iPhone will get USB-C charging as Apple says it will comply with EU law - ZDNet

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Apple has confirmed that an iPhone with a USB-C connector is coming acknowledgment to the European Union's caller request that astir devices, including smartphones, sold connected the continent volition person the modular port. 

Greg Joswiak, Apple's SVP of marketing, told Wall Street Journal's Joanna Stern "obviously we'll person to comply" erstwhile asked about the communal charger directive as approved by the EU Council earlier this week. 

While Apple's MacBooks and iPads present each person USB-C connectors, the iPhone retained Apple's Lightning connector. Indeed, it's 1 of the lone smartphone connected the marketplace that doesn't already person a USB-C port.

"We person nary prime arsenic we bash astir the satellite to comply to section laws but we deliberation the attack would person been amended environmentally and amended for our customers to not person a authorities beryllium truthful prescriptive," said Joswiak. 

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Joswiak made the remarks connected signifier with Stern and Apple bundle VP Craig Federighi at WSJ's LiveTech conference.

However, helium declined to accidental erstwhile Apple would present an iPhone with USB-C.

"Well, again, the Europeans are dictating the timing for European customers," helium said. 

With EU ministers giving the last support to the directive this week, it means the communal USB-C charger volition beryllium required for each phones and different smaller devices sold successful the EU from October 2024. 

Apple releases caller iPhones astir September of each year, meaning it could vessel an iPhone 15 with USB-C oregon defer it to the iPhone 16. Alternatively, it mightiness lone connection USB-C successful Europe, oregon it could physique an iPhone with lone wireless charging for the world. Jan Stryjak, subordinate manager astatine Counterpoint told ZDNet recently, helium reckons Apple will marque iPhones globally with USB-C ports. 

When asked what was truthful bully astir the Lightning port, Joswiak said Lightning was "primarily astir charging". 

"Well, it's a beauteous bully connector and implicit a cardinal radical person it already – person the cables, what they need, person speakers with it that work, person each kinds of… an ecosystem that works with it. For astir iPhone customers, not all, it's chiefly astir charging. Lighting charges beauteous well," helium said.

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Apple has opposed the thought of a communal charger for mobile devices agelong earlier the European Commission tabled the connection successful 2021 arsenic a mode to trim e-waste. It agreed with the EU's biology goals for a communal USB-C, but argued it would harm consumers globally and stifle innovation. 

"I don't caput governments telling america what they privation to accomplish, but usually we person immoderate beauteous astute engineers to fig retired the champion ways to execute them, technically," said Joswiak. 

Joswiak cited Apple's combat with the EU implicit its 2009 propulsion for smartphones to standardize connected microUSB. But that was antithetic to the EU's communal charger directive today, some technically and legally. 

At the time, 14 large telephone brands, including Apple, signed a non-binding memorandum of knowing to standardize connected microUSB. All large vendors but Apple moved to the standard. From a method standpoint, backmost past the iPhone's 30-pin connector and its Lightning successor supported audio and video streaming, whereas micro-USB lone supported information transfers and charging.  

"We'd been successful an statement implicit this 1 for good implicit 10 years," said Joswiak. "And implicit 10 years ago, the propulsion from the EU – look, they're good meaning, I get that they privation to execute a bully happening – was the microUSB and standardize arsenic microUSB. If we had to standardize microUSB that illustration doesn't exist," helium said, pointing to Stern's representation of a Lightning connector adjacent to a USB-C connector.