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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.

7 of 363 comments (clear)

  1. And why the hell do I need a driver for this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I have working USB on my computer. Why the hell do I need to install a Motorola XP driver to charge my RAZR?

    1. Re:And why the hell do I need a driver for this? by PitaBred · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Windows USB functionality is severely backwards... why is my damn phone a different device when I plug it into a different USB port? Does the port address somehow magically make it behave differently? Can you tell that it's annoying having to plug every new device into every single port on my computer and installing the driver so that I don't have to worry about that when I actually want to use the device?

      Glad I only use Windows for gaming and to update my Blackberry's software.

      --
      My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
    2. Re:And why the hell do I need a driver for this? by 2short · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You don't (and can't) "detect" power on a line, nor can a hub "throw" power at them.

      The hub is supposed to keep the voltage at 5V. How many amps that causes to flow through a device is up to the device, which is supposed to be smart enough to limit itself to 100mA until has gotten permission via software to draw more. All manner of devices ignore this because it's a few cents cheaper to not include those electronics, and just pull whatever you feel like. Hub makers must deal with this or have their products melt and not sell, so they deal. But it's the device that is wrong. No machine maker in their right mind will include a port that can't supply 500mA right off the bat, because the standard is so universally ignored.

  2. Yay! by Nerdposeur · · Score: 3, Insightful

    About time.

  3. oh-so-special? by nine-times · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?"

    Oh, like Apple is just using the dock connector to be "special"? It's true that the dock connector is *mostly* USB, but it also can carry audio and video so that, with only a dock, you can output to a stereo or TV. Also, the audio put out through the dock is supposedly different from what comes out of the headphone jack (I believe they aren't amplifying the audio from the dock), meaning you can get better quality for outputting to a stereo.

    So I don't know why the submitter has to turn this into an Apple-bashing thing. Apple actually uses standards pretty often. And often, when they do stray from a standard, it's in order to provide specific functionality-- and even then they often release the specs for their version, allowing others to adopt it. For example, I believe they released the specs for their custom "mini display port" that they're using without requiring any kind of licensing fees or anything.

  4. Re:Voltage and current by Otto · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I take it this means that if I have a USB hub then my cell phone is always on low power charge mode. Otherwise I don't see how a computer could decide how much current to supply when multiple devices are attached in parallel via a hub.

    USB hubs are more than mere wiring, they have to have some minor amount of intelligence. There's two basic kinds of hubs: bus-powered and self-powered. Self-powered hubs have a separate power source (wall outlet, etc) and are allowed to provide up to 500 mA to devices connecting to them, which is the same as the high-power mode for normal USB ports. This allows those devices to charge. Bus-powered hubs can't do this, they're basically limited to the amount of power they get from the USB port itself.

    A second question is, why don't devices supply their own drivers when you plug them in?

    Because that's not possible in the USB specification. The "no-driver" devices really use a default set of drivers that have their characteristics predefined in the USB specs.

    Also, it's a bit of a security risk for a device to be able to send executable code to the PC and actually have it get executed.

    --
    - Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
  5. Nope, just getting in on the cable racket. by raehl · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Legislation (or threat of legislation) had nothing to do with it. The legislators are already all bought and paid for.

    The problem is that selling replacement chargers only works from a profit perspective when the profit from the replacement chargers you're selling offsets the cost of the free chargers you're including with the phone. That worked for a little while, but then generic manufacturers got involved, and the money made selling replacement chargers stopped beating the money spent including free chargers.

    So the phone companies are switching over to the printer+USB cable/HD TV+HDMI cable model. With standardized chargers, they don't need to include a charger with the phone anymore, saving them money. And then the retailers can sell you a phone, and then also sell you a $2 charger for $80. $120 if it's gold plated. $180 if it's gold plated and made by Monster.

    --
    paintball