“Apple has an obsessive desire to control all aspects of its products, down to the tiniest of details”
The EU has decided that all mobile devices shall use the USB-C port for charging. Or, to be technically correct, it has proposed legislation that, if adopted, vendors will have two years to comply with.
The full statement can be found at pcpro.link/327usb, but I will draw your attention to a couple of key sentences. First: “USB-C will become the standard port for all smartphones, tablets, cameras, headphones, portable speakers and handheld videogame consoles.”
This leaves out a whole swathe of devices and opens up a rat’s nest of questions. For example, what is a “camera”? Does that include product sectors such as security webcams? You will notice that laptops aren’t mentioned either, and quite a few laptops still have custom round-barrel DC connectors for charging. When does a laptop turn into a tablet, if it is a convertible design?
You can see the lawyers lining up expensive consultations even as I type.
The other sentence worth noting is this: “In addition, the Commission proposes to unbundle the sale of chargers from the sale of electronic devices.” You will note that the definition of “electronic device” is somewhat woolly. Nowhere does this proposed legislation define what such a device is, unless it is intended to be a shorthand to the list given above.
I am in two minds about this. As you might imagine, Apple has already squealed that it is being forced to move away from Lightning to a later standard. It’s quite likely that USB-C wouldn’t have come about unless Apple had refused to adopt one of the many previous USB standards, many of
