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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.
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.
Switzerland movies nothing, our Government just tries to suck up to the EU wherever they can and copy their laws... and, it just mandates a USB-Plug *on the charger*, so even for the crap from Cuppertino it does not change anything...
Standards are the basis of a free market, and proprietary "standards" are the basis of proprietary lock-in.
Governments are given the oversight to ensure that there still is a free market.
Examples for proprietary "standards" being used for proprietary lock-in:
-> microsoft office to make interopability with their formats hard
-> whatsapp's messaging protocol. its basically xmpp, but they still only allow the official client to communicate
-> printer cartriges, even used to lie to the customer by lowering the price for the printer.
The government must be involved to prevent the formation of monopolies or cartels that remove the "free" from free market.
The problem with chargers cables is that it seems they are designed by young designers, who have a perfect vision.
But after fifty years almost everyone experiences a deterioration of vision. It is so simple to make an explicit clear design of a plug, still I am to put on my glasses just to connect a smartphone to a charger.
It is not only with cables, it's with everything, an iron, a headphones, etc. About everything is designed by young cool people with perfect youthful vision.
On the one hand, I have drawers full of old phones and chargers...so I reckon standards are good.
On the other, my kids (and to a lesser extent I) enjoyed the extended functionality that iPhone sockets brought to (cheap, non-Apple) peripherals like bedside alarms, autonomous amp/speakers in the bathroom or by the pool, replacement car stereos...access to contacts, charging, music and all without Apple or Android "car OS" bullshit. And no, bluetooth alternatives for non-Apple devices do not count...only recently have they become remotely equivalent in reliability of connection, integration and ease of use.
The cheapo Chinese iThings mostly "Just Worked"...(OK, albeit with hilariously poor and inconsistent interfaces)
Well, up to iPhone 4s anyway.
All that came to a grinding halt with later iPhones / iOS.
Since my kids and cats routinely lose, loan, or just simply destroy chargers and cables, I have a bunch of hard-wired armoured micro-USB cables all around the house, the garden, the cars etc.
Fine for me and the wife with Android 'phones; for kids and visitors a small "tip" that converted the mini-USB to Lightening was attached with a steel flying wire near the end, (fishing line header, if you're interested...)
Neat little thing, bought for cheap. Worked fine.
Until an "update" rendered them useless...
Fuck you Apple.
Oh, and don't get me started on how later iOS updates rendered the user interface LESS usable.
Fuck you again, boys, and BTW fuck iTunes while we're at it.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to mow the lawn.
USB-C is a way better connector - No schrodinger's cat problem where the ports direction isn't determined until you try it the first time, so it always takes 3 tries. Aupports higher power etc - just a way better standard than Micro B
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
Apple is using the lightning connectors (and the associated data transfer standards) to lock customers in to only purchasing from Apple. Letting the USB committee standardize on Lightning would defeat the purpose
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?