> USB-C is not much different than lightning for charging / connecting a phone...

As far as I understand, there are no Lightning cables that support anything over 18W. Data transfer tops at 480Mbps, or roughly USB 2.0 speeds.

These are specs many other companies have surpassed several years ago.

> ... so the blowback from consumers will be huge when all their accessories are no longer compatible with the next phone.

Apple is the same company that went through 4 different charging connectors for their MacBook line, in about 15 years: MagSafe, MagSafe 2, USB-C, and now MagSafe 3. Their iPad line is 12 years old and has gone through 3 different connectors: 30-pin, Lightning, and USB-C.

I fail to see how this one would be different.

There are orders of magnitude more iPhone/Lightning cable users in the world than Mac or iPad users.

How many of those users have only an iPhone?

If the iPhone had an USB-C connector, I could pretty much carry a single cable and charger for my laptop, my tablet, and my phone. So unless there is zero overlap between iPhone users and users of anything else, the point is moot.

Even worse, Apple stopped bundling a charger with their phones over three years ago. Instead, they ship a Lightning to USB-C cable, but they bundle an USB-C charger only for a year after the release of the iPhone X, effectively forcing their customers to buy USB-C hardware anyway.

Sure, you can now carry 1 less cable. That's a win, but it's not some monumental change people try to make it out to be. When I travel I will still carry multiple cables since I need to usually charge more than one device at a time. But now they can be the same cable.

They can be, but in practice you’ll want a cable capable of at least 60 W for the laptop. So now you either have to carry all the same high power cable (more expensive and wasteful) or give up on the benefit of having one type of cable to begin with.

Meanwhile apple switched the connector for both their laptop and their iPad. So clearly they aren't afraid of blowback.

iPhone sales are 10x that of iPad and MacBooks combined.

But it's not like sales of the MacBook cratered after the switch to C. There was hardly a blip. So no blowback.

You must not have been here for years that people whined about the MacBook getting rid of MagSafe and how it only had USB-C ports. How quickly we forget. "No blowback" is the completely opposite of the truth. Consumers aren't going to give a shit what some foreign government mandated, they're going to be pissed at Apple that they need to buy all new cables.

> Consumers aren't going to give a shit what some foreign government mandated, they're going to be pissed at Apple that they need to buy all new cables.

For sure, but only if Apple wouldn't provide such cables, which they do.

Currently, cables bundled with iPhones are Lightning to USB-C. It has been like this for several years.

I suspect that the kind of person who would buy a new $1,000+ phone with an USB-C to USB-C cable in the box, and bitch and moan about the $30 worth of Lightning cables about to end in the trash, is the same who vociferously complain on the Internet and then still buy the next years version.

I know there was some blowback online but the reality is that it was just a vocal minority, otherwise again, we would see the actual sales impact.

My impression has always been that, at least online, there was quite a bit of criticism to Apple for switching to USB-C so soon. Or was it because now dongles were needed?

iPhones have come without chargers for a few years now.

Ironically enough, they come with a Lightning to USB-C cable. Users would need to buy their own USB-C chargers anyway.

And here we are, arguing about cables.

Except lightning also still operates at USB 2.0 speeds - so if you don't want to trust Apple with your data in iCloud backups (which as it's not E2EE encrypted is foolhardy, plus you have to pay for a higher tier for any phone with more than 5GB of personal data) it takes an absolute age.