Apple stops shipping 5W power adapter, EarPods with any iPhone order

AppleInsider

Effective immediately, Apple isn't shipping EarPods or a 5W power adapter with any of the iPhone models that it sells itself, including the iPhone SE that was released in April 2020.

Credit: Apple

The company at its Oct. 13 keynote event announced a series of new environmental initiatives to reach a 100% carbon neutral footprint by 2030. Part of that, Apple VP Lisa Jackson explained, was removing the EarPods and power adapters from iPhone models.

But that doesn't just apply to the new iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro lineups. On Apple's website, the company indicates that it won't bundle headphones or charging bricks with the iPhone SE, iPhone 11, or iPhone XR.

"As part of our efforts to reach our environmental goals, iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini do not include a power adapter or EarPods. Please use your current Apple power adapter and headphones, or purchase these accessories separately," Apple writes on its website.

In addition to the absent accessories, Apple is also including its new USB-C to Lightning cable in the box to allow for better compatibility with USB-C charging hardware.

By Apple's phrasing, it appears that any new iPhone order made on Apple's site as of Oct. 13 won't include the ubiquitous accessories. Of course, the power adapter and headphones will still likely be available with iPhones sold by third parties, and it could take some time for the change to trickle down to retail stores and carriers.

Apple customers will be able to use their existing charging hardware to power up their devices, as well as third-party accessories. It's also worth noting that every Apple iPhone available on the company's storefront sports wireless charging.

Alongside the changes to the accessories, Apple now also offers a standalone 20W USB-C charging adapter for $19. First introduced with the iPad Air, the new adapter offers better charging speeds than the older 18W USB-C brick -- but is cheaper.

jeromec

It seems that in some countries (at least for France), lightning Earphones are still in the box, probably for regulatory reasons.

wood1208

As expected. Happy to see cable included as it breaks but power brick is not necessary.

lkrupp

I am in total agreement with this policy. It is environmentally sound and will reduce the growing piles of unused accessories. I myself have both chargers and ear pods from my iPhone 6 and iPhone 8 laying in a drawer along with the charger for my series 0 Apple Watch. I can only imagine what others have collecting  dust or being thrown away. And for those who will rage about this... go suck on a rusted razor blade.

technotacno

In the keynote Apple said they have shipped 2 Billion chargers so far, so by not shipping a charger will reduce the carbon footprint - fair enough, most people have standard USB chargers at home anyway, but by shipping new phones only with a USB-C cable, those ubiquitous chargers aren’t USB-C so $$$$ for Apple selling a USB-C charger with a percentage of purchases (and there goes the so called carbon footprint 🤔). 

clarker99

TechnoTacno said:

In the keynote Apple said they have shipped 2 Billion chargers so far, so by not shipping a charger will reduce the carbon footprint - fair enough, most people have standard USB chargers at home anyway, but by shipping new phones only with a USB-C cable, those ubiquitous chargers aren’t USB-C so $$$$ for Apple selling a USB-C charger with a percentage of purchases (and there goes the so called carbon footprint 🤔). 

I agree, but I think the push to ‘Mag safe’ means the charging port is going away in a generation or 2.

daalseth

The headphones were a throw away item for me anyway so no loss there. The charger though bothers me. First because until every outlet everywhere has a USB power socket, there will continue to be a need. Yes we all have a drawer of them, but how long until these either die, they do eventually, or become obsolete and won’t work with later equipment. So Apple is saving money on shipping and manufacturing and gets to start charging people for buying chargers down the road. Annoying but that’s business. The other thing that bothered me though, was that they hid behind the fig leaf of it being part of becoming carbon neutral. Yeah it will help with that but the primary reason IMO is to save money and add to their bottom line. If they’re going to eliminate them, just do it, don’t spout BS about it being for environmental reasons. It just adds to the common misconception that doing environmentally responsible things is going to be a PITA. 

techrider

lkrupp said:

I am in total agreement with this policy. It is environmentally sound and will reduce the growing piles of unused accessories. I myself have both chargers and ear pods from my iPhone 6 and iPhone 8 laying in a drawer along with the charger for my series 0 Apple Watch. I can only imagine what others have collecting  dust or being thrown away. And for those who will rage about this... go suck on a rusted razor blade.

