EU Regulators To Study Need For Action on Common Mobile Phone Charger (reuters.com)

EU regulators plan to study whether there is a need for action in the push for a common mobile phone charger following a lack of progress by phone makers towards this goal, EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager said. From a report: The European Commission has been pushing for a common charger for nearly a decade as it cited the more than 51,000 tons of electronic waste yearly from old chargers as well as the inconvenience to consumers. iPhone and Android users have long complained about using different chargers for their phones.

Comments

Re:Do they mean the cable?

[b0s0z0ku]

Wireless-only charging is fucking idiotic -- you'd need to keep your phone down on the charging plate and not be able to use it while charging. Any phone that only supports wireless charging is crap, waterproof or not.

Re:Everything should go wireless

[AuMatar]

Waste of electricity broadcasting power, short enough range to be nearly unusable, cannot use the phone while charging, cannot easily charge from a laptop while on the road, another piece of equipment that can get broken or lost and not easily replaced. Wireless is a shitty idea that's less convenient and costs more. No thanks.

E-waste

[tepples]

Why should there be a law of any kind mandating that different manufacturers all use the same charger?

Because it's a consequence of the long-standing law against polluting the land and water with your e-waste. Or would you prefer to abolish that as well?

Re:E-waste

[JudgeFurious]

You're talking about what people do with chargers they no longer need or want. This is a question of asking people to properly dispose of things they discard. If you recycle your broken or no longer needed waste then outstanding. That's what you should do and it's what I do. Yes making them all use the same cable will give people an incentive to keep their old cable to use with their new phone and that's fine but each phone will continue to come with a cable and people will continue to discard their old cables improperly. Having people all throw away matching cables isn't much of an improvement.

Apple

[Artem S. Tashkinov]

Let's be honest: there's just one company which shows "a lack of progress towards this goal" and that's Apple. All others have already transitioned or are transitioning from MicroUSB to USB-C.

Even certain modern "dumb" phones already come with a USB-C connector.

apple will lock out non apple USB-C changes

[Joe_Dragon]

apple will lock out non apple USB-C changes

Re:So much for innovation

[volodymyrbiryuk]

Troll comment. If not for the EU you would still have to use a different charger + cable for each manufacturer or sometimes even for each model from the same manufacturer. What innovation are you talking about? Changing the shape of a connector and make you pay for it is not innovation. You must have forgotten the times where you would have been fucked if you forgot your charger on vacation. Now you can borrow a charger from 90% of phone users.

Re:Do they mean the cable?

[yuriklastalov]

Sorry pal, your real world usage patterns get in the way of our aesthetic principles. We're making the BRAVE and COURAGEOUS design choices necessary to realize a more perfect world. Just deal with it, bro.

Re: Yes, about power connectors

[cyber-vandal]

Had they not threatened it then we'd have the same situation as laptops where you can't even get a standard power supply for different laptops from the same manufacturer.

Re:Yes, about power connectors

[sjames]

Clearly you have forgotten the state of affairs before the EU pressured manufacturers the last time, back when even different models from the same manufacturer had their own special snowflake chargers. Without that, they wouldn't be USB at all.