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Brazillian here, after reading comments I think a lot of people don't get what is happening. 1. The lawsuit started when Apple dropped the chargers coming with

Brazillian here, after reading comments I think a lot of people don't get what is happening. 1. The lawsuit started when Apple dropped the chargers coming with the phone, but had just changed the cable connection, so you would need a new charger anyway. 2. Apple chargers often have ludicrous prices in Brazil. 3. Apple products in Brazil are in general expensive, people do not replace their iPhones every generation, it wouldn't be a stretch to guess that almost all iPhone purchases are first time purchases, or people replacing really old phones, thus as a rule, they don't have the appropriate charger. 4. If Apple doesn't give the charger, or sell it really cheap, Brazillians WILL use chinese knockoffs that set themselves on fire, it is just the reality in the country where all tech is crazy expensive.

jiggywiggy 4y ago
Apple chargers prices are ludicrous everywhere.
- dreamcompiler 4y ago
  They're also very high quality when compared to cheap Chinese chargers that can electrocute the user, catch fire, or only produce a small fraction of their rated power safely. Are they overpriced when you factor that in?
  - jiggywiggy 4y ago
    Here is a cost breakdown: https://www.righto.com/2015/11/macbook-charger-teardown-surprising.html https://www.righto.com/2015/11/macbook-charger-teardown-surp... They are 8-10x a basic utility of your laptop. That breaks faster then my laptop. I travel a lot, cable generally lasts a year.
- kodah 4y ago
  Is a man guilty of a crime if he knowingly lets another man climb a cell tower without a safety harness? Yes, manslaughter. The question is if Apple knew this was a problem and the degree to which they knew and made excuses or marketing for it.
wisnoskij 4y ago
Number 4 is what I dont get. Countries should not bother with fining Apple pennies, they should just make it clear that they are liable for the deaths and loss of property caused by their actions.
- fortran77 4y ago
  It's Apple's fault if people use knock-off chargers? (And you can't even argue that Apple wants that...)
  - ifqwz 4y ago
  - wisnoskij 4y ago
    Arguably. Selling an unusable device, that is turned into a fire hazard when you type "Iphone charger" into google, amazon, or alibaba in an attempt to get a fully working device has blame to go around but I would not say Apple is blameless. The most damning is really that Apple is the only individual here with an easy and cheap alternative, just sell fully usable devices.
    - deelowe 4y ago
      Is the appliance maker responsible for faulty wall sockets? Is the wall socket maker responsible for faulty wiring? Is the toy maker responsible for faulty batteries? The automaker for faulty oil? This makes no sense. The government should fix their charger regs and prosecute companies who don't comply, if the chargers are causing electrical fires.
      - wisnoskij 4y ago
        No reasonable person expects an iphone to come with a building or breaker, and many are bought by the homeless. An iphone charger is part of a functioning ipohne, a wall socket is not part of any appliance. The government has little control over what random Chinese devices you order. Countries cannot even prevent people from just mailing cocaine, imagine if every random Chinese electrical device needed to be verified to have been engineered to a certain standard. No counry on earth had 1/100th the border agents necessary to do that.
masklinn 4y ago
