USB-C Will Be Universal Across All Portable Devices: EU
USB-C Will Be Universal Across All Portable Devices: EU
Your next iPhone may finally ditch the decade-old Lightning port in place for USB-C, as the new EU legislation has now passed to European Council after a near-unanimous victory of 602 seats voting for, 13 against and 8 abstained from voting. The ruling will be made official once the legislation receives official approval from the Council.
We welcome @europarl_en adoption of our proposal for a common charger to reduce electronic waste and the fuzz of having several cables for different devices.
USB Type-C port will be the new standard for portable devices by the end of 2024.#DigitalEU pic.twitter.com/R1gPbIBY4D
— European Commission (@EU_Commission) October 4, 2022
The proposal mandates all smartphones and portable electronic devices must at least contain a single USB-C port to ensure universal compatibility, and reduces unnecessary waste from manufacturing proprietary connectors. However, there are certain exemptions given if the device is physically too small to fit a USB-C port (i.e. smartwatches), or the device requires more than 100W to operate (i.e. gaming laptops).
It is expected to be enforced starting late 2024 and this will be enforced across EU member countries – however it remains to be seen if such ruling will stay exclusive in EU as many other jurisdictions may follow suit over time. On top of that, economics of scale may force manufacturers to produce a single model with USB-C ports for worldwide markets – so it is expected that countries like Malaysia may see the result of such ruling in the electronic products soon.
Pokdepinion: A big win for consumers – no more carrying proprietary cables just to charge your device.
