Tech analyst Rene Ritchie discusses new EU legislation that will force iPhones to use a USB-C charger in fall 2024 and what that means for Apple's strategy in Europe.

Closing Bell

USB-C Charging Port to Become Requirement for All Mobile Devices in Europe Starting Fall 2024

do you have like a million different cables to charge your devices and wish you only had one that worked for all of them? Well, the EU hears you because countries and lawmakers in the european union have agreed to a new rule that would force all future smartphones sold in the EU to be equipped with the Universal USB C ports for wired charging by fall 2020 for one cable to rule them all one cable to find them. That's right joining us now from Cupertino tech analyst Rene Ritchie Renee, we understand you have a USB type C cable with you which will be usable in europe. So can you take us through the key differences between that and the lightning cable? Absolutely. So here we have one of each and if you look at them closely, the lightning cable is an Audi all the pins are on the outside where the USB C cable is an any and everything is on the inside and that makes it just slightly bigger. But also Lightning has remained completely, almost completely unchanged since it was introduced Back in 2012. So the plug is the same, but also the speed is the same. USB The letter means the shape of the plug and the number means the speed of the connection. So this is still at USB two point oh speeds where this cable can do two point oh 2.1. So basically can go from half a gigabit per second to 5, 10 And 40 gigabits per second if it supports thunderbolt as well. So where this has been sort of stagnant from a data perspective, this has gotten much, much faster. Uh and both of them will handle charging, but with USB C, you have a lot of fast charging options. Now, when it comes to how this will change for the consumer, Apple has really put their toe in the water when it comes to USB type C on their devices, Tell me which ones. And why do you think Apple has dragged their feet when it comes to including this on something as popular as the iphone? I think exactly what you said, the devices that they have switched to USB C or Lightning are the higher end ipads, the ones that people use more like computers and by using USB C, they get access to all of the peripherals that people use computers use like high speed SSD drives, microphones, all of that, but USB C as much as we call it a standard, it really isn't because you can have all those different speeds and you can have a bunch of different power availabilities, including very little power or very little data in some cables and they're almost indistinguishable. The thunderbolt ones will have a light, like a little Thunderbolt lightning icon on them and the standard says you're supposed to label the speed and the type of power delivery available, but almost nobody does. And so I think Apple wanted to keep it super simple. So anybody who has a lightning cable knows that that cable will work. They never have to worry if it's the right power or any power, the right speed or any speed is just one lightning cable for iphone owners. Now when it comes to the finances of this, how much do you think Apple will be missing out on? Because in 2021 Apple sold 2 42 141 million iphones globally, 56 million were sold in europe. All of those iphones as you know have lightning. But if that goes away, what kind of financial hook could they take? I don't think it's huge. I mean a lot of people like to think that Apple has A M. F. I. Program and made for iphone program where if you want to make a lightning connector, you have to pay a licensing fee. But that also comes with the chip set that uses lightning. And for Apple that's not like for some company that's a lot of money. But for Apple I think that's like the change that you find in tim cook's office sofa. It's just so little compared to iphone revenue. And I think what what? Well Apple likes money, what they really like is control and because they licensed lightning, you could never find a bad lightning cable where for the early days of USB C literally a google engineer had to test every single one of them and blog which ones wouldn't melt your computer or phone because they were badly made in the beginning. Now I have to ask when it comes to this legislation, this rule that is going to advance most likely doesn't tackle wireless charging, do you think? Because there has been rumors with Apple products that the iphone or maybe a couple generations from now will likely have no ports at all for wired charging and all be wireless. What does that do for consumers who are looking forward to a USB C ports? So I think Apple might bifurcate their strategy and go wireless for the consumer end because it's very convenient, very easy to use. And even though it's not as efficient, even things now like the qi chargers, we've shown that we will trade some efficiency for a lot of convenience. But Apple is also putting really high end camera features like they shoot now in pro res high, high dynamic range, like the stuff that you use for film production and that is so big, it's six gigabits per second, six gigabytes per for a minute of footage. And you getting that off is hard. So I think they're going to have to go USB C at least on the professional models. Now, the EU is not targeting Apple, the whole purpose for this. What they say is to lower E waste where Apple is countering saying, well if you switch to USB type C, you're gonna create more e waste because people gonna throw out all the old cables and things who do you think is right on this argument. So I think the EU always has very good intentions but they often have very poor implementation. Like we can look back and see like the cookie rules now mean that all of us have to like have to get rid of cookies on every web page, we go to every three seconds or they did a browser ballot famously where they made Microsoft include options for different browsers to protect and preserve alternate rendering engines and the result was they destroyed them all and almost everything runs web kit or google's work of web kit, chromium, even Internet Explorer and opera, which they were trying to protect. So I think they have, they have consumer interest at heart, but I think it would behoove them to listen to more technology experts before they come out with the exact implementation. The last question for you, we understand your Cupertino, you went to you are at Wwdc WWdc WWdC for the casuals, they introduced the MAgsafe to their Macbook lineup? Their Macbook Air and the Macbook Pro that is proprietary cable as well. Do you think the EU will eventually have to tarp will not target that. Do you think they'll have to make that change in 2024 because of this new regulation. So they see you answered that in the most hilarious way possible when they said Apple could keep the lightning port as long as they put US PC on it as well. And that's what Apple has done with the max. There is MAgsafe, but you can still plug in via USB C if you want. And that satisfies the EU regulation Alright, Tech analyst Rene and Richie, one of my favorite Youtubers and Joy Cupertino. I wish I was there with you bud. Thank you so much for coming down here and sharing your expertise.