The EU has zero jurisdiction over the USA, and I reject all of their ridiculous anti-innovation, anti-freedom, anti-consumer, anti-tech and anti-business proposals.
They can go stuff their miserable ideas where the sun doesn't shine.
The notion that a bunch of EU corrupt bureaucrats who know nothing about tech and have never created anything useful in their entire lives shall decide standard charger rules for everybody to follow is something that all American companies should flat out reject and simply tell them all to go and take a hike.
A company should be free to decide which tech and which standards to implement in their own products and Apple has been doing just fine for many, many decades without any EU bureaucrats deciding how Apple should make their products.
I trust Apple infinitely more than the EU. I don't have many good things to say about the EU.
I use USB, I use USB-C, I use Lightning, hell, I still use Firewire on a few older devices I have.
This dumb EU idea will definitely stifle innovation. If they want to live like cavemen, then go right ahead, but leave the US out of it, because we will not abide by their rules.
The EU can get lost.
That post... is... classic You.
I don't know. The xenophobia and general bigotry of anything different from him is a bit too subdued to be classic Apple ][.
The EU has zero jurisdiction over the USA, and I reject all of their ridiculous anti-innovation, anti-freedom, anti-consumer, anti-tech and anti-business proposals.
They can go stuff their miserable ideas where the sun doesn't shine.
The notion that a bunch of EU corrupt bureaucrats who know nothing about tech and have never created anything useful in their entire lives shall decide standard charger rules for everybody to follow is something that all American companies should flat out reject and simply tell them all to go and take a hike.
A company should be free to decide which tech and which standards to implement in their own products and Apple has been doing just fine for many, many decades without any EU bureaucrats deciding how Apple should make their products.
I trust Apple infinitely more than the EU. I don't have many good things to say about the EU.
I use USB, I use USB-C, I use Lightning, hell, I still use Firewire on a few older devices I have.
This dumb EU idea will definitely stifle innovation. If they want to live like cavemen, then go right ahead, but leave the US out of it, because we will not abide by their rules.
The EU can get lost.
WHOA! "...stuff their miserable ideas where the sun doesn't shine" - look here buster, I respect freedom of speech just as much as the next American but that slaty language has no place here. If I were your mother I'd stick a bar of soap in your mouth - this filth flarn flarn filth is unacceptable
I don't buy Apple's argument. We need the universal charger. USB-C is the appropriate standard for data and up to 100W of power. A lot of cable waste has already been made for Apple devices when all mobile devices could benefit from just USB-C cable. Apple's Lightning cables are notorious for inferior quality and they quickly fray leading to unnecessary waste.
If users decide to switch, they still keep the same cable thus less waste.
Anything USB is fucking trash. There’s nothing more useless than those connectors. I’ve been using them since their first inception and only because there’s nothing else. They suck and wish they would go away.
This might have made sense ten years ago but 1. most Android manufacturers have now standardised on USB C compared to the old proprietary chargers for each brand or even model, and 2. most manufacturers have separate charger + cable so, at least as far as I have noticed, people will buy a spare cable but not charger. I don't see how forcing Apple on to USB C will achieve much besides some mixed households perhaps buying one less spare cable.
“Any better-performing new charging solution would be welcome as long as it is a common charging solution," said Sefcovic.
Be welcomed by the State, presumably. So now innovation will need permission by the State. Can you imagine the hoops you’d have to jump through, the time it would take, the bribery that would become endemic, in order to change a “standard”?
So what about existing devices? I guess we’d be forced to use a dongle....
Oh, wait. That would increase the electronic waste!
Interesting take. My interpretation of the quote is that if you think you have a better solution, convince the others in your industry that it's better: if everyone agrees, fine, go ahead.
This boils down to having experts debate the merits of a solution and, in theory, that's a great idea: objective information describing the benefits and drawbacks of each proposed solution, subjected to debate by people who understand the problem space really well.
In practice, the debate is rarely objective because the people who understand the problem space are beholden to various business and governmental interests, and thus we often get solutions that are sub-optimal from engineering and usability perspectives. We also get solutions that may be best for only a small majority rather than a large or overwhelming majority, leaving a significant proportion of the population struggling.
