The European Union wants all portable electronic devices sold in the bloc to work with a standard USB type-C charger by 2024 while Apple wants to keep its users locked into technology which is somewhat out of date.

If the EU got its way electronic waste would be cut by 11,000 tonnes annually and save consumers £217 million a year. If Apple got its way, it would be laughing all the way to the bank and its followers would have to pay more for special "Apple chargers" which they could not use for anything else.

Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of marketing, said: “Obviously we’ll have to comply, we have no choice.”

However, he insisted that the cost of not doing what Apple said would weigh heavily on the EU it would have the reverse effect of reducing e-waste as millions of current iPhone cables will gradually become useless. To be fair they were pretty useless anyway.

Joswiak claimed that it would have been better environmentally and better for Apple customers not to have a government be is prescriptive. 

We guess he is used to the US where the corporates call the shots and governments don't really do much. When Apple was left to its own devices it stopped selling new charging cables with its iPhones claiming this would cut down on packaging and waste. It did mean that users had to pay for their lightning cables if they wanted their expensive iPhones to work.

Apple has previously lobbied against the EU’s standard, arguing it will reduce innovation in electronic charging technology, although the lightning cable is a generation or two behind the USB-C which tends to perform a lot better.

Mr Joswiak refused to say when Apple would begin to swap its iPhones to use USB-C cables: “The Europeans are the ones dictating timing for European customers,” he sulked.

The company has already moved its Macs, many iPads and accessories to USB-C from lightning and other connectors.