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Apple will “comply” with European Union regulation that requires electronic devices to be equipped with USB-C charging, said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing. That will mean Apple’s iPhones, which currently use its proprietary Lightning charging standard, will need to change to support USB-C.

Jakub Porzyck | Nurphoto | Getty Images

The next iPhones, expected in September as usual, could have a feature that no iPhone has ever had: a generic charging port.

The new iPhone models could include a USB Type-C charger port on the phone’s bottom, according to analysts and media reports. That’s the same charging port that’s used on nearly every laptop sold in the past few years, as well as Android phones, iPads, and other gadgets from Kindles to headphones to drones and heated blankets.

The USB-C connector would replace Apple’s proprietary port, the Lightning port, which has graced the bottom of every iPhone model released since 2012.

The shift would be one of the biggest improvements to the iPhone in years for consumers.

IPhone users would no longer need to bring two different cables for their phone and other gadgets while traveling. Android users could borrow chargers from people who own iPhones. You could borrow chargers from anyone using a newer laptop. Schools and businesses could standardize on one type of charger for their entire fleet of devices. USB-C could even allow iPhones to access faster charging speeds.

While Apple hasn’t confirmed that its new iPhones will feature a USB-C charging port, and didn’t respond to a request for comment, the change is bound to happen.

A new regulation passed by the European Union last year requires USB-C ports on new smartphones by 2024. Apple is unlikely to produce an iPhone model solely for the European market. “Obviously, we’ll have to comply,” Greg Joswiak, Apple’s chief marketer, said last year.

Consumer benefits, like the reduced “lock-in” to a single manufacturer, helped form the reasoning behind the new regulations. The EU estimates the rule could save Europeans 250 million euros per year on chargers. The EU also said old chargers account for about 11,000 tons of e-waste per year in the region.

Apple opposed the law. In a 2021 letter, Apple said that the regulation would hamper future charging innovation, could require it to take devices off the market early, and could confuse consumers with additional information.

“We are concerned that regulation mandating just one type of connector for all devices on the market will harm European consumers by slowing down the introduction of beneficial innovations in charging standards, including those related to safety and energy efficiency,” Apple said in the letter.

USB type-c hub connected to laptop with lot of cables connected for peripheral computer device equipment

Pavel Balanenko | Getty Images

Whenever Apple changes the ports on its devices, skeptics believe it’s just an effort to make more money on its premium-priced cables. Apple’s most capable USB-C cable retails for $39.

For example, when Apple added USB-C chargers to MacBook laptops starting in 2015, it drew jokes about the dongles required to plug older accessories into the new laptops.

When Apple removed the iPhone headphone jack in 2016, it spurred months of commentary, both for and against the “courageous” change, whether Apple was pushing people to its more expensive wireless AirPods, and still inspires takes today about whether it was the right decision (most Android phones have followed suit.)

But while Apple makes money from its cables, and has a program where accessory makers pay for access and official Apple parts called “MFi,” Apple’s strategic focus is making sure that its products work together without major flaws so its users continue to buy new iPhones. It’s not nickel and diming dongles and accessories.

Cable sales are reported in Apple’s Wearables, Home, and Accessories product line, which reported $41 billion in revenue in 2022, although Apple Watches and headphones make up the majority of the sales. That’s much smaller than the $205 billion in iPhone sales Apple reported during the year.

Possible downsides

Apple’s argument that a new charger will cause confusion holds more water. With the Lightning port, companies that wanted to make officially approved accessories have to apply for Apple’s program, and pay for access to specifications and official Apple parts. For consumers, this meant that while there were a few knockoff Lightning devices to avoid, at most stores, the dock or clock or cable users purchased would just work.

USB-C is a different beast. It’s a “standard,” which means the exact specifications are published by a group of companies and individuals working together. Anyone can use those specifications to build cables, and you don’t need to enroll in an Apple-administered program.

This also means that many iPhone users will learn that not all cables with a USB-C connector are created equal. Some cables can transfer data quickly, and some can’t. Back when the standard was first introduced, some cables could even cause damage to devices because they were misconfigured (though this hasn’t been as common in recent years.) Some cables even support “Thunderbolt,” a modern data transfer standard for powerful accessories like monitors or docks, although at a higher price. There are websites that test and approve cables that are “compliant” with the standard USB-C standard.

Apple will likely let users know if their cable is appropriate to charge their phone through software warnings, what it carries at its retail operation, and through its MFi program.