That said, the alternative proposed by the free market is that people should educate themselves about the problem space and make their own informed decisions. In practice, the market allows for a greater amount of misinformation to be injected into the debate, a much lower percentage of the participants care to educate themselves or debate at all, and confusion in the purchaser is more likely because the greater variety of available products actually increases the problem space.
Striking a balance between the two extremes is the job of regulators: interfere when you must, educate when you can, and choose your battles wisely.
--
I find the overall debate between the EU and Apple rather fascinating. Apple has a strong argument on their side in that very few people are unhappy with the Lightning connector (in the scheme of things), whether in the EU or across the world. I'm sure Apple have data to prove the benefits of the design outweigh the drawbacks of switching to it, and I'm sure that data has a high likelihood of being objectively true. I'm also reasonably sure that the benefits aren't significant from an engineering perspective or the entire industry would have adopted it as a new standard. Apple's argument about waste, however, is specious because that's just a matter of timing - it's all going to the dump / recycling center as soon as the new thing comes out - and Apple have never been shy about discarding what is no longer the best (although, to be fair, they are fairly conscientious about recycling).
I think the EU should abandon this particular fight, though. The scale of the market is so large that no particular standard has a majority share and any decision will cause harm to a significant percentage of the population.
Anyway, I’m with the EU here. Apple’s excuses are typical laissez-faire corporatist BS memes. Stifle innovation, my ass. Lightning is a fine connector, IMO, but USB-C can replace it. For everything. Apple themselves are already in the process of doing this (hello loss of dedicated charging port on Macbooks), so why are they bitching about it being regulated into uniformity with universal power supplies?
Corporations want to have control over everything (regardless of how harmful it is in the long term to humanity and our environment)... and they nearly already do.
I doubt that USB-C will be the last connector ever devised. I don’t know how old you are, but I have a whole drawer dedicated to old cables and connectors ranging from ADB, SCSI, serial, parallel, DisplayPort etc. FireWire was supposed to be the new standard, then Thunderbolt, then USB-C. Something else will come along and we can have this whole argument all over again. Eventually everything will be wireless anyway.
I have an iPad mini 5, an iPhone 11 Pro Max, and a set of AirPods Pro. All three can be charged with the same Lightning cable. Does no one remember the time before the iPhone where your mobile phone came with a cable that would ONLY fit that particular phone? We've already moved to a standard cable, it's just that there are three or four of them, but at least there aren't 50 like there used to be.
What do we gain from all using a particular one? What happens when someone needs to improve on the cable, does everyone have to move to it at the same time? If not, how long do they get to make the switch? Surely that's creating waste?
Who gets to make the decision as to which cable wins out? What if three of the four decision-makers decide on a specific cable that three of them are currently using, who pays the costs for the other company to redesign their hardware and software to account for the new features or to develop workarounds for existing features that might be lost? What about contractual agreements between a phone manufacturer and their suppliers?
This is ill-thought-out.
Now, on the subject of seemingly acceptable e-waste... I have a LaCie external hard drive that broke within a year of purchase, and I had to send it back to the manufacturer (Seagate) in the Netherlands. They asked me to send only the drive and the power adapter, not any data cables, nor any power cables (the one that plugs into a wall power socket and then into the power brick).
Given that the hard drive originally came with FOUR power cables, I was surprised to see Seagate send me the replacement drive and FOUR replacement power cables. I now have EIGHT power cables and only need ONE of them.
This is from a company in the EU sending a product to another country within the EU - the Netherlands to the UK. Products going to the UK should be sent with the appropriate UK power cable, not three others I won't use. The replacement should NOT have come with any power cables since they didn't want me to send the originals back for replacement. Perhaps the EU would like to speak to Seagate? They've just created more cable e-waste than I've ever had in 12 years of owning iPhones.
Then stay in whatever country you live and don't move to any EU county
Was there anything in my post that gave you the impression that I would ever want to move to any EU country?
