3mo ago

After charger, Apple removes USB-C cable from the box

www.gizmochina.com Just a moment...

173 comments

After being forced to standardise to usb c and be responsible for some of the e-waste it produces, apple has finally relented.
They fought tooth and nail against the EU regulations to force charging standards. I don't care if they up sell cables to some people; most people will reuse what they have and thats the whole point of the regulations.
Regulation works.
- They transitioned most of their devices to usb save the iPhone before the EU legislation went into effect.
  Apple caught shit for going USB-C only on their laptops years ago.
  
  Exactly, and it's still kind of annoying years later on my work laptop (2019 Macbook Pro). I got a USB hub and now I get all those other ports, but that wouldn't have been necessary if they just gave me an HDMI and USB-A port. The newer M-series Macbook Pros went back to having HDMI, which is really nice.
  I wish everything I had was the same port, but I'm not going to go out and repurchase everything to standardize on one plug.
  
  They switched back to the much more durable MagSafe (3?) connector. I have 3 MagSafe MacBooks and one usc-c model. The only one I have issues not charging is the USB-C one, and it’s the newest by 2 years.
- Not if ~~when~~ they add a chip in the official Apple cable that the iPhone/iPad/iwhatever checks for, and refuses to properly charge or transfer data without it. At this point, a generic USBC will only work for a short time, before the device rejects it, forcing you to bin it and buy a new one, which negates the benefits of the regulation. Regulations do work, but they have to be thorough, and this one isn't covering all the corners.
  Edit: changes when to if. It was causing confusion as to what I meant.
  
  I too like to get mad at made up scenarios
  
  Is this true?

It's fine if they reduce the price accordingly.
If it's still the same price after they take the cable out, it was never about reducing waste to begin with.
Knowing Apple, that wouldn't surprise me in the slightest, which is why I never have and never will own any of their products.
- Adjusted for inflation, last years 15 was $827.
  The base 16 is $800 and a separate USB C cable from Apple is about $20 for 1m and $30 for 2m.
  So, if you buy a phone and cable, you’re spending about as much as you did last year, adjusting for inflation.
  I don’t know why I just wasted all that time calculating that. I need to get a life.
  
  But here's the question: does it cost Apple $20 to make a cable? I seriously doubt it. It probably costs them closer to 20 cents per cable. So in reality, they now make approximately $20 more from every sale than they did before.
  Sure, not everyone is buying a cable with every phone. But cables get lost, they wear out, they get stolen by your kids to charge their iPhones because they broke theirs, they get chewed up by pets, etc.
  And you can bet your ass that, just like any other high-margin item, the people in the Apple store are gonna be incentivized like hell to get every customer to buy a cable with their phone whether they really need it or not:
  Do you have a charging cable?
  Is it an Apple cable?
  Are you sure you have one that's USB-C and supports USB Power Delivery?
  And it's not worn out?
  You say your dog chewed on it a little but it's mostly intact and still works?
  Well, I'd recommend getting a new one anyway.
  Yeah you can get your own if you want but it's best if you get an Apple cable.
  OK great, that comes out to $820 total. And do you want to insure your phone for $5 a month?
  
  The removed the cable from the box of the AirPods 4, not iPhone.
- well..by selling both the cable and wall adapter as separate items it doubles the packaging by necessity so it was still never about reducing waste
  which is why I never have and never will own any of their products.
  ✊👍
  
  I’m not going to defend Apple’s profit maximization strategy here, but I disagree. Most people won’t end up buying a cable and adaptare because they already have one, and in contrast to those pieces made of plastic and metal, the packaging is mostly made of paper. I’m pretty confident that the reduction in plastic and metal makes up for the extra packaging that’s produced for the minority that does buy a cable and/or adapter.
- I don't care if they keep the extra couple cents they saved on not giving the cable. I fucking hate getting extra e-junk with my electronics. I hate getting new cables just like I fucking hated getting shitty headsets with pre-smart phones. Nobody used them regardless. For all I care all battery-powered electronics, including laptops, could very well come without chargers and standardised cables, just with large warning on the box (like the one on cigarette packs). That was the fucking point of this EU regulation, to reduce e-junk
  
  The worst to me is everyone now including a shitty bag to put the product in. Like it MAYBE makes sense to include a case for travel headphones or something but no I do not need you to include something for me to put the external SSD drive in.
  
