I mean, it's good to reduce disposable cables, but it's not like Apple is egregious about this. The Lightning port has been in use longer than the time between the release of USB and Mini-USB, Mini-USB and Micro-USB, Micro-USB and USB-C, or USB-C to today. The 30-pin connector was current for 9 years, even longer than Lightning has been around.
This is a rather pointless stat though. None of the cables currently available are rated for 9 years and most have a ridiculously short lifespan of 1-2 years anyway.
In fact it probably works against Apple as it demonstrates that the churn of innovation doesn't really exist if new advances only occur every 9 years.
The article talks about trying to cut down on electronic waste:
> The regulator is determined to cut down on electronic waste being created by obsolete cables, which it estimates generate more than 51,000 tonnes of waste per year.
It's surely much less wasteful to extend the life of the cable standard than to ensure longer cable lifespans. Even if you had a cable that lasted 7 years, chances are the standard would have changed and you would be forced to replace it. You can always purchase higher quality cables that do have longer lifespans if Apple's aren't up to your quality standards.
> In fact it probably works against Apple as it demonstrates that the churn of innovation doesn't really exist if new advances only occur every 9 years.
I think you may have misunderstood the OP statistics. My understanding was that the industry standards have previously been churning at a higher rate than Apple's standards. So Apple's standards are often longer lived than the standard connections.
It's pointless because , the chance of a cable lasting 7 years doesn't happen. Even the phone isn't typically designed to last that long.
The cases where people end up replacing their cable because of a new standard is way less frequent than the cable breaking, this has been my experience at least considering the shifting standards which you talk about.
It sounds a bit like optimizing some process but ignoring what is actually the bottleneck. The problem in this case is not the standard on top, but the lifetime of the cable.
If the goal is to reduce e-waste then surely it makes sense to tackle the approach from a reduce, reuse, recycle perspective in that order and focussing on the EOL for the cable.
By shifting to one cable standard, you can reduce/reuse as at least other products can have better utilization as that old cable is still usable with other products. I have been less incentivised to buy new usb C cable for my phone because my switch and headphone cables still work just fine.
I can't do anything with a lightning cable if my iphone dies other than to use it for apple products. Just like I can't do anything with my old ipod connectors. That is just straight e-waste.
By shifting to one cable standard, we can more easily recycle the cable as there would be more manufacturers who would have the supply-chain/capabilities of recycling these chargers. Contrast that to the lightning cable which only apple and other companies with a lightning connector can handle effectively.
> the chance of a cable lasting 7 years doesn't happen
What do you do to your cables? I have a 30-pin iPad-charging cables that is from 2011, and it's working fine. Coming up on nine years.
I still regularly use a lightning cable (and charger brick) from 2013, just a year after lightning was introduced, and that's coming up on 7 years.
Your anecdotal evidence is that cables break before becoming obsolete. My anecdotal evidence is the opposite. I have a box full of USB-notC cables in a closet for devices I rarely use, or that are no longer usable, all the while I charge my iPad with a now-obsolete 30-pin cable.
Apple cables are notorious for wearing badly. I suspect it's because they favor very thin casing and for greater flexibility -- a lightning cable winds tighter than typical charging cables for other phones. MacBook Pro chargers also suffer from the syndrome.
Apple phones also last longer than other phones, and because their connections remain so standard, you can use the same cable for multiple phones. I've definitely destroyed some Apple cables, but generally they've been on their second or third device.
> I suspect it's because they favor very thin casing and for greater flexibility -- a lightning cable winds tighter than typical charging cables for other phones.
I'm not so sure about this explanation—the cables usually fail at the very ends, where the connector meets the cable itself.
Sadly, I can't say the same of my experience with the Defy+. I found it quite disappointing. Small screen, bulky case (that was fragile and broke around the external screws), and not much more wear and water resistant than a regular phone. I dug it out recently and sold it on ebay, although I'm not sure what can be done with a phone stuck with an old version of the play store.
No, it did not go beyond 4.4. 5.0 has been booted on it but never got any further, mostly due to the fact that nobody got a 3.x kernel running satisfactorily on the device. I do use one with a 3.1 kernel (running MPD) but all the others are still at 2.6.
Until recently my daughter was still using a 30pin cable that came with a first gen iPad. So "the chance of a cable lasting 7 years doesn't happen" is patently false.
