EU laws have worldwide effects, there's no land of cable freedom anymore.

If Apple "only" ends up offering a certification mark for USB-C chargers that have been tested with the iPhone and makes that easily accessible, they might well be in the clear. If they try to add power delivery profiles that are unavailable to everyone else, chances are the EU will react.

Also, you are not banned from engineering other solutions. The police isn't going to knock on the doors of engineers who are suspected to develop better charging cables :)

> Also, you are not banned from engineering other solutions. The police isn't going to knock on the doors of engineers who are suspected to develop better charging cables :)

We are discussing under an article where the regulator has sent a "stern warning" to a company. I don't think what you're saying makes sense. If I tried to sell my better plug in my home market, the police would come knocking.

We are talking about new innovations, not something used for 100 years.

Not everything has to be sold in EU, there are plenty of things not available across all markets.

Not betting on your ability to come up with a new type of charging cable is not as big deal as you imagining it is. Maybe you should come up with a prototype before demanding all type of charging cables be allowed?

In fact, USB-C and magsafe are complementary. USB-C is commonly used by displays to provide docking station functionality, so I can buy any display and use it with any computer (instead of having to buy a proprietary docking station that is different for each model). If I'm travelling, I can enjoy the more robust magsafe connector but I can also use USB-C if needed.

In reality if you come up with some kind of better plug, you will sell to a specialist market that would recognize the benefits (dentists or musicians for example) and then expand into other markets. You could try selling direct to consumers but guess what, nobody would buy it unless it had connectivity with other devices, and manufacturers wouldn't go out of their way to adopt it unless it delivered overwhelming advantages at low additional cost.

I'm familiar with the narrative but I don't know any examples.

There is a clear push from European elites for a halt in progress, aiming to maintain a status quo and preserve their existing advantages. As progressives, it is crucial that we fight this to ensure that Europe continues to advance and we don't have all to emigrate to the US.

It is O.K. to have two or more different societies, those feeling like they need more freedom for business can go to the US. It definitely makes the US much more competitive but a lot of people like Europe the way it is.

EU is not some company in Belgium, it is made of elected and appointed people from all the EU countries. It's not like EU making up things that members didn't ask for. EU creating a regulation is not like Twitter forcing a new policy over its users.

The EU does opinion polls to find out what people's top concerns are. Guess what: mobile phone connectors, cookie popups, GDPR and all the other crap the EU engages in never gets anywhere even close to the top of the pile.

We saw what the EU does when a member asks for changes requested by their "EU citizens". It told the UK to fuck off and then threw a hissy fit when the Brits actually did so.

If UK wants to block travel and resident rights of EU citizens and keep access into EU markets, that's obviously where the EU has to say fuck off. Non-British have opinions too and the opinions are overweeningly that if you want to be in EU you have to have the same rights and obligations like everybody else. No one is obligated to provide others with privileges just because they threaten to leave, they are free to leave and enjoy not being in the club. Which is silly because all those "EU rules" are put in place together with the British anyway.

Speaking if opinion polls, here are some of the latest opinions polls of the British public on Brexit: https://redfieldandwiltonstrategies.com/joining-or-staying-o...

Even if you pretend the distance between voters and decision makers doesn't matter, here's a simple test: did your countries elected official vote for von der Leyen? You don't know the answer because the process by which she was selected is totally opaque by design. We don't even know if there was a vote at all. We don't know why she was selected. The MEPs were given a choice of her or nobody else. So please don't tell people that the EU is democratic or made up of "officials appointed by elected officials".

"If UK wants to block travel and resident rights of EU citizens and keep access into EU markets"

The EU granted residency rights automatically to everyone from the EU who was living there, and the EU still told everyone in the country to fuck off - including millions of those so-called "EU citizens" whose so-called rights suddenly stopped mattering.

But this is really a sideshow. The fact is, nobody in Europe was going on protest marches about USB-C or kettle speeds. The EU spends time on this stuff because it's made up of powerful but bubble-living bureaucrats who don't care and don't have to care about what matters to everyone else.

Anyway, you are entitled to believe in alternative facts. You are also entitled to believe that all EU does is regulating USB-C, that's fine. You are also free to believe that EU officials do things that no one cares or wants and keep getting elected.

> You are also free to believe that EU officials do things that no one cares or wants and keep getting elected.

The EU officials who create regulations are the Commissioners, who are not elected. That isn't an alternative fact, it's just a fact. I continue to be amazed at how EU supporters keep pretending this isn't the case. Can't tell if it's ignorance about their own political system or just too embarrassing to admit.

It's kinda hard to believe you seriously believe you might end up living in an Amish village. Perhaps you should visit the US and be surprised at how mediocre a lot of stuff is.

I lived in the US and while Europe (where I live now) has pretty old towns and manicured lawns I know that nothing modern and innovative comes from here: iPhone, software, SpaceX, even Tesla. Largest European company is a luxury brand and the most powerful economy in the EU turned out to be an empty shell controlled by and built on on cheap Russian energy. California alone dwarfs the largest EU countries put together.

No idea what corrosion you are talking about as I never encountered it. I don't need 240W to charge my iPhone, is't not a freaking Tesla and I prefer to prolong the battery life. I will give you the data bandwidth but I for laptops MagSafe is an even better charging port, and I hope someday for iPads too.

Choice is exactly what we had before the usb-c authoritarian mandate. Now it's only that for devices that are size-limited.

I am glad you are happy about your connector - but please understand I am not. I was happy with lightning and now I have to throw a bunch of cables away and replace them with an inferior (for me) alternative.