European iPhones will charge via USB-C within two years

The wait for a USB-C compatible iPhone is finally over. Or, at least, it will be in Europe in two years’ time.

The European Parliament(opens in a new tab) formally approved a measure that would require all small and mid-sized electronics to charge via the same standard of USB-C. This proposal was agreed upon back in June, but Parliament took a summer recess before making it official. EU member states have 24 months after ratification to start enforcing the new law, meaning Apple can’t keep producing Lightning-based iPhones in those countries past 2024.

Brazil’s government also recently suspended the sale of iPhones that don’t come with a charging brick, stating that adopting USB-C would be one way to lift the suspension.

As such, we may not even have to wait until 2024. A pair of prominent Apple prognosticators in Ming-Chi Kuo and Mark Gurman both said back in May that Apple was likely to bring a USB-C iPhone to market in 2023, with Gurman reporting that Apple had been testing the idea internally at the time. 

In other words, the iPhone 15 may finally, at long last, ditch the Lightning cable in favor of something that works with every other device you own. Hooray.

Apple was really the last big USB-C holdout, at least for flagship smartphones. Handsets from other companies like Google and Samsung have been charging via USB-C for years. Apple doesn’t even use its proprietary Lightning cable that much anymore; recent laptops like the M2 MacBook Air and some recent iPads(opens in a new tab) charge via USB-C.

While waiting until 2023 or 2024 for a USB-C iPhone is inconvenient, at least we have a firm deadline for when it’ll happen.

Thanks, Europe!