Do you practice what you preach? If so you must have a few to spare.

jeff fields

TechnoTacno said:

In the keynote Apple said they have shipped 2 Billion chargers so far, so by not shipping a charger will reduce the carbon footprint - fair enough, most people have standard USB chargers at home anyway, but by shipping new phones only with a USB-C cable, those ubiquitous chargers aren’t USB-C so $$$$ for Apple selling a USB-C charger with a percentage of purchases (and there goes the so called carbon footprint 🤔). 

This assumes that the user in question doesn't already have a USB-A to Lightning cable. There are literally billions of those cables in existence.

This benefits the user. They already have a free charging solution (likely several of them) that works with the new product: old charger plus old cable. And in addition, they now have a new USB-C to Lightning cable that they can use as soon as they get a USB-C charger of any kind. Those chargers are already very, very common. You get one with every iPad, and with every Mac, and third-party USB chargers now increasingly include USB-C.

jeff fields

DAalseth said:

The headphones were a throw away item for me anyway so no loss there. The charger though bothers me. First because until every outlet everywhere has a USB power socket, there will continue to be a need. Yes we all have a drawer of them, but how long until these either die, they do eventually, or become obsolete and won’t work with later equipment. So Apple is saving money on shipping and manufacturing and gets to start charging people for buying chargers down the road. Annoying but that’s business. The other thing that bothered me though, was that they hid behind the fig leaf of it being part of becoming carbon neutral. Yeah it will help with that but the primary reason IMO is to save money and add to their bottom line. If they’re going to eliminate them, just do it, don’t spout BS about it being for environmental reasons. It just adds to the common misconception that doing environmentally responsible things is going to be a PITA. 

This comment is tendentious and silly:

1. How long until Apple chargers "die"? For all practical purposes, forever. I have never had an Apple USB charger of any type fail, ever. Apple over-engineers its chargers. This simply isn't a legitimate fear. The charger will last far longer than the iPhone will.
2. "Become obsolete"? It will be a very long time until USB-C "becomes obsolete". In any case, it doesn't matter if a charger is "obsolete", as long as it still works. And yes, of course it will work with later equipment; that's also obvious.
3. Being carbon-neutral is not a "fig leaf". It's a real goal and it's a vital goal that all companies should be pursuing, and this goes a long way towards achieving it.
4. As established above, this will not be a pain in the ass for basically any users, so that part of your argument is moot as well.

applezulu

DAalseth said:

The headphones were a throw away item for me anyway so no loss there. The charger though bothers me. First because until every outlet everywhere has a USB power socket, there will continue to be a need. Yes we all have a drawer of them, but how long until these either die, they do eventually, or become obsolete and won’t work with later equipment. So Apple is saving money on shipping and manufacturing and gets to start charging people for buying chargers down the road. Annoying but that’s business. The other thing that bothered me though, was that they hid behind the fig leaf of it being part of becoming carbon neutral. Yeah it will help with that but the primary reason IMO is to save money and add to their bottom line. If they’re going to eliminate them, just do it, don’t spout BS about it being for environmental reasons. It just adds to the common misconception that doing environmentally responsible things is going to be a PITA. 

For Apple’s environmental goals, they look at the (very) big picture. Not manufacturing hundreds of millions or even billions of chargers and earbuds that are mostly destined for the junk drawer and eventually the landfill, this is not a “fig leaf.” Smaller iPhone boxes means more phones per shipping pallet, which means fewer ships and planes burning less fuel. It’s not BS. It’s a huge deal. 

japhey

lkrupp said:

I am in total agreement with this policy. It is environmentally sound and will reduce the growing piles of unused accessories. I myself have both chargers and ear pods from my iPhone 6 and iPhone 8 laying in a drawer along with the charger for my series 0 Apple Watch. I can only imagine what others have collecting  dust or being thrown away. And for those who will rage about this... go suck on a rusted razor blade.

