Apple's big announcement that the iPhone 15 will finally have a USB-C port was bittersweet for me.
On one level, I’m absolutely thrilled about it for all the same reasons you probably are. I love the idea of having one cable that charges all my devices, and I love the fact that after nearly two decades of smartphone evolution, we finally have everyone on the same charging standard. That’s a big win, and we should be proud that we’ve made it to this point.
But I'm also bitter about it, because we (the United States) can’t take any credit for it. After all, Apple only ditched its proprietary Lightning cable because it was forced to by the European Union. So to me, the iPhone’s 15’s USB-C port is simultaneously a welcome upgrade and a subtle reminder of how the US is seemingly incapable of reining in its own tech companies.
Now, for the next few years (until Apple does away with ports altogether), it’s going to sit there like a bad tattoo, quietly but constantly drawing attention to how incompetent we are, and underscoring how we need to rely on foreign governments if we want to see any sort of forward progress when it comes to tech policy.
This is probably an overly dramatic take on an otherwise innocuous little port, but it's not the first time daddy Europe has had to swoop in and fix our tech problems for us. Before the iPhone’s USB-C port, it was the Digital Services Act, a set of rules that establishes people’s fundamental rights online and governs how large online platforms (like Facebook, Amazon, and Google) can behave. Before that, it was the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which set some much-needed ground rules for how companies can collect and use your data on the internet.
For years now, the European Union (EU) has been taking charge of our digital future and enacting policies to control Big Tech. So the iPhone’s new USB-C port isn’t just a USB-C port—it's yet another example of the EU stepping in and fixing an issue that we couldn't effectively address on our own. That irks me. It's like we're one of those gifted toddlers that knows sign language and plays piano, but still needs an adult to change its diapers.
The worst part, in my opinion, is how Apple’s USB-C announcement was set against the unfortunate backdrop of the other big tech news that dropped this past Tuesday: the US Justice Department's antitrust trial against Google. The juxtaposition was excruciating. While we were over here announcing long overdue plans to begin regulating Big Tech, Europe was on stage at the Apple event, actually doing it and forcing a trillion dollar company to change the charging port on the iPhone. We can talk the talk all we want, but they're already walking the walk.
I suppose what I’m really saying here is that I’m equal parts thankful and embarrassed. It bugs me that the US is bright enough to create some of the most innovative companies in the world, but somehow not smart enough to control those companies and hold them accountable. We’re basically those awful pushover parents at a dinner party, flippantly allowing our children to terrorize all the other guests and never issuing reprimands. So while I'm happy that Europe has the wherewithal to step in and spank our kids when they deserve it, I just wish that for once we could be the ones holding the paddle.