Over the last few years, the European Union has made more than a few overtures toward looking to standardise (as much as possible) charging systems within portable tech devices. Primarily driven by a wish to reduce overall electronic waste, back in April things in this regard took a big step forward when a formal adoption of USB-C as the standard and mandatory changing standard was put forward.
In other words, any portable tech product (smartphones, headphones, tablets, etc.) released in the region would be required to offer out of the box support for USB-C.
With this in mind though, would such a bold and clearly positive move for consumers actually have any success or chance of actually getting put through? – Well, following a report via TechPowerUp, we have our answer and the answer is yes. Pending a few relatively minor hurdles, all portable tech products released in Europe (within the near future) will be mandated to offer a USB-C charging port!
EU Mandates USB-C Charging Standard!
The most obvious consequence this move has is clearly in regards to Apple. As I’m sure many of you are aware, while many tech manufacturers have made a clear shift towards USB-C, Apple has been continually retaining their own proprietary ‘Lightening Port’ standard. – With this move though, which is expected to be formally introduced into law in late 2024, if Apple doesn’t change this themselves, they’ll only have one of two options; they’ll either have to provide a USB-C dongle out of the box or alternatively, simply transition to USB-C themselves.
And as crazy as this latter option might sound, there are already more than a few rumours that Apple is considering doing this and possibly long before this EU 2024 deadline!
On the whole, though, this is clearly a hugely positive move. And not just for us consumers either, but with USB-C set to represent the standard for the foreseeable future, although we’ll all be buying new tech over the coming years, we’re going to have significantly fewer cables in our life! (And if you’re anything like me, you probably already have a drawer full of them!).
What do you think? – Let us know in the comments!
