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Apple

Brazil Orders Apple To Suspend iPhone Sales Without Charger (reuters.com) 169

Brazil's government on Tuesday ordered Apple to stop selling iPhones without a battery charger in the country, claiming that the company provides an incomplete product to consumers. From a report: The Justice Ministry fined Apple 12.275 million reais ($2.38 million) and ordered the cancellation of the sale of the iPhone 12 and newer models, in addition to suspending the sale of any iPhone model that does not come with a power charger. In the order, published in the country's official gazette, the ministry argued that the iPhone was lacking a essential component in a "deliberate discriminatory practice against consumers." The authorities rejected Apple's argument that the practice had the purpose of reducing carbon emissions saying that there is no evidence of environmental protection from selling the smartphone without a charger.
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Brazil Orders Apple To Suspend iPhone Sales Without Charger

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  • that have the phone and charger that are then the same price as those bought separately before..

    • by alexgieg ( 948359 ) <alexgieg@gmail.com> on Tuesday September 06, 2022 @12:50PM (#62857348) Homepage

      That doesn't make much of a difference here in Brazil. iPhones are luxury items here, only purchased by people with a LOT of spare money available. For a rough affordability comparison, the cheapest iPhone 13 Mini here costs 862 hours of work at the Brazilian Federal minimum wage rate of R$5.51 BRL/hr. If it were priced similarly in the US, at the Federal US minimum wage rate of $7.25 USD/hr, it'd cost $6250 USD. Anyone paying $6250 on a phone doesn't really mind paying $7000k for one with a bundled charger, for if they did they wouldn't be purchasing an iPhone, of all things, to begin with.

      • Edit: $7k, not $7000k.

    • Yes, in Brazil you can buy all the booty...err BUNDLES that you can handle.
  • by AutoTrix ( 8918325 ) on Tuesday September 06, 2022 @09:10AM (#62856520)
    Provide the phone without a cable and ask the consumer to fill out a form to receive a free cable whenever they need one and offer a cable if requested at time of purchase. It's part of the device and would provide actual customer care. Regardless if they are a previous customer or a new customer, needing to buy a cable to make the $1500 device function is a cash grab anyway you put it.
    • by Nebulo ( 29412 )

      They still come with cables. They just don't come with the thing that plugs into the wall.

    • I have to buy the cables anyway because I'm either losing them or they break.

    • by Pieroxy ( 222434 )

      All Apple phones already come with a cable, even in Brazil.

    • I don't really understand how your "free cables" suggestion is particularly relevant to the post; unless I missed something, it seems that the issue herein has nothing to do with cables, as those are indeed still bundled with all iPhones. Rather, the issue is that newer iPhones do not come with the 5V USB charging brick to plug that cable into. Cables (and bricks) breaking or otherwise ceasing to function over time is an entirely separate issue... and to my knowledge, such wear and tear is not covered by an

    • It's about the chargers, not the cable, which you still get.

      But yeah I agree, this is what pisses me off about the situation. They took out the charger that was free to you, and now make you pay $40 if you want to actually charge the phone. Just offer it as a free accessory at purchase time, assholes.

      This is certainly better for the environment so I'm fine with the EU rule that probably prompted this but Apple is certainly more than happy to milk their customers.

  • Brazil is not USA (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cachimaster ( 127194 ) on Tuesday September 06, 2022 @09:14AM (#62856534)

    People in Brazil do not buy an iphone every year, so they don't have a box full of chargers.

    The 'carbon emissions' argument is hilarious. They ship the iPhone in a Luxurious box, but they won't ship you a charger that you have to buy separately, consuming more transportation and more packaging. Yeah sure.

    • This is a good point, the packaging a lot of electronics come in nowadays is out of control.

      Just wasteful fodder for the youtube unboxer crowd and making sure people get that initial hit of dopamine when they open it so they don't feel like they just wasted their money.

      • We had the in-laws coming into town this last weekend, so I was cleaning up around the house and found a cardboard box on a shelf. Figuring it was for a small, paperback book or the like, I opened it up to confirm there wasn't anything inside, only to discover that it was actually the shipping box for my most recent iPhone, with the iPhone box itself still inside the cardboard. It honestly caught me by surprise because I had forgotten they were now that small.

        iPhone boxes are ridiculously tiny these days, w

        • I just checked AliExpress, and saw that I can ship a teddy bear (a relatively bulky item) from China to my country for just 51 cents (the bear itself costs $3). That includes all stages of shipping, so the fraction of the shipping container taken up must be worth significantly less than 51 cents. An iPhone is much smaller than this teddy bear, so the gains to using a smaller iPhone box are probably in the single cents. Negligible compared to a $1000 device. I think the smaller packaging is actually about ae

          • On the one hand, I think you make a good point that this isn't a significant portion of their overall costs. That said, I'll also point out that the teddy bear is likely coming in via the "slow boat" at those prices, as opposed to the freight airlines that Apple tends to use for their iPhones, particularly the ones they sell during their launch window.

    • by fermion ( 181285 )
      I assure you, people in Brazil that have an iPhone have a charger. There is nothing special about the brick. You can plug your lightening cable into anything.

      Not sure what is happening in South America, which along with north is a third of Apple sales. Over the summer Colombia banned sales of iPhones on patent reasons. These are not the richest countries in South America so it is not that significant.

    • People in Brazil do not buy an iphone every year, so they don't have a box full of chargers.