Still using my first gen iPad here, though it's only for reading ebooks.
I have a bunch of 30 pin cables for it though (eg one left plugged into charger at home, one always in my bag, etc). No idea which one is the original cable, and which are cheapo knock-offs.
Over the years, I think one of them went bad and needed replacing. The rest are fine though.
That's a single scenario (focusing on the 'obsolete' part), and android users buying iPhones has the same effect (additional cables for no functional difference)
There's an infinite number of cases where getting rid of the lightning spec would reduce the number of cables.
A household with an iPhone and an android user would also buy an extra set of cables that could be avoided. Even having an iPad in the mix generates cable duplication: the iPad Pro is on the different connector, android users buying an iPad is also more common than one would think.
Broadening to charging stations in waiting rooms, shopping malls, cafes etc., including other portable devices like headphones, portable batteries, cameras, etc. and the iPhone having its own non standard and connector is more and more a waste.
If there aren't enough iPhone users to worry about, then why force us to replace all of our cables, chargers, docks, etc?
You can't have it both ways!
One year ago, there were 1.4 billion[0] of us, each with one or more (many more, in my case) cables, docks, cradles, etc. That's a lot of waste to churn up for "not enough iPhone users."
As I understand it, there are real advantages (other than selling more cables) to making the cable connectors more fragile than those on the device. You actually want most of the wear and tear to take place on the cable rather than the device connector because it is cheaper and easier to replace.
2 year lifespan, seriously? My phone's standard mini-USB cable is at least 5 years old by now, and shows zero signs of wear. What the hell is Apple doing to make such awful cables?
Making lots of money, that is what they're doing. They do seem to have managed to get people to believe that it is normal for a cable to fail after such a short time.
By the way, I guess that your phone's standard cable is not mini-USB but micro-USB.
I've had iPhones since 2014 and still have all chargers and cables.
I guess some people just mistreat their cables alot more.
If anything Apple has actually been the responsible one only using 2 different connectors, while the rest of the industry have been doing; mini usb, micro usb and now usb-c. And before they - with the advent of iPhone - started with usb connectors all phone manufacturers had their own proprietary connectors.
Who knows what comes along in 5 years on the usb side.
I sure hope Apple stays off USB-C on iPhones for a good while.
Lightning cables are by far the most fragile. Either they get frayed, tarnished, or just plain stop working.
Edit: it's not just me, a simple Google search turns up the following: [0]. Apple phone/tablet hardware is great but the cables they ship are unfortunately not very good.
The ones that Apple sells, at least. The braided cables are seriously durable.
My favorite variant, though, are the magnetic Lightning chargers you can get for basically nothing on Aliexpress. Never have to worry about plugging in/unplugging your phone ever again; just put it into your phone once, and then whenever you need to charge just connect the magnetic cable to it.
In my experience, the connector has never been implicated in a failing Lightning cable; it’s always been the cable itself. By contrast, the average lifespan of a micro USB cable in my household is a couple months, before the connectors themselves get bent beyond repair.
I don't know how much you abuse cables but I never had a USB cable fail. I understand there's a variable quality of cables out there but failing after 2 months sounds exaggerated
I have small kids who are prone to tripping over cables while trying to squeeze into tight spaces. Lightning connectors handle that stress just fine, but micro USB is no match!
I've had exactly one USB cable fail: a cheap Type-C cable that shorted near one of the ends and let out a nice stinky puff of magic smoke. Thankfully my phone survived unharmed.
Same anecdote here -- every lightning cable has held up spectacularly. I've still bought a couple of extra long braided ones just because, but the included ones are fine.
And even if the cable failed, it's worth noting that with the various USB variants before USB-C, it was likely the connector in the device that failed rather than the cable (because it bore the load). I had more than one device have the USB port destroyed under ordinary use.
I still prefer lightning to USB-C, but if it wasn't for Apple doing their own thing we'd probably be still on some ridiculous USB variant with a litany of design mistakes.
Does anyone know if there's any merit to Apple's claim that USB-C isn't compatible with the iPhone's slim dimensions? (From the article: "Apple insisted that its slimmer devices would be unable to fit the then-new USB-C technology ...")
