Apple has stopped promoting iPhone 14 and the iPhone SE (2022) on its on-line shops within the European Union (EU). The Cupertino-based expertise large’s choice to discontinue older iPhone fashions is in compliance with the mandate issued by the European Parliament that was issued in October, 2022 and got here into impact on December 28, 2024. It requires all small and medium-sized transportable digital units bought within the EU bloc to have a typical charging port — USB Sort-C.
Whereas Apple’s newer fashions such because the iPhone 15 and iPhone 16 come geared up with the aforementioned port, a number of of its older units, that are being discontinued within the EU, nonetheless characteristic the corporate’s proprietary lightning port. Nonetheless, the EU’s mandate means even older units should be bought with a USB Sort-C charger, as a consequence of which the expertise large is pulling iPhone 14 and iPhone SE (2022) from its on-line shops.
Devices 360 can affirm that Apple’s choice has already come into impact. Apple shops in areas a part of the EU reminiscent of Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Switzerland, solely record iPhone 16 and iPhone 15 fashions as those on sale.
The discontinued fashions are additionally imagined to be quickly faraway from the corporate’s offline shops too.
Nonetheless, this doesn’t apply to the UK which left the EU in 2020 in a transfer famously often called ‘Brexit’. Apple’s UK on-line retailer nonetheless formally sells the iPhone 14 and iPhone SE (2022). In the meantime, the corporate is predicted to launch the successor to the latter early subsequent yr and it’s imagined to be geared up with a USB Sort-C port, in compliance with the European Parliament.
Along with making USB Sort-C the charging normal on small and medium-sized transportable electronics, it’s also confirmed to come back into impact for laptops beginning April 28, 2026. Additional, the EU’s USB Sort-C mandate additionally permits customers to decide out of receiving a charger when shopping for new units. That is mentioned to be in a bid to cut back the e-waste generated by completely different chargers for a number of units, allow customers to make sustainable decisions and clear up the difficulty of market fragmentation.