      That would be a relevant point if the iPhone was the only device in the world. It's not. But even if it were it's completely beside the point. Consumer choice is a *good thing*. Maybe the person buying a phone would prefer to have the 35W dual charger instead and not want to waste $20 on something they have no intention of ever using.

  • They'll go for a bit more expensive and the old cable will land in the ocean around some porpoise's neck.

  • Just increase prices in Brazil by $50 and give them a cheap ass charger with the phone.

    Don't even bother packaging it. Just ship them in 5 gallon buckets to retailers and give someone one out of the bucket with the phone. Make them bright pink, just to piss people off.

  • by Petersko ( 564140 ) on Tuesday September 06, 2022 @09:31AM (#62856616)

    Keep a crate of them on hand for anybody who has an iPhone to request. Put a credit for it on every purchasers account, ready to claim.

    That should satisfy the decision makers in Brazil... unless they just want to be unreasonable.

    • Why a credit? Give people a discount. That way the consumer can make a meaningful choice of what charger they want to buy, or even what company they want to buy it from.

  • All chargers have different power outputs so it's not just a case of finding a random one and you're good to go. Moreover, some of the cheaper chargers may have dubious output voltages, which could in theory harm a precious iphone. You can't even guarantee that an older apple charger will be able to handle the power requirements of a newer iphone. So yes, there is value in buying a charger with the phone because you can guarantee that it must meet the spec for the phone, and if something goes wrong with the
    • by Pieroxy ( 222434 )

      I still have my first iPhone charger, and it charges my iPhone 11 just fine. It takes half a day to get 50% in, but it works :)

    • Wow, you're getting a bit breathless over a problem that, in reality, is instantly known what the remedy is:

      1. find random charger with USB-A port on it;
      2. plug it into the wall, and plug device into it;
      3. is device charging? Yes: continue using charger. No: toss charger and try next one

      USB 5VDC charging is a standard, and any device that implements the standard (going back to 2007) has ways of knowing if they can draw more current, or request a higher voltage. No charger, unless it's designed to blow up

      • I'm not breathless, but you're clueless, with regard to the USB standard. You're talking about the spec which defines how computing devices such as PCs deal with USB devices in order to protect themselves from excessive current draw. This doesn't apply to chargers, which are entirely dumb in that they "try" to supply roughly 5V. The cheap chinese chargers can be wildly out of spec (there are plenty of exploding chargers on youtube). So would you be willing to plug your iphone into literally any random chin
        • Who keeps around a bunch of flakey chargers that you don't trust?

          This is entirely a problem of your own creation. You either already have a charger that you know works and you just continue using that, or you go buy a charger that is recommended by literally anyone you talk to and don't get one that is going to explode.

          Extra irony for calling me clueless when you're going on about problems that are literal edge-case or self-created problems, and then throw in a bunch of warranty FUD about Apple, while miss

  • Just open up that drawer, that every household has, full of charging cables and bricks and pull out a new pair. The only time in several years I've actually used the charger that came with a new Apple product was when I got my new MBP with MagSafe. And even then, I don't use the Apple-provided brick, but just plugged the MagSafe charger into one of the multiple-outlet USB-A/C chargers scattered across the wall outlets.

    And when I get my new phone and watch this fall? Those cables are just going to get chu

  • Maybe you already have charger.

    Why shouldn't headphones be mandated or a case or cell service or apps or breakage/loss insurance? What's so special about a charger?

    • Probably because you need to be able to use a phone. You don't need headphones to operate a phone. One could also argue that manufacturers should not be required to include an IEC cord for AC units that have a IEC style connector for power. I mean everyone has spare cords laying around. I know I do. And yet I've never seen anything sold without a cord included. Personally I do much like I do with chargers. Use them for something else, like a pi in the case of the chargers. Or for cords, since I build projec
  • Just offer a âoeBrazilianâ price that includes the charger as tge default.

    Make the phone and/or charger separate SKU items for âoerepairsâ.

    No need for Apple jump over their own â"â" just for Brazil.

  • Electronics don't last forever and spares are always great. But this is a consumer issue, not something government should be wading into.

  • This is a prime example. I did get my last phone (not Apple) without a charger as well, and I would not have wanted one.

  • If Apple charged an extra $5 for the charger, as an option, I wonder how many people would still ask for it? For someone who doesn't buy technology every day, they may not have a charger that provides the extra 5W the new device needs.

    I am all for reducing stuff we don't need, but when a business increases the price of a device and then removes something from the box, then it feels like you are paying to have something removed.

    At the same time, Brazil is showing that it is running contrary to most other cou

    • by Corbets ( 169101 )

      but when a business increases the price of a device and then removes something from the box, then it feels like you are paying to have something removed.

      but that’s not what happened.

      Apple did not take the iPhone 10, remove something from the box, and sell the iPhone 10 for more money. They built a new phone, with many new features (e.g. faster chips, more RAM, new screen tech, etc.) and did not include an accessory (albeit one that is critical to operation) in the new box with the new product.

      One can assume all one likes about the manufacturing costs and whether or not they are equivalent etc., but stating that they raised the price for the same prod

  • From Apple's point of view, this is exceedingly easy to accommodate. More interestingly, it doesn't actually hurt them in any meaningful way; it just means that the price of every iPhone in Brazil just went up by the price of one high margin government mandated charging brick. They don't even have to change the packaging; they can just toss the boxed brick into the shopping bag, right alongside the boxed iPhone... and when some consumers protest, "I didn't ask for that!" they will promptly be told that it's

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