This sounds like hopeful conjecture, do you have a source for this “future legislation” against magnetic/wireless chargers?
iMacs use a standard UPC power cord, widely used, and desktop computers do not fall under “small and medium-sized portable electronic device”.
It’s not legislation “against” wireless chargers - it’s a policy position for the standardization thereof.
Yes, it was mentioned during the last day from EU-Sources, and is also part of an ongoing legislature!
You are missing, that I don’t mentioned the new legislature, when I counted the current number of my cables lying around here, while I use Apple devices.
I count the number of different cable coming from Apple during the last years.
And of course I count the devices still in use, as Apple is selling devices with a long time of use.
So why should I just count the devices only 1-2 years old, just to make your argumentation a better fit?
And by the way, the discussion about the standardization startet some 15+ years ago! If they came to a standard then, I wouldn’t have all those cables lying around!
No, it is about the need for the consumer, to handle a whole bunch of different cable, while it be easily to be produced in a way more consumer friendly way.
My iPadPro even came without an plug-in, so I had to buy an expensive one from Apple, to charge the iPadPro, while out of reach of my iMac. And on the iMac, the iPadPro is permanently blocking my USB-C connector just for charging.
This might be an issue with vernacular, but if you say “the last couple of years” (your phrase), in English vernacular that usually doesn’t mean “my device that’s over 8 years old that I still happen to use”.
Sure you would. If they’d standardized 15 years ago, they’d have changed the standard at least once, if not multiple times in the meantime. USB-C didn’t even exist 15 years ago. 
I’ve never heard of that with an iPad Pro, but you do realize that the same EU that passed this current law is the driving force behind Apple Watch and iPhone not including the wall adapters in the box anymore…right?
That makes sense, and thank you for linking the source of this. I do like standardization for the most part. I imagine there may still be differences with the wireless charging standard, maybe a universal-sized plate for most devices, while I think the challenge will be standardizing a layout for the magnetic latching feature with so many different form factors.
Interesting that the article mentions they want to tackle laptop chargers next, I wonder if that will result in two ports, like what we already have: One for MagSafe, and one for USB-C charging.
Again, you provided no source for this legislation claim, and the article released today by the EU Parl only mentions “calls” for standardization, which is basically political theater and no real action, as I understand it. I do hope they standardize this, but saying legislation is in progress is very different.
I don’t understand your statement here. Didn’t the EU propose removing chargers from all boxes? And the iPad Pro uses USB-C, you didn’t have to buy an Apple charger.
It’s clear you’re very passionate about the quantity of different charging cables you own. I hope the industry moves quickly to adopt the new rules announced today.
The EU is giving the industry normally the “chance” to get the regulation to be done as a Industry standard, rather than a legislation.
And the source, you are asking for, could be found easily by everybody via a web search!
But for you here is a link of one of the statements you can found from official source on the matter.
Ihm not passionated about that, I just see the need for a regulation, as Apple is blocking an industrial standard now for more than a decade without a serious reason!
I find it hard to believe that the EU would ban something like MagSafe outright, especially when there are good and valid reasons that somebody would want a laptop power cord that disconnects magnetically.
I would bet that it would be a minimum standard that a laptop would be able to accept a USB-C charger. I think we’re at the point where manufacturers could make that happen without a ton of extra effort.
That would still be hard to standardize though, as the only true “universal” option would be to mandate that all laptops ship with a ginormous charger capable of powering any laptop.
I do too. My main problem with USB-C as it stands, however, is the stunning lack of multi-device charging options.
Take 4 USB-A cables. You can wander to the local store and buy a wall adapter that will handle all of them, and charge your 4 devices simultaneously. Max 2.4 amps, but all of them will get charged.
Now try that with USB-C. I’ve never even seen a 4-port USB-C charger, of any size, at any price. Which means that every individual USB-C device that you want to charge simultaneously requires its own wall-wart, and usually you find yourself needing additional power strips / wall taps to get everything plugged in properly.
