Apple gets $19M fine in Brazil for not selling iPhones with charger

Brazillian here, after reading comments I think a lot of people don&#x27;t get what is happening.<p>1. The lawsuit started when Apple dropped the chargers coming with the phone, but had just changed the cable connection, so you would need a new charger anyway.<p>2. Apple chargers often have ludicrous prices in Brazil.<p>3. Apple products in Brazil are in general expensive, people do not replace their iPhones every generation, it wouldn&#x27;t be a stretch to guess that almost all iPhone purchases are first time purchases, or people replacing really old phones, thus as a rule, they don&#x27;t have the appropriate charger.<p>4. If Apple doesn&#x27;t give the charger, or sell it really cheap, Brazillians WILL use chinese knockoffs that set themselves on fire, it is just the reality in the country where all tech is crazy expensive.

<p><pre><code> &gt; &quot;[...] The company cited environmental concerns for removing chargers with every purchase of the device and claimed that the decision will save 861,000 tons of copper, zinc and tin. The Brazilian Ministry of Justice remained unmoved by that reasoning, telling Apple that it could help the environment in other ways, such as giving its devices USB-C support.&quot; </code></pre> Fair enough.

This seems like an easy problem to solve for Apple.<p>Just sell the iPhone for $30 more, and give people the option to not buy a charger with their phone for a $30 discount. Adds up to the same thing, but instead of paying extra for the charger, you get a discount if you don&#x27;t take it in the name of &quot;saving the environment&quot;.

In Brazil, what other companies are doing is this: you buy the phone, you get the charger as a gift. It doesn&#x27;t need to be in the same package, and sometimes it arrives by mail days after - as long as consumers get the charger, no one complains.

What the? Totally backwards.<p>Surely any lawsuit should be that you were compelled to pay a higher price because a charger was bundled with the phone, when you only wanted the phone - maybe because you already have a charger, or wanted to use a third-party one.

So, raise the price by $20 and include a &quot;free&quot; charger with every order.

My rough math tells me they made $19,162,000 per hour in profit during 2021.

Why are tech products so expensive in Brazil? Are they taxed heavily?

Oh no, 19 million dollars, whatever will they do...<p>They could very easily just ignore this as a cost of doing business.

I guess Apple just needs to put a sticker saying this is replacement phone or no charger on the front of the packaging coz this is clearly the case of an idiotic local regulator not of customers being idiots

Many people think this is Apple now having to give a charger with a new iPhone, when in fact now the customer has to buy a charger when purchasing an iPhone.

I would like to get a fuel pump with my next car purchase.

Most people already have chargers. They generally have a long lifespan. Why couple them with products that have a shorter lifespan?

As if a Brazilian court cares about consumer protection. I wouldn&#x27;t be surprised if the courts are _happy_ Apple are still not shipping iPhones with the charger, now they don&#x27;t have to invent another reason to fine Apple to &quot;protect consumers&quot;. €19M is peanuts for Apple, this is obviously not going to change their behaviour.<p>That fine is sure going to line a few bureaucrats&#x27; pockets though!

My belief is this is an issue because iphones have a unique type of charging port. Maybe if they were USBc then nobody would have cared, or they would have been encouraged not to bundle it in, as most people probaby already have a USBc cable and charger. Looking forward to when the EU will force them to switch.

I&#x27;m sure Apple cares deeply about nineteen million dollars

Are they fining Tesla as well?

The fine seems a little crazy to me but maybe that is how you motivate a large company.<p>It is silly that you can buy a device and not be given a way to charge it in the box. And Apple seemingly randomly changes charging ports regularly. In a normal world customer outcry would have forced this issue.<p>But it is Apple and they care not a whit for their customers.