Opinion: The European Union Wants To Ruin Charging Cables

When Apple released the iPhone 14 in 2022, its use of its proprietary Lightning port was beyond a bad joke. It had slower data passthrough ability than USB-C, lower power delivery, and no other advantages other than being marginally smaller; even Apple knew that USB-C was the superior port.Apple had been one of the key advocates of USB-C, introducing it — to great frustration – as the only port on the 2015 MacBook. They pushed too aggressively and early, but the rest of the industry saw their wisdom, switching all new phones, tablets, headphones, and laptops to USB C. Every company switched to one cable for everything because that was the handy, easy choice.Every company that is, except for Apple. Their laptops and high-end tablets used USB C, but their phones, low-end iPads, and AirPod line all used Lightning.However, in 2022, the European Parliament and the European Council adopted Directive 2022/2380, a rule demanding that almost all consumer electronics products sold in European Union member states have to use the USB-C port as a new universal charging standard.It only applies to Europe, technically. But because Europe is too big a market to leave but too small to make a unique skew for, Apple belatedly changed all their devices to USB C by the December 27th, 2024 deadline.This is handy for now, but the logic of the bill — that a single shared standard would reduce confusion and e-waste — is false today and is destined to cause problems down the road. Excess regulation has never been a friend to innovation.Their case is that by making all devices share the same port, there will be greater consistency and control throughout the market. iPhones, cameras, earbuds, and laptops will all use the same cable, reducing waste and making travel packing a breeze.But this isn’t true. They may have the same port, but they won’t all use the same cables because USB C is the most unnecessarily complicated standard in the history of electronics. No, that is not an exaggeration.USB C only denotes the shape of the port, but not the function of the cable, the power capacity it can deliver, or the data bandwidth. There are power-only USB C cables cable of 5W max; there are USB C cables at the USB 2.0, 2.1, 3.0 or 3.2 Gen 1, 3.2 Gen 2, 3.2 Gen 2×2, USB4, and USB PD standards, among others, all of which have dramatically different costs and bandwidth capacities; and that’s before you get into proprietary cables that add extra function to USB C, such as Thunderbolt, or high-wattage proprietary charging cables.If you bought an authenticate Lightning cable from Apple, it did the same thing as any other Lightning cable; but there is no visual difference between a $69 Thunderbolt 5 “Pro Cable” and the free USB C cable that comes with a pair of earbuds.So, it doesn’t help users now; this will only worsen in the future.USB standard for “Universal Serial Bus,” developed by a multi-company nonprofit body that tries to make unified ports. Sometimes, they do good work; sometimes, they create confusing messes — like the current USB-C speed issue — and are often behind the ball.If this bill had passed in 2008, we’d be stuck using Micro-B; a smaller standard based on the classic rectangular USB-A port, which could fit in Android smartphones. It was also asymmetrical, data and power limited, and broke quickly. Apple invented their own ports precisely because it was so bad — and so they could sell more cables. Lightning, introduced in 2012, was the ultimate evolution of this and simply the best cable on the market until USB-C.Regulation or not, Apple was long overdue switching their iPhones to using it. But USB-C’s success will not last. In time, there doubtlessly will be a better port design out there, probably from Apple, which will dramatically improve on USB-C. But this EU bill will make it impossible for Europeans at least, if not the whole world, to get it.

Opinion: The European Union Wants To Ruin Charging Cables

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