A port-free iPhone is fine with the EU — and if it happens, I’m ready for it

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Talk of Apple wanting to make an iPhone without a charging port pops up every few years, every time to understandable backlash reminiscent of when the company took the “courageous” decision to remove the headphone jack from the iPhone 7.

But this time is different: it seems that Apple did actually consider making the upcoming iPhone 17 Air without a charging port in order to make it as slim as possible. The main thing that stopped the company from making a wireless-charging-only device was, reportedly, fear that European regulators wouldn’t like it.

But apparently that’s not the case. When asked directly by 9to5Google, an EU spokesperson reiterated part of the guidelines related to radio equipment verbatim: "Since such radio equipment cannot be recharged via wired charging, it does not need to incorporate the harmonised (wired) charging solution."

Charger be gone

iPhone with USB-C charging cable — (Image credit: Shutterstock)

I remember being vicariously annoyed when Apple killed off the iPhone’s charging port in 2016. “Vicariously” because at the time I was rocking either a Samsung Galaxy S7 or an HTC One M8 — I’m afraid that specific detail is lost to the depths of time. Regardless, it didn’t affect me: no Android manufacturer seemed mad enough to ditch the headphone jack — in fact, plenty were enjoying the backlash — and that was fine with me.

Six years later, I returned to Apple for the first time in 13 years by buying an iPhone 14 Pro. And now that I think about it, this is the first time I’ve actually stopped to consider the fact that it doesn’t have a headphone jack, it’s been so long since I used a wired set of cans.

The idea of removing a charging port is obviously a bigger deal: you can get by without portable audio in a pinch, but you can’t say the same for battery. People are going to be grumpy about this, and understandably so.

But I don’t think it would put me off. As with the wireless headphones example above, I’ve realized that 90% of my iPhone charging is done at my desk while working, on my lovely Belkin 3-in-1 charging stand. In fact, it’s sat on there as I type this.

Such a change would likely require a bit more awareness of my plans, though. Right now, I can forget to charge my iPhone if I’m going somewhere, and be reasonably confident that I could borrow a cable from someone in a pinch: even with the adoption of USB-C, Lightning Cables are not in short supply here in London. Likewise going on holiday would require packing a wireless charger, which is a mild annoyance, but something I already cope with for my Apple Watch, so hardly a deal breaker.

To be clear, I’m not actively cheering on the introduction of a portless iPhone. I agree that the arguments for it — a thinner design and removing a part that can be easily damaged — are pretty flimsy, and I also fret about making energy-inefficient wireless charging the norm for millions of devices.

I’m just saying that, for me, a lack of a charging port wouldn’t be a deal breaker. And if there are enough people who agree, then Apple may decide it’s a gamble worth taking. Now that would take courage.

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Freelance contributor Alan has been writing about tech for over a decade, covering phones, drones and everything in between. Previously Deputy Editor of tech site Alphr, his words are found all over the web and in the occasional magazine too. When not weighing up the pros and cons of the latest smartwatch, you'll probably find him tackling his ever-growing games backlog. Or, more likely, playing Spelunky for the millionth time.