> 1. The lawsuit started when Apple dropped the chargers coming with the phone, but had just changed the cable connection, so you would need a new charger anyway. That makes no sense, Lightning was introduced in 2012. And the older Dock Connector chargers had detachable USB cables (I don't remember Apple ever using bonded chargers), so you could have used your existing charger with a new cable. And an other commenter reports that the judge commented: > telling Apple that it could help the environment in other ways, such as giving its devices USB-C support. But Lightning predates USB-C by 2 years. There was no USB-C to switch to when Apple introduced Lightning. And I can understand and emphasise with immediately switching over from and obsoleting all the "brand new" Lighting-based docks & co. Apple has started the switch with a few ipads (and obviously all the macs), and I've been expecting the deprecation of Lightning this year or the next, as it's been a decade, which is about how long the Dock Connector existed before the introduction of Lightning (though it survived Lightning for a few years in older devices and developing countries, IIRC Apple stopped selling the last dock connector device around 2015). > 4. If Apple doesn't give the charger, or sell it really cheap, Brazillians WILL use chinese knockoffs that set themselves on fire, it is just the reality in the country where all tech is crazy expensive. But how is that Apple's responsibility? And surely they'll do that either way so they can have multiple chargers?
- speeder 4y ago
  If I remember correctly (I don't own an iPhone so to me this is kind all hearsay) what happened is Apple stopped shipping charges around the time chargers became USB-C, while their older ones used USB-A on the brick. So the iPhone package would come with the phone itself, and a USBC-lightning cable, but the USB-C brick wasn't included and was ludicrously expensive, and nobody had one since it was new.
  - g_lined 4y ago
    The comment you're replying to makes the point that if you already had a charger, you could use the old charger and the old cable. There is no requirement to use the new cable that it came with. If you agree that people probably already had one from a few years ago, then they already had everything they needed to charge the phone. The 'new cable' did not stop anything from working that previously worked.
cyc116 4y ago
Had no one noticed the racism in this person's comment?
- amelius 4y ago
  I see only nationalities mentioned in that comment, not races.
dathinab 4y ago
so basically: - it wouldn't be a problem if Apple did use USB-C, because "good enough" USB-C chargers are "everywhere" (e.g. come with your laptop, tablet, previous phone, etc.). And aren't too expensive either.
- galad87 4y ago
  Apple already bundles a USB-C to Lighting cable with the iPhones, so every USB-C charger is already good enough.
  - Nursie 4y ago
    USB-C male to Lightning Male though? The Apple charger I got with my Macbook Air is the only charger with usb-c female I've ever had. USB-A male to Lightning male or USB-C female to Lightning male would probable be better.
    - Pasorrijer 4y ago
      Almost all modern chargers utilize USB-C female, at least from the major brands (Anker, Ugreen etc.) Almost all cables have either USB-C male to USB-C male, or USB-C male to something else.
      - Nursie 4y ago
        Yet I have a variety of usb-c chargers which are not like this, that have a male end only. They are for phones for laptops, for my Switch, for a variety of things.
        crazygringo 4y ago
        Can you post a link to any of those products? A USB charger that is male would be so unusual, I can't even imagine what it would physically look like.
        4y ago
conductr 4y ago
Would a toy manufacturer be sued in Brazil for selling toys without batteries? “Batteries not included” is such a common marketing phrase it was used as a major movie title… in 1987. What if they required some “expensive” proprietary battery that was sold separately? (Power tools do this in the US) For me, I don’t know anything about Brazil, but this lawsuit only makes sense if they misled the public into believing there would be a cable included. Likely, it was very clear about was actually included and people just didn’t read it or care enough (already deciding they’d buy a knock-off). I remember this moment in time and it was pretty well known in the US from my recollection. Even my non-tech friends knew about it and were kind of upset that it would cost them more and all their existing cables and accessories would be obsolete.
- felipelemos 4y ago
  Let me fix that for you: > Would a toy manufacturer be sued in Brazil for selling toys without a charging cable? The answer is: Yes.
  - conductr 4y ago
