Apple has announced that it will replace the Lightning connector on its iPhones with a USB-C connector in compliance with the new regulation from European Union. EU announced that all smartphones must use USB-C as the standard charging system.
New EU rules require all phones sold after autumn 2024 to use the USB-C connector for their charging ports. The oval-shaped plugs are already standard on other consumer electronics such as e-readers, games consoles, laptops and the vast majority of new Android phones.
The Silicon-Valley based tech giant has largely complied with the regulation. Its new products can send up to 240W of power and 40Gbps of data over the same cable. “Its first laptop to use USB-C to charge was the 12in MacBook in 2015, while iPads began switching from the Lightning connector in 2018,” Guardian’s technology editor Alex Hern notes.
But the company had earlier expressed reservation with the regulation arguing that, “strict regulation mandating just one type of connector stifles innovation rather than encouraging it, which in turn will harm consumers in Europe and around the world”.
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Greg Joswiak, Apple’s head of marketing, has admitted that the company has conceded defeat. “Obviously we’ll have to comply, we have no choice,” he said in a technology conference in California. However, he added that: “it would have been better environmentally and better for our customers to not have a government be that prescriptive”.
Defenders of the Lightning connector have cited its smaller size, and the vast array of Lightning-based adapters and accessories owned by users around the world. The need to replace those cables could lead to a spike in e-waste, despite the stated goal of the regulation being to reduce discarded electronics.
