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thastealth t1_ir27co1 wrote

Reply to comment by Aceticon in EU votes to force all phones to use same charger by 2024 by WallStreetDoesntBet

Well Apple has one other option: not sell to the EU market. In this case the money they loose is bigger than the cost of implementing this/loosing out on their proprietary crap, so they’ll do it

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Aceticon t1_ir2ae6m wrote

Calling that an "option" is like saying that sepukku is an "option" for curing a flu - strictly speaking it's true but practically speaking it's not because of the massive downsides.

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thastealth t1_ir2ar2u wrote

Well you can bet your right lung on it that Apple made the calculations if they would pull out of the EU.

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HopefulEuclid t1_ir2nk3w wrote

Yeah no Apple didn't consider pulling out of the EU over a charging port, much like Facebook and Google didn't considering pulling out over GDPR. The EU is a larger market than even the US, they'd be looking at double digit percentage profit drops, and no publicly traded company is explaining to investors why their stock price just took an apocalyptic hit over dumb shit like that. Anything the EU mandates is basically an inconvenience to tech giants.

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Chubbybellylover888 t1_ir35gh0 wrote

It's our secret power. This soft power of the EU has not gone unrecognised.

I worked in consumer electronics in Asia. They all manufcfittied to EU standards when pushed by the spec. And the spec was written thst way because once you comply EU standards, you comply with most standards with an exception here and there.

Their impact on product standards has not gone unnoticed.

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dokks t1_ir5dd3l wrote

Curious, do you have any links that detail how the EU is a larger market than the US? Not a snark I'm genuinely interested and apparently my Google-fu isn't up to snuff.

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HopefulEuclid t1_ir5ykh6 wrote

US population: 329.5 million EU population: 447.7 million

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dokks t1_ir65cpq wrote

Ok so you're talking only population size. Sure.

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HopefulEuclid t1_ir68n54 wrote

When comparing developed nations for simple consumer products there's not really any other factor. For non-consumer industries or specialty products like firearms there'd be other considerations, but phones are basically sold everywhere. I'm sure if China made the same charging connector demand of Apple they'd comply.

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SanityOrLackThereof t1_ir2wvst wrote

Europe is the second largest economy in the world. Apple is not going to pull out of anything.

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Aceticon t1_ir4o1wl wrote

Again the sepukku metaphor applies: they've considered it like somebody considers openning their guts with a sword when their cough gets too much and their fever a little high due to flu - maybe a fleeting idea that passed through a person's mind and was quickly dismissed, leaving behind nothing but a slight awkward feeling for having even thought about it.

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