EU pushing Apple to change its phone ports to USB-C

Despite slowly removing accessories and ports from its devices straight out of the box, Apple could soon be forced to change all its iPhone ports to USB-C to reduce their overall environmental impact.

Anyone who’s purchased an iPhone in the last few years (which is, statistically, probably most of us) will have noticed that the box contains less accessories than it used to.

Apple no longer includes a charger brick or headphones as standard, instead selling each item separately in order to ‘improve’ its carbon footprint and excessive e-waste problem.

While that sounds great in theory, it feels somewhat disingenuous given that Apple profits from forcing customers to fork out more cash for items they used to receive as part of the iPhone entry price.

It’s all the more frustrating when you consider that charging cables, earbuds, and any other wired accessory can’t be used on anything but Apple products. Your mum’s universal charger for her Android will never work on an iPhone.

Now, the EU is pushing for Apple to stick to its apparent concerns for the climate by removing the lightning cable port on its products and replacing it with a standard USB-C.

This would mean that most chargers and accessories could now work with iPhone or iPad and, crucially, consumers wouldn’t be roped into buying a bucket load of Apple gadgets that can’t be used on anything else.