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Handset Vendors Plug Micro-USB Charge Ports

Posted by timothy on from the kicking-and-screaming-to-the-briar-patch dept.

ketan324 points to a Register story touting an agreement among several phone makers to settle on Micro USB for their phones' charging ports, writing "It's about time for these cellphone manufacturers to wise up and design a universal phone charger. Although many manufacturers have already 'standardized' to a mini-USB interface, there are many more out there who use proprietary adapters. I wonder how Apple will feel about this? Will they finally realize that their oh-so-special adapter is nothing more than a fudged USB interface?" No legislation required.

3 of 363 comments (clear)

  1. Re:And why the hell do I need a driver for this? by Ed+Avis · · Score: 5, Informative

    Often the standard USB current isn't enough to charge a device, so you must install a driver which does nothing more than increase the USB power output.

    --
    -- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
  2. Re:oh-so-special? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's a line level signal as opposed to headphone level signal. There's a difference. If you're running the signal through an external amplifier, you want line level.

  3. Re:And why the hell do I need a driver for this? by Why2K · · Score: 5, Informative
    From the USB standard, section 7.2.1 (emphasis mine):

    A unit load is defined to be 100mA. The number of unit loads a device can draw is an absolute maximum, not an average over time. A device may be either low-power at one unit load or high-power, consuming up to five unit loads. All devices default to low-power. The transition to high-power is under software control. It is the responsibility of software to ensure adequate power is available before allowing devices to consume high-power.