William Gallagher
The UK government is not going to follow the European Union's requirement for the iPhone and all smartphones to use USB-C as a common charging system.
Following more than a decade of debate over a common charger to be used by all devices, the European Union has formally agreed on the issue. From late 2024, the new rules requiring USB-C as a common charger will go into force across Europe — but not in the UK.
According to BBC News, a UK government spokesperson said that "we are not currently considering replicating this requirement." However, both UK and EU officials say that the common charger requirement will apply to devices sold in Northern Ireland.
The UK lost the protection of EU agreements when it left the Union through its "Brexit" plan. Ireland remains in the European Union, though, which led the UK government to agree a special deal regarding Northern Ireland.
Subsequently, the UK has proposed breaking the deal it negotiated, but for the moment, Northern Ireland would be subject to EU product standards. The UK has separately insisted that it has created a tough standards body to protect users against Big Tech, but it has failed to give that body any powers.
As the UK postpones that, and struggles to renegotiate global trade deals on its own, it's probable that there is little legislative time for the country to consider emulating the EU's charger stance.
However, it's also possible that there will be no need. It's more likely that Apple will move to either wireless charging, or sell Lightning to USB-C adapters, than it is to create a separate iPhone model for the UK.
Chip Loder
Marko Zivkovic
Wesley Hilliard
Christine McKee
Malcolm Owen
55 Comments
The new EU rule only applies to phones that used wired charging. It does not apply to phones that only use wireless charging (such as Apple's MagSafe). If Apple used software to disable charging on the lightning port, that would make the iPhone 13 compliant with the new USB-C rule.
It doesn’t matter if the UK doesn’t follow the rule. Can anyone imagine Apple using two different ports? One on phones going to some nations, and a different one going elsewhere? Not going to happen. Apple has almost definitely been studying going to USB C for years. This won’t be something out of the blue for them. There are advantages in transfer speeds. They could implement 20Gb/s. If they had the power budget they could even have Thunderbolt. Lightning is a better physical connector, and slimmer. But with Apple going to slightly thicker phones the past few years, that slight difference isn’t important anymore. It’s also been better sealed against water intrusion, but new USB C connectors are much improved.
so the case for staying with Lightning only in the phone, basically, is becoming less supportable. And this would give Apple the excuse to tell people with lots of Lightning cables and accessories that they were forced to do it, so don’t get ticked off at them, blame the EU instead. That would be a win for Apple.