The upcoming iPhone 17 Air stands as Apple’s thinnest iPhone ever made according to reports and the company considered making it their first portless phone before settling on different options. The manufacturing of a portless iPhone moved forward at Apple despite concerns regarding potential EU regulatory problems which USB-C port elimination might cause. The European Union has officially confirmed that a product without ports can meet the mandatory requirements.
Apple’s Transition To USB-C
Apple had to swap its Lightning connectors for USB-C ports under the EU Common Charger Directive because the directive aims to reduce electrical waste from various charging interfaces. All devices sold in the EU markets need to adopt a single universal charging interface according to the law’s requirements.
The legislation was introduced when microUSB managed to be the dominant standard although USB-C emerged as the leading industry standard at its finalization stage. The product lines of Apple already included USB-C ports on Macs and iPads while maintaining Lightning ports for iPhones. With the purpose of meeting the January 2025 deadline Apple made the decision to discontinue the iPhone SE and iPhone 14 which had continued using the Lightning port.
Bloomberg: Apple Considered A Portless iPhone
The Apple expert Mark Gurman from Bloomberg News disclosed that the tech giant considered removing all physical charging ports from its upcoming iPhone 17 Air while enabling wireless charging in addition to cloud data management. The company dismissed the portless iPhone concept because EU regulatory causes became a primary concern.
Portless mobile devices have received confirmation from the EU for market availability. According to the Common Charger Directive device manufacturers can include a USB-C charging port but there is no requirement for any wired connection at all.
European Commission press officer Federica Miccoli verified that a portless phone would conform to EU regulations because the law specifically targets only wired charging devices.
The Wireless Power Consortium adopted Apple’s MagSafe technology to establish the Qi2 standard due to Apple’s participation even though the EU intends to create wireless charging standards to stop market diversification. Apple can introduce iPhones with MagSafe charging features to Europe because the European Union handles legal compliance only with respect to devices that require wired charging.
The future shows that a portless iPhone model is unavoidable while the iPhone 17 Air maintains its existing USB-C interface.
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