EU Parliament agrees on proposal to force Apple to use USB-C on all devices (including iPhones), only allows small devices like watches to go portless

[poochyena]

32 minutes ago, HanZie82 said:

Fan of standardization, but not sure forcing certain company's to change is the best option.
But then if they actively work against right to repair and such, yeah no mercy.

They aren't. Apple could simply not sell their products to the EU.

[Blademaster91]

11 minutes ago, Neoxon said:

Apple tried this years ago (see my previous post), & now the EU is requiring that the standardized port (USB-C, in this case) be on the device itself.

I wasn't aware Apple tried to get circumvent the previous attempt at standardizing a port, nice to see everyone agree on a standard and the loopholes were closed.

[Neoxon]

8 minutes ago, tikker said:

As much as Apple is the main one opposing this, I do feel like the title is making it sound like these are measures specifically against Apple, which the linked EU source does not mention. It's just the universal charging proposal.

 

As for the proposal, happy to see them agree on it.

While true that the EU doesn’t specifically name Apple, a lot of the measures taken to plug loopholes to get past this mandate seem to be targeted directly at Apple.

[drdrewnatic]

Is there anything stopping Apple from just manufacturing a diffrent version of the iPhone specifically for the European market? Or would that logistically not make much sense?

[Blademaster91]

17 minutes ago, poochyena said:

They aren't. Apple could simply not sell their products to the EU.

If Apple stopped selling products in the EU they would be losing about 30% market share, it would better if they just switched to USB-C as macs and macbooks already use USB-C.

https://gs.statcounter.com/vendor-market-share/mobile/europe

[tikker]

5 minutes ago, drdrewnatic said:

Is there anything stopping Apple from just manufacturing a diffrent version of the iPhone specifically for the European market? Or would that logistically not make much sense?

Profit. It'll require a separate production step or even process and separate accessories for the EU market. It's not a great position for them to be in as either they'll have a (likely, I'm guessing) somewhat higher cost due to needing to produce an EU-specific version or they concede, change their entire lineup to USB-C (also a lot of money) which supposedly will stifle their innovation. Option 3 (extending the latter) will be admitting it's not that bad to have a universal port and then they'll probably get flack for having opposed this so much.

[FliP0x]

1 minute ago, drdrewnatic said:

Is there anything stopping Apple from just manufacturing a diffrent version of the iPhone specifically for the European market? Or would that logistically not make much sense?

They could, but with different ports come different accessories that would have to be manufactured as well (eg. Apple-branded charging cables).

 

Since Apple is mostly already on Type C (MacBooks, iMac etc.), iPhones could reuse the Type C Hubs that any Mac owner already has anyway.

[Derangel]

2 minutes ago, poochyena said:

They aren't. Apple could simply not sell their products to the EU.

Only if they want to watch their stocks crumble and lose many, many, tens of billions of dollars in revenue. Apple made over $80b from the EU in their last fiscal year. There's zero chance of them refusing to sell products in the region.

 

1 minute ago, drdrewnatic said:

Is there anything stopping Apple from just manufacturing a diffrent version of the iPhone specifically for the European market? Or would that logistically not make much sense?

 

Theoretically, there is nothing stopping them. I'm not sure how much sense it makes practically, however. Apple can be petty at times, but I'm not sure if they'd be that petty. More likely, they'd make the change and then try to market it as something "brave and innovative" to make themselves look good, or they'd sell it at another "we're trying to save the planet" thing like they did when ditching the charger. Maybe they'll throw in a super cheap USB-C to Lightening adapter for a generation or two.

[Neoxon]

2 minutes ago, Derangel said:

Only if they want to watch their stocks crumble and lose many, many, tens of billions of dollars in revenue. Apple made over $80b from the EU in their last fiscal year. There's zero chance of them refusing to sell products in the region.

 

 

Theoretically, there is nothing stopping them. I'm not sure how much sense it makes practically, however. Apple can be petty at times, but I'm not sure if they'd be that petty. More likely, they'd make the change and then try to market it as something "brave and innovative" to make themselves look good, or they'd sell it at another "we're trying to save the planet" thing like they did when ditching the charger. Maybe they'll throw in a super cheap USB-C to Lightening adapter for a generation or two.

As mentioned earlier, the adapter loophole won’t work anymore.

[AlTech]

I wonder how this'll affect Mac accessories using lightning such as the Magic Keyboards and the Magic Mouse.

 

Also wonder how if it'll accelerate the death of the iPod Touch line and if it'll have an impact on Apple's Macs using Magsafe 3.

[HanZie82]

4 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

I wonder how this'll affect Mac accessories using lightning such as the Magic Keyboards and the Magic Mouse.

 

Also wonder how if it'll accelerate the death of the iPod Touch line and if it'll have an impact on Apple's Macs using Magsafe 3.

Yeah if this legislation prevents things like the mag-safe thing, its totaly useless to me.
If this will also standardize the mag-safe im all for it. Its a wonderful idea, just wish more proper brands would make some.

Tired of ordering those from aliexpress. hahaha.

 

ps im considering all magnetic charge cables in this group for the convo.

[drdrewnatic]

4 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Also wonder how if it'll accelerate the death of the iPod Touch line and if it'll have an impact on Apple's Macs using Magsafe 3.

I'm surprised Apple hasn't killed that thing yet. I forgot they even still sell it.

[HanZie82]

1 minute ago, drdrewnatic said:

I'm surprised Apple hasn't killed that thing yet. I forgot they even still sell it.

