And everyone but Apple embraced the original specification[0]. Given Apple's previous moves, a heavier hand seems warranted.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_external_power_supply

To be fair to Apple, micro-USB was an inferior standard to lightning.

Lightning is a more durable design (in terms of plug/unplug cycles), had higher power capacity originally, and was reversible.

USB-C is also inferior to lightning for laptops, but here we are. It's got this stupid internal tongue on the recepticals that will break if you try and clean the port with an office standard paperclip with any real force.

Hope you don't do anything involving tiny particles like sand or wood or cloth (like is found inside of pocket in the form of lint)!

That "stupid internal tongue" is why USB-C can now carry 160 Gbps, while Lightning can only do 0.45 Gbps. Yes, it kinda sucks for cleaning, but it makes it future-proof.

Lightning is that limited because Apple chooses for it to be, not because of the port. They made a double-sided variant with high speed data before.

The port can't directly drive all the weird miscellaneous pins that USB-C because it only has 16 pins, but it does have four high speed lanes, the same as USB-C. On a physical level it can reach the same speeds.

"Use micro-usb or we will make you use it".

They absolutely did. "Sort it out or we will make a law" is what enforcement looks like.

Before that, everyone had their own variant of the barrel plug. A few crappy low price vendors just used micro usb instead, since they couldn't possibly have a proprietary moat to speak of anyway.

It's one of the examples where consumer legislation worked.

That wasn't legislation or enforcement.

That is the European way. Ask nicely first, push a little harder, threaten, then finally pass a law if the result hasn't been achieved.

You will note everyone except Apple did what the EU wanted early in this process.

I do note that. I'm not sure how that relates, though.