European Union Makes USB-C Standard Charging Port by Late 2024
09 JUNE 2022 - Officially official: After talk that it would happen eventually, a piece from Engadget says the European Union has reached a deal to make USB-C the single charger type for smartphones and most other electronics sold across the region.
Billed as environmentally and user friendly, the piece cites a stat from Bloomberg that says EU citizens dispose of “12,000 tons of chargers each year,” a lot of those having never been used. Nuts to that, says the European Union. In a statement, the European Parliament said:
Under the new rules, consumers will no longer need a different charging device and cable every time they purchase a new device, and can use one single charger for all of their small and medium-sized portable electronic devices…
Engadget says manufacturers have a little over two-years to make the change. By autumn of 2024, the piece says makers of “mobile phones, tablets, e-readers, earbuds, digital cameras, headphones and headsets, handheld videogame consoles and portable speakers” will have to be converted to USB-C. Laptops get an additional year-and-a-half to make the switch.
As the EU Goes, So Goes Who?
Having Brexited, the UK doesn’t have to do what the EU says, and in this case it will not. A piece from 9 to 5 Mac cites a BBC report saying, “the UK government is not ‘currently considering’ following the EU’s demands for a common charging cable.”
So what will Apple do? Previously, the company has resisted connector rules like the one approved by the European Union. In a past statement to the BBC Apple had said:
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.
Of course, that’s the kind of thing one says when one is trying to head off a rules change. With the change here, it seems likely that Apple will move more of its products to USB-C, rather than making special kit for the EU. In fact, noted Apple watchers Ming-Chi Kuo and Mark Gurman both said independently in May that they expect iPhone to make the switch to USB-C in the second half of 2023.
For those keeping score at home, that is this site’s first mention of iPhone 15, vague though it may be.