But it’s clear that the charger port switch raises possibilities for frustrating situations that didn’t exist when Apple stuck with its proprietary charger. Apple’s current troubleshooting document for USB-C charging issues on Mac tells users to test with Apple’s official cables and power adapters.

The world won’t change overnight when Apple’s iPhones have USB-C ports. Apple still develops some of its own proprietary charging standards, such as MagSafe, which uses magnets to affix a charging puck to the back of an iPhone. Its Apple Watch uses a unique magnetic charger as well. Even after using USB-C as the only charging port on its MacBook laptops for years, Apple recently introduced a proprietary magnetic charger on recent models.

Eventually, Apple watchers predict, the company is likely to try to remove ports entirely from the iPhone, but until then, Apple aficionados with multiple products will still need to carry several different charging cables.

Still, the USB-C port is still a step in the right direction for iPhone users, even if Apple is grumbling along the way. Apple preferred an approach that would standardize charging bricks, but allowed cables to be specific for a type of device.

“What that allows you to do is have over a billion people — it’s not a small number of people have that connector on the left [pointing to the Lightning cable] — to be able to use what they have already, and not have to be disrupted,” Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing Greg Jozwiak said last year.

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E-commerce firm Shopee agreed to adjust its practices in Indonesia after watchdog says it violated competition law

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E-commerce firm Shopee agreed to adjust its practices in Indonesia after watchdog says it violated competition law

BRAZIL – 2022/03/22: In this photo illustration, a woman’s silhouette holds a smartphone with a Shopee logo in the background. (Photo Illustration by Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Rafael Henrique | Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

Shopee and its courier service Shopee Express agreed to adjust its current practices after admitting to breaching a competition rule in Indonesia, the country’s watchdog said on Wednesday.

Shopee is the e-commerce arm of Southeast Asian tech giant Sea Limited.

“Shopee and Shopee Express admitted that they had violated Law no. 5 of 1999, regarding delivery (courier) services on the Shopee platform by agreeing to various behavioral change points determined by the KPPU Council in the hearing yesterday,” Indonesia Competition Commission Komisi Pengawas Persaingan Usaha said in a Google-translated statement.

KPPU said Shopee proposed adjustments to its current practices on June 20 which were approved by the commission council.

“Shopee Indonesia attended a meeting with KPPU on 25 June to discuss points of the integrity pact that was shared by KPPU last week. On 20 June, Shopee proposed changes to our user interface to enhance our services and demonstrate our compliance in providing the best services to our users, in accordance with the feedback provided and approved by the KPPU,” Radynal Nataprawira, head of public affairs at Shopee Indonesia, told CNBC in emailed comments.

“Shopee is always committed to complying with all applicable regulations and laws in the Republic of Indonesia in conducting our business operations,” said Nataprawira.

Last month, KPPU revealed its preliminary investigation found that Shopee allegedly prioritized Shopee Express in every package delivery to consumers.

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The watchdog also accused Shopee of “discriminatory behavior,” saying Shopee Express and another delivery service J&T Express were “automatically activated en masse on the seller dashboard” while other companies that also have good service performance did not get selected automatically.

KPPU investigators also named an employee who held director positions in both Shopee Indonesia and Shopee Express, saying this “dual position” has the ability to influence competition and control the behavior of both companies.

KPPU is also probing Shopee rival Lazada, the Southeast Asian e-commerce arm of Chinese tech giant Alibaba, saying it has found indications of similar violations.

“If it is later proven to have violated, Lazada can be subject to a fine of a maximum of 50% of the net profit or 10% of the total sales it earned in the relevant market during the period of the violation,” KPPU said in a statement last month.

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Europe is at risk of over-restricting AI and falling behind U.S. and China, Dutch prince says  

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Europe is at risk of over-restricting AI and falling behind U.S. and China, Dutch prince says  

Prince Constantijn is special envoy to Techleap, a Dutch startup accelerator.

Patrick Van Katwijk | Getty Images

AMSTERDAM — Europe is at risk of falling behind the U.S. and China on artificial intelligence as it focuses on regulating the technology, according to Prince Constantijn of the Netherlands.

“Our ambition seems to be limited to being good regulators,” Constantijn told CNBC in an interview on the sidelines of the Money 20/20 fintech conference in Amsterdam earlier this month.