  My Nintendo 3ds came without a charger nor cable, and it blew my mind at that time 😆 but to be fair, the 3ds does not exactly have a standard port, even if it is designed to charge using 5v 500mA.
  I ended up buying a third party 3ds to USB-A cable…

I honestly can't be mad at this point because what they SHOULD do is sell cables in bulk packaging to the Apple store, and then when they sell a phone they say "Do you need a USB cable? Free with the phone." If they say "No we're okay I've got hundreds of them by now" no problem, if they say "Yeah in fact can I get two?" Sure. Same with chargers. Of course this is Apple we're talking about, so they're probably $69.99 each.
- There is a good Adam Savage video on yt about the engineering of the thunderbolt or whatever cables.
  They still should be shipped in bulk to the store but it makes more sense why they wouldn't be given away free
  
  iPhones don't come with those expensive high-bandwidth cables, they come with charging cables that only do USB 2.0
  
  I could understand if you were buying a pay-as-you-go phone on the cheap... but this is an iPhone you're talking about. What's the minimum, $799? I think they can afford to toss a cable your way if you need one.

As long as a standard "unblessed" usb-c cable will work fully with the phone it's non-issue.
- I don't get why even use their "blessed" hardware.
  When I was at school, a few things made me want it:
  Apple was still kinda fine back then, playing nice with FOSS community;
  I had good memories from using QuickTime under Windows 2000;
  I've been Jobswashed by a few books for kids saying how innovative he was;
  I had a PSP, it was really cool to use for listening to music, playing games, reading books in the Web (over wi-fi) and even Skype, and I thought iPhones seem kinda similar;
  I was possessed by imitated (was bored, wanted to feel something real and heroic) romantic feelings and real (bright hair, greenish-gray eyes, warm smile, subtle voice, and at that moment she seemed intelligent and nice ; turned out not as honest though) sexual desire of one girl who had an iPhone, a perfect product placement, one can say;
  Apple's UIs back then seemed very usable, only later I actually tried them and realized that even Windows makes me less furious;
  It still wasn't today's Apple, they seemed trustworthy.
  None of this applies today.
  
  One exception nowadays: Business notebooks - and that's only because the rest of the notebook market went to shit. If you want a somewhat compact notebook with more than 64GB of RAM, decent CPU performance and good battery life Apple currently is the only one offering something.
  
  Because you’re getting a product that you know isn’t a cheap knockoff that will burn your house down, and you know it will charge your phone at the fastest speed it’s capable of.
  You can of course get the same experience buying third party, but then you have to spend time doing research on which one to buy for your device, and the reputable third party brands can cost just as much as the Apple ones anyway.
- Surely. /s

fear not you can buy an apple magic connector for just $60
- Probably runs at usb2 speed and charges at 5w.

Next step: Apple removes hardware from box and ships aspiration only.
- They have a concept of hardware
  
  With theoretically chamfered edges.
- Courage! Think(ing) Different!
- I don't know why but that sounds like something Jony Ive would come up with

Now it’s just a fuck you at this point
- I dunno, I have so many USB c chargers and cables around that I bin them every time a device comes with another cable.
  
  Agreed, but Apple removes things from the box, and the price stays the same...
  
  I honestly still hardly have any (spare) USB-C cables, and while I’d never pay for one I always do find the official Apple ones quite reliable.
  
  I don't know, mine keep breaking every few years around the device. I think it's because I sometimes grab the phone without realizing I was charging it
  
  At least keep a box of cables and donate it to an electronics recycling or a electronics upcycling store (ReUse, NextStep).

For me this would mostly be a non-issue. I’ve got enough extra USB-C cables that I don’t even unwrap the ones Apple has been shipping. Not to mention that I’m pretty used to charging my AirPods via MagSafe these days anyway.
- If I send you an address can you ship some extras, mine seem to die or you get ones that are only 4inches long with something. Throw in that now many devices only have USB C on both ends so your last phone that sold with a USB A to USB C cord, that no longer plugs into new devices, I am always at a shortage.
  
