If you live in the European Union and visit Apple’s website today, you’ll notice a new snippet of information alongside the iPhone and iPad: colorful energy labels that rank each model’s efficiency, durability, and repairability.
This change is not voluntary, but rather Apple’s compliance with a new EU regulation that has just come into effect.
The new labels assign each device a grade from A to G for energy efficiency and durability factors, including shock resistance and repairability. But Apple being Apple, there’s a little more to the story.
Thoughts on the new EU guidelines
Along with today’s changes, Apple also posted 44-page technical document It details its labeling process, as I found the regulation ambiguous:
The new EU regulation on energy labels for smartphones and tablets stipulates several temporary testing methods that contain unclear language. As a result, some of the metrics on the energy label are affected by choices made by manufacturers and testing laboratories that interpret the regulation. The goal of this paper is to explain the testing methodology chosen by Apple and the resulting scores that have been voluntarily downgraded in some cases to account for potential differences in interpretation. We look forward to working alongside other stakeholders to address ambiguities in the way we test in the future.
A quick look at the document is enough to make it clear that Apple is not happy with how some of these scores are calculated, or at least with the extent of the ambiguity that the European Union has set for testing methods.
According to Apple, its current iPhone models will actually qualify for the highest score of “A” on the energy efficiency index. However, the company voluntarily lowered its rating to ‘B’ out of what it calls an “abundance of caution.”
Anxiety? These independent labs could interpret the EU’s testing protocols differently, and end up giving Apple a worse score. And guess how Which You will play in public.
The same conservative downgrading approach was applied to the iPhone’s drop resistance scores. Apple says it’s not convinced that standardized EU drop tests reflect real-world durability, especially given how much they depend on variables like the type of wood and steel used in the affected surfaces.
Here are the signs for iPad Air 11 inchthe iPad Pro 11 inchiPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro:
What the ratings show and how to find them
Energy labels cover six main categories:
- Energy efficiency per charge
- Battery life (number of full charge cycles)
- Repairability
- Ingress protection (water and dust resistance)
- Drop impact resistance
- Battery endurance per cycle (hours of use per full charge)
For buyers, the most noticeable part is the new icon (a small colored tick) that now appears on iPhone and iPad product pages for EU countries, including each product’s purchase page. Clicking or tapping on the icon will show the full label. You can also find them in the environmental section of the technical specifications for each product.
There’s also a downloadable PDF that goes more in-depth. It includes details such as the battery capacity in milliampere hours (mAh), the scratch resistance rating of the device based on the Mohs hardness scale, and a guaranteed minimum number of years that each product will continue to receive security updates.
In addition to the website changes, Apple will also include a printed version of the energy label in the box with every new iPhone and iPad sold in the EU, starting with devices manufactured going forward.
via MacRumors
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