Why? Just why?

daalseth

jeff fields said:

DAalseth said:

The headphones were a throw away item for me anyway so no loss there. The charger though bothers me. First because until every outlet everywhere has a USB power socket, there will continue to be a need. Yes we all have a drawer of them, but how long until these either die, they do eventually, or become obsolete and won’t work with later equipment. So Apple is saving money on shipping and manufacturing and gets to start charging people for buying chargers down the road. Annoying but that’s business. The other thing that bothered me though, was that they hid behind the fig leaf of it being part of becoming carbon neutral. Yeah it will help with that but the primary reason IMO is to save money and add to their bottom line. If they’re going to eliminate them, just do it, don’t spout BS about it being for environmental reasons. It just adds to the common misconception that doing environmentally responsible things is going to be a PITA. 

This comment is tendentious and silly:

1. How long until Apple chargers "die"? For all practical purposes, forever. I have never had an Apple USB charger of any type fail, ever. Apple over-engineers its chargers. This simply isn't a legitimate fear. The charger will last far longer than the iPhone will.
2. "Become obsolete"? It will be a very long time until USB-C "becomes obsolete". In any case, it doesn't matter if a charger is "obsolete", as long as it still works. And yes, of course it will work with later equipment; that's also obvious.
3. Being carbon-neutral is not a "fig leaf". It's a real goal and it's a vital goal that all companies should be pursuing, and this goes a long way towards achieving it.
4. As established above, this will not be a pain in the ass for basically any users, so that part of your argument is moot as well.

I have one right now that is about to be retired. The electronics are fine but the mechanism with the folding prongs wears out. This is the second one in five years I've had do that. Mechanically they wear out, or get lost, or get stolen. 
I've had several become obsolete. Not mechanically, but I've plugged some old ones into later devices only to have had iOS tell me that "This charger is incompatible with this iOS system." Not sure what it was, current handling, power quality or what, but they won't work with modern devices forever. And funny you should mention USB-C. How long before USB-A chargers are no longer going to work because the cables, which do wear out very regularly, become unavailable?
Yes it is a real goal and it pisses me off when companies use it to excuse something they know will annoy their customers. 
No becoming carbon free will not be a PITA. It will be a change, but change happens. But I've talked to a lot of people who think it will be because of corporate crap like this. It would have been far better if Apple had said they were eliminating it because few people needed them. Just be honest. Don't try to pretend they did  it for any reason other than saving a few bucks. The carbon savings is gravy but seriously doubt that it was what drove the decision.

tshapi

TechnoTacno said:

In the keynote Apple said they have shipped 2 Billion chargers so far, so by not shipping a charger will reduce the carbon footprint - fair enough, most people have standard USB chargers at home anyway, but by shipping new phones only with a USB-C cable, those ubiquitous chargers aren’t USB-C so $$$$ for Apple selling a USB-C charger with a percentage of purchases (and there goes the so called carbon footprint 🤔). 

Not true. The true purpose of this is to get people to move more toward wireless charging.   Most people have a regular lightning cable at home that they can use.  I believe in the rumor that Apple will introduce a phone with out the lightning cable port very soon. I think this is why they introduced mag-safe to drive the adoption of wireless charging and cut back on the reliance on lighting cables.  

fastasleep

DAalseth said:
It would have been far better if Apple had said they were eliminating it because few people needed them. Just be honest. Don't try to pretend they did  it for any reason other than saving a few bucks. The carbon savings is gravy but seriously doubt that it was what drove the decision.

Why can't it be both? It's wasteful either way you explain it. This is the right choice.

I think the sheer scale of numbers of these things that are produced and go unused is completely lost on people like yourself.

The electronics are fine but the mechanism with the folding prongs wears out.