  The 4 inch ones are awesome! I have a whole collection of different 4 inch cables for when I travel, and for when I take my laptop to the cafe. They're also great for microcontrollers, like the mouse jiggler I made from a pico 2040.
  
  If I knew you locally, I’d be open to giving it away. But with the cost of shipping even light usb cables, I think buying a UGREEN cable from Amazon might cost about the same.

Now, Apple might argue that they’re being environmentally conscious by reducing packaging waste. That’s a fair point,
It isn't... That's like not flushing the toilet in a public bathroom to "save water"
- Flushing two toilets because there is all the packaging and shipping for the separate apple branded cables.

Next up: you have to buy the box first, which is empty. Then you can buy the phone. No box? No phone.
- And then you'll buy the phone but the screen is sold separately.
  
  WiFi connection? Monthly subscription.
  
  No, that would make it too easy to do third-party screen repairs. Apple wouldn't allow that...

Why even have a box at this point? Just put the phone in the mail by itself, it's durable right?

They should remove the USB-C ports, so you have to send it back to Apple for charging
- Soon as we can figure out micro nuclear reactors it may actually work that way!
  
  Beta-voltaic batteries are already a thing.

But what about ... new users entering the Apple ecosystem?
What ecosystem do they think people are coming from where they didn’t already have a USB C cable or wireless charger?
EDIT: This refers only to the new Airpods, not to iPhones. iPhones still come with a charging cable.
- First phone.
  
  This is about Airpods. The phone still includes the cable.
  
  Then just buy a cable.
- Most phones shipped with USB a to USB c, that is not supported by many new devices. You need a USB c to USB C. If I pay over $800 dollars for something, I really shouldn't be wondering if I can properly get it to charge.
  Also, at what speed is it going to charge? If it charges slower with your old charger that you got from your last phone... Then you should supply the one that provides the speed I paid $800 dollars for.
  This was why even Microsoft ships a new Xbox with a Controller, even though you can use your old controller with it.
  Edit: That said, there has to be cut offs somewhere about features not being supplied, it's not cut and dry
  
  This is for the cheaper AirPods and the iPhone. Unlikely that they will not ship a cable with a phone. The article is just clickbait to make it seem like it’s for all the devices.
- Many people don't know usb-c cable is universal, and apple only advertises chargeing iphone with macbook and ipad charger.
  I imagine most of these people use an iPhone, and they will certainly waste their money on an "Apple cable".
  Plus many of these tech-illiterate people are likely on a lighting iPhone with a barrel jack Windows, they won't even know they need a new charging cable until they realize their old lighting cables don't work.
  
  And USB-C cables aren't universal, I imagine a bunch of the cables you have can't handle the higher voltage charging Macbooks have. But if your cable is capable of a higher standard, it'll work fine with anything below it (e.g. I use my Macbook Pro charger to charge my Android phone, keyboard, and mouse all the time).
  
  This isn’t relevant to people purchasing iPhones, as those come with a cable. This is only relevant to people purchasing the newest Airpods.
- How about current IPhone users who have nothing but lightning cables and decide to upgrade to the new USB-C model?
  
  Anyone buying a new iPhone still gets a USB C cable. This only applies to Airpods.
  
  Oh no. Buy one then and be done with it. Oops.

Final step would be to remove the phone from the box. They would do world a favor.
- I was just thinking either box or the phone has to go next.
- It would probably be an important step, considering the article is about AirPod 4 boxes.
- Price wouldn't change.
- https://youtu.be/1AdsCj4eSWE
  Any moment now..

Apple: As long as we can gaslight you into thinking we're classy, we can do whatever the fuck we want

Yet more proof that Apple has ceased to be an innovator that adds features to phones and now takes things away and leaves it to fans to make up justifications for it.
- They're still innovating, especially when it comes to shareholder profits
- Removing things is also innovation
  Or do you still miss the VGA connector? A floppy disk drive? DVD drive in a laptop?
  
  Those were replaced with better tech that did the exact same thing. VGA - DVI - HDMI - Display Port.
  I don’t know about you, but I still have one DVD hooked up. Because I have the option to. Not because the motherboard maker took away all the SATA ports and told me I had to buy a special proprietary dongle or plug to fit the replacement.
  
  I still use most of these regularly, because I don't waste money on anti-green Apple products.

