Featured Image Credit: Yalcin Sonat / Alamy Stock Photo/Ömer Faruk Ordulu / Alamy Stock Photo
Topics: iPhone, Technology, Apple, Twitter, Social Media
Poppy Bilderbeck
Topics: iPhone, Technology, Apple, Twitter, Social Media
The vice presidents of Apple have confirmed that iPhones will switch to USB-C charger cables - but they're clearly not very happy about it.
You have to admit, having multiple different chargers for your speaker, headphones, laptop and phone, does all get rather frustrating.
The snakes of cables which constantly lie entwined in a clump at the bottom of my bag does little to help improve my mid-week mood.
However, the power of Apple's lightning cable cannot be denied.
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Alas, its days have since been confirmed as numbered, as a result of new regulations on chargers being enforced by the EU.
Earlier this year, the European Parliament announced it will be enforcing the use of USB Type-C charging ports for 'all mobile phones, tablets and cameras in the EU' in a bid to reduce 'hassle for consumers,' as well as 'curbing e-waste'.
This means Apple will be forced to make the leap from lightning cables to USB-C by the end of 2024 at the latest.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, senior vice president of software engineering Craig Federighi and senior vice president of worldwide marketing Greg Joswiak have confirmed that Apple will have to comply with the new regulations.
Joswiak said: "Governments get to do what they do and obviously we'll have to comply.
"We have no choice."
He admitted Apple has been going back and forth with the European Parliament for over 10 years about the cables.
The tech company thought it had reached a compromise with power adapters with detachable cables appropriate to each device, and was disappointed to see the lightning cable binned entirely.
Despite calling the EU ruling 'well-meaning', Joswiak complained that billions of people already have lightning charger cables which they'll no longer be able to use due to the new regulations, leading to environmental waste.
He said: "What are you going to do with these cables over time if they're no longer useful - billions of them."
Using an example of why he doesn't think government regulation of tech standards is always a good idea, Joswiak used the example of iPhones' hearing aid compatibility.
He said: "For years and years, mobile phones had to satisfy hearing aid compatibility spec, very prescriptively described by the regulation that said here's what you have to do to be compatible with hearing aides.
"The problem is it didn't work - but all of us had to do it."
Apple came up with a 'new way' to do hearing aids for iPhone that 'actually worked' which became an 'industry standard'.
Nevertheless, Apple will be forced to comply with the new European rules on charger cables by 2024.