I'm not a good fit for the EU. I'm a person who is happy where they are and who is not a "refugee" with an image of an Al Qaeda flag as the background picture on their phone, so I'm not the right kind of candidate to be migrating into the EU.
The EU has zero jurisdiction over the USA, and I reject all of their ridiculous anti-innovation, anti-freedom, anti-consumer, anti-tech and anti-business proposals.
This dumb EU idea will definitely stifle innovation. If they want to live like cavemen, then go right ahead, but leave the US out of it, because we will not abide by their rules.
Then stay in whatever country you live and don't move to any EU county, or worse to USA where in many southern and mid-western states companies as Tesla aren't even allowed to sell their cars, or even worse than that in some states where Tesla isn't even allowed to service cars.
The war against unrestrained regulators exist in every country.
In America though those states laws will ultimately fail as people just hop across the state border, and America is just that much more dynamic than old, sclerotic Europe. and in Europe the Euroweenies will have much greater, broader powers and will keep after you. Less chance of getting around them.
WHOA! "...stuff their miserable ideas where the sun doesn't shine" - look here buster, I respect freedom of speech just as much as the next American but that slaty language has no place here. If I were your mother I'd stick a bar of soap in your mouth - this filth flarn flarn filth is unacceptable
I'm not sure if your post is attempting to be ironic or not, but if you are serious, then actually, you don't respect freedom of speech if you object to that extremely mild sentence and would wish to censor it.
WHOA! "...stuff their miserable ideas where the sun doesn't shine" - look here buster, I respect freedom of speech just as much as the next American but that slaty language has no place here. If I were your mother I'd stick a bar of soap in your mouth - this filth flarn flarn filth is unacceptable
I'm not sure if your post is attempting to be ironic or not, but if you are serious, then actually, you don't respect freedom of speech if you object to that extremely mild sentence and would wish to censor it.
Then stay in whatever country you live and don't move to any EU county
Was there anything in my post that gave you the impression that I would ever want to move to any EU country?
I'm not a good fit for the EU. I'm a person who is happy where they are and who is not a "refugee" with an image of an Al Qaeda flag as the background picture on their phone, so I'm not the right kind of candidate to be migrating into the EU.
Don't pigeonhole yourself so much. You're not a good fit or any society as a whole.
I didn't see any reference to forcing Apple to switch from Lightning and some points that are quite valid, such as not including chargers with devices.
I don't buy Apple's argument. We need the universal charger. USB-C is the appropriate standard for data and up to 100W of power. A lot of cable waste has already been made for Apple devices when all mobile devices could benefit from just USB-C cable. Apple's Lightning cables are notorious for inferior quality and they quickly fray leading to unnecessary waste.
If users decide to switch, they still keep the same cable thus less waste.
And what happens when something better comes along as a charging port? How long will it take before the EU “allows” the new port to be used? I can see EU bureaucrats arguing for years over when to change the standard. And what comes after the charging port? Screen sizes? Keyboards? Operating systems? Do we want government deciding how tech moves forward?
The proposition is actually sensible and does NOT stop Apple having the lightning connector on their products.
The proposition is with regards to the wall chargers, nothing stops Apple shipping their lightning cables with USB C instead of USB A, a move that they’re doing anyway.
I didn't see any reference to forcing Apple to switch from Lightning and some points that are quite valid, such as not including chargers with devices.
Please don’t say “European law markers”, when “EU bureaucrats” is far more accurate. Switzerland 🇨🇭, Norway 🇳🇴, and very soon Great Britain 🇬🇧, are in Europe the continent, but not the EU trade bloc. 🇪🇺
BTW to my American friends, this is just another example of why GB 🇬🇧 decided to leave, the obsession by EU bureaucrats to regulate everything and anything.
Apple is rumored to be eliminating the charging port altogether in 2021 for some models. Their plan is likely to keep lightning ports while the transition occurs, and eventually includes all models.
That's what I think this response is all about - buying one and possibly two more years of being able to use lightning until the switch to purely portless (no wire) charging.
