Apple on Thursday again pushed back against European Union lawmakers’ call for a common phone charger standard, warning the move could hamper innovation, increase electronic waste, and harm consumers and the economy.
Apple’s comments came a week after lawmakers at the European Parliament called for a common charger for all mobile phones and amended a draft law to say the ability to work with common chargers would be an essential requirement for radio equipment in the bloc.
“We believe regulation that forces conformity across the type of connector built into all smartphones stifles innovation rather than encouraging it, and would harm consumers in Europe and the economy as a whole,” Apple said in a statement… “We hope the (European) Commission will continue to seek a solution that does not restrict the industry’s ability to innovate,” Apple said.
A study by Copenhagen Economics commissioned by Apple showed that consumer harm from a regulatory-mandated move to a common charger would cost at least 1.5 billion euros, outweighing the 13 million euros in associated environmental benefits.
MacDailyNews Take: If they’d passed such a law when this was initially proposed, we’d all be stuck with Mini USB (or even worse) today. By the time the EU gets around to making a law mandating a common phone charger (it was proposed back in 2014 and it’ll still take many more years, if they ever even get there), Apple’s iPhones and iPads won’t have any ports at all. As it stands even today, the Lightning port on our iPhones is largely superfluous.