How much space in landfills is required for the hundreds of millions of Lightning cables and Lightning-equipped accessories that are in use today? We’ll find out soon as four iPhone 15 models dumping Lightning for USB-C ports begin to arrive this month.
Mark Gurman for Bloomberg News:
If Apple Inc. had its way, the iPhone would continue to use the current Lightning connector for the next few years — until the point when the company is ready to begin phasing out ports on its smartphones altogether.
But the European Union forced its hand, requiring mobile device makers to use the USB-C standard by the end of next year. So Apple is now in the awkward position of embracing the very technology it didn’t want. When the company introduces the iPhone 15 on Sept. 12, USB-C connectors will appear on its four new phone models, as well as the AirPods Pro…
Apple’s keynote presentation won’t mention the European Union or make reference to the many times over the past few years that it criticized the government’s decision to require USB-C.
Back when it was still resisting the switch, Apple laid out a few arguments, including that the change would harm the environment — given that billions of obsolete cables may wind up in a landfill. Another rationale, floated by Apple marketing chief Greg Joswiak last year, is the potentially harmful precedent of governments influencing product design.
MacDailyNews Take: There will be more people than you think who will soon be bitching and moaning that they have to buy a new USB-C charging brick if they want to charge their new iPhones via the USB-C to USB-C cable that Apple will include in each iPhone 15 box (even though you can get them starting at under $10 on Amazon today).
Don’t blame Apple. Blame the EU bureaucrats.
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 (almost, not even quite done yet) 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.
Don’t believe? Watch and see. “iCal” us. – MacDailyNews, October 4, 2022
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
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There are Llightning to USB-C adapters
Yes I agree. It will give Apple the time it needs to phase out the lightning port. They done it before when they got rid of the mini Jack for the headphones and switch to lightning.
True, but I’m not going to buy one for each the 8-10 lightning chargers we have around the house/cars. Dongles also don’t fix the fact that when a USB-C connector breaks, it’s part of the phone; whereas when a lightning connector breaks, it’s just the cable.
I have quite a collection of cables that Apple has required since I started using their products in 1998. It’s not like this is the first time we’ve had to switch, but it appears many people have forgotten. I’m sure not going to replace my chargers when I can use the same cables I have for my M1 MacBook Air.
The EU just handed them a reason to sell more dongles. Nothing new for Apple.
This is one of the few sites that gets it. As a house with a ton of Apple products around, we do have quite a few USB-C chargers and cables. But we have way, way more lightning cables we’ve accumulated over the years, so we have those around wherever we need them. And while the idea of faster data transfer is appealing in theory, a lot of people are in for a rude surprise thinking they can transfer data over a standard USB-C charging cable (I don’t envy Apple Support when this change happens). So this just amounts to a swap of one charging cable type for another, with very little gain, but with a lot of eventually useless lightning cables ending up in the landfill.
You assume that they are going to use USB-C charging cables only. Since many people backup iPhones and offload photos/videos via the USB cable, Apple would have to be incredibly stupid to not include a data compatible cable with the iPhone.
But, I have seen Apple do some stupid things. Including a “charging only” USB-C cable with all MacBooks. Just Dumb.
I also blame the USB consortium for allowing USB-C to have multiple capabilities with identical looking cables. Who the F thought that was a good idea??
OK easy to see both sides of the issue here even though for me I welcome the change as long as it doesn’t stifle development. I hate it being required because it is also good business sense.
What did you people do with all those serial cables when you bought the first iMac? 32-pin when Lightning came out? And I have NEVER had a cable last longer than the device, but that’s just me…
Also I guess I don’t understand, are those landfills also going to full of the iPhones and other devices the cables were for? Apple has been passing out USB-C transformers for quite some time and will hopefully give USB-C to C cables for awhile.
Again, I don’t like that Apple is being forced to do this in one (mostly) socialized market, but I also don’t know why they put USB-C on my Beats buds and a year later the AirPods Max still had Lightning, but all my chargers have USB-C and so does my MacBook Pro and Mac mini but not my iPhone 14 Pro or the miss’ Pro Max (of course…).
Apple used to be about streamlining your work flow. I already use a C-C for for connecting AND for charging my laptop and buds, so getting rid of older cables I have to keep for phones will be a welcome change.
Your mileage may vary…
I wonder if Apple will move to USBC on their keyboard and mouse
About time. Lightning has been stuck at 480Mbps since 2012.
USB-C is 40Gbps, about 80 times faster. Did Apple have any updates planned for Lightning?
Thanks for using your brain Think, that’s not a popular thing to do on this subject.
Of course we aren’t going to chuck our lightning cables because Airpods and Airpods Max still use them, not to mention every single iPhone currently being sold and those going back a decade, and many iPads, and Magic Keyboards and Magic Mice, etc. etc.
No one is chucking their Apple USB wall plugs either because they work great with every other USB charging cable (especially mini-USB) out there. Yes, even USB-A to USB-C cables if you can fathom that.
Apple had NO plans for lightning and that’s inexcusable. Believe me, it’s loads of fun transferring 100GB of pics and vids via Image Transfer 5-10 GB at a time because any more and the process will hang or crash. If you’re serious about using your iPhone for content creation or simply family memories, you MUST periodically archive your files to external drives (plural!). AirDrop and iCloud do NOT cut it.
I dislike the EU and I am an EU citizen. Nevertheless, they made a great move here. I’m not interested in MDN’s portless hellscape vision. I’ll charge with MagSafe and AirDrop single photos here and there 99% of the time. But when I want to charge fast and transfer files reliably, it will be wired, and from now on it’ll be USB-C on iPhones like it shpuld have been for 5+ years already.
Thank you EU! 🇪🇺👏🍾🥂