    Ok TIL. But still makes no sense to me if they informed you about what was in the box. I’m just stuck in that mental model I suppose. Also doesn’t quite make sense why charging cables is different than any other power source. Batteries for toys, fuel for cars, etc. Seems kind of arbitrary.
    - ncallaway 4y ago
      > Also doesn’t quite make sense why charging cables is different than any other power source. Batteries for toys, fuel for cars, etc. Seems kind of arbitrary. I mean, it seems pretty easy to distinguish between those two to me? One set are consumables ("batteries for toys", "fuel for cars"), while the other set are long-lived goods ("charging cables").
      - conductr 4y ago
        But why should one be included and the others can be excluded, the fact the cable was available for purchase should have been enough.
not_brazilian 4y ago
> Brazillians WILL use chinese knockoffs that set themselves on fire, it is just the reality in the country where all tech is crazy expensive. It would be a pretty interesting law: Supposing it were wealthy enough, what if the government gave everyone an iPhone? It could have so many positive effects.
sircastor 4y ago
We have a Brazilian Au Pair, who told me that she was waiting until she came up here to the states to buy a new phone. I thought that getting a new iPhone in Brazil might be more affordable. Turns out I was wrong. The iPhone list price was somewhere around 180% as in the US. I was shocked.
- charlie0 4y ago
  This is true in various countries. Relatives have asked me to buy electronics in the US when traveling to see them because of high import taxes.
  - throwaway2203 4y ago
    Pakistan gets around this by charging you a ridiculous (I think 40%) amount of the MRSP in tax when you first connect your phone to mobile networks. I used to buy my parents phones from the US but they have to get chinese phones with low MRSP now to not get gouged out.
  - crazygringo 4y ago
    Brazil is by far the highest, there's no comparison. Electronics in Brazil cost roughly double. Other places are 20 or 40% more, not 100% more.
  - Symbiote 4y ago
    Note bringing in goods like this, without declaring them at customs and paying due taxes, is often illegal. The rules differ between countries, and so does the chance of being caught.
- gregschlom 4y ago
  Yes, Brazil has very high import duties on all electronics. Maybe they were hoping to promote local production, like what happened with the auto industry in the 50s and 60s there where major car manufacturers opened production plants in Brazil. It did work out to some extent in the 80s, with TV manufacturers moving to the Free Trade Zone of Manaus but didn't translate with the high tech stuff afterwards
lotsofpulp 4y ago
> Apple products in Brazil are in general expensive, people do not replace their iPhones every generation “People” everywhere else do not replace their iPhones every generation either.
- zekrioca 4y ago
  What about all these Ads on YT from ATT/T-Mobile/etc. offering to update our phones "for free"? You may not do it, but many more do.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    What about them? Businesses run ads all the time, and obviously iPhones are not free. People can see that prices for mobile network access with offers of “free” phones are much higher than without “free” phones. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/08/apple-iphone-replacement-cycle-slowing-toni-sacconaghi-says.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/08/apple-iphone-replacement-cyc... > Sacconaghi says he expects 16 percent of Apple’s installed base — 900 million iPhones — will buy a new iPhone in fiscal 2019. > Our customers are holding on to their older iPhones a bit longer than in the past,” Cook said > He wrote, “In our view, the single most important controversy surrounding Apple today is the iPhone replacement cycle - despite the iPhone installed base growing +9% last year, we now expect units to be down -19% in fiscal 2019, implying a material pushout in upgrade rates.” > Apple recently stopped disclosing how many iPhone units it sells each quarter. Instead, in its fiscal Q1 earnings report, Apple started to report an iPhone installed base that includes both new and used iPhones.

