[ben_w]

(1) The EU fundamentally didn't care which standard so long as there was one; they only forced this because Apple dragged their feet with their own proprietary thing that wasn't a significant advantage. The other end of Apple's Lightning port being a USB port does not suggest it added anything except deliberate incompatibility.

(2) what would "significantly better" even look like? USB-C can do 120 watts, enough to fill a 20 Wh battery in 10 minutes, except the batteries themselves aren't ready to charge that fast.

(3) if someone somehow manages to make a significant advance, nothing prevents them from having two ports. Or indeed lobbying for a law change on the basis of a tangible thing they can demonstrate rather than a hypothetical that still hasn't happened in all the time since these discussions began.

[okanat]

(4) Or just as the law states, you can update the regulation accordingly. There are avenues of update just in the law. The connector should be just modern enough. At the same time I do believe thermodynamics itself will be the limit and 120 W is more than enough for any phone.