Apple to switch to USB-C by 2024

October 04, 2022

Now that the EU has voted to mandate USB-C as the standard for charging consumer electronics, it looks certain that Apple will be forced to ditch the iconic Lightning port on iPhone.

I know a lot of people think this is government overreach, and that companies like Apple should be free to make their own choices about what tech to adopt or drop.

But there's a good argument that Lightning is dated and slow (which it is), and that Apple adopted it in the first place not for technical reasons, but business ones.

Because Lightning is proprietary, third parties had to license it from Apple, giving the company a lot of control over the iPhone/iPad ecosystem.

Apple's tight leash led to some benefit to consumers -- mostly in terms of quality -- but at the cost of competition and price.

A switch to USB-C will change all that, loosening Cupertino's grip on third-party manufacturers. They will no longer need to get Apple's permission to make accessories.

I for one will be glad that I'll be able to use the same charger and cord for everything.

-- Leander Kahney, EIC.

The European Parliament voted in an overwhelming majority Tuesday to enforce USB-C as the standard charging port across a wide range of consumer electronics.

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Tweet o' the day

One more thing ...

"Apple was about 90 days away from going bankrupt back then, in the early days. It was much worse than I thought when I went back initially.... I'd expected all the good people would have left -- and I found these miraculous people, these great people, and I said, 'Why...' -- I tried to ask this as tactfully as I could -- but, 'Why are you still here?' And you know, a lot of them had this little phrase. They said, 'Because I bleed in six colors.'" -- Steve Jobs, D8 conference, 2010.

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