[llm_nerd]

Begging? Apple filed a couple of light objections -- basically a "don't regulate us, bro" -- and then moved on. Their resistance was laughably superficial

Look, Apple is a predatory, extraordinarily greedy company, but these sorts of "thanks EU!" discussions are a riot. Thanks EU, for making Apple support a clone of an Apple feature that didn't exist until Apple made it, and for "forcing" Apple to transition their line to USB-C, which they were already almost completely done doing.

[gambiting]

>> which they were already almost completely done doing

Honest question - why did they stick with lighting on iphones for so long, given that usb-c has been ubiquitus on phones for years before that point. I mean we can sit here and say "duh apple was going to do it anyway" but like.....why didn't they? Why did samsung have usb-c phones long before apple?

[techpression]

They openly said why, millions upon millions of devices (speakers etc) people wanted to use with lightning connectors. There was never a good time and EU putting a deadline on it gets Apple free of the e-waste accusations.

[hshdhdhj4444]

No one was accusing Apple of e-waste when for decades the world had decided common standards were a great way to reduce e-waste.

Outside of America this has been obvious since the mid 2000s when people complained about a proliferation of chargers with phones because pre-iPhone the non US cellphone market was far more advanced.

[MBCook]

Really? Do you remember the user shit storm when they dumped the dock connector and went to lightning? People wouldn’t shut up for years, even though lightning was way way better.

[xp84]

So, your position is that some users whined about that… so what? Apple knew those users were, quite frankly, wrong, the 30-pin was fragile and one-way. And the cables themselves were never expensive, and used scarcely more resources than many disposable items we throw out every day.

Apple never apologized for the changeover, the iPhone 5 sold like hotcakes, everyone quickly loved having a reversible and small cable that was less fragile than 30pin, and everyone lived happily ever after. The whiny boomers annoyed that they had to finally replace a dock they bought in 2004 for an iPod made zero difference to anything. People whining online are not a problem at all unless they stop buying — and nobody stopped buying. After all, switching to Android would have necessitated buying a new cable anyway, at any point prior to 2023!

[jauntywundrkind]

I think this whole narrative being spun here that Good Guy Apple was Being Oppressed by the lowly end users & wanted to do the right thing (be thrown into the briar patch) all along, just never could form the political will for it and needed EU intervention is some insane fucking weird ass made up nonsense. WTF wtf wtf? Surely you must be joking.

Apple has had MfI certification on Apple compatible products for decades & has actively wanted to protect that revenue stream & domain of control. If folks could just plug in devices & have them just work, that would erode their ownership.

And just as bad, it would raise all sorts of questions like "why does this mouse not do anything on my iPhone" and obscure the careful market delineations Apple vigorously has established between its products (which makes people buy more products than they need). Apple never wanted to be a good guy, Apple never wanted to lower itself to the common market of peripherals and standards. Their involvement with USB-C was likely far far far before it was apparent their device teams would have to give up MfI controls.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MFi_Program

[smallmancontrov]

Because they were getting a reputation for churning the ports too quickly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyTA33HQZLA&t=19s

and then they went all-USBC on the MBP before the ecosystem was ready, got absolutely slammed for it, and went back (on magsafe). 4 times bitten, once shy. I'm sure the cynical money reason played a role too, of course, but nobody else is mentioning the 4 times bitten so I felt obliged.

[crazygringo]

Seriously.

I upgraded my iPad to a USB-C version and discovered I couldn't use my 1st-gen (Lightning) Apple Pencil with it even though it's compatible -- because I first had to buy a special female-female USB-C<->Lightning dongle just to be able to plug it in to pair it. (Even though I can keep using my Lightning charger to charge it separately from my iPad.)

Moving from Lightning to USB-C hasn't been too bad for me since I use wireless charging with e.g. my Lightning AirPods. But the transition is a huge pain. Because of weird cases like the Pencil, it's not even enough to just have a USB-C charging cable and a Lightning charging cable.

[MBCook]

I wouldn’t blame USB-C for that, personally.

The Pencil situation is a disaster. There are at least 3 first party versions plus the 3rd party ones. And when version X + 1 comes out they don’t drop support for version X, they use it in a different product for some stupid reason. Probably because the tooling already exists.

So you can find entire matrices online attempting to explain which iPads support which pencils.

