By the end of 2024, all Apple products — including iPhones and iPads —will have to support USB-C charging, according to a new law passed by the European Union earlier this month.
The news: The law was created with the intention of reducing waste by allowing all devices to be compatible with one charger, reducing the number of chargers consumers will have to purchase.
- “Obviously we’ll have to comply, " said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, on Tuesday at The Wall Street Journal’s Tech Live conference.
- Joswiack said there isn't a set date when Apple devices would be changed to accommodate the new law.
Details: Apple won’t be the only company that will have to comply with this law. All tech companies that sell products in the European Union will have to support USB-C charging by 2024.
- Most Samsung and other smartphone devices already use USB-C charging systems. However, Apple has been an outlier, using its own separate charging system — aside from the MacBook, which was adapted for USB-C charging in 2015.
- “Under the new rules, consumers will no longer need a different charger every time they purchase a new device, as they will be able to use one single charger for a whole range of small and medium-sized portable electronic devices,” according to a press release from the European Parliament.
Worth noting: Joswiack implied that the new law could be counterintuitive in its goal to reduce waste.
- “It’s been a great connector and over a billion people have it already — [they] have the cables and have what they need, have the infrastructure in their homes, have the speakers, and have an ecosystem that works with it,” said Joswiack to CNN in reference to Apple’s lightning charger.
- Changing to the USB-C charging system would eventually cause Apple’s lightning charging system to become obsolete, resulting in the waste of billions of chargers.
Will this be implemented worldwide? Even though this law was passed by the EU, Bryan Ma, a tech analyst, told CNBC that he expects the changes to roll out on a global scale.
“Most likely it would make sense that they get the scale out of moving to this common charger globally, rather than having to make individual parts, unless they think that they’re really making so much [money] off of those chargers and accessories and that sort of thing that it’s still worth it for them to maintain that separate,” Ma said.