Opinion: A hallelujah moment for iPhone users everywhere

Editor’s Note: Jeff Yang is a research director for the Institute for the Future and the head of their Digital Intelligence Lab. A frequent contributor to CNN Opinion, he co-hosts the podcast “They Call Us Bruce,” and is co-author of the new book “RISE: A Pop History of Asian America from the Nineties to Now.” The opinions expressed in this commentary are his. Read more opinion on CNN.

CNN
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Back in 2018 — that is to say, five iPhone generations ago — an acquaintance shared a picture of a bunch of frayed and useless Apple Lightning charging cables on my Twitter feed, complaining that as a trillion-dollar company, Apple should “figure out a way to make better cords.”

I tweeted back that, if the number of Lightning cables I’ve bought is any indication, their savage commitment to self-destructing phone cords is exactly why they’re a trillion-dollar company.

My response generated a thunderous chorus of agreement, with tens of thousands of people from around the world chiming in to share their own cable-related misfortunes. Some even tallied the “cord tax” their households are hit with on an annual basis (my own share: About $100 a year, since my kids apparently consume them like Pocky).

All of which is to say that iPhone cords are a very big business: There are reportedly about 1.2 billion active iPhones out in the wild. And if their charging cables need to be replaced once or twice a year as many users attest, at roughly $20 a pop, well, you could just about buy a Twitter a year for that sum.

That’s why the European Union Council’s approval of a new mandate requiring phones to converge on a single wired charging standard beginning in 2024 — the relatively cheap and simple USB-C cord — is such a hallelujah moment for iPhone owners everywhere.

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