The IT Nerd

The iPhone has been using the Lightning cable standard forever. The problem with that is that it’s not only one more cable to carry around (though I will admit that it’s a cable that can be shared with my AirPods Pro which makes it marginally more useful), it’s also slow as it’s based on USB 2.0. Which was fine when it was released in 2012, but is beyond lame in 2022. Especially with iPhones capable of shooting ProRes video which takes forever to pull off an iPhone due to the massive size of ProRes files. Thus I am very happy that the European Union agreed on this today:

That’s right, Apple will be forced to switch to USB-C by 2024. Now while they could in theory come out with a EU only phone to satisfy this requirement, they likely won’t as I can’t see Apple doing an “EU only” phone even though they have done Chinese specific phones in the past. Thus my thinking is that it will likely be USB-C on iPhone regardless of where it is sold.

Or will it play out that way?

In my mind, Apple won’t want to go down this road unless they have no other option. And it has nothing to do with their MFi program where they license accessories from third parties that use their tech. Frankly, the cash that they get from that is likely a rounding error for Apple. But the real reason in my mind is that it’s because Apple would lose control of how iPhones are charged and how data is transferred to and from iPhones. Because if there’s one thing that Apple loves, it’s control. Thus I can see a scenario where the iPhone goes port-less rather than Apple being forced to adopt USB-C. After all, there have been consistent rumours over the last couple of years of Apple working on something along those lines. Thus I can see Apple responding to this move by the EU by going down that road regardless of how consumer unfriendly that it would be. If you want an example of that, take a look at the Apple Watch. Downgrading to an earlier version of watchOS for example requires you to send the entire watch back to Apple. A similar process on the iPhone is trivial and only requires a cable and can be done by end users. I for one hope that Apple abandons this idea. Though I can totally see them doing it as early as next year simply so that they can maintain control and thumb their noses at the EU.

Here’s the counterpoint to that argument. Apple has USB-C on MacBooks, iPads, and even the HomePod mini. And Apple could just say that the gig is up and just make the move to USB-C. That would make consumers happy. And it would make the EU happy. And Apple is rumoured to be testing iPhones with USB-C at present. Thus it’s plausible that this switch to USB-C is already in progress at 1 Apple Park. Though I can completely see Apple putting an Apple style “twist” on their implementation of USB-C on the iPhone so that they maintained some level of control, or gain some sort of competitive advantage. Though that may risk the wrath of the anti-trust gods if they did do that. Regardless, if Apple were to do this, we could see it as early as next year’s iPhone.

I for one am happy that the EU took this stance as it may result in less cables in my laptop bag. And I bet that a lot of consumers feel this way as well. It will be interesting to see how Apple responds to this. Though that response outside of a press release or a comment to the media may take a while to come.

This entry was posted on June 7, 2022 at 12:03 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Apple. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.