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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.
Correct. This EU study relates to the different connectors used by different makes and models of mobile device. Smartphones use three (USB micro-B, USB C, and Lightning), dumbphones and laptops generally use different sizes and voltages of barrel connector, and handheld video game consoles have their own proprietary power connectors (GBA SP/Nintendo DS, Nintendo DS Lite, Nintendo DSi/3DS).
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.
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.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
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.
Even among the non-Apple devices there are still issues. The USB-Micro standard is fragile, uni-directional and has skinny-ass wires that can't cary much current for fast charging. The USB-C standard is anything but standard with a mixed bag of features and compatibility from device to device.
Apple's Lightening charger is nice that it works for all of Apple's recent handhelds and is reversible, but is incompatible for all the new laptops (USB-C). The Listening cable is also only good for ~2A of current meaning that fast charging is right out. But what good is a charging cable that only works one line of devices?
USB-C *could* be great and last us for the next 10 years if only the industry could standardize the standard. It would also be great if you could count on USB-C cables actually being 100% compliant and not worry that your E-Bay special was going to toast your new phone, or burn down your house. Judging by the plethora of shitty cables out there, I would guess that the standard is simply too expensive or too difficult to comply with.
I would definitely welcome a standard that could do something about the giant box of standard, half-standard, and proprietary cables that I've accumulated. We can do it with headphones and lights and HDMI cables (sort of), why can't we do it with phone and laptop chargers?
This one's tricky. You have to use imaginary numbers, like eleventeen... --Hobbes
My bad I got them confused. I guess the Lightning cable came out before Thunderbolt. Because light travels faster then sound.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
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.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
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.
sudo rm -r -f --no-preserve-root /
Pokemon Go players disagree... I need to keep my phone constantly charging if I'm playing for more than an hour or so or the battery won't last the day.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
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.