Apple moving on forced the rest of the industry to follow (there is a direct line from the original iMac to USB adoption, and USB would possibly still be at USB1 or 2 without firewire and then lightning), and we have all seen that happening, but the EU regulation stops that technological shift from happening.
I disagree with this. The mandate exists to unify power delivery standards. This is certainly convenient for the consumer, and does not stop innovation. I suppose it would block a "technological shift", but I can't imagine what a serial->usb shift would look like for USB-C. It does not block innovation as you can build new charging standards on top of USBC. You just have to be able to fallback to USB PD. Even then, USB PD is highly flexible, and we will see 240w devices coming soon using this. Examples of this include Qualcomms QC spec, and the various fast charging specs from the Chinese phones like Oneplus VOOC and Huawei SCP.
If the EU had (for example) mandated serial ports on everything for "one cable", then USB couldn't have come to the fore. (A "Kettle lead" mandate would have blocked power over USB) If they had mandated that the "one cable to rule them all" was USB-A, then USB-C couldn't have been introduced to the market. (And for TV where is the "one cable"? There must be more TVs than phones, but the EU haven't mandated that TVs have to have one - and only one - of HDMI/ Display Port/ Thunderbolt/ Ethernet/ Coax/ ...)
The EU isn't locking in a port like serial. USB 1.1 was already orders of magnitude faster than RS-232. They are also inherently different - USB was designed to be a universal connector and abstracted away from the user many configurations steps that RS-232 required. USB-C is the current forefront of technology and doesn't exclude anything. USB-A would have limited speed and not allowed for Thunderbolt or PCIe or video. I don't think that USB-C is blocking anything.
I would also argue that TVs already have a "one cable" solution - HDMI:
- HDMI supports Ethernet, audio return channels (ARC/eARC), and CEC for device control.
- It’s on every TV and almost every source device.
- HDMI and DisplayPort use the same data transfer method, so a simple passive adapter allows HDMI to work with a USB-C device.
Even then, this isn’t the same situation as USB-C for charging:
- A TV is never going to have just one connection because multiple devices use it.
- A display signal and an internet connection serve entirely different functions.
- USB-PD is meant for portable devices that need charging - a TV is neither portable nor chargeable.
- We already have IEC standards for static high-power devices, which are widely used for safety and compatibility.
USB-C would also be a downgrade for display bandwidth and cable length:
- HDMI has supported 48Gbps for years, while USB-C is only now approaching that speed.
- Long HDMI cables already exist, but USB-C struggles beyond a couple of meters at full speed.
I wouldn't mind some intervention in the display cable sector though. HDMI's certification/specification is meaningless, and it would be nice to see DisplayPort adopt some of HDMIs home-theatre type features so we could remove HDMI altogether - it has no real advantage over DisplayPort and requires licensing fees. I would also like to see the advertised supported resolutions for HDMI/DP be clearly marked as using compression or not.
*"standardization and reducing e-waste" seems to be a bit undermined by the simple fact that everyone that had lightning cables has to replace them and throw them away. If the standard had been mandated before lightning become the standard for half of the industry, this is a possibility, but to mandate it to ensure that there are billions of cables forced into obsolescence seems an odd way of reducing e-waste. Of course it couldn't have been mandated before lightning become the standard for half of the industry, because back then the rest of the world had not-standardised on mini-USB, micro-USB, nano-USB and proprietary connectors. Ironically Apple, with Lightning (and to a lesser degree FireWire), forced the rest of the industry to standardise on USB-C. So the EU punished Apple, and reduced the chances of Apple creating/ fostering the next connection standard.
While the immediate transition from Lightning to USB-C would create waste, this mandate is
projected to save 11,000 tonnes of e-waste annually, and save €250m in charger purchases. If we are to believe their research, then this mandate appears to be a positive for e-waste. Furthermore, Apple was never going to create a new connection standard. They already knew USB-C was better, they've been using it since 2015 on MacBooks, and iPads more recently. I suspect they originally switched because, as a development partner with Intel, they knew Thunderbolt 3 would be using USB-C, which they released in 2016.
This also means that most Apple users already have a USB-C charger from their Apple laptop or tablet, so the Lightning charger didn't require much resource expenditure to replace.
A study found that nearly 60% of Apple users own three or more Apple devices, meaning many already have USB-C chargers, reducing the overall impact of the transition.
To address this bit in particular.
I don't have as much faith as you do in the lawmakers: I really do think that the EU legislation was a spiteful anti-Apple (probably designed as anti-US) law with little or no technological reasoning. But I may be biased, so to take it at face value:
The trick is noticing that it has become a limitation. Until USB came along, no-one had noticed that serial/ parallel/ RSnnn connectors had become a limitation. Until the iMac had USB and only USB, the rest of the industry had played about with adding a USB connector to devices, but no-one actually made any USB peripherals to connect to them. Thus no-one noticed that USB was miles better (and "standard"), so there would have been no reason to update any putative legislation favouring the status quo.
The iMac forced peripheral makers to make USB peripherals, and the rest of the industry flocked to the "new" standard, but this was only forced because the iMac had no old-style connectors: this sort of thing would be banned by the EU law.
It's easy to see how this mandate looks like a targeted move against Apple or the US, but that overlooks the broader context. The regulation isn't about punishing any specific company - it's about reducing e-waste, improving the consumer experience, and lowering switching costs to make it easier for consumers to change devices while reducing barriers to entry for new competitors. It might seem like this law was aimed at Apple, but it applies universally and ensures that no future company, including Apple, can create similar lock-in again. Apple was the only major holdout against USB-C, and this delay was only so that they could continue to generate revenue off of having a proprietary connector.
The comparison to the iMac's role in standardisation doesn’t really apply here. The iMac replaced a mix of old, inefficient, and bulky standards with USB, which was a clear improvement for the consumer. USB-C is not like a serial port - it's the best we currently have, and it’s still being developed and improved. USB-C has already evolved to support Thunderbolt 5, USB4 v2, and 240W power delivery, proving it is adaptable to future needs. Apple was not going to release a new standard, as they had already adopted USB-C themselves. In fact, reports suggest that Apple was testing USB-C iPhones as early as 2019, before any EU mandate
showing that they weren’t developing anything new and already knew USB-C was the best option.The idea that the iMac's USB-only approach would have been banned by the EU misrepresents what the law actually does. The EU isn't banning new standards, they are only ensuring that all devices capable of wired charging use a universal connector. If a company wants to introduce something new, they can build on top of USB-C or introduce something to co-exist with it, just like how Thunderbolt evolved on USB-C. If Apple truly wanted to innovate, nothing was stopping them from creating something new and demonstrating its advantages before this mandate. Apple just wanted to hold onto Lightning because it made them revenue, like through the Made for I-device program. One (slightly sketchy) website claims they
earn over $10b per year by selling cables and charging MFi fees. I don't put too much stock in this number, but it's certainly a revenue stream for them.
The industry is also capable of driving innovation by itself. Apple's FireWire died because they kept it proprietary and charged fees for it. USB quickly improved and became favoured over FireWire, and consequently, we don't have FireWire today.
Ultimately, this law does not prevent innovation - it prevents fragmentation. It ensures that we don't return to having multiple, sometimes proprietary, connections that limit choice and increase waste. If USB-C becomes a limitation, the law can be revised, just like how regulations regarding emissions or power efficiency are updated. USB-C provides a common foundation for everyone to contribute to innovation and progression, rather than companies pulling consumers backward into proprietary ecosystems.
