Starting today, the third-generation iPhone SE, iPhone 14, and iPhone 14 Plus, are listed as unavailable on Apple's online store in Switzerland, ahead of a regulation that will require smartphones with wired charging capabilities that are newly placed for sale to be equipped with a USB-C port in the European Union (EU).
Switzerland is not officially part of the EU, but the country participates in the single EU market and is thereby subject to EU trading laws.
While all iPhone 15 and iPhone 16 models are equipped with USB-C ports for wired charging, the iPhone SE, iPhone 14, and iPhone 14 Plus still have Lightning ports, so Apple appears to be responding to the upcoming regulation. The law applies to any individual iPhone unit placed for sale after the deadline, even if they are older models.
French website iGeneration last week reported that the iPhone SE, iPhone 14, and iPhone 14 Plus would no longer be sold through Apple's online store and retail stores in EU countries starting December 28, which is when the regulation goes into force. However, the report said sales of the iPhones would be halted on Apple's online store in Switzerland around one week earlier, and that has now happened. The report said in-store availability at Apple's retail locations in Switzerland will continue until December 28.
Given that the Switzerland aspect of the report has now proven to be accurate, it is likely next week that Apple will make the affected iPhones unavailable across all 27 countries in the EU, including Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and others. While the United Kingdom left the EU in 2020, Northern Ireland continues to participate in the single EU market.
Apple Authorized Resellers in the EU will be able to continue selling the iPhones until their remaining inventory is depleted, the report said.
Apple is expected to announce a fourth-generation iPhone SE with a USB-C port in March, so the device should quickly return to the EU. Meanwhile, the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus likely would have been discontinued in September had the USB-C regulation not existed, so sales of those devices are ending in the EU around nine months early.
Top Rated Comments
There's much more detail in the EU's guide ('https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:C:2022:247:FULL') to explain what it means for a specific unit to be made available on the market or placed on the market. Units that have been passed along to third-party retailers, carriers, etc. have already been distributed, so those retailers can continue to sell through existing stocks. Things are tougher for Apple selling direct. We saw a similar situation in the U.S. with the Apple Watch blood oxygen feature that was barred from import. Apple had to stop selling Apple Watches with it more or less immediately, but retailers like Best Buy kept selling through existing stock of models with it enabled for months.
Suggesting that old lighting-port phones that have already been made, couldn't be sold in the EU in January feels like a massive e-Waste disaster, wasn't the point of the law?
I had thought that the law only impacts NEW products being introduced.
As an alternate theory:
Perhaps the SE3 and 14 are being pulled because the SE4 is coming, and it is going to replace the SE3 in name, and the iPhone14 in price point?