Prince Constantijn is the third and youngest son of former Dutch Queen Beatrix and the younger brother of reigning Dutch King Willem-Alexander.

He is special envoy of the Dutch startup accelerator Techleap, where he works to help local startups grow fast internationally by improving their access to capital, market, talent, and technologies.

“We’ve seen this in the data space [with GDPR], we’ve seen this now in the platform space, and now with the AI space,” Constantijn added.

European Union regulators have taken a tough approach to artificial intelligence, with formal regulations limiting how developers and companies can apply the technology in certain scenarios.

The bloc gave final approval to the EU AI Act, a ground-breaking AI law, last month.

Officials are concerned by how quickly the technology is advancing and risks it poses around jobs displacement, privacy, and algorithmic bias.

The law takes a risk-based approach to artificial intelligence, meaning that different applications of the tech are treated differently depending on their risk level.

For generative AI applications, the EU AI Act sets out clear transparency requirements and copyright rules.

All generative AI systems would have to make it possible to prevent illegal output, to disclose if content is produced by AI and to publish summaries of the copyrighted data used for training purposes.

But the EU’s Ai Act requires even stricter scrutiny for high-impact, general-purpose AI models that could pose “systemic risk,” such as OpenAI’s GPT-4 — including thorough evaluations and compulsory reporting of any “serious incidents.”

Prince Constantijn said he’s “really concerned” that the Europe’s focus has been more on regulating AI than trying to become a leader innovating in the space.

“It’s good to have guardrails. We want to bring clarity to the market, predictability and all that,” he told CNBC earlier this month on the sidelines of Money 20/20. “But it’s very hard to do that in such a fast-moving space.”

“There are big risks in getting it wrong, and like we’ve seen in genetically modified organisms, it hasn’t stopped the development. It just stopped Europe developing it, and now we are consumers of the product, rather than producers able to influence the market as it develops.”

Between 1994 and 2004, the EU had imposed an effective moratorium on new approvals of genetically modified crops over perceived health risks associated with them.

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The bloc subsequently developed strict rules for GMOs, citing a need to protect citizens’ health and the environment. The U.S. National Academies of Sciences says that genetically modified crops are safe for both human consumption and the environment.

Constantijn added that Europe is making it “quite hard” for itself to innovate in AI due to “big restrictions on data,” particularly when it comes to sectors like health and medical science.

In addition, the U.S. market is “a much bigger and unified market” with more free-flowing capital, Constantijn said. On these points he added, “Europe scores quite poorly.”

“Where we score well is, I think, on talent,” he said. “We score well on technology itself.”

Plus, when it comes to developing applications that use AI, “Europe is definitely going to be competitive,” Constantijn noted. He nevertheless added that “the underlying data infrastructure and IT infrastructure is something we’ll keep depending on large platforms to provide.”

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Waymo opens robotaxi service to all San Francisco users

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Waymo opens robotaxi service to all San Francisco users

A Waymo rider-only robotaxi is seen during a test ride in San Francisco on Dec. 9, 2022.

Paresh Dave | Reuters

Waymo robotaxis are now open to all users in San Francisco, expanding the self-driving ride-hailing service, which has been available in the city to a limited number of riders.

In a blog post on Tuesday, Waymo said nearly 300,000 people have signed up for the service, called Waymo One, since the Alphabet-owned company opened its waitlist. The company began commercial passenger operations in August after a period of testing.

“We’re committed to growing our service gradually and responsibly,” Waymo said in the post. “We work closely with city and state officials, first responders, and advocates for road safety to ensure our service helps local communities gain access to reliable, safe, environmentally friendly transportation and has a positive impact on mobility.”

It is the second citywide rollout for Waymo, following Phoenix in 2020. Waymo One also operates in limited capacity in Los Angeles and Austin, Texas. As of February, the company had approximately 700 vehicles in the Waymo One fleet, including about 300 cars as part of its San Francisco service.

Driverless vehicles have faced some public backlash in recent months following collisions and other accidents. In October, General Motors’ Cruise autonomous vehicle unit paused all driverless operations after collisions led to investigations and a suspension of its licenses in California.

However, Waymo has experienced less controversy. The company has a large public affairs operation and communicates closely with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and local first responders.

In total, the 15-year-old project, which became Waymo in 2016, has driven about 20 million fully autonomous miles and nearly two million paid ride-hail trips, Waymo said. The company said it has logged 3.8 million rider-only miles in San Francisco as of the end of March.  

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