Comments
This boils down to having experts debate the merits of a solution and, in theory, that's a great idea: objective information describing the benefits and drawbacks of each proposed solution, subjected to debate by people who understand the problem space really well.
In practice, the debate is rarely objective because the people who understand the problem space are beholden to various business and governmental interests, and thus we often get solutions that are sub-optimal from engineering and usability perspectives. We also get solutions that may be best for only a small majority rather than a large or overwhelming majority, leaving a significant proportion of the population struggling.
That said, the alternative proposed by the free market is that people should educate themselves about the problem space and make their own informed decisions. In practice, the market allows for a greater amount of misinformation to be injected into the debate, a much lower percentage of the participants care to educate themselves or debate at all, and confusion in the purchaser is more likely because the greater variety of available products actually increases the problem space.
Striking a balance between the two extremes is the job of regulators: interfere when you must, educate when you can, and choose your battles wisely.
--
I find the overall debate between the EU and Apple rather fascinating. Apple has a strong argument on their side in that very few people are unhappy with the Lightning connector (in the scheme of things), whether in the EU or across the world. I'm sure Apple have data to prove the benefits of the design outweigh the drawbacks of switching to it, and I'm sure that data has a high likelihood of being objectively true. I'm also reasonably sure that the benefits aren't significant from an engineering perspective or the entire industry would have adopted it as a new standard. Apple's argument about waste, however, is specious because that's just a matter of timing - it's all going to the dump / recycling center as soon as the new thing comes out - and Apple have never been shy about discarding what is no longer the best (although, to be fair, they are fairly conscientious about recycling).
I think the EU should abandon this particular fight, though. The scale of the market is so large that no particular standard has a majority share and any decision will cause harm to a significant percentage of the population.
Eventually everything will be wireless anyway.
What do we gain from all using a particular one? What happens when someone needs to improve on the cable, does everyone have to move to it at the same time? If not, how long do they get to make the switch? Surely that's creating waste?
Who gets to make the decision as to which cable wins out? What if three of the four decision-makers decide on a specific cable that three of them are currently using, who pays the costs for the other company to redesign their hardware and software to account for the new features or to develop workarounds for existing features that might be lost? What about contractual agreements between a phone manufacturer and their suppliers?
This is ill-thought-out.
Now, on the subject of seemingly acceptable e-waste... I have a LaCie external hard drive that broke within a year of purchase, and I had to send it back to the manufacturer (Seagate) in the Netherlands. They asked me to send only the drive and the power adapter, not any data cables, nor any power cables (the one that plugs into a wall power socket and then into the power brick).
Given that the hard drive originally came with FOUR power cables, I was surprised to see Seagate send me the replacement drive and FOUR replacement power cables. I now have EIGHT power cables and only need ONE of them.
This is from a company in the EU sending a product to another country within the EU - the Netherlands to the UK. Products going to the UK should be sent with the appropriate UK power cable, not three others I won't use. The replacement should NOT have come with any power cables since they didn't want me to send the originals back for replacement. Perhaps the EU would like to speak to Seagate? They've just created more cable e-waste than I've ever had in 12 years of owning iPhones.
all their new mac chargers are as well.
was there some other universal port on chargers that the EU was thinking of?
I'm not a good fit for the EU. I'm a person who is happy where they are and who is not a "refugee" with an image of an Al Qaeda flag as the background picture on their phone, so I'm not the right kind of candidate to be migrating into the EU.
your argument needs work.
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/B-9-2020-0072_EN.html
I didn't see any reference to forcing Apple to switch from Lightning and some points that are quite valid, such as not including chargers with devices.
The proposition is actually sensible and does NOT stop Apple having the lightning connector on their products.
The proposition is with regards to the wall chargers, nothing stops Apple shipping their lightning cables with USB C instead of USB A, a move that they’re doing anyway.
Switzerland 🇨🇭, Norway 🇳🇴, and very soon Great Britain 🇬🇧, are in Europe the continent, but not the EU trade bloc. 🇪🇺
BTW to my American friends, this is just another example of why GB 🇬🇧 decided to leave, the obsession by EU bureaucrats to regulate everything and anything.