I have no sympathy or love for Apple, but this seems wrong.
Technology comes and goes, standards evolve and fall away as new ones arrive.
I don't think the law has any place in deciding who uses what connector in this fashion. They can make an e-waste argument all they want, but it's nonsense. All it does is stifle future work on connectors and devices in general.
The law just makes it so that a single industry standard must be followed. Changing this standard is fairly easy, it just requires the European Commission to amend it. This means that if there's a better connector, USB-IF (being made up out of most of the people actually designing the hardware using it) can just release a new standard and get it approved.
Edit: It's actually the Commission, not parliament that's allowed to change standards.
Words of Comission spokesperson, 2060: We're fully aware of Deukhoofd's words and even though they aren't in the letter of law, we're still working hard on approving a better connector. Unfortunately as all things in life, there are tradeoffs with every single change, so we're planning to come up with a new definition of the term "better connector" in the next 10 years. Stay tuned in our hard work and don't forget to vote on us if you want to see this finished.
> With respect to radio equipment capable of being recharged via wired charging, the
Commission is empowered to adopt delegated acts in accordance with Article 44 to amend
Part I of Annex Ia in the light of technical progress or market developments, and to
ensure the minimum common interoperability between radio equipment and their charging
devices, by:
(a) modifying, adding or removing categories or classes of radio equipment;
(b) modifying, adding or removing technical specifications, including references and
descriptions, in relation to the charging receptacle(s) and charging communication
protocol(s), for each category or class of radio equipment concerned.’
> Changing this standard is fairly easy, it just requires the European Commission to amend it.
Is this sentence intended to be sarcastic? I can imagine nothing more draconian and backwards than having to lobby a political organization for permission to do something innovative and outside the norm.
They are explicitly trying to avoid this, where everyone has their own "innovative" proprietary charger.
It is fairly easy for an organization such as USB-IF to put it forward to the commission when they have a new standard, considering it means that the industry has already decided on the new standard. If a new cable is improvement enough that it warrants a new standard, I don't doubt that the industry as a whole will try and make a push for it.
What if there's more than 1 design in progress for a better cable and connector with competing tradeoffs? Designing stuff means picking the right tradeoffs. For instance, you could probably design a phone that is close to indestructible and has a battery that lasts for a month if you made it as big as a brick, but obviously nobody wants that. For cable connectors, there's all kinds of subtle tradeoffs that could be taken into account: data transfer speed, electricity transfer, size and weight of cable, how easy it is to connect and how secure it is when connected, its role in waterproofing, stability in heat and challenging environments, security, etc. Are you really comfortable with some parliamentary committee vote picking between the right design tradeoffs?
And what if there's a connector that's slightly better than the existing one today, but you know that something that's clearly much better is ready in about 1-3 years? Can a parliament have the judgement needed to make the right engineering decision in the face of loads of political pressures?
Their choice has to be right because no market alternative would exist. Do you genuinely feel comfortable with this? I sure don't.
>For cable connectors, there's all kinds of subtle tradeoffs that could be taken into account: data transfer speed, electricity transfer, size and weight of cable, how easy it is to connect and how secure it is when connected, its role in waterproofing, stability in heat and challenging environments, security, etc.
>Are you really comfortable with some parliamentary committee vote picking between the right design tradeoffs?
Are you comfortable with the USB-IF picking between the right design tradeoffs?
In principle I agree with you, but in practice I don't. When Apple released lightning we didn't yet have a USB-C, so lightning was a good alternative, even though it was proprietary. Now things are very different, and USB-C is here and is widely used.
It would be one thing if we were stuck on Micro/MiniUSB and the EU wanted apple to use a clearly inferior technology, but USB-C stacks up very well against lightning, possibly even better.
I don't see this as the EU saying "you must start using USB-C" and more "look you can't use your proprietary cords anymore that we have very good standards, considering you are the biggest phone maker on the planet"
I don't see it is a regulation against Apple. It is just a question of being coherent with the other hundred of smartphone brands that are forced to use a single interface for the charger. And I really don't miss at all the times when we needed to have 3 different types of them at home.
Technology comes and goes, standards evolve and fall away as new ones arrive.
I don't think the law has any place in deciding who uses what connector in this fashion. They can make an e-waste argument all they want, but it's nonsense. All it does is stifle future work on connectors and devices in general.