That's just you, of course. For hundreds of millions of others, this cuts the other way: over a decade's worth of Lightning accessories and cables and docks are out there.
Which is why the EU is just being dumb, here. They think they are accomplishing some amazing user-friendly enviro-friendly feat, but all they are really doing is making a lot of Lightning gear out there less useful.
And all this to switch to a port that is substantially larger, clunkier, and has no real advantages for iPhone users. Which is why Apple hasn't bothered changing up til now. That, plus Apple actually values what its customers REALLY need and what REALLY ACTUALLY benefits them.
How much time has to pass before the one-time cost of deprecating lightning is overtaken by the ongoing savings of having a single standard? Also consider that lightning would surely have eventually been deprecated one day even without this initiative.
How did lightning ever provide "ongoing savings"? It was simply an update of the 30-pin connector, it wasn't created to improve reusability or applicability to other kinds of devices.
Also, I don't really appreciate the snark. It's just a connector.
No on both counts. No, Lightning was not "simply an update" of the 30-pin connector; it was a creation of something entirely new, from scratch. And no, you don't have any idea about the motivations (or lack thereof) about why it was created, so let's just discard that.
The factual record, of course, shows us quite clearly that Apple did indeed design something that was highly "applicable to other kinds of devices", devices which Apple then went on to apply Lightning to. :) And of course we can also see quite clearly from the last ten years that Lightning has had a massive impact on the reusability of various chargers, docks, and cables. Why? Because Apple stuck with it for ten years and used it in all kinds of stuff.
As far as I'm aware, lightning was never used for any host device product line or use case that wasn't previously served by the 30 pin connector. So it clearly wasn't created with an intent to allow a broader range of devices to share it (or else they simply failed at achieving that). It covered the same use cases across the same product lines as the thing it replaced with no expansion upon that. Therefore there was never any "ongoing savings" by bringing together a greater range of use cases compared to the alternative.
Which is why the EU is just being dumb, here. They think they are accomplishing some amazing user-friendly enviro-friendly feat, but all they are really doing is making a lot of Lightning gear out there less useful.
And all this to switch to a port that is substantially larger, clunkier, and has no real advantages for iPhone users. Which is why Apple hasn't bothered changing up til now. That, plus Apple actually values what its customers REALLY need and what REALLY ACTUALLY benefits them.