Gee, if only that part was removable and replaceable. 

entropys

lkrupp said:

I am in total agreement with this policy. It is environmentally sound and will reduce the growing piles of unused accessories. I myself have both chargers and ear pods from my iPhone 6 and iPhone 8 laying in a drawer along with the charger for my series 0 Apple Watch. I can only imagine what others have collecting  dust or being thrown away. And for those who will rage about this... go suck on a rusted razor blade.

Nup, sorry, I’m going to rage about this. If Apple really only did it for the David Attenborough, Precious Gaia and the Holy Environment, and not the devil money, Apple could  have passed the cost savings in manufacture, packaging and shipping on to the buyer as an act of good faith. Say, drop the price $30 for each iPhone. Apple didn’t do that. 

What it really is, is corporate shyster behaviour, cloaking their bad faith in virtue. Defenders of this are just guileless.  

I have a quite nice bridge across a very beautiful harbour for sale. Iconic. Going cheap. Interested?

applezulu

DAalseth said:

jeff fields said:

DAalseth said:

The headphones were a throw away item for me anyway so no loss there. The charger though bothers me. First because until every outlet everywhere has a USB power socket, there will continue to be a need. Yes we all have a drawer of them, but how long until these either die, they do eventually, or become obsolete and won’t work with later equipment. So Apple is saving money on shipping and manufacturing and gets to start charging people for buying chargers down the road. Annoying but that’s business. The other thing that bothered me though, was that they hid behind the fig leaf of it being part of becoming carbon neutral. Yeah it will help with that but the primary reason IMO is to save money and add to their bottom line. If they’re going to eliminate them, just do it, don’t spout BS about it being for environmental reasons. It just adds to the common misconception that doing environmentally responsible things is going to be a PITA. 

This comment is tendentious and silly:

1. How long until Apple chargers "die"? For all practical purposes, forever. I have never had an Apple USB charger of any type fail, ever. Apple over-engineers its chargers. This simply isn't a legitimate fear. The charger will last far longer than the iPhone will.
2. "Become obsolete"? It will be a very long time until USB-C "becomes obsolete". In any case, it doesn't matter if a charger is "obsolete", as long as it still works. And yes, of course it will work with later equipment; that's also obvious.
3. Being carbon-neutral is not a "fig leaf". It's a real goal and it's a vital goal that all companies should be pursuing, and this goes a long way towards achieving it.
4. As established above, this will not be a pain in the ass for basically any users, so that part of your argument is moot as well.

I have one right now that is about to be retired. The electronics are fine but the mechanism with the folding prongs wears out. This is the second one in five years I've had do that. Mechanically they wear out, or get lost, or get stolen. 
I've had several become obsolete. Not mechanically, but I've plugged some old ones into later devices only to have had iOS tell me that "This charger is incompatible with this iOS system." Not sure what it was, current handling, power quality or what, but they won't work with modern devices forever. And funny you should mention USB-C. How long before USB-A chargers are no longer going to work because the cables, which do wear out very regularly, become unavailable?
Yes it is a real goal and it pisses me off when companies use it to excuse something they know will annoy their customers. 
No becoming carbon free will not be a PITA. It will be a change, but change happens. But I've talked to a lot of people who think it will be because of corporate crap like this. It would have been far better if Apple had said they were eliminating it because few people needed them. Just be honest. Don't try to pretend they did  it for any reason other than saving a few bucks. The carbon savings is gravy but seriously doubt that it was what drove the decision.

Again, Apple is looking at this in a big-picture calculation. Removing billions of chargers and wired earbuds from production and (because of much smaller boxes) simultaneously reducing the number of ships and planes needed to move all future iPhones to market? These are big enough things to show up quite visibly on that company-wide carbon-impact ledger. All that is possible because people don't need that many of these things. To this point, they have been producing and shipping them at a 1:1 ratio with iPhones. Even as people eventually replace their old, low-power USB-A chargers with USB-C and wireless charging devices, it will not be anywhere near a 1:1 ratio with new iPhones being shipped. Additionally, while a large portion of iPhones now being manufactured will make their way back to recycling and materials recovery, chargers and wired earbuds aren't going into that pipeline. All that goes into Apple's big picture calculations. Manufacturing significantly fewer electronics that go unused and un-recycled will realize a major positive impact on long-term environmental goals. 