jiggywiggy 4y ago

Apple chargers prices are ludicrous everywhere.

dreamcompiler 4y ago
They're also very high quality when compared to cheap Chinese chargers that can electrocute the user, catch fire, or only produce a small fraction of their rated power safely. Are they overpriced when you factor that in?
- jiggywiggy 4y ago
  Here is a cost breakdown: https://www.righto.com/2015/11/macbook-charger-teardown-surprising.html https://www.righto.com/2015/11/macbook-charger-teardown-surp... They are 8-10x a basic utility of your laptop. That breaks faster then my laptop. I travel a lot, cable generally lasts a year.
kodah 4y ago
Is a man guilty of a crime if he knowingly lets another man climb a cell tower without a safety harness? Yes, manslaughter. The question is if Apple knew this was a problem and the degree to which they knew and made excuses or marketing for it.

wisnoskij 4y ago

Number 4 is what I dont get. Countries should not bother with fining Apple pennies, they should just make it clear that they are liable for the deaths and loss of property caused by their actions.

fortran77 4y ago
It's Apple's fault if people use knock-off chargers? (And you can't even argue that Apple wants that...)
- ifqwz 4y ago
- wisnoskij 4y ago
  Arguably. Selling an unusable device, that is turned into a fire hazard when you type "Iphone charger" into google, amazon, or alibaba in an attempt to get a fully working device has blame to go around but I would not say Apple is blameless. The most damning is really that Apple is the only individual here with an easy and cheap alternative, just sell fully usable devices.
  - deelowe 4y ago
    Is the appliance maker responsible for faulty wall sockets? Is the wall socket maker responsible for faulty wiring? Is the toy maker responsible for faulty batteries? The automaker for faulty oil? This makes no sense. The government should fix their charger regs and prosecute companies who don't comply, if the chargers are causing electrical fires.
    - wisnoskij 4y ago
      No reasonable person expects an iphone to come with a building or breaker, and many are bought by the homeless. An iphone charger is part of a functioning ipohne, a wall socket is not part of any appliance. The government has little control over what random Chinese devices you order. Countries cannot even prevent people from just mailing cocaine, imagine if every random Chinese electrical device needed to be verified to have been engineered to a certain standard. No counry on earth had 1/100th the border agents necessary to do that.

masklinn 4y ago

> 1. The lawsuit started when Apple dropped the chargers coming with the phone, but had just changed the cable connection, so you would need a new charger anyway. That makes no sense, Lightning was introduced in 2012. And the older Dock Connector chargers had detachable USB cables (I don't remember Apple ever using bonded chargers), so you could have used your existing charger with a new cable. And an other commenter reports that the judge commented: > telling Apple that it could help the environment in other ways, such as giving its devices USB-C support. But Lightning predates USB-C by 2 years. There was no USB-C to switch to when Apple introduced Lightning. And I can understand and emphasise with immediately switching over from and obsoleting all the "brand new" Lighting-based docks & co. Apple has started the switch with a few ipads (and obviously all the macs), and I've been expecting the deprecation of Lightning this year or the next, as it's been a decade, which is about how long the Dock Connector existed before the introduction of Lightning (though it survived Lightning for a few years in older devices and developing countries, IIRC Apple stopped selling the last dock connector device around 2015). > 4. If Apple doesn't give the charger, or sell it really cheap, Brazillians WILL use chinese knockoffs that set themselves on fire, it is just the reality in the country where all tech is crazy expensive. But how is that Apple's responsibility? And surely they'll do that either way so they can have multiple chargers?

speeder 4y ago
If I remember correctly (I don't own an iPhone so to me this is kind all hearsay) what happened is Apple stopped shipping charges around the time chargers became USB-C, while their older ones used USB-A on the brick. So the iPhone package would come with the phone itself, and a USBC-lightning cable, but the USB-C brick wasn't included and was ludicrously expensive, and nobody had one since it was new.
- g_lined 4y ago
  The comment you're replying to makes the point that if you already had a charger, you could use the old charger and the old cable. There is no requirement to use the new cable that it came with. If you agree that people probably already had one from a few years ago, then they already had everything they needed to charge the phone. The 'new cable' did not stop anything from working that previously worked.

cyc116 4y ago

Had no one noticed the racism in this person's comment?

amelius 4y ago
I see only nationalities mentioned in that comment, not races.

dathinab 4y ago

so basically: - it wouldn't be a problem if Apple did use USB-C, because "good enough" USB-C chargers are "everywhere" (e.g. come with your laptop, tablet, previous phone, etc.). And aren't too expensive either.

galad87 4y ago
Apple already bundles a USB-C to Lighting cable with the iPhones, so every USB-C charger is already good enough.
- Nursie 4y ago
  USB-C male to Lightning Male though? The Apple charger I got with my Macbook Air is the only charger with usb-c female I've ever had. USB-A male to Lightning male or USB-C female to Lightning male would probable be better.
  - Pasorrijer 4y ago
    Almost all modern chargers utilize USB-C female, at least from the major brands (Anker, Ugreen etc.) Almost all cables have either USB-C male to USB-C male, or USB-C male to something else.
    - Nursie 4y ago
      Yet I have a variety of usb-c chargers which are not like this, that have a male end only. They are for phones for laptops, for my Switch, for a variety of things.
      - crazygringo 4y ago
        Can you post a link to any of those products? A USB charger that is male would be so unusual, I can't even imagine what it would physically look like.
        4y ago

conductr 4y ago

Would a toy manufacturer be sued in Brazil for selling toys without batteries? “Batteries not included” is such a common marketing phrase it was used as a major movie title… in 1987. What if they required some “expensive” proprietary battery that was sold separately? (Power tools do this in the US) For me, I don’t know anything about Brazil, but this lawsuit only makes sense if they misled the public into believing there would be a cable included. Likely, it was very clear about was actually included and people just didn’t read it or care enough (already deciding they’d buy a knock-off). I remember this moment in time and it was pretty well known in the US from my recollection. Even my non-tech friends knew about it and were kind of upset that it would cost them more and all their existing cables and accessories would be obsolete.