Only useful thing they made/designed in 15 years tho.

[Derangel]

10 minutes ago, Neoxon said:

As mentioned earlier, the adapter loophole won’t work anymore.

 

An adapter to go from USB-C to Lightening, because they've used lightening for so long. I was hypothesizing how Apple would deal with things when/if they are forced to adopt USB-C ports on their lightening devices.

[AlTech]

17 minutes ago, poochyena said:

They aren't. Apple could simply not sell their products to the EU.

I know this particular horse has already kinda been beaten to death but it's almost impossible for a big tech company to ignore the EU or not sell to EU consumers.

 

They could technically choose not and:

• their shareholders would be furious at them for leaving gigantic sums of money on the table - I cannot overstate that the EU is one of the biggest economy in the world. It would be like not selling iPhones to Americans; that ain't gonna happen.
• they would still be forced to anyways because many things are designed with EU standards in mind even if they sell internationally - Making an EU hardware version and a non EU hardware version doesn't really work unless you can guarantee the 2 versions will never mix and be sold in the wrong places

[Derangel]

4 minutes ago, HanZie82 said:

Only useful thing they made/designed in 15 years tho.

iPads are incredible mobile devices and I'd argue they have some of the best slim keyboards on the market. If I didn't prefer mechanical switches for my desktop, I'd 100% be using Apple keyboards.

[Neoxon]

10 minutes ago, HanZie82 said:

Yeah if this legislation prevents things like the mag-safe thing, its totaly useless to me.
If this will also standardize the mag-safe im all for it. Its a wonderful idea, just wish more proper brands would make some.

Tired of ordering those from aliexpress. hahaha.

 

ps im considering all magnetic charge cables in this group for the convo.

This is mainly for wired charging & data transfer. Wireless charging will be tackled in 2026 according to first source.

 

15 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

I wonder how this'll affect Mac accessories using lightning such as the Magic Keyboards and the Magic Mouse.

 

Also wonder how if it'll accelerate the death of the iPod Touch line and if it'll have an impact on Apple's Macs using Magsafe 3.

The Macs that use MagSafe 3 also allow for USB-C charging, so they should be safe. Plus I'm pretty sure that the mandate doesn't impact laptops anyway due to some laptops having power draw that are too high for USB-C (even above 240W).

[poochyena]

23 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

If Apple stopped selling products in the EU they would be losing about 30% market share, it would better if they just switched to USB-C as macs and macbooks already use USB-C.

https://gs.statcounter.com/vendor-market-share/mobile/europe

obviously.

19 minutes ago, Derangel said:

Only if they want to watch their stocks crumble and lose many, many, tens of billions of dollars in revenue. Apple made over $80b from the EU in their last fiscal year. There's zero chance of them refusing to sell products in the region.

obviously

2 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

I know this particular horse has already kinda been beaten to death but it's almost impossible for a big tech company to ignore the EU or not sell to EU consumers.

Idk why you guys are telling me its a bad idea, it obviously would be. I was pointing out they aren't being forced into this and have the choice to not sell to the EU. If they choose to continue to sell to the EU by changing to usb-c, it shows they could have done that a long time ago.

[Neoxon]

15 minutes ago, poochyena said:

obviously.

obviously

Idk why you guys are telling me its a bad idea, it obviously would be. I was pointing out they aren't being forced into this and have the choice to not sell to the EU. If they choose to continue to sell to the EU by changing to usb-c, it shows they could have done that a long time ago.

Either way you slice it, Apple is now stuck between a rock & a hard place.

[drdrewnatic]

2 minutes ago, Neoxon said:

Either way you slice it, Apple is now stuck between a rock & a hard place.

They had to have known this was coming. I wouldn't be surprised if they have been already started designing and prototyping one.

[Derangel]

Just now, drdrewnatic said:

They had to have known this was coming. I wouldn't be surprised if they have been already started designing and prototyping one.

I agree. There have been so many rumors and leaks around Apple dropping Lightening the last few years that I’d be very surprised to learn that they haven’t been sitting around and waiting for the EU to make this move.

[WhitetailAni]

Call me crazy, but I like Lightning. It's much easier to clean out - with USB-C if something gets in your cable it's REALLY hard to not break the flange.

Sure, it's slow, but I don't think it'd be too hard to use the top 8 pins for USB3 wires and then configure what pins do what with a sense wire.

[Neoxon]

15 minutes ago, drdrewnatic said:

They had to have known this was coming. I wouldn't be surprised if they have been already started designing and prototyping one.

Perhaps, but the original plan was supposedly 2 years for the mandate to take effect after it’s initially ratified. This was recently accelerated to 6 months. Between that & the wireless option being limited to small devices, Apple no longer has the time or means to do anything but switch to USB-C.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

1 hour ago, Derangel said:

I'm all for anything that gets Apple to ditch Lightening, but I'd rather the EU stay the hell away from standardizing wireless charging. Basically every single notable wireless charging device already uses Qi (yes. even Apple devices) and getting rid of great optional things like MagSafe would really suck.

iphones still use qi charging to charge, even with a magsafe array.....

forcing qi to stop any other form of wireless charging would probably be ok, because it can still use qi and modify the wireless charging pad/coils, if it still accepts qi

[poochyena]

33 minutes ago, Neoxon said:

Either way you slice it, Apple is now stuck between a rock & a hard place.

no, no they aren't. There is a very easy and simple solution for them.