Doing so will mean the arrival of an iPhone with a USB-C port, although Apple can meet the new standards in another way. machiavellian: launching an iPhone without ports that can only be charged via induction.
MagSafe can deliver, but with homework ahead
A spokesman for the European Union already confirmed last year to the Verge that an iPhone without ports would continue to respect the new law. In fact, one of the pending duties that has remained in the regulation is to universalize wireless charging to avoid disparities between manufacturers. USB-C will be the standard but only if it includes physical ports.
But a portless iPhone couldn’t be released as-is without solving some remaining hurdles. Although we have become accustomed to synchronizing everything in the cloud, it would still be necessary a quick way to transfer data between iPhone and a computer, something that for now is fulfilled by means of a cable to go fast. An evolution of AirDrop or the use of the data transfer protocol used when migrating one iPhone to another could fix this problem.
Also worth mentioning is the problem of energy efficiency: When you charge an iPhone through the cable, you take advantage of all its voltage. When you do it by induction, some of that voltage is lost in the induction charging “contact”. An example: for MagSafe to charge the iPhone at 15W, 20W is consumed. That is 25% (5W) of energy that is lost along the way, and that becomes a huge waste if we multiply it by the hundreds of millions of iPhones that circulate around the world.
It is precisely Apple that advocates being a company that respects the environment as much as possible, and therefore energy efficiency you have to fit into that compromise. If an iPhone becomes completely reliant on MagSafe for charging, that lost power should be reduced as much as possible.
We should see the first compliances to the new law on the iPhone 15, according to rumors. And if not, Apple would still have time to meet the iPhones that should be presented in September 2024 if there are no changes to the schedule. It would be very fair, but it would still fit in the agenda.
Image | Charan S