It looks like Apple Inc. will soon get more plugged in to the needs of some users.
With European regulators set to require that electronic devices in the European Union carry USB-C ports by the end of 2024, an Apple
AAPL,
executive recently said that the company will need to go along with that directive.
“Obviously, we’ll have to comply,” Greg Joswiak, Apple senior vice president of worldwide marketing, told the audience at the Wall Street Journal’s Tech Live conference Tuesday, though he didn’t specify when the company would make such a change.
Though Apple has been more keen to give iPads and Macs USB-C ports, the company has only had its proprietary Lightning cable on its iPhones dating back to the iPhone 5 that debuted a decade ago. (Prior-generation models had an older method for connectivity.)
In contrast, most Android phones have USB-C ports, and lawmakers behind the EU measure have said it could save consumers there 250 million euros in aggregate that they would have had to spend on purchases of excess charging equipment.
Joswiak declined to say at the WSJ event whether Apple planned merely to comply with the rule in the EU or bring the USB-C standard to all of its iPhone models globally. Markets like the U.S. don’t have such a rule around charging compliance.
“You’re trying to get me to predict the future,” he said, according to a WSJ writeup of the presentation.
That story noted that while Apple wouldn’t be mandated to change its charging port in the U.S., electronics companies often like to have common components worldwide.
