This undoubtedly is the case in some areas, but careful not to stereotype or broad brush, reality is often less simplistic which I know some in our country would prefer not to be the case, when I was involved with such things a few years ago, some British standards had to be waived to align with lesser demanding EU standards… ironically they were standards affecting domestic electrical noise pollution which I think many of us are reliant on to fully enjoy our Hi-Fi equipment.
There’s also the environmental benefit - more standardisation should mean less of the depressing collections of chargers etc. that we all have (as @GadgetMan pointed out), many of which are redundant but you can never be sure what you’ll need to charge tomorrow so we tend to hold on to them.
It saddens me to think how much of the Earth’s resources have been squandered in the past making charger plugs that do the same job but which are trivially different in size or shape, just enough to make them unusable in most devices. We could have prevented that by standardising a long time ago, but the commercial incentive to tie customers to a particular manufacturer’s standard sadly trumped the better long-term option.
Mark
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I don’t agree with the stated objective, which is apparently because everyone ends up with a number of cables with different plugs on the end.
- So what?
- We’ll still have lots of cables. Just with similar plugs on.
Pointless.
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Presumably the EU chose USB C because it is a robust connection, rated for at least 10,000 connect-disconnect cycles.
So. Devices with less robust connectors will fail sooner, resulting in the consumers having their devices repaired or replaced sooner.
That’s bad for the consumer but good for the manufacturer. No wonder some of them are complaining. 
After having to go through the rigmarole of getting new chargers and interconnecting USB cables for the wife’s new iphone (I told here to get Android!), so now we have two sets for the house and car, I think this is a good thing!
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By why can’t it be left to consumer choice for the device connector…
From a world resources point of view we should be challenging built in obsolescence more of things like phones, that in itself will address this connector waste objective. But I suspect the lobbyists of some consumer electronics manufacturers have done their stuff (and they are pretty good in my experience) here in the EU gov so we have this tokenism instead.
Yes lobbyists work in national gov as well, but I only have first hand experience of EU government lobbyists in consumer electronics.
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How can it be made a consumer choice? The decision as to what charger+cable+connector is taken out of your hands by the manufacturer. If there was a choice of an iphone with a USBC I would have taken it though, being very naive wrt to apple products, I had assumed it WAS going to be USB C.
That, and already being the most prevalent. The vast majority of recent phones and many laptops already use it. I think it’s mainly Apple to will have to adapt.
In addition, Apple’s connector being exclusive to them, that wasn’t really an option I think.
Not sure if there’s anything newer, better and open on the horizon that could have been chosen.
exactly!! you can choose which product or manufacturer to buy… and if its advantageous for a manufacturer - they will adopt it.
Now I agree that signposting could be made clearer for consumers - like dietary advice of packaged foods - so you could say clearly in prominent parts of the product packing whether its USB C compliant or USB D compliant (when that appears) - but mandating a fixed interface where it is not clear how advancements or innovation is catered for seems short sighted and actually disadvantaging the consumer in the long run for no real gain that I can see.
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I thought Apple were moving to USB-C anyhow - both my MacBook Air and iPad use USB-C connections.
I don’t see why adopting a standard inhibits innovation although it would probably make its introduction slower as it would involve industry agreement and regulatory approval before it could be introduced.
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Not according to Apple - although they have adopted USB C on their iPad Pro models.
On some of their computing platforms they adopt some composite USB C/ Thunderbolt interfaces - such as on my iMac .
But the point was about mandating such interfaces whether they were optimum or not - such as on small mobile phone devices
Not sure if this is going to work for the average iphone customer who has a divine. religious attitude toward apple products 
i.e. they’ll buy the product no matter what.
sure - but isn’t that consumer choice though? if they want a USB C charger connector for their mobile phone it sounds like they won’t be buying an iPhone unless they buy it from within the EU
Yes, I suppose it is.
Indeed, I do like to have a choice in what I buy. However iPhone is still the number one for me. And I do get to play with many phone that come out, every week it seems, for my job.
As for the the measurement debate. Yes I think it’s time the UK and US join the rest of the world in the 21st century 
All the best! From the UK
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I thought it was in Groats…
It’s most unlikely that the UK will be offered a different Apple SKU from the EU.
If Apple move to USB-C for the EU then this will also happen for the UK.
Of course… Apple may circumvent this by moving to wireless charging.
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I hope not - it’s not as efficient as a wired connection.
I’m certainly not convinced that (EU) legislators are the best people to drive these changes. I must say that the one persistent problem I’ve had with iPhones is that the lightning pins can fail to make contact. Sometimes rectified by re-insertion, sometimes requiring a replacement cable. So perhaps there is room for improvement here, as I have never experienced this problem with other connectors.
One of the problems is that many will already have amassed loads of lighnting cables /adapters/dock connectors etc so if not buying a USB C device from scratch this may also leave a lot of waste - new cables for cars, home, office, peripherals. Far from ideal.
Naturally Apple will just produce ‘adapters’ at ridiculous prices!