All mobile phones, tablets, earphones and a wide range of other portable consumer electronics will need to be sold with USB-C charging ports from Saturday, the EU has announced.
First introduced around a decade ago, USB-C charging ports are reversible and capable of accelerated data transfer and charging speeds, the latter known as 'fast charging’.
In a statement on Friday, the European Parliament said that as of the following day, all such devices sold in the EU must have a USB-C charging port, with laptops set to follow suit in late April 2026.
I don’t buy any Apple products, but I supported their decision to keep their hardware compatibility by using legacy standards (which were great when they came out). Now docking stations, and such become obsolete.
Also, who determines the standards we follow and why is government stepping in to support a standard that took money to develop against another that took money to develop? These things should die on their own.
Imposing standards in commerce is one of the main things that government has done throughout the history of government.
And one of the few things the EU does very well for the consumer
Having a unified standard is simply better than allowing every hardware company to exploit their customers by making them buy their chargers, while increasing the amount of different chargers they need.
Not to mention, the lightning plug was decent when it came out but stats wise it’s WAY shittier than USB-C now. It’s slow in charging speed and crazy slow in data transfer, and it’s predatory in that only apple can make/use them.
480 Mb/s vs 40 Gb/s, wild
Hasn’t Apple maintained their standard longer, and therefore has more chargers likely already available to those that have chosen their ecosystem? It’s not their fault the others didn’t adopt their standard either.
Apples lightening has been around for a while, but so has USB-C. Don’t forget that Apple was really the first to go all in on USB-C on their laptops so this isn’t something unachievable for them. The big thing to me is that the EU is only forcing phones, laptops and earphones on this rather than making most small devices compatible with type C. Type C has a ton of built in support for other devices but we still allow shitty manufacturing to build barrel plug based devices when they really should switch.
While I agree with the USB-C standard, I have wishes. It’s a compromised design which is the best of a challenging dynamic existence. Extension are an example.
With that said, I work with a wide range of instruments. The Variation of DC standard is important for the conditions that they need. 12V, vs 24, vs 5v and the amperage. So while I hate barrel, I would rather have them then the USB-C give the dumb nature of the barrels. The negotiated power is challenging as a universal when you need reliability in harsh conditions. (Which the world really is when you step out of cities.)
but theyre also the one who uses seperate chargers even between their own devices. e.g their laptops tablets were USB-C while their phones beforehand were thunderbolt. There was really no reason to arbitrary keep both alive when the company itself already uses the standard
iPads have USB-C ports… but only on the chargers, not the devices. (Maybe not the newest models) Like, WTF!? So they’re paying to use the standard on the only part of the charging equation people don’t really care about. Then using Lightning on the iPad itself…
I have a white C to C that came with a phone, and a white C to lightning that came with the headphones. Please just make them all C
pros, minis, and modern airs used usb-c, the base ipad was the last to move off it. the fact that the tablet line is split is completely nonsense.
Because needs change as technology changes.
Lmao you can’t actually make lightning chargers, they are proprietary. Apple wouldn’t want to use the same charger everyone else uses(and manufactures), as that would hurt their bottom line. So it is ABSOLUTELY their fault others didn’t adopt their standard, and lightning is shit anyway.
Good job! I got pwned!
Uhm why are you complaining here? Thunderbolt (intel and apple) is compatible with USB-C. And also sucks to be apple for always having an extra and refusing to use USB specifications. They are the ONLY ONE who are solely on thunderbolt. Reminds you of Firewire?
And why is Europe intervening here (Europe isnt a government btw) to dictate consumer friendly practices. For example remember when every Phone had its own Charging Port? Reduced to Micro-USB.
That’s all.
You know what I love about Apple?
It’s really easy to give exact instructions on how to do things to the less tech savvy because they have so few variations in their product line.
That’s it.
Well, at least until they have a new iOS release and move everything in the settings around again.
Well, they change things more on major releases. Unlike Microsoft……
It’s not the government deciding on a standard, it’s a cross-industry consortium of involved/affected companies deciding together. Why should we accept that some companies refuse to follow common standards, massively increasing electronic waste and making people’s lives unnecessarily more annoying?
Would you also prefer if you had to buy an Apple™ Wall Plug to be allowed to charge your Apple™ devices? After all, why should the government be allowed to set those standards?
Apple was involved in the development of USB type C as well.