Apple confirmed that iPhones would ditch the company's proprietary Lightning ports in favor of USB-C to comply with EU legislation. The confirmation comes just a few days after the EU Parliament voted to make USB-C the common charging standard across Europe. The legislation has been a long time in the making, but the first concrete steps were taken earlier this year when the EU announced that it is set to pass the much-awaited legislation that will require all mobile gadgets to use USB-C ports for wired charging by autumn 2024.
Plans are also afoot in the U.S. to mandate a standard charging interface for all gadgets. Towards that end, Senators Ed Markey, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders wrote a letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo earlier this year, asking her department to formulate regulations to ensure a standard charger for all mobile devices sold in the country. However, while the EU is mandating USB-C as the default wired charging interface for all mobile devices, the U.S. senators want the Dept. of Commerce to establish a uniform charging standard that may or may not include USB-C.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing, Greg Joswiak, confirmed the company's much-rumored switch to USB-C. When asked whether the company plans to change following the EU legislation, Joswiak said, "we'll have to comply, we have no choice." The statement suggests that the company is not exactly happy about having to ditch Lightning but will have to make the switch to comply with the EU legislation anyway. Joswiak, however, did not confirm the timeframe for the change, saying, "the Europeans are the ones dictating timing for European customers." However, with the EU deadline set for Autumn 2024, most industry watchers believe that the iPhone 15-series will be the first to ship with USB-C ports.
iPhones Switching To USB-C
It is worth noting that Apple's antipathy to USB-C is limited only to iPhones and does not extend to iPads. The company already has a slew of iPad models with USB-C ports and is expected to complete the transition in the near future. The first iPads to ship with USB-C ports were the 1st-gen 11-inch iPad Pro and the 3rd-gen 12.9-inch iPad Pro, both of which were released in 2018. Since then, all iPad models have shipped with USB-C changing, including the M2 iPad Pro announced earlier this month.
Proponents of USB-C charging believe that the switch to a universal charging interface by Apple and other companies will reduce e-waste, which is becoming a significant cause for concern with every passing year. It might also save consumers millions of dollars in extra cable and charger purchases. The EU estimates that the total savings for European consumers could be as high as €250 million ($267 million) per year. The transition to USB-C is also expected to cut down on around 11,000 tonnes of e-waste annually.
Source: WSJ/Twitter