felipelemos 4y ago
Let me fix that for you: > Would a toy manufacturer be sued in Brazil for selling toys without a charging cable? The answer is: Yes.
- conductr 4y ago
  Ok TIL. But still makes no sense to me if they informed you about what was in the box. I’m just stuck in that mental model I suppose. Also doesn’t quite make sense why charging cables is different than any other power source. Batteries for toys, fuel for cars, etc. Seems kind of arbitrary.
  - ncallaway 4y ago
    > Also doesn’t quite make sense why charging cables is different than any other power source. Batteries for toys, fuel for cars, etc. Seems kind of arbitrary. I mean, it seems pretty easy to distinguish between those two to me? One set are consumables ("batteries for toys", "fuel for cars"), while the other set are long-lived goods ("charging cables").
    - conductr 4y ago
      But why should one be included and the others can be excluded, the fact the cable was available for purchase should have been enough.

not_brazilian 4y ago

> Brazillians WILL use chinese knockoffs that set themselves on fire, it is just the reality in the country where all tech is crazy expensive. It would be a pretty interesting law: Supposing it were wealthy enough, what if the government gave everyone an iPhone? It could have so many positive effects.

sircastor 4y ago

We have a Brazilian Au Pair, who told me that she was waiting until she came up here to the states to buy a new phone. I thought that getting a new iPhone in Brazil might be more affordable. Turns out I was wrong. The iPhone list price was somewhere around 180% as in the US. I was shocked.

charlie0 4y ago
This is true in various countries. Relatives have asked me to buy electronics in the US when traveling to see them because of high import taxes.
- throwaway2203 4y ago
  Pakistan gets around this by charging you a ridiculous (I think 40%) amount of the MRSP in tax when you first connect your phone to mobile networks. I used to buy my parents phones from the US but they have to get chinese phones with low MRSP now to not get gouged out.
- crazygringo 4y ago
  Brazil is by far the highest, there's no comparison. Electronics in Brazil cost roughly double. Other places are 20 or 40% more, not 100% more.
- Symbiote 4y ago
  Note bringing in goods like this, without declaring them at customs and paying due taxes, is often illegal. The rules differ between countries, and so does the chance of being caught.
gregschlom 4y ago
Yes, Brazil has very high import duties on all electronics. Maybe they were hoping to promote local production, like what happened with the auto industry in the 50s and 60s there where major car manufacturers opened production plants in Brazil. It did work out to some extent in the 80s, with TV manufacturers moving to the Free Trade Zone of Manaus but didn't translate with the high tech stuff afterwards

lotsofpulp 4y ago

> Apple products in Brazil are in general expensive, people do not replace their iPhones every generation “People” everywhere else do not replace their iPhones every generation either.

zekrioca 4y ago
What about all these Ads on YT from ATT/T-Mobile/etc. offering to update our phones "for free"? You may not do it, but many more do.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  What about them? Businesses run ads all the time, and obviously iPhones are not free. People can see that prices for mobile network access with offers of “free” phones are much higher than without “free” phones. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/08/apple-iphone-replacement-cycle-slowing-toni-sacconaghi-says.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/08/apple-iphone-replacement-cyc... > Sacconaghi says he expects 16 percent of Apple’s installed base — 900 million iPhones — will buy a new iPhone in fiscal 2019. > Our customers are holding on to their older iPhones a bit longer than in the past,” Cook said > He wrote, “In our view, the single most important controversy surrounding Apple today is the iPhone replacement cycle - despite the iPhone installed base growing +9% last year, we now expect units to be down -19% in fiscal 2019, implying a material pushout in upgrade rates.” > Apple recently stopped disclosing how many iPhone units it sells each quarter. Instead, in its fiscal Q1 earnings report, Apple started to report an iPhone installed base that includes both new and used iPhones.