EU invents a brand new way to annoy US tech
Europe will from June demand smartphones and tablets ship with a new labelling system to show battery life and repairability. On first glance, these rules seem good, but on the second look they once again seem to have been designed by a bunch of people who have an axe to grind against US tech. Perhaps it was developed by former Nokia staffers? I don’t know.
What’s good about the rules
There is some good in these rules under which smartphones and tablets will ship with labels that define their energy efficiency and battery life. The labels will also assess the number of charge cycles a battery should support, assign rankings to device durability, and also assess repairability of those devices. You’ll also see an IP rating for protection against dust and water. One other really good thing is that manufactures will be required to deliver timely software updates. All of this is good, and it will be interesting to assess these devices across the category for these rankings, so long as they are consistently applied.
What’s bad about the rules
The first big problem I see with these rules is the exception that exists for Windows tablets, which will be assessed under a different system for computers. It seems strange to me that tablets such as the iPad aren’t being treated in the same way, given that iPads are actually more capable than most Windows tablets.
The repairability rules bother me a little – but I imagine iPhones will always perform less well on that category, even while they excel in all the other categories, so perhaps that’s fair enough. If you want the best design, you’ll probably pick Apple. All the same, it will probably be some benefit that spare parts will need to be made available for seven years.
My concern is these ratings will be inconsistently assessed, favoring some products at the expense of other ones. The way these rules are developed appears quite reliant on Europe’s internal processes, which we’ve already seen being weaponized against US tech. Will this be a new frontier in the fractured trade environment? We shall see.
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