Ming-Chi Kuo and the firm Barclays predict that the range of iPhone 12 will no longer be supplied with a charger and EarPods headphones. These accessories will be sold as an option.
Un iPhone en charge // Source : Andreas Haslinger, Unsplash
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Rather than making the effort to provide a really fast charger with the iPhone, you might as well not provide any at all. It’s a bit like that we would be tempted to react by learning that Apple could skip the charger and the Earpods headphones with the next generation iPhone. This is not a rumor or a leak, strictly speaking, but a prediction by the analyst. Ming-Chi Kuo, quite famous when it comes to future Apple products. In addition, this prediction is supported by another famous name, the Barclays bank.
Barclays and Ming-Chi Kuo’s predictions
Barclays
According to Barclays bank, all models d’iPhone 12 would be offered without Earpods headphones, and without AC charger. Only the Lightning to USB-C cable would still be offered with the smartphone. In addition, Barclays estimates that the production of the iPhone 12 is 4 to 6 weeks late, which should postpone the release of products to October or November, but Apple should still make its presentation in September, as every year. The LiDAR sensor would do well on the two high-end models.
Ming-Chi Kuo
For his part, Ming-Chi Kuo also says that the headphones and the mains charger will be absent from the box. Specifically, Apple will optionally offer a new single 20W charger, which will allow the company to end production of the 5W and 18W chargers currently used on the iPhone. To make its range consistent, iPhone SE 2020 would also miss on its 5W charger at the end of the year. The 12W charger for iPads would also be at the end of their life, but Apple could wait until the models that use it were removed from their range: the iPad Air, iPad 2019 and the iPad Mini.
Why could Apple stop providing a charger and headphones?
What fly would have bitten Apple for the brand to make such a decision?
To reduce the production costs of your iPhone? It is very unlikely, even if every penny to earn can have its share, the charger and the EarPods headphones represent virtually no cost on the scale of an iPhone. Financially, this maneuver could allow Apple to increase sales of accessories and perhaps encourage purchase more easily AirPods headphones, if wired EarPods are no longer offered.
To justify this decision, Apple could advance the ecological argument. It is not uncommon to already have several chargers at home, supplied with your tablet, PC, or another modern tech object. In the event that a person has no charger at home, the optional purchase would still be possible. We would therefore have less waste, since in this way, Apple would make sure not to manufacture and provide an unnecessary charger to those who already have it.
The fact is that the iPhone remains a premium product on the market today, and Apple could take into account that its target customers probably have the purchasing power to add an additional charger to the bill.
In addition, by making this decision in 2020, Apple can begin to prepare the public for the idea of an iPhone without charger. The day when the brand will offer a completely wireless iPhone, its goal imagined during the presentation of the iPhone X, it will have become legitimate that it does not provide the Qi compatible charger with its new device.
What the law says ?
According to the government site radiofrequency portal, the last update of which was on December 2, 2019, the law still requires the provision of a headset when selling a mobile phone to limit exposure.
Article L.34-9 of the Post and Electronic Communications Code: obligation to provide an accessory limiting the exposure of the head (headset type) when selling a mobile phone.
If Apple goes through with this process, it will be interesting to see how the iPhone marketed in France will differ from the international version.
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