According to the most recent Power On newsletter from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, the EU has passed legislation requiring USB-C charges for mobile devices by 2024, and as a result, Apple’s AirPods and other accessories are likely to follow suit.
Additionally, he thinks Apple has been prepared to update its products to comply with these new regulatory standards. Of course, by 2024, all three AirPod models as well as Mac accessories such as the Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad will most certainly switch to USB-C.
Gurman thinks that Apple will release the majority of its goods before the law’s implementation date in late 2024. He asserts that the iPhone 15 will release in the fall of 2023, one year ahead of the EU’s deadline, and include a USB-C port. By the end of the year, all iPads save the entry-level model, which still has a Lightning port, should use USB-C.
Further, Gurman theorised that any new iPhone SE model produced in 2025 or 2026 would have to support USB-C, but if Apple produces a new iPhone SE model in March 2024 with only a Lightning port rather than a USB-C port, it will be compliant with EU law since it launches just before the end of the year.
All versions of the Magic Mouse, Magic Keyboard, and Magic Trackpad will require the change when new versions are introduced, according to Gurman. He thinks that next year there will be a new iMac and a Mac Pro, as well as a few big changes to the Mac, and it’s likely that accessory changes will happen at the same time.
Speaking on the topic, Gurman further stated that,
Still, I think the USB-C era will be far shorter-lived than the tenure of the 30-pin iPod connector or Lightning—at least for Apple’s mobile devices. The iPod connector was around for about 11 years, and Lightning will have lasted roughly that same length of time on the iPhone. I still believe that Apple’s future is wireless and that some version of the canceled AirPower dream from 2017 will eventually come to fruition—well before a decade from now.