Apple will give the iPhone USB-C but it’s not happy about it

With the European Union recently passing laws that will require gadget makers to support USB-C for charging, Apple has begrudgingly confirmed that the iPhone will be following suit. Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, was asked about this at the The Wall Street Journal Tech Live during a session titled Products, Privacy and Power and responded saying, “Obviously, we’ll have to comply; we have no choice”.

On the face of it, the shift to USB-C does look attractive. Users won’t have to carry multiple cables to charge their devices and it does away with the old practice of different devices using proprietary connectors that became obsolete when a new model was released. But the push to a single connector may also mean companies are limited in how they can innovate.

Certainly, Apple could go completely rogue and ditch a plug-in charging port completely and shift to MagSafe completely for the iPhone. Although that will likely mean bundling a MagSafe cable in the box – something it has avoided for the last couple of years. Ironically, Apple’s reason for no longer including the charging cable was that most iPhone owners already have charging cables so adding one in the box adds to e-waste. Which is one of the reasons the EU has pushed this law.

The EU has been pushing for a mandated charger standard for many years. Initially, this was micro USB but that gave way to USB-C. But now that the only reason most people connect a cable to their iPhone is for charging, perhaps the one connector makes sense.

You notice that I have avoided talking about USB-C cables and have used the word connector. As I wrote recently, USB-C is only part of the story. The USB-C connector is compatible with a range of USB connectivity standards starting at USB 2 and all the way to USB 4. And it’s also used for video as well as charging. And unless the EU, or someone else, mandates a labelling program for the cables, you’ll have almost no way of knowing whether the cable you pick up will work for charging only, data transfer or video.

Even Apple is guilty here with their Thunderbolt 3 and 4 cables looking very alike. Both have USB-C connectors attach end, albeit it with slightly different lugs.

By the way, if you don’t want to wait for Apple to bring USB-C to your iPhone, you can do it yourself although I’m pretty sure this would void your warranty!