Just looking at the tech specs for the iPhone 11 (lightning) [1] versus iPad Pro (USB-C) [2], the former is actually thicker at 8.3 mm compared to 5.9 mm, and yet the iPad Pro can have USB-C.
Especially given that it's so prevalent in their other hardware, it almost seems like stubbornness at this point that Apple doesn't want to switch, but admittedly that doesn't pass the test of Hanlon's razor. It seems like there must be a better explanation out there somewhere for why they've desperately clung to lightning for so long (backward cable compatibility within the iPhone ecosystem? inertia in circuit/case design?).
You can't make a determination of connector dimensions based on device specs, because they're not strongly correlated.
The simplest explanation is that Lightning came out before USB-C did, and Apple did not want to risk another PR backlash from getting everyone to move to it after they'd just switched from the 30-pin connector cable.
Precisely. They removed the 3.5mm jack to sell AirPods, and they ended up selling a ton. They want you to buy into their whole ecosystem, and something like a cable is a foot in the door (more eyeballs on their website or in their stores when you inevitably need a new one).
Their PR makes less sense than the cynical reasoning, so I believe the cynical reasoning.
Exacerbating the issue, the quote is likely from a time when Apple was still pushing for 3D touch on the iPhone, but not the iPad. Meaning the iPhone would have had less volume and more to fit inside the case.
I was thinking they might keep the lightning standard until they would finally remove all connectors from iPhones. But then the whole AirPower charging pad didn’t work out, so not sure why they wouldn’t switch over finally.
I can't believe this legislation is actually being seriously considered, why would you want the government forcing you to have a certain port on your phone. By all means have regulations for things like electrical outlets and radio frequencies and other protocols that interfere with each other, but when it comes to individual devices it is just going to completely stall any innovation. I don't want a manufacturer to have to lobby the government every time they want to start using some improved charging cable, or when they want to make a device where USB-C doesn't make sense, that's how we end up stuck on old standards for forever. Doesn't seem like the government's business anyways, you are really going to make it illegal for me to produce and purchase devices without USB-C? Seems insane to me, if people don't want a device because it doesn't have USB, they don't have to buy it.
I think it's a bad idea because if this legislation had been in place in, say, 2001, we'd all be stuck with terrible USB-mini connectors, not even terrible USB-micro connectors. If 2007, we'd be stuck with terrible USB-micro connectors instead. Now, post-2014, USB-C seems like a winner (too bad they didn't do this in 2012, when it could have been Lightning with a forced-free license!).
So now it's USB-C, and... that's it? Forever? No point in innovation in the cable space, because nobody will be allowed to use anything else.
And "all small appliances < 100w?" So either I'm paying for a cable capable of carrying data at high speed to power a lamp, or I have separate cables for lamps and phones, but using the same connector, and how do I tell the difference?
Ideally you won't need to in most cases. That being said, USB used colors to match cables to sockets, with black being the old cable and blue being the newer, faster interface. You could use the old cable on new devices, but you're stuck with slower transfer.
For something like a lamp, it likely wouldn't matter what cable you use, so just use whatever is laying around. If it's for something high speed, just keep the cable separate.
Being able to use a device with a backup cable at degraded performance is better than not being able to use a device. I had a lamp that used a bespoke cable and connector, and when we lost one part, we threw the lamp away. We later found the part, but nothing else used the connector, so we threw that away as well. If it used a USB-C cable, I could just use one of the several I have laying around.
Cheaper and/or better products in the future that can't use USB C to deliver the same product at that price/performance.
For example say I have a small < 100W device that needs to be powered and send data and I'd like to use the same connector for it. But wait, I'm going to put this gadget in an environment where people might knock the cable out so I'm going to use a different connector with a latching mechanism to prevent the cable from coming loose.
Oh no, I can't do that because the government says I can't.
Like OP said if it bothers you don't buy it. That's the market working for you. Diversity is good for the market and connectors aren't one size fits all, no regulation will change that.
> I'm going to put this gadget in an environment where people might knock the cable out so I'm going to use a different connector with a latching mechanism to prevent the cable from coming loose.
Lockable USB C connectors exist. Why do you think these would be banned?
The point is future use cases might not be covered by USB C today and it's not the role of government to dictate which components I select for my design. This was just an example.
fwiw the latch on those things is pretty terrible. What if I needed something like a Speak-On connector which twists? Can't do that with USB-C.
