Apple has acknowledged that it will be changing the primary cable for its iPhones in the future (meant for the EU at least) and comply with new European Union rules that require every new smartphone works with a common USB-C charging cable by 2024.
The topic came up when Joanna Stern asked at The Wall Street Journal’s Tech Live conference if Apple would be replacing Lighting. Apple marketing lead Greg Joswiak answered: “Obviously we’ll have to comply, we have no choice.”
Joswiak said “the Europeans are the ones dictating timing for European customers” but there was no answer on whether the company would include the connector on phones sold outside the EU. But Apple is not happy about making the change. “We think it would have been better environmentally and better for our customers to not have a government be that prescriptive,” said Joswiak.
The Tech Live conference presented a rare public acknowledgement from Apple about the future of its products. Apple has been constantly adding USB-C ports to its Mac computers and iPad tablets and there have been rumours of it working on iPhones with USB-C ports for a while now.
Team Apple didn’t touch upon the topic of a portless iPhone that relies exclusively on wireless charging, which is something that is talked about a lot. He didn’t discuss the specifics around how Apple will go about integrating USB C into the iPhone.