Apple moving the iPhone to USB-C was incredibly obvious, even if you ignore the recurring noise about the EU. Again, every single bit of evidence was that Apple was switching their entire product line. Having the iPhone hanging around with the slow, dated lightning connector started to be embarrassing. Apple started bragging about the fast speeds and capabilities of USB-C on iPads, and they're going to use it as an upgrade feature on the 15.
Apple moved their laptops to USB-C in 2015. The iPad started switching in 2018. Thunderbolt 3 & 4, created by Apple and Intel use USB-C.
And yes, the EU dictum before was a voluntary agreement, and Apple provided an adapter and then went from the bad 30-pin to the much better lightning. Which is Apple's resistance to the EU saying "this is it...the eternal connector".
> every single bit of evidence was that Apple was switching their entire product line
2015 was eight years ago. They were actually pretty early to USB-C, setting it up in a couple years, then they waited another couple years without bringing it to iphone, then another, then another.
The evidence was that they were in no rush at all.
And thunderbolt isn't relevant when their phones are still on USB 2.
> Which is Apple's resistance to the EU saying "this is it...the eternal connector".
And they saw it coming, so doing prep work doesn't show they wanted to change.
A big part of the reason people thought Apple would change is because everyone knew these rules were coming.
Also I don't think micro-USB ever got mandated, and 2010 was before lightning even existed.
And given the pin burnout problems I'm not even sure if micro USB is worse than lightning with USB 2.0