I don't think that is a bad idea, I think that is a great idea in most cases. I think it is a bad idea to legally enforce it and make companies go through the government when they want to introduce an improved type of connector. In the short term it is likely better for consumers, in the long term I think it will lead to us being stuck on USB-C indefinitely, as no one is incentivized to come up with something better.
The benefit is that I prefer the lightning cable. It’s lightweight, small and looks nice. That’s the only reason I should need, but also competition means that in the future we will be able to have better chargers.
I have lived with both the UK and the "Euro" "standardish" 2 pin with earth on the outside plug for my formative years. I'm a UK army brat.
I'll take the UK plug any day. It is bigger by far in two unimportant dimensions but thinner by far in the important one. The chord runs downwards on all UK plugs not at 90 degrees to the wall by default but I will accept that many Euro plugs also run downwards.
A UK plug is a big old beast which means it is easy to wire and it does not wobble and is very safe to insert and remove. The long earth prong of the UK plug makes it easy to insert even when blind/blinded.
I think it comes down to the maturity of an industry, a bit like how cars have regulated designs.
At some point there are aspects that see little innovations, are “good enough” for their purpose, while having sizeable impact on their user or their environment.
We’re not forbidding phone makers to make holographic displays, just to settle on one standard plug because nothing happens there for years now and they don’t seem invested in making leaps forward in the domain either.
The day there is something revolutionary they can ask for an exception.
I share you concern, but I wonder if a strong law could account for this?
"You must use the standard, unless doing so would have a substantial impact on your product's capabilities." (I wrote this in 30 seconds, replace with more legally sound version.)
I feel like Apple would have a hard time arguing the lightening is technically more capable than USB-C. But if they want to create something that is a clear improvement, they can go for it... until a standardized version catches up.
It's also significantly stronger. The lightning connector is male on the cable and female on the device whereas USB-C has a female connection on the end of the cable and is more prone to damaging the male port on the device.
I think another good argument for phones is that it's surely much easier to clean lint out of a lightning port than a USB C port.
Edit: But probably, I'd guess, right now the main reason Apple has stuck to lightning to whatever extent it is is because it's more convenient for its customers. USB C is already the standard, and Apple would benefit from switching to USB C across its product line if its customers would like that more.
if you lay them down on the table and look from up top, they would be roughly similar. In terms of height (if you orient both of them directly towards your face, like you are about to plug them into your eyeballs, and measure the y-axis), I believe that lightning cable is about half the size of usb-c. Lightning also feels much lighter (no pun intended).
So basically some subset of EU Parliament legislators have an opinion about something.
In Apple's defense, the lightning connector and previous iPod connector both served as a charging cable and computer interface cable. So it was never the same situation as the old devoted phone chargers.
And they invented them without any standard alternatives available. If this passes, the next time you think about inventing an interface and start with all your products and the whole accessory market, remember the EU Parliament might legislate away your right to use it.
They are telling the industry to choose one common connector, and to standardize around it....
They are not dictating which one.... and that the one they choose has to be set in stone (i.e. never change)
De facto it is going to probably be USB-C, and I think it is a good move....
If years down the road, there is a new connector called USB-D (or whatever it is called), they can switch to it.... Also, this is for charging, and not data..., so it shouldn't hamper adoption of new data transport protocols.
But if it's law to use the standard connector than how do you use a different (lets say newer) connection if the law says to use the standard connector.
There's a bit of a chicken and egg problem. Somebody is going to have to build a device with a connector that isn't standard at some point to make progress.
It only means that device makers will have to agree on a new standard before they can drop the previous one. I agree that it will slow down things, but there is no chicken and egg problem.
And what if they can't agree? Maybe apple make a device so thin that even USB-C won't fit and other manufacturers explicitly decide to hobble them by not supporting a thinner connector.
This law would be great for anti-competitive practices. Lowest common denominator wins by default.
Frankly phones are all limited by the USB connection on the other side of the cable. The industry can easily standardize on something, update that standard every ~5 years and be fine.
Mini USB (2000) Micro USB (2009) both predate the Lightning cable and could charge and communicate with phones at the same time.
My point was Apple had been developing a connector at the same time. They could have worked with the USB working group and improved the standard rather than adding yet another cable type.
