If anything, Apple was likely happy for this. It let them rip the band-aid off on the transition but shift blame to the EU for people annoyed by having to switch adapters and accessories.
There is zero chance that Apple wasn’t going to do this themselves anyway in the next year or two. They’d been aggressively converting everything else in their device portfolio to USB-C and were doing so way ahead of everyone else.
People who think this only happened because of the EU are high as a kite.
Except they were steadily converting their devices to USB-C for years preceding the iPhone, and they had good reasons to make the iPhone the last device to get it. There is no indication that they were forced to do anything, and the best argument you have is a poster child for post hoc ergo propter hoc. A feeling.
There is zero chance that Apple wasn’t going to do this themselves anyway in the next year or two. They’d been aggressively converting everything else in their device portfolio to USB-C and were doing so way ahead of everyone else.
People who think this only happened because of the EU are high as a kite.