Thursday, August 3, 2023 11:22 am14 Comments

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Apple has long been a proponent of its own proprietary Lightning connector, but the company is finally set to make the switch to USB-C on its forthcoming iPhone 15 lineup. This move has been met with mixed reactions from users, with some praising the move to a more universal standard and others lamenting the loss of the Lightning connector.

There are a number of pros to Apple’s move to USB-C. First, USB-C is a more universal standard than Lightning. This means that iPhone users will be able to use the same charging cable and accessories for their iPhones, iPads, and Macs. This will simplify things for users and reduce the amount of cables and adapters they need to carry around.

Second, USB-C offers faster charging speeds than Lightning. This is because USB-C supports up to 100W of power delivery, while Lightning only supports up to 18W. This means that iPhone users will be able to charge their devices more quickly with a USB-C cable.

Third, USB-C offers faster data transfer speeds than Lightning. This is because USB-C supports up to 10 Gbps of data transfer, while Lightning only supports up to 480 Mbps. This means that iPhone users will be able to transfer files more quickly with a USB-C cable.

MacDailyNews Take: The main drawbacks of this EU-forced change, of course, is that many users have invested in Lightning cables which will have to be discarded and, for those who’ve not moved fully to wireless charging, replaced and that there is no longer any impetus to invest, innovate, and improve beyond USB-C.

As we wrote last year:

Any government — or, in this case, an extra-national quasi-government-ish body — that mandates technology will stifle innovation. It is a mistake. Luckily, in this case, it won’t matter much. Apple’s iPhones are moving to port-less and, if there is some overlap with USB-C iPhones for a few years, the e-waste created will be minimized.

This isn’t a matter of Lightning vs. USB-C. The problem is the mandating of a certain standard and the innovation it squelches. Idiot bureaucrats never seem to consider unintended consequences, regardless of how obvious they are. This is, as usual, a “sounds great, oh, wait” mistake. (They never seem to be able to even imagine, much less consider, and weight the “oh, wait” part.)

If you believe the EU will move quickly all of a sudden (it took them over a decade to codify this mistake), as quickly as a tech company like Apple to keep on top of innovation, you’re either a rube or under the age of eight.

USB-C is the wired port now, at least in the EU (and therefore everywhere; nobody is going to make specific devices for the EU which comprises a whopping 5.8% of the world population), pretty much forever.

Big government, quasi or not, is slow and wedded to its own red tape. If something markedly better were to come along, the EU will not magically change their mandate. In fact, what’s the incentive to create a better port than USB-C now? Not only do you have to coax adoption from tech companies as usual, but you’re now also tasked with nightmare and expense of lobbying and convincing a raft of EU bureaucrats to expeditiously agree to change their USB-C mandate.

Forget innovation in wired connectivity. It’s now dead.

This is just needless, slow-as-molasses, bureaucratic meddling in the market; a stick in the spokes that, in the end, will be like mandating a buggy whip with every cart sold, twenty years after the advent of the automobile.

If the EU had passed such a law when this innovation-stifling foolishness was initially proposed, we’d all still be stuck with MicroUSB today!

Regardless, soon Apple’s iPhones won’t have any ports at all. As it stands even today, the Lightning port on our iPhones is a largely superfluous liquid and dust ingress point. If anything, this misguided, shortsighted EU move only hastens Apple’s move to port-free iPhones featuring even better water and dust resistance. – MacDailyNews, June 3, 2022

Years ago, in January 2018, Apple provided feedback on this issue to the European Commission:

Apple stands for innovation. Regulations that would drive conformity across the type of connector built into all smartphones freeze innovation rather than encourage it. Such proposals are bad for the environment and unnecessarily disruptive for customers.

More than 1 billion Apple devices have shipped using a Lightning connector in addition to an entire ecosystem of accessory and device manufacturers who use Lightning to serve our collective customers. We want to ensure that any new legislation will not result in the shipment of any unnecessary cables or external adaptors with every device, or render obsolete the devices and accessories used by many millions of Europeans and hundreds of millions of Apple customers worldwide. This would result in an unprecedented volume of electronic waste and greatly inconvenience users. To be forced to disrupt this huge market of customers will have consequences far beyond the stated aims of the Commission.

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