nodi.jpg/Shutterstock
After sitting on the proposal for nearly a decade, the European Union finally passed a law that mandates a common charging standard for electronic items sold in its jurisdiction. The law applies to a wide range of small and medium-sized portable electronic items ranging from tablets, portable audio products, and e-readers to digital cameras, GPS devices, and handheld video game consoles. The law will take effect about two years from now and mandates that all small electronic items will need to switch to USB-C by then. The EU claims many advantages of adopting a common charging standard. Apart from offering easy interoperability, they also have inherent environmental benefits — while also making life easier for consumers.
Switching to USB-C isn’t going to be a task for most players in the electronics space, especially in the case of smartphones, given that most brands have already switched to the standard. This obviously excludes Apple, which has been battling to keep its decade-old charging standard (the Lightning charging port) alive on its smartphones for the foreseeable future. The company publicly opposed the EU mandate while it was being tabled and claimed that the EU-mandated law was “stifling innovation.” However, now that the EU has passed the law requiring USB-C, the company has no option but to make the switch.
Will the iPhone 15 be USB-C compliant?
Hadrian/Shutterstock
According to noted analyst Mark Gurman, despite Apple publicly opposing the EU’s USB-C mandate, the company has been working to make the switch to the widely accepted standard for a while now (via Bloomberg). The question that needs to be answered right now is when Apple intends to finally make the switch. Given that the EU law has given manufacturers two years to switch to USB-C, Apple can stall the switch until 2024 — that is, until the launch of the iPhone 16. However, Gurman asserts that the company is unlikely to wait that long.
Because Apple has already been planning the switch, we could see the iPhone 15 — set for launch in 2023 — become the first USB-C-compliant model. Apple’s next-generation entry-level iPad models could make the switch even before that — by the end of this year, claims Gurman. He also claims that the rest of the Apple lineup that is yet to make the switch will do so before the end of 2024. Currently, this list includes products like the AirPods, Magic Mouse, Magic Keyboard, and Magic Trackpad. Gurman also believes that a lot of Mac accessories will switch to USB-C before the end of 2023.
While Apple has had a history of sticking to one standard for a long time, the chances of that happening with USB-C are lower, asserts Gurman. This is because Apple is likely to make its products go fully wireless in less than a decade’s time. With all of that said, it would be interesting to see how Apple markets the EU-mandated switch to USB-C on its future products, given how vocal it has been in opposing the standard.
