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EU Committee Votes To Make All Smartphone Vendors Utilize a Standard Charger
Deathspawner writes "The EU has been known to make a lot of odd decisions when it comes to tech, but one committee's latest vote is one that most people will likely agree with: Standardized smartphone chargers. If passed, this decision would cut down on never having the right charger handy, but as far as the EU is concerned, this is all about a reduction of waste. The initial vote went down on Thursday, and given its market saturation, it seems likely that micro USB would be the target standard. Now, it's a matter of waiting on the EU Parliament to make its vote."
This bill had better have an expiration date, or else it might well interfere with new technologies like (perhaps) wireless power transmission.
How will my iPhone possibly work if it has to be charged with a tool as common as a wall wart? Eeeww. It's 20% less cool than a Lightning cable!
John
I agree. All the waste is really in the charger itself, not in the cable. As much as I would like Apple to switch to a standard USB connection, I have no problem with their choice. Laptop charges on the other hand are a completely different story. They should also look into standardized replaceable batteries if they are really focused on cutting waste.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I thought there was an international law against governing bodies making common sense decisions?
Someone is going to receive a very sternly written letter.
Nope. They're requiring a micro-USB connector on the phone itself. All phone chargers and their connecting wires will be required to interoperate with it.
John
No need to legislate this. Most people I know go out of their way to avoid buying products that don't charge with a USB connector if they can avoid it - at least computer-related products.
Me, the last device I bought with a special charger was a Casio Exilim camera that has unique enough features that I had no other choice. But I hate that charger each time I have to carry it with me on business trips when I already carry a USB charger that takes care of all my other devices.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Much as I don't like to like Apple's "lock-you-in" marketing strategies, I have to agree that the Lightning connector is the best engineered small-form-factor connector of its type that I've used on any portable device. It's secure, it's invertible, and it is designed to not wear out through forceful insertions. The old "universal" connector was awful by comparison.
I find micro-USB to be annoyingly fragile, although that could be due to cheap, under-engineered connectors with weak physical board mounting hardware.
Oh, well. I live in America, so I expect Apple will continue to provide the US market with Lightning connectors, just to cheese off the EU. And they will no doubt continue to keep the Lightning connector on EU based iPads, just to remind people that they voted in a bunch of intrusive politicians.
John
There are millions of people that have iPhones, none of them are your friends? This whole "must be chargeable with micro USB" was already mandatory in the EU, they are just changing the regulations so you don't need an adapter like the iPhone currently requires. They had to, because evidently vendors weren't having it and found ways around it, so yes, there really is a need to legislate this.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Ah, Apple. Dock Connector had its stressed parts on the connector, which means that if something breaks, it's most likely the cheap cable. MicroUSB does this too. Lightning has its stressed parts in the receptacle - so the parts that break the most are inside the expensive phone.
Great idea, huh?
Not to mention the thing where the lightning cable apparently has a chip in the cable itself to verify itself with the phone. Turning the "cheap and easily replaceable" bit into "an unnecessary expensive and wasteful thing."
The lightning cable and connector should die, and Apple should be forced to use micro USB just like everyone else.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
It does if you sell phones.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
A fine idea.
What about laptop chargers too ? Every laptop I've owned has had a different charger plug. In some cases machines made by the same manufacturer have different plugs. Have a set of standard charger ratings and a standard way for the laptop to detect it.
This is just making mandatory the Common External Power Supply EU standard. That's been a voluntary standard since 2009, and most cell phone vendors in Europe have been on board for years. It's simple enough - phones use a MicroUSB B connector, and chargers use a USB-A connector if they have a connector at the charger end.
China standardized on MicroUSB-B back in 2007. The GSM consortium standardized on MicroUSB-B in 2009.
Apple already got an exemption last time this issue came up in the EU.
This isn't the first time this was addressed by the EU.
The last law only affected the part that plugged into the wall, so Apple got an exemption there.
Now they are specifying BOTH ends of the connectors must meet the standard. Its about time.
Also, selling phones without a charger, for 10 bucks less would make sense as well.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
That is actually the idea. You will be able to use your existing charger with your new phone, so less landfill waste will be produced.
I have a charger with 4 USB ports, so my phone, iPod, iPad and Kindle can be charged at the same time using just one wall socket.
Didn't everybody in Europe switch to Micro USB a couple of years ago?
Everyone significant except Apple did. Apple decided to keep using custom connectors for the phone end. They make adaptors but they don't include them as standard, genuine apple ones are fairly pricey and they don't really solve the problem (who wants to carry an adaptor arround with them all the time, that's barely better than carrying the USB cable for the phone arround all the time).
I wonder if this is related (unofficially of course) to apple's recent aggressive move over third party lightning (apples current charge/data port) cables.
Sigh - if they could still use 12V we could just use simple car adapters
Note that car electrics are only nominally 12V. For reasonably reliable operation you need to be able to run continuously anywhere from about 10V to about 15V and to tolerate significant dips and spikes outside that range.
It's actually easier to produce a stable 19V from a car supply than a stable 12V. For a stable 19V you just need some surge protection upfront and then a boost converter. For a stable 12V you would need a converter that can convert both up and down which is quite a bit more complex.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
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That cable is what turned me away from Apple. Around 2007/8 I replaced my iPod and the video cables I had for my previous pod wouldn't work with the new pod because of some kind of verification chip. The old cables sold on Amazon for (literally) six cents (on sale, obvs but still) and Apple's cable cost $49.99. That's ridiculous! That iPod was my last Apple purchase which is a shame because Apple makes some great products.