Yes, that's what the USB working group needed. A larger committee, with a new entrant telling them they're all wrong, dragging them through the gravel until they submit.
While on the face of it that's true, it's no accident that USB-C basically looks like a Lightning connector turned inside-out. The design of Lightning definitely influenced the design of the USB-C connector.
The power connectors to Mac mini’s in 2007 and 2008 look just like oversized USB-C connectors. I always wondered if there was any relation between the two.
I'm reminded about 30 times a day when dismissing a cookie popup of the stupidness of EU regulations. When considering the lifetimes wasted recreating that popup on countless websites, I'm ready to go full Libertarian.
That's not strictly true, unfortunately. Court cases have been brought and won against companies who do not acquire explicit consent from their users when storing information in cookies.
Companies then build solutions in reaction to these cases. The law is the ass.
"Außerdem müssen Nutzer der geplanten Cookie-Nutzung explizit zustimmen. Demnach reicht es nicht, dass Nutzer einmal bestätigen, dass sie die bereitgestellten Cookie-Informationen gelesen und verstanden haben."
"Users must explicitly agree to the planned use of cookies. It is not enough for users to confirm they have read and understood the provided cookie information."
I think it's a bit more nuanced than that. If the cookies you use are all required for normal operations that benefit the user (e.g. for login), it's fine to not have a popup.
To everyone that thinks no ports, Qi only iPhones are the future. What if you want to use your phone while it chargers? Charge your phone in the car?
I think we are another 10 years at least from having a device that could last long enough off a single charge to warrant occasionally leaving it on a pad over night as the main charging method.
And how would you activate CarPlay? At the moment it's wired-only, and I'm skeptical as to whether it could be made to work over Bluetooth in existing cars. If you bought a new car today with wired CarPlay, you might still be driving it in 5 or even 10 years, and you really wouldn't want to lose the ability to actually use CarPlay in just a year or two.
They could do something like the apple watch. There would be a strong magnet on the bottom of the phone and a miniature coil? Or just like a couple contact pads on the bottom exclusively for power. Kinda like the smart connector. They could do it and still have the ability to satisfy wire-like use cases.
I would not be a fan of not having a charging port, but I Qi charge my phone in the car every day. It's fine. One of my cars has it built-in to the armrest, and in another I have a third-party mount with an integrated Qi charger.
Well, FWIW even without these kinds of forcing, Apple still will move on to the USB-C connector... USB-C is literally an Apple designed port. The iPad Pro is adopting USB-C, I suspect that the next generation of iPhones will also adopt USB-C. It's just that the current market of lightning is too big and they weren't prepared for the overhaul yet.
Don't most folks speculate they're going to abandon it within the next generation or two?
I don't want government telling me what ports I can use in my design to be frank. I get there are issues out there, but this is something that the invisible hand of the market has done a good job of culling. Remember how it used to be with every device having a wack connector?
Nowadays you can count on pretty much anything being a common variant of USB.
Not really. As someone pointed out above, cables wear out fast. It's not like you're going to save the planet by buying one cable that will last the rest of your life. Most people go through several cables over the lifespan of a device anyway.
What it does sound like a good way to get stuck with an obsolete and substandard cable format forever, because once the One True Cable Design is mandated by government fiat, changing it to something else is going to be hell.
I think most of the comments I've seen here about cables wearing out fast have been specifically about Apple lightning cables.
In my experience, USB cables do not wear out quickly, especially if you buy braided ones. In the past 15 years or so, I think I've had a single cable fail (a cheap, crappy one that came free with something).
As a consumer, it benefits me greatly to only need one connector and charger, and the environmental argument makes a lot of sense to me too.
I like the idea of everything using USB-C, but in reality I have found USB-C cables to be unreliable (with power and with data) when used with a device other than the one it came with.
You could go on and on about power ratings and spec adherence, but I have never had such issues with Lightning cables.
Would someday they mandate all USB-C cables to support 100W standard to reduce wastage? So we dont have fragmented USB-C cables?
For those of us old enough to remember we used to have dozens of different types of cables, We are now basically converging to CatX Ethernet Cables, HDMI, USB-C High Power and Low Power, and Lightning.
I dont understand why we need to further mandate this to "one" solution, especially when the "one" solution doesn't seems to be optimal in all situation.
We have a few, a little diversity, and it is good enough.
