elijahg

rhbellmor said:

Like my wife always tells me when I complain about some design feature or lack of in my new car, she tells me to design my own car.  The developers are free to design their own smartphone and App Store like I can start my own car company.  I like Apple protecting me and my smartphone.  When Apple stops doing that I’ll go back to a dumb flip phone!

So no one should ever complain about any design feature in anything because that person should just design their own product instead? Best tell Apple to close the beta programs then. And shut down Github while you're at it, too.

retrogusto said:

When they’re made obsolete, let’s all send our iPhone chargers to Margrethe Vestager. I wonder if she realizes that otherwise we might have been able to continue to use them. 

Also, given that this applies to various device types, including game consoles, are we to believe that phone chargers and PlayStation 6 power supplies must be interchangeable? So will the consoles be limited in power or will all chargers just draw a ton of energy? If they’re not interchangeable, what’s the point?

It does not include non-portable game consoles. "USB-C will become the standard port for all smartphones, tablets, cameras, headphones, portable speakers and handheld videogame consoles." Even if this was the case, a 65w power supply doesn't draw 65w when charging an iPhone at 15w, it draws about 16.5w.

georgie01 said:

CheeseFreeze said:

So the EU has now declared that USB-C is the be-all, end-all of ports. New, advanced technology need not apply.

Like the Lightning port is ‘innovation’ in 2021 ߙ䦬t;/div>

Your attempt to feel clever bashing Apple has inadvertently proven the point.

Connectors eventually become obsolete. By requiring a connector be standardised, which could very well become limiting by the time this EU mandate would become a requirement, it inherently becomes about holding technology back.

I don’t want USBC or lightning to be a required port on my devices for the next however many years because who knows what technology will emerge. They’ve been fine so far, but that doesn’t mean they will continue to be for an artificially prescribed amount of time.

Lightning's main issue at its inception was it had only two data lanes, which means it's limited to USB 2 speeds. There aren't any spare pins to add USB 3.0, therefore it wasn't very forward thinking: it was well known at the time we were hitting the limits for single-lane serial communications, USB 2.0 was 12 years old and USB 3 was just around the corner - released 6 months later. Apple is a USB-IF member so they knew for years before release they'd need more data lines to support USB 3. Just two more pins (even left as spare) would have enabled USB 3.0. USB-C also has the ability to reassign some of the data lines to transmit non-USB protocols - Lightning does do this but it's more limited (no thunderbolt or displayport over lightning for example)

If this legalisation had a sunset clause in say 5 or 6 years it'd be more sensible, then it would get every manufacturer to switch and then would allow future innovations on USB-C. Of course proposing amendments like this are basically impossible because the EC isn't democratic, but I digress. I suspect C will be around for a very, very long time however. It's a really good connector. Forward thinking and well designed, it does at last seem at last we might get one connector for everything.

For once, I'm partially behind the EU on this. Whilst lightning was 100x better than USB micro (and the Dock Connector) back in the iPhone 5 days in 2012, lightning is not superior to USB-C in most cases. In fact, Apple co-designed the USB-C connector. The only major drawback of USB-C is the slim "tongue" in the USB-C port on the device can get broken off without huge difficulty. However as usual, the EU's reasoning for this is crap: "reducing waste" is the driver, but phones come with USB->Lightning/USB-C cables anyway, so mandating a specific port isn't going to stop excess cables being thrown away, unless someone is switching from iOS to Android. 

A couple of more minor drawbacks of USB-C itself:

• There are at least 4 different types of USB-C cable: charging only, USB 2.0 over USB-C, USB 3.2 over USB-C, and Thunderbolt (or USB 4) over USB-C. Having such a variety of cables with no way to distinguish them is stupid. 
• Replacing all existing lightning cables with USB-C ones could be wasteful, though no more wasteful than dock connector to lightning. 

Major advantages though: 

• Potential for faster charging as USB-C is 65w+
• USB 3.2, which is why the iPad Pro/mini has USB-C. Right now, iPhones and the iPad 9 are limited to USB 2.0 speeds. Pretty abysmal 20MB/sec.
• One cable with identical ends to rule them all (sort of, see above)
• Any charger will charge any phone
• Everyone will have a USB-C cable in a pinch, whereas only some people will have lightning
• Easier for device manufacturers to waterproof (as no moving parts in the device port, unlike lightning)

Apple probably doesn't want to switch because of licensing on Made for iPhone cables and accessories. Instead of being hardware incompatibilities, Apple will have to force software incompatibilities with USB-C Android accessories. And those incompatibilities will eventually be cracked by various Chinese accessory makers.

rob53 said:

The EU can do whatever they want to but the metric system is not the standard in the US and I doubt there will ever be a single world-wide standard for much of anything. USB is an Intel standard, meaning the EU is defining a no-substitute requirement for mobile phone chargers. I have to wonder how much Intel is bribing the EU. If Apple goes with a mag-safe charger and no physical charging port, I bet the EU will complain and try and sue Apple to provide a physical charging port. 

Whilst USB was invented by Intel, it isn't an Intel "standard" nor is it controlled by any one entity. 

From WIkipedia: "In 2015, the seven-person board of directors, led by USB-IF President and Chief Operating Officer Jeff Ravencraft, consisted of representatives of Apple, HP Inc., Intel Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, Renesas Electronics, STMicroelectronics, and Texas Instruments."

But yes, I wouldn't be surprised if the EU mandated a USB-C charging port on all mobile phones, meaning Apple couldn't have a portless iPhone in the EU.