There is a big, decades long industrial grift that we see in the form of household waste and recycling. Most companies look at the costs of manufacturing, packaging and shipping goods, and devise whatever means will get the most product to consumers at the highest profit. In doing so, they completely externalize the costs of what happens with products and packaging after it leaves the factory. Even things packaged in recyclable containers are still leaving the costs of recycling to municipalities (taxpayers) and individual consumers. Take a look at your weekly household output of trash and recycling. That's your money going to the curb in those bins. Wasteful packaging used to get your attention and make the sale? You paid for it. Spoiled, residual or entirely unused products? Your money, too. You paid the manufacturer to make it, and you're paying the waste company to dispose or recycle it. Also, those manufacturers are only going to buy back recycled materials if the current market rate serves their short-term purposes. Before plastic bottles became ubiquitous, Coke bottles were returned to the grocery store so the bottler could wash and refill them. Dairies did the same for milk bottles. The cost of doing that was contained in the price of the product, which motivated the companies to carry out the task as efficiently as possible. The shift to plastic bottles externalized every bit of that cost to the consumer, and completely removed any incentive for companies to care about recycling or disposal costs.

Ultimately, the best way to save you those costs is for manufacturers to stop making and selling you goods and gratuitous packaging that you don't need. If they don't make it, they're not charging you for it, and you're not paying again to dispose of it. The second-best way to save you costs is when the manufacturer takes on and internalizes the recycling and/or reuse of their own products. That motivates them from the beginning of product design to make materials recovery as efficient as possible. Take a look at your personal trash and recycling output again, and ask yourself whether Apple's doing the best thing for consumers with this decision. Then start asking why other companies aren't also doing the same.

beowulfschmidt

Is Apple lowering the price of those existing products which used to include such, but now do not?

applezulu

beowulfschmidt said:

Is Apple lowering the price of those existing products which used to include such, but now do not?

Yes, actually. 12 starts at the same price as 11 did last year, but with all the improved guts. 11 is still for sale, but for $100 less, without the charger and wired ear buds. If you want, you can buy an Apple 5-watt USB-A charger or a 20-watt USB-C charger for $19. Same price for a set of wired EarPods. So you can get an 11 with an upgraded charger and some buds for $62 less now than on Monday.

fastasleep

entropys said:

lkrupp said:

I am in total agreement with this policy. It is environmentally sound and will reduce the growing piles of unused accessories. I myself have both chargers and ear pods from my iPhone 6 and iPhone 8 laying in a drawer along with the charger for my series 0 Apple Watch. I can only imagine what others have collecting  dust or being thrown away. And for those who will rage about this... go suck on a rusted razor blade.

Nup, sorry, I’m going to rage about this. If Apple really only did it for the David Attenborough, Precious Gaia and the Holy Environment, and not the devil money, Apple could  have passed the cost savings in manufacture, packaging and shipping on to the buyer as an act of good faith. Say, drop the price $30 for each iPhone. Apple didn’t do that. 

What it really is, is corporate shyster behaviour, cloaking their bad faith in virtue. Defenders of this are just guileless.  

I have a quite nice bridge across a very beautiful harbour for sale. Iconic. Going cheap. Interested?

This assumes that the cost of the iPhone has stayed the same. How do you know that imaginary $30 you think Apple owes you didn’t go into MagSafe or the new glass or new camera systems or any other number of things? You don’t. Also, the actual unsubsidized price is $30 higher this year for the 12s so your equation is broken right out of the gate. The price is what the price is, there is no “good faith” $30 that they owe you.