Edit: And if Apple were to adopt a new connector I would much rather they adopt the Smart Connector used in iPad Pro. It is magnetic, super simple and easy to use. Fully Sealed and Water Proof by design.
> The regulator is determined to cut down on electronic waste being created by obsolete cables, which it estimates generate more than 51,000 tonnes of waste per year.
Giving a per capita figure would have been helpful.
I think it’s useful to keep in mind that Apple helped design USB-C, so it’s not like they’re shunning the standard. And they were one of the earlier adopters in the PC space, and they’ve adopted it for the iPad Pro. I think the main thing holding them back is a combination of 1) the huge installed base of lightning accessories, and 2) the fact that USB-C adoption has been slow.
But isn't that how USB and lots of standards are designed? Not political but still committees. It might not be perfectly elegant but at least it's a universal standard, which is the main point of it.
I don't want the return of Sony Memorysticks and all that nonsense as every company tries to be the winner. 18V powertool batteries currently suffer from pointless brand fragmentation even though they're all basically the same capability.
Apple won't be happy for sure. Among other things, If USB C becomes an standard , Apple would lose the revenues from MFi certification program. (Though I am not sure how much they make using this program alone.)
That would be pretty bad for anyone with a bunch of apple devices and a bunch of chargers, as during a period of several years you would no longer be able to charge any device using any charger in your home. It’s like the switch from the wide connctor to lightning all over again.
I really don’t care what plug Apple uses (their own or something else) but I do want them to use a single one and stick with it.
Isn't the issue that Apple charges 3rd party manufacturers a licensing fee to use their proprietary designs? This raises antitrust issues (using dominance in one market to control another market).
> This raises antitrust issues (using dominance in one market to control another market).
No it doesn’t. Patents are a explicitly a time-limited, government-granted monopoly on a particular innovation.
Patents were originally established to create a financial reward which encourages investment and invention. Patents are often abused of course, but incentivizing the creation of an innovative tiny and durable connector is exactly what a patent is designed to do.
Please let’s not have politicians legislate connector hardware. People can vote with their wallets, Android has settled on USB-C and has captured a lot of market share. The market is working here.
This is exactly the sort of thing governments are good at. Previous successes are things like railway gauges, power connectors, power voltages, measurement units, etc.
This is the sort of thing that allows the free market to work efficiently.
"This is the sort of thing that allows the free market to work efficiently."
History shows otherwise. As an example, lets say they pass this law and require all phones to use a specific charger standard.
In 3 months, an innovative company creates a new standard that is not only more efficient, but cheaper. Instead of just being able to sell it, they have to go through the government to get the standard changed..which will NOT be fast.
This will only stifle technology. If we ever want to curb things like climate change, we need less laws like this in the world.
But we already have that. The power brick almost always has a USB connector on it nowadays (even with Apple), and it didn't require setting up a perpetual committee of bureaucrats to feed at the public trough.
As others have noted, this was in large part due to the European Commission’s common external power supply initiative back in 2009, and similar standards in Asia.
Others may have "noted" that, but it doesn't make it true. In fact, the EU common external power supply does NOT require a USB connection on the power brick. It be hardwired ("captive", in their terminology).
I would be all for it, as long as there was some strong and small magnetic Qi charger that allows you to charge while using the phone at the same time as you hold it in one hand. Maybe it already exists, in which case, great, I am all for it already.
I picked up a pair of AirPods Pro a bit ago, and was surprised to see a Lightning connector. Not only that, but the included cable was USB-C to Lightning.
Because most of the people who buy the airpods, have an iphone.
So, they can use the cable they use to charge their iphone to charge their airpods and vc versa.
The fact that it's an usb-c to lightning is because all their macbooks are usb-c ;-P
I am by no means a libertarian pry-from-my-cold-dead-hands type, but it's ludicrous to me that this is being legislated. There are way bigger problems to solve, EU. Quite honestly who gives a shit what connector phones use? Most users will stick with the same brand from device to device; I've been using the same chargers since 2013 or so.
Ironically, this change would instantly produce a ton of tech waste and user inconvenience when apple customers throw away their old lightning cables.
Oh I have. And I had been buying them in large quantities since 1984. But the astonishingly low quality of Apple's hardware and software over the last 5 years has made me stop.