The Pixel Buds don't ship with a cable either.

Important to note that they removed the cable from the AirPod 4’s box, not the iPhone’s. They are also not the first company to do this.

But cables wear out.
- Agreed. The life of a phone includes multiple cables (unless someone here knows some trick I don't), so including OEM hardware that's tested and recommended for the device is great and I wish it were still standard. Phone manufacturers not including parts that they still sell separately seems to have little to do with environmentalism/conservation and much to do with profits.
  
  I've used the same cables for years with no problem. You don't yank them out of ports using the strand, you don't stress the connectors by winding tightly or making them bend at sharp angles and just treat them with care.
  
  On the contrary, I've had a USB cable last multiple phones before. I think the trick is to avoid using it when it's plugged in as much as possible. Another common pitfall is that microfiber (pocket lint) can build up in the charging port over months and years, resulting in a poor connection. You can usually remove this by turning the phone off and using the tip of a wooden toothpick to gently scrape out the lint.
  I definitely think they should include a cable in the box though.
  
  No? I use the same usb cable and QC3 charger I got with my 2016 Xiaomi
- Sure but also I literally have a whole box of cables, and if/when I actually need a new cable I can buy the Amazon Basics $5 cable.
  Alternatively, if you really care about having the Brand Name Cable, consider this a $20 price hike.
  Seriously this is such a petty issue there are much bigger things to complain about.
- It very much comes down to how you use them. Within my household, I don’t think I’ve ever had an Apple cable go bad. However I’ve had third party bad from purchase, and my teens go through cables every 6-12 months.
  What kind of abuse do your cables go through?
  do you pull from the hard plastic or the cable?
  are they on the floor being stepped on or with chairs rolling over them?
  when carrying are they just stuffed in your backpack or neatly rolled up in a plastic pocket or in a baggie?
  when tangled, do you just pull harder or do you untangle?

I'm all for it IF the cable is provided for free on demand to 0,001% of customers who happen to not have one. I have a separate drawer for all my extra usb C and micro usb cables which come with random electronics which I feel bad just throwing in the trash but I know I'll never need.
- If they were free on demand for people who asked with their purchase:
  None of the people who need them would get them.
  Most of the ones that did get handed out would still be to people who never used them.
  
  Why is that?

When do they start removing the phones from the boxes?
- Lucky you! They never offered a phone in the AirPods boxes.

Are we running out of things to get mad about?
- No, it's just that our energy is directed at the US election, and that's not relevant to this community.
  We'll get back to our normal tech angst sometime after November.
- I just don't like how Apple spreads corporate bullshit like how they claim they do this to be more "green"

2030: After headphone jacks, Apple removes USB-C charging ports in favor of wireless charging.
- You misspelled 2026.

Just remove the box and ship the phone naked

Once the phone runs out of battery, send it to warranty repair

apple moment

Frankly, I don't see much of a problem with this.
They'll sell the "Apple" charging cable for $40 or something fucking insane, but as long as you can buy and use a normal USB-C cable that does exactly the same thing, go for it.
Of course being Apple, they will probably void the warranty or add an identifier to their cables so that nothing else works. In that case, I hope the EU bankrupts them completely.

They are a huge tech company. They should have a checkbox in the checkout flow that lets you add a free cable if you need one.

I don’t love it, but I guess it does remove some e-waste. I don’t use any of the original cables for my headphone or my phone.
- Really? Send them to me. The cables they come with are always really nice and I know they'll support the data rates and powers the device can use.
  
  I’m not denying their quality. I have just been using my original oculus quest and my steam deck charger for my phone, tablet and headphones.
  
  There's not a data connection for this device?

I've already got a charger for every room of the house and every vehicle I drive, so I'm don't really care about that, but I'd be peeved if I didn't even get a cable.

Everyone I know has at least 10 USB-C cables lying around, what's the point of shipping more e-waste?

Ok, let's be real here. A charger can last a decade even if the charging speed slows...a cord will not outlast a phone. If it does, there's a serious issue
- I see you've been using apple cables. Other cables will absolutely last ten years or more.

Good, I don't need any more. Remove them from all boxes.

so they are now pricey one-time/disposable phones
- This isn't for a phone. At least click on the article and read the first sentence.

173 comments