The European Parliament has voted to pass a law that will see the USB-C or as is commonly known type C enforced as the common charging ports across all consumer electronic devices which also including the iPhone and all Apple products which have different ports by the end of 2024.
This means that all consumer manufacturers who are selling their products in Europe need to ensure that their products in Europe should have a USB-C port.
Apple which is accustomed to making its own lightning connector will have to conform to the new directives. The initiative seeks to reduce the amount of electronic waste within Europe and improve the reusability of different devices
Devices that are too small to offer a USB-C port will be exempted from the new directive. These include smart watches, health trackers, and some sports equipment.
The EU seeks to ensure that wireless charging is also interoperable over time. This means that smart-changing devices will be able to be wirelessly charged by other smart chargers. It will be interesting to see if the Magsafe charging system by Apple will be included in the future directive.
The European Council now should approve the new law in a move that could see it published in the official EU journal and later enforced just 20 days after publication. The requirements will however start to be applied after 2 years. Products that went into sale before the application date will be exempted and can therefore be sold.
Apple has been said to be testing new versions of iPhones that have USB-C ports by Ming-Chi, a renowned apple analyst. The analyst believes that the tech giant could start introducing into the market devices with the new USB-C as early as next year, 2023. It is likely that the iPhone 15 will have USB-C charging port.
Air pods and other accessories will gradually be updated as time goes on. This gives Apple enough time to switch most of its devices before the new EU law comes into reinforcement.