It’s horrible. The Lightning -> USB-C transition is probably one of least objectionable parts of pencil history.

[Dylan16807]

The MBP would only be an example if they were scared of being too new to USB-C on phones. That stopped being possible once a quarter of new phones were USB-C. So they weren't scared of that.

[llm_nerd]

Apple's resistance was presumably user inertia. Users had billions of cables and accessories for lightning, and Apple saw during a prior transition that people get really pissed off about this sort of change.

And let's be real about Samsung et al -- before USB-C, they were using the utter dogshit micro USB connector (funfact -- this terrible connector became prevalent because the EU made a voluntary commitment with manufacturers to adopt it). micro-USB is a horrible connector from a user-experience and reliability perspective. USB-C was a massive, massive upgrade for those users.

In Apple land, everyone already had a bidirectional, reliable connector. Even today to most Apple users the switch from lightning to USB-C was just a sideways move.

[koyote]

> In Apple land, everyone already had a bidirectional, reliable connector

Wait, I thought the Apple 30-pin connector was not reversible?

USB-C has been out for over a decade now. There was only a small window of about two years where iphones had lightning and other phones did not yet have usb-c.

[MBCook]

GP meant Lightning. It was reversible.

You are correct, the dock connector for was not.

And they couldn’t go to USB-C instead of Lightning initially as Lightning came out first.

[llm_nerd]

Samsung released the first USB-C Galaxy S device five years after the iPhone moved to lightning (2012 vs 2017). They had Galaxy A devices on micro USB a year later in 2018.

A couple of devices like the Pixel (4 years after lightning - 2012 vs 2016) got it a bit earlier, but no, it wasn't two years.

The iPhone rocking a massively better connector half a decade earlier than the vast majority of the competition is legitimately a thing.

[koyote]

The Nexus 5x (and all models after that) had a USB-C connector in 2015, so did the OnePlus 2 (and all models after that).

[llm_nerd]

Two devices that sold absolutely minuscule numbers are not remotely relevant to this discussion. For non-Apple smartphone users, the overwhelming majority were rocking the atrocious trash that is micro USB half a decade after the iPhone moved to lightning.

[systemtest]

Don't forget the USB 3.0 micro-B on the Galaxy S2, the 18-pin connector, the 20-pin connector, mini-USB and various barrel connectors. USB-C was a blessing for Samsung, they could finally ditch their sub-par connectors.

[stouset]

I think you missed GP’s point. The briar patch is a reference to the story of Br’er Rabbit, which involves pretending to object to a punishment that one really doesn’t mind at all (and might even prefer).

The GP is suggesting that Apple was more than happy to have this mandate. I tend to agree: they wanted to switch the iPhone to USB-C anyway, but there’s always people who are going to be upset that their Lightning accessories no longer work or need an adapter. But this way they can say that the EU forced their hand. They get what they wanted all along, but they also get a scapegoat who can take the blame for the remaining downsides.

[tristanj]

My understanding is that Apple didn't add USB-C to iPhones because they planned to remove all ports from the iPhone entirely. They envisioned it as a wireless only device.

EU regulation stopped this from happening, and now once they added USB-C it's difficult to take this feature away. I predict we'll be stuck with the USB-C port and form factor on most phones for the next decade.

[stouset]

This was a common trope on Reddit but makes literally zero sense. There are a ton of wired accessories that this would make completely useless overnight, including things like CarPlay.

And for what?

[tristanj]

You probably viewed this as a common trope because you were not aware of the actual source of the rumors. No, these are not claims are not from reddit, they're from Mark Gurman in 2018.

> Apple designers eventually hope to remove most of the external ports and buttons on the iPhone, including the charger, according to people familiar with the company’s work. During the development of the iPhone X, Apple weighed removing the wired charging system entirely. That wasn’t feasible at the time because wireless charging was still slower than traditional methods. [0]

Actual rumors include a prototype of said phone making rounds around the office.

And again, Mark Gurman from 2025:

> "But all of these changes were supposed to be just the tip of the iceberg: Apple had originally hoped to get ever more ambitious with this model... An even bigger idea was to make the Air device Apple’s first completely port-free iPhone. That would mean losing the USB-C connector and going all-in on wireless charging and syncing data with the cloud."

