post #650

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> on a company which operates on free market. You probably shouldn't have based your argument on this statement, which is generally regarded as a myth. It is a myth in the sense that Apple exists in a free market: it is a near monopoly but is savvy enough not to wade into the area other companies did in the 90's and were penalized. Second, governments have the right to enforce environmental protection acts to protect…

How can Apple have a "near monopoly" when Samsung sells 50% more phones than them?

Because Samsung doesn't run an app store on iOS.

Re: EU Passes Law to Switch iPhone to USB-C by End of 2024

#869

Post by thedrbrian »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #812
wongarsu wrote: post #744

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It gets kind of lost in the summary, but only devices that are rechargeable via a wired cable have to be chargable via USB-C. So going fully wireless is perfectly legal. It's also perfectly legal to offer other charging ports in addition to USB-C, though that's less likely to happen in phones. And while this regulation puts some limitations on innovation in connectors, Thunderbolt shows that there is lots of room to…

Wireless magsafe is like half the speed of wired (peak 18w, nominal 11w vs 20w)

wireless charging efficiency isn't too great either

https://debugger.medium.com/wireless-charging-is-a-disaster-...

Re: EU Passes Law to Switch iPhone to USB-C by End of 2024

#870

Post by krzyk »

blue_light_man wrote: post #607
TheYumasi wrote: post #555

As an EU citizen, I am really happy with this decision. I am an iPhone user, but having an iPhone is not ubiquitous here, almost all of my friends/special other, use an Android phone with USB-C. Most of their laptops, Mac or not, use or allow USB-C for charging. This as been the case for a few years now, yet, if I go somewhere for more than a full day and forget my lighting cable, my phone will become a useless paper…

This is such a short sighted view. What just happened is, EU, a political organization enforcing the use of a technology on a company which operates on free market. It's Apples best interest to make technology that the consumers want so that they can sell more units of that. A political organization like EU has no say in this. EU citizens already make this decision for themselves by voting with money and choosing to…

If it is a free market, let me install a different app store than the apple one.
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