EU Parliament gives mobile phone makers until the end of 2024 to make USB-C standard, and said it will take on wireless charging next
The European Union Parliament passed a law on Tuesday mandating USB-C as the standard charging port interface for mobile devices sold in the EU by the end of 2024. The move likely spells the end for Apple’s proprietary Lightning interface, a mainstay on many Apple devices since 2012. Rumors have circulated that Apple has been looking at USB-C for the iPhone, even before the EU passed the new law. EU committees have been discussing the topic in earnest for a while, and the European Commission made its intentions known in 2021.
The EU directive requires electronics makers who sell their products in the EU to feature a USB-C port. The law doesn’t just cover mobile phones, but includes cameras, tablets, and other peripherals. The EU also wants to see USB-C become standard on laptop computers, but it’s giving PC makers until spring of 2026 to comply with that requirement.
European Parliament said the new law, adopted by plenary on Tuesday with 602 votes in the affirmative, 13 against and 8 abstentions, is part of a broader effort to help reduce electronic waste. EU studies claim that consumers spend €250 million (US$243.9 million) every year on unnecessary charger purchases, with disposed and unused chargers accounting for 11,000 tons of annual EU e-waste.
“Under the new rules, consumers will no longer need a different charger every time they purchase a new device, as they will be able to use one single charger for a whole range of small and medium-sized portable electronic devices,” said European Parliament in a statement.
“Regardless of their manufacturer, all new mobile phones, tablets, digital cameras, headphones and headsets, handheld videogame consoles and portable speakers, e-readers, keyboards, mice, portable navigation systems, earbuds and laptops that are rechargeable via a wired cable, operating with a power delivery of up to 100 Watts, will have to be equipped with a USB Type-C port,” European Parliament continued. “All devices that support fast charging will now have the same charging speed, allowing users to charge their devices at the same speed with any compatible charger.”
EU lawmakers carved out a provision to exempt some devices that might be too small to accommodate a USB-C port. That includes fitness trackers, smartwatches and other small items, but the legislation leaves it open for further enforcement in the future. The EU also wants to harmonize standards around wireless charging, to avoid vendor lock-in and the proliferation of proprietary interfaces for that emerging market. Apple’s probably safe on that account: its MagSafe wireless charging interface uses magnets to properly align devices on charging stands for optimal transfer speeds, but Apple’s MagSafe-compatible phones also work with the Qi open interface championed by the Wireless Power Consortium, a de facto standard that can power devices with 5-15 watts of juice.
Apple captures Lightning in a bottle
It’s easy to forget now, but Apple didn’t always use Lightning on the iPhone. In fact, it wouldn’t be until five years into the iPhone’s run that Lightning became standard issue. The first iPhones used a different interface, borrowed from the then-hugely successful iPod. Apple introduced the iPod in 2001 as a digital music player designed to work exclusively with the company’s Macintosh computer. The Mac had been around since 1984, and was experiencing a resurgence in popularity following the introduction of the colorful iMac in 1998.
Apple equipped early iPod models with FireWire, the high-speed peripheral interface equipped standard on contemporary Macs at the time. Apple touted FireWire, standardized as IEEE 1394, as faster and more robust than USB. USB 1.1 was slow, topping off at 12 Megabits per second (Mbps). FireWire clipped along at a blazing 400 Mbps top end. FireWire saw use in professional digital video editing and prosumer circles, owing to Sony and Panasonic’s backing of the standard and integration on some of their products. The interface’s development garnered an Emmy award for engineering, from the Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2001. But the interface was expensive to implement, requiring separate controller chips in both computers and peripherals. The USB 2.0 standard’s quick iteration offered comparable top-end speeds to FireWire 400. With Intel’s backing and integration into the chips it developed for PC-compatible computers, USB’s dominance was assured as the PC peripheral standard to replace legacy serial and parallel interface connections.
The iPod exploded in popularity after its 2001 introduction. Quickly, PC users (and PC makers) clamored for the device. Apple’s compromise, to help expand the iPod’s market reach to the much-larger PC market, was to develop a 30-pin dock connector interface which combined USB, FireWire, line-level audio and controls through a single cable. The 30-pin dock connector, introduced by Apple in the spring of 2003, remained standard on iPods, along with every iPhone and iPad made through most of 2012.
But by that fall, the 30-pin dock connector had run its course. Citing a need for a smaller, faster, and less damage-prone connection for its mobile devices, Apple introduced the Lightning port when it unveiled the iPhone 5 and other mobile devices during the company’s September 2012 product introduction. Apple has equipped every iPhone since then with a Lightning port, including the new iPhone 14 introduced last month.
But in recent years, Apple has gradually moved away from including a Lightning port on other mobile products. The 9th-generation iPad is the sole Lightning-equipped holdout for that line, for example. Apple switched to USB-C connectivity for the iPad Pro, iPad Air and iPad mini. USB-C-compatible Thunderbolt 3 and 4 interfaces even now adorn the Mac, to deliver power and provide broad peripheral interface compatibility. What’s more, Apple has included wireless charging as an iPhone feature since 2017, when it introduced the iPhone 8, 8 Plus and X models.
Another decade, another interface
Apple retired the dock connector in favor of Lightning after almost a decade in use. Similarly, 2022 marks a decade for Lightning. And it’ll be around for a while yet. Besides the iPhone, Lightning remains standard issue on some other Apple peripherals like the AirPods, at least for now. But with the EU’s USB-C mandate, this will change. Apple certainly won’t walk away from the billions of dollars in revenue it reaps from selling products to EU customers every year: in 2021 alone, Apple reported $89.3 billion in European revenue.
Apple keeps its cards close to its vest for new product announcements, and rarely broadcasts its plans to analysts or the press. Apple will have product announcements through the end of 2024, and has consistently made September, October or November iPhone introductions since 2016, occasionally introducing new models in the first half of the year as well. The details of when and how Apple will manage the Lightning to USB-C changeover is still to be determined, but the clock is winding down.
So, what does this mean for consumers? Likely very little, at least for the short term. Apple said in 2020 that it had shipped more than a billion Lightning-equipped devices. With quarter after quarter of record sales since then, Apple’s total is well north of that milestone as we near the end of 2022. Even if USB-C were ordered to be implemented tomorrow, consumer demand for Lightning cables and peripherals will continue for many years to come, regardless of EU mandate. Lightning has too much momentum to just disappear.
After all, you might not see 30-pin dock connector cables anymore in the bargain bin at the local bodega, near the Lightning and USB-C cables and 5-hour energy drinks. But it’s still easy enough to order them from online retailers, and this year marks a full decade since Apple put that interface to rest.