> "But Apple ultimately decided not to adopt a port-free design with the new iPhone, which will still have a USB-C connector. One major reason: There were concerns that removing USB-C would upset European Union regulators, who mandated the iPhone switch to USB-C and are scrutinizing the company’s business practices." [1]

[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-21/why-apple...

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-03-16/apple-...

[stouset]

Mark Gurman’s track record with Apple is spotty at best. He may have been the original source of the rumor, but Reddit’s enormously anti-Apple user base is more than happy to grab onto any notion that Apple might do something even slightly unpopular and run wild. One dude with one report and middling accuracy does not a reliable narrative make, no matter how many times it’s reposted.

Apple prototypes a lot of shit internally. I am utterly certain they had prototypes of wireless-only phones. I am wholly unconvinced they had anything resembling firm plans at a leadership level to actually move forward with such a device. Apple has been more than happy to poke a finger in the eye of the EU repeatedly to see what their real limits are; I doubt they suddenly got cold feet over this one issue.

[raw_anon_1111]

This is completely illogical. There is no world that wireless charging or data transfer was going to be as good as wired. Was the iPhone all the sudden not going to work in the millions of cars that had wired CarPlay?

[xp84]

This is a silly reason to hold back if that was their plan. You can buy, for $20 and up, little USB-sticks that allow wired-CarPlay cars to do wireless CarPlay. Apple could manufacture 100 million of those, at a cost of $5 for the boards and maybe $8 in glass and aluminum, and sell them at a huge profit for $79.99 and advertise them as a revolutionary breakthrough they invented.

Wired CarPlay is not holding Apple back. I think they just figure it’d be harder for them to repair partially-bricked iPhones if they had no port to do DFU or whatever. That or they actually have done the market research and customers said they’d hold off on buying a portless iPhone because it’s a stupid idea.

[raw_anon_1111]

So can you also do 10Gbps data transfers wirelessly like the iPhone Pros do? Can I just plug up my phone to any old monitor with a USB C port or use a standard video cord?

Apple prototypes a lot of stuff including a smart car. Despite what people think, Apple doesn’t do everything at the whim of the EU.

[xp84]

I didn’t say there were no reasons that smart/pro customers should dread a portless phone and appreciate the port. Of course there are reasons!

But Apple could definitely make the “non-pro” phone portless- exactly the way they arbitrarily force USB 2.0 speeds (hello 2004!) even on the iPhone 17 non-pro’s port - rendering it worse than Wi-Fi for data transfers.

They must have market research proving it would cost them sales. That’s the only thing holding them back.

[tristanj]

My statements are substantiated by sources going back almost a decade. See my other comment for details.

And when you view what Apple is doing from their long-term vision of the iPhone becoming a transparent piece of glass, it starts making sense.

[raw_anon_1111]

Substantiated by rumors - isn’t that an oxymoron?

[LexGray]

Illogical may not be the right word. We have already reached the point of passible.

WiFi speeds are decent for data.

Wireless charging is 2 hours to a full quick charge and efficiency gets better every generation.

As for wired CarPlay somebody would make dongles.

[raw_anon_1111]

Compared to 40 minutes for a charge? Have you used wireless CarPlay? There is a noticeable delay from pressing a button on the display in your car and your phone reacting.

Also the iPhone Pro models support up to 10Gbps wired for data transfer. Now let’s talk about using external video. I don’t need a special dongle. I can use a standard USB 3 cable just like I use with my computer.

https://imgur.com/a/SC6WDri

Or if I need HDMI, again I can use the same USB 3 to HDMI cable that works with Mac or the God awful Microsoft Surface (not the convertible) I had to use for a year at a prior job.

Then we can get into simple things like how do you connect mass storage devices to your phone or audio equipment?

[1718627440]

I share that view, but I don't think Apple would care. I mean Ethernet is way better than Wifi, yet the iPhones don't have an Ethernet port.

[raw_anon_1111]

But they can use a standard USB C to Ethernet adapter that computers use.

[1718627440]

Sure after plugging in an USB-C extender, an USB-C to headphone adapter and an USB-C to HDMI adapter. I'm sure that will be as convenient as a phone, that directly has these interfaces. At that point you could even design the phone without any port and buy a Bluetooth to USB-C adapter instead.