What you need to know
- Apple stopped selling iPhones with headphones in the box with the iPhone 12.
- France required the company to continue offering them to customers because of a law protecting children from radiation.
- A new environmental law looks set to end the practice of selling iPhones in a unique double box.
A new report claims that official iPhone vendors in France are preparing to stop selling the iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 in their unique double boxes, after the country passed a law to reduce waste in smartphone packaging last year.
Consomac reports that official reseller Fnac is advising customers that due to new environmental laws in the country they will no longer be required to sell Apple's iPhone with EarPods from January 24. As such, Consomac infers that Apple will also stop providing them with their iPhones in the next few days, iMore has reached out to Apple for confirmation of this. At the time of publication, Apple's website still lists Lightning EarPods as included in the box of the iPhone 12 and iPhone 13.
The strange situation in France emerged shortly after Apple released the iPhone 12, following its controversial announcement that it would be dropping the charging brick and Lightning EarPods in order to vastly reduce the size of the packaging and shipping footprint of the device.
A law in France passed to try and shield young people from exposure to electromagnetic waves meant that Apple had to continue including its EarPods with the iPhone. This meant phones came in a unique double box, as depicted in the header image from TheiCollection.
Consomac explains that the new environmental laws remove the obligation to include headphones.
