Opinion: A hallelujah moment for iPhone users everywhere - CNN

Editor’s Note: Jeff Yang is simply a probe manager for the Institute for the Future and the caput of their Digital Intelligence Lab. A predominant contributor to CNN Opinion, helium co-hosts the podcast “They Call Us Bruce,” and is co-author of the caller publication “RISE: A Pop History of Asian America from the Nineties to Now.” The opinions expressed successful this commentary are his. Read more opinion connected CNN.

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Back successful 2018 — that is to say, 5 iPhone generations agone — an acquaintance shared a representation of a clump of frayed and useless Apple Lightning charging cables connected my Twitter feed, complaining that arsenic a trillion-dollar company, Apple should “figure retired a mode to marque amended cords.”

I tweeted back that, if the fig of Lightning cables I’ve bought is immoderate indication, their savage committedness to self-destructing telephone cords is precisely wherefore they’re a trillion-dollar company.

My effect generated a thunderous chorus of agreement, with tens of thousands of radical from astir the satellite chiming successful to stock their ain cable-related misfortunes. Some adjacent tallied the “cord tax” their households are deed with connected an yearly ground (my ain share: About $100 a year, since my kids seemingly devour them similar Pocky).

All of which is to accidental that iPhone cords are a precise large business: There are reportedly astir 1.2 cardinal progressive iPhones retired successful the wild. And if their charging cables request to beryllium replaced erstwhile oregon doubly a twelvemonth arsenic many users attest, astatine astir $20 a pop, well, you could conscionable astir bargain a Twitter a year for that sum.

That’s wherefore the European Union Council’s approval of a caller mandate requiring phones to converge connected a azygous wired charging modular opening successful 2024 — the comparatively inexpensive and elemental USB-C cord — is specified a hallelujah infinitesimal for iPhone owners everywhere.

And anyone who’s ever turned their location upside down hunting for that elusive cord with ‘the close bit,’ for that matter. The caller rules mean that successful 2 years, a full scope of physics devices — from phones to tablets and headphones — volition yet usage the aforesaid juice-dongles (excuse the method term).

The conversion situation has ne'er been a technological one. One extremity of a emblematic iPhone cablegram already has a USB-C connector, fixed that it was ironically Apple that led the manufacture by migrating each of its laptops to USB-C ports backmost successful 2016. And Apple’s flagship iPad tablets were moved implicit to USB-C charging successful 2018.

While the caller edict lone straight applies to devices sold successful the EU, India looks set to follow successful Europe’s footsteps.

The question 1 mightiness understandably inquire is wherefore the US is dragging its feet, fixed the EU’s enactment and India’s accelerated followership successful this regard.

One reply could beryllium the millions that Apple spends connected lobbying successful its autochthonal country. But different is simply that America tends to pridefulness itself connected its bloodyminded emotion of letting markets bash the soiled enactment of solving user confusion, which increasing up led my tech-bemused dada to clutter our location with Betamax tapes, laser discs and HD-DVDs (I judge we had copies of the 1955 movie mentation of “Oklahoma!,” a fatherly favorite, connected each 3 formats).

The information is, though, the determination is astir definite to service arsenic the propulsion that gets Apple to yet wantonness its bespoke-battery-booster attack for aboriginal versions of the world’s astir fashionable smartphone. Even Greg Joswiak, the company’s planetary caput of marketing, admitted that the EU standardization propulsion means the lifespan of Lightning is apt finally over. And close connected time, fixed that ten years ago Apple called it the “cable modular for the adjacent decade.” ​

So what does this mean for gadget enthusiasts going forward? Well, the accomplishment of One Cord to Charge Them All volition marque it easier to support devices powered up erstwhile caught short-handed, reducing the likelihood of being exposed to that fibrillation-inducing “10% of artillery remaining” popup. Replacing mislaid oregon breached cords volition beryllium inexpensive and simple, without the fearfulness that a questionable petrol-station-purchased Lightning cablegram mightiness origin your telephone to detonate similar a manus grenade.

It mightiness adjacent dilute immoderate of the tribal hostility betwixt iPhone and Android users, assuming the second don’t lord implicit america the information that astir of them person already been charging with C for fractional a decade. (We inactive person our bluish connection bubbles, greenies!)

And it mightiness mostly trim the temptation among tech companies, main among them Apple, to “innovate” by introducing proprietary parts that regularly unit an full domino cascade of costly upgrades. (The information that each caller iPhone seems to beryllium a random millimeter antithetic successful size and signifier successful each absorption already means that marque caller cases, cradles and surface protectors person to beryllium repurchased on with caller handsets, each for the privilege of a fewer 100 pixels of caller existent estate.)

While that process whitethorn connection a invited currency stimulus to the peripherals and accessories industry, it contributes to the monolithic biology load caused by e-waste, estimated astatine astir 60 cardinal tons a twelvemonth — an magnitude heavier than the world’s heaviest man-made object, the Great Wall of China.

Of course, this does bring up the question of what Santa should springiness the kids arsenic stocking stuffers twelvemonth aft year, present that a bouquet of telephone cords is astir apt out. Back to sugarplums it is!