Switzerland Moves Toward a Universal Phone Charger Standard (vice.com)

Press2ToContinue writes: Apple's Lightning cable cartel be damned: Switzerland is moving forward with a plan for a single, universal phone charger across the country, standardizing phone chargers across the board. While the exact standard hasn't been mentioned yet, it wouldn't be hard to guess the standard: Micro USB, used across phone platforms, most especially Android, which has a gigantic chunk of the cell phone market worldwide.

The likely loser? Apple, which has relied on proprietary chargers since introducing the iPhone in 2007. While many companies have tried releasing generic cables, Apple often relies on DRM software to ensure that it's an Apple certified cable, charging $19 a piece for the Lightning charger used by the iPhone 5 and 6 and similar models.

What do you think -- are government-mandated standards for chargers a good idea? Despite the success of the standard household 3-prong electrical plug, doesn't this hamper progress? China seems to have done most of the work on the wall-circuit side of the equation,several years ago. But as to the "standard" 3-prong plug, any particular plug type is only as universal as the sockets and voltages they supply.

Comments

Re:why?

[FrankSchwab]

Well, the Bell System WAS a government created monopoly, which fought tooth and nail against every attempt to nibble away at any part of it. All the government had to do to dismantle it was to repeal the laws the prevented any competition.

Standard Oil, on the other hand, was a market created monopoly where the government had to take aggressive action to dismantle it.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[Darinbob]

The first definition has proven time and time again to lead to abuses in the market, abuses against rights of citizens, abuses against its own workers, cheating against its own shareholders even.

Re:standarizing phone chargers

[tlhIngan]

I fail to see why that's a problem. Having a type A slot on the charger means that any phone w/ the correct cord can be charged - not just Apple or Android but also past generations of phones that may have used other types, like mini USB (used on the old Moto Razrs) or the proprietary types from Nokia, Samsung or LG.

Only issue as far as charging goes is iToys sometimes refusing to charge when not using the original white Apple made connectors. But even that happens only in certain environments, like a car's USB port.

As far as standardizing goes, USB has a pretty sordid record itself. Type A & Type B was fine, then you had mini, then micro, now Type C is coming out that is symmetric... Why can't the USB committee just standardize on Apple's lightning connector, instead of reinventing the wheel?

Well, several problems with the summary.

1) Micro USB sucks. I mean, USB Type C is coming out and for good reason - plugging in cables without doing the twist-around dance is a good thing. Rumor has it Apple actually gave that design to the USB forum because well, uni-directional connectors stink especially on mobile. Heck, there are several designs for the old Type A connector that are... reversible! Unfortunately, the design of the Type A means they are fragile

2) USB lightning cables aren't expensive, nor proprietary. The chip only comes into play if you want to do anything more than connect a sync/charge cable. You can pick up a ton of sync/charge USB to lightning cables on eBay/DealExtreme/monoprice/Alibaba for $5 shipped these days. There's a lot of clone cables out there. Hell, even licensed cables are only $10 on sale nowadays.

3) The chip allows lightning to do fancy things like send audio or video data out of it. USB has no such functionality directly (except through USB Host ports faking OTG - no one implements real OTG), so it's considered a "value add".

4) Reversible connectors are good. Imagine trying to design a phone accessory that uses the USB port - if you want to support a lot of phones, it's hard because half will have the USB plug one way, the other half will be the opposite, so you get stuck with releasing a product with a pigtail and some hokey attachment option.

5) Apple chargers have special resistors to tell you how much current the charger allows. USB Charging spec shorts D+/D-, offering no clue as to how much you can draw. And it's changed - 500mA, 800mA, 1A and 2A are valid. And devices that draw 2A have been known to explode/set on fire cheap chargers. Why the USB folks couldn't have adopted the Apple system (which is cheap, requires no special hardware (the resistors pull the D+/D- lines to logical 0 and 1 states) to measure or use and lets you mix and match chargers at will, I have no idea. I mean, why can't the charger tell the device it only supports 500mA? (FYI - the circuits to detect a USB charger are the same as Apple resistors - the D+/D- short coupled with "special resistors" inside the device across ground and Vbus means you detect it because the USB lines go a certain way)

6) Government mandating USB Micro is already limiting - consumers won't get Type C style connectors on their phone. I mean it's good it's standardized, but you really want to harm innovation like this? Of course, you can allow adapters for the Apple folks, and the Type C phone folks as well. (And face it - more phones are coming with Type C nowadays).

SO no, I'm sure Apple's really worried. Because likely the adapter provision will have to say, or you're going to really deny people the ability to buy phones that have USB Type C?