Apple will drop the Lightning connector on its iPhones, the company has confirmed, after European regulators decided that all smartphones should have USB charging as standard in two years.
New EU rules require all phones sold after fall 2024 to use the USB-C connector for their charging ports. The oval connectors are already standard on other consumer electronics such as e-readers, gaming consoles, laptops and the vast majority of new Android phones.
Apple has already switched much of its product line to the standard, which can transmit up to 240W of power and 40Gbps of data over the same cable. The first laptop to use USB-C for charging was the 12-inch MacBook in 2015, while iPads started switching from the Lightning connector in 2018.
But the company had resisted calls to switch its phones to the standard, saying that "strict regulations requiring only one type of plug hinder rather than encourage innovation, which in turn hurts consumers in Europe and will harm the rest of the world."
Defenders of the Lightning connector have cited its smaller size and wide variety of Lightning-based adapters and accessories owned by users around the world. The need to replace these cables could lead to an increase in electronic waste, despite the regulation's stated goal of reducing waste electronics.
Now Apple's marketing director, Greg "Joz" Joswiak, says the company is admitting defeat. "Of course we will have to comply, we have no choice," he told a technology conference in California.
But, he argued, it would have been "better for the environment and for our customers if there wasn't a government that was so prescriptive."
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Joswiak declined to answer questions about the timing and whether the company would try to make USB-C iPhones exclusive to the EU. However, given the company's annual release schedule for iPhones, this is likely the caseiPhone15, expected in September 2023, or its successor, expected in September 2024, will be the first to get the nod. “It is the Europeans who dictate the timing for European customers,” Joswiak added.