I really like USB-C, and the ability to move more power along the charging wire. And being able to run my laptop off a little GaN brick and a standard, thin wire is awesome.
But for many use cases, especially charging lots of lower-power devices, it’s just not as good as plain ol’ USB-A. I hope they’ll find a way to fix that in the near-ish future.
You still can use an USB-C to USB-A cable under the new EU-Legislation for your devices.
The Legislation is about the “USB Type- C charging receptacle”, not about the cable in use.
You realize that there are not four USB C ports on that device, right?
Yes, but it is 2AM right now, I’m becoming tired, and I don’t do a market research at this time.
The point was, that there are already charger with multiple USB-C ports available, and it is pretty easy to find them…
Cool! I’ve searched numerous times, and every time I wind up getting chargers that are almost all USB-A and no USB-C.
Although it’s still irritating that this charger has a number of rules about which ports can be used for what, and whether or not you can use certain ports simultaneously.
Actually, it’s about both. The cable is the focus of the current standards process. The wall charger is the second phase, to be handled later this year.
ETA: Reference - Press corner | European Commission - under “Next Steps”.
Here you go …
Happy Charging!
This is not irritating, but has a technical reason.
The charger could spend up to 100W Max. This energy could be delivered to one device, or could be split between up to 4 devices, but not all 4 of them could be charged with 100W at the same time.
I think that there’s both a technical reason AND that it’s supremely irritating.
If you read the specs, it basically says you shouldn’t use the bottom two ports at the same time. And check the bolded part about using lightning cables and devices not charging.
If 3 ports or less than 3 ports are used simultaneously, it is recommended to use the C1/C2/A port first to ensure the maximum power output. Try not to use the C3 and A ports at the same time, because the power is lowest when using the two ports. If multiple devices are charged at the same time and one device is plugged or disconnected, other connected devices will pause and recharge for one second. This is due to the intelligent redistribution of the charging power, which is a normal situation. If you use a lightning cable and the lightning cable has an MFi chip, when plugging the charger in the MFi chip will always output a small current and the charger will detect that it is connected to the device. This causes the lightning device to be not charged after the other ports were plugged in and the power has been redistributed. Simply unplug and retract the lightning device to recharge the lightning device. If you use USB-C cable, this problem does not occur. Compatible with Swtich both in dock mode and handheld mode (15 V/2.6 A) with PD 3.0 and PPS fast charging.
It’s great that it’s documented. But a charger with ports, IMHO, shouldn’t require a user manual and diagrams noting which of the identical ports you’re allowed to use at the same time.
Yeah, that was my thought as well. I don’t know if the ginormous charger would be required, as it appears to me they’re going for standardized connectors that work across brands, and shipping a maximum-wattage USB-C brick would kind of defeat the goal of less e-waste, I think.
The other potential issue with requiring USB-C for laptops would be high performance gaming laptops, those things can pull 250-300+ watts. There’s one USB-C GaN charger that can deliver 240w but that’s not enough.
Oh yeah, and even if you do find options, they all have caveats, they’re expensive, and like the USB-C cable situation, very few guarantees of quality.
I think this is a good thing. We have iPhones that can shoot 4K 60fps video but have no reasonably fast way to get it off our phones.
Lightning moves data at USB 2.0 speeds 60 MBps, USB-C has USB 3.0 speed 640 MBps. Apple should have made the change years ago. In fact the Pro phones probably should have Thunderbolt ports.
I view the legislation as cleaning up behind the tendency of any human enterprise to leave the trash for someone else to clean up.
Now if they can only legislate that 5V power inputs must have a standard, we would need fewer of these.
To relate the two, should you ever need such a charger cable in the future, perhaps plan a trip to the Unclaimed Baggage in Scottsboro AL.
Your every wish in charger cable likely hangs somewhere on the wall. The shear clutter of it all is a statement in itself
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JJW
I “collected” three of them over the time, and still have no way to charge an old Nokia 6110, I wanted to give away, and make sure it is deleted. 