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They’ll just go wireless and remove the port entirely


“Going wireless” doesn’t implement “must charge over USBC”.


That’s not what the regulation says. It says if there is a port, it must be usbc.


How would that work with CarPlay, or how would someone charge on the go?


I don't understand.

Just place a phone/charging case on a Qi charger? Doesn't CarPlay support wireless communication? Android Auto does.


Cars didn’t really start getting wireless CarPlay until around 2021. It would take a while for those cars to age out. My guess is that if Apple makes a portless iPhone, they will also make a wireless to wired CarPlay bridge.


There are already third party wireless to wired CarPlay dongles.


There is wireless CarPlay now. But it does have higher latency.


If Apple answer to that regulation is to go wireless and use a system that's compatible with other brands, that is a massive victory for the EU and the planet in terms of reduced waste.

The goal was to reduce waste and they already included in the same regulation that if companies don't agree on a common tech for wireless (like it is now) but go their own way to sell exclusive ones that can't be used with other brands then they would regulate that too.


Charging cables contribute such a minuscule amount to landfills it’s laughable. It’s feel good legislation that distracts from real environmentally conscious efforts.


Meanwhile, the power loss associated with mandatory wireless charging over the typical phone's lifetime will impose a carbon cost of its own.


>Charging cables contribute such a minuscule amount to landfills it’s laughable.

Do you also include that actual charger and not only the cable part? Can you show me your numbers, do you mean by weight/volume , CO2 wasted in creating and shipping the chargers ?

But there are more benefits by using a standard port, I can use a Samsung charger for a table in my Asus phone, I can share a charger for 2 products and not buy a new one if the old one is gone.


Apple chargers are USB chargers. To charge a Lightning device you use a USB to Lightning cable.


So can you use your Apple cable with the charger from a Samsung ?


Yes. And you can use your Samsung cable with a charger from Apple.


Yes


So why are some Apple fans complaining? They keep their chargers and will need a new cable when buying a new phone, is Apple exploiting this and selling cables at giant prices ? Also if iPad and the laptops already use USB then you might share same cables now if you are out of battery and you do not have a phone charger with you.


IDK why people are complaining. For me the biggest issue is shared chargers which were solved with USB-C->Lighting. USB-C is a mess of what cable to does what. The biggest problem with lightening isn't the connector, but slow data speeds. That's why it made sense to move the iPads. Though now with iPhones taking 4k+ video, they need to move them also.

But, IMO, from a cable and connector standpoint, USB-C is worse than Lighting.


Every USB-C cable can do at least as much as every Lightning cable.

You can completely ignore the different cable capabilities.


Yes


Removing the connector entirely has the downside of creating a ton of dead or difficult-to-recover devices in the case there's a bug in the later steps of the boot rom that provide some basic flashing interface - Samsung learned that the hard way recently with their faulty GVI3 update for the Watch 4 series. It bricked the watch so hard it couldn't boot up to WiFi-capable Odin mode any more, and lower-level interfaces on the SoC were not accessible any more because there were no ports.

[1] https://www.sammobile.com/news/new-galaxy-watch-4-update-sol...


Oh, sure, they will allow standard Qi charging - but they will also offer an Apple-branded charger that is incompatible with other devices and will charge a lot faster. Never underestimate the capacity for malicious compliance, especially when it comes to laws that are considered unfair.

Also, my arguably 20 year old high school-level knowledge tells me that charging by induction will by necessity waste more electric energy than a cable would.


you are right. Phones get pretty warm when using wireless charging.

On the iPhone X it was so bad that you couldn't use Facetime while on a wireless charger, because the phone would throttle the CPU after 10 minutes or so because the phone got too hot.

Not sure if they fixed it on later models, but I guess this is why they are limiting charging power. Glass and stainless steel aren't particularly good heat conductors.

Maybe Magsafe support more power because the exact alignment reduces waste heat.


iPhones are compatible with the Qi standard which is limited to 7.5 watts.

MagSafe however can charge up to 15 watts.

So in some respects it is still a proprietary connector.


Qi supports at least Baseline Power Profile (which is 5 W) and the Extended Power Profile (which is 15W). I'm not sure what and why Apple did to introduce 7.5W which is proprietary Apple extension.


The Qi 1.2 standard is up to 15 watts.


Which was released in 2015 and Apple still does not support.

I doubt they will let anything compete with MagSafe short of more EU regulation.




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