[HN Gopher] EU plans to force OEMs to use a common charger for a...
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EU plans to force OEMs to use a common charger for all phones
Author : 0xedb
Score : 281 points
Date : 2021-09-23 08:27 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.xda-developers.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.xda-developers.com)
| moogly wrote:
| IMO, that charger should be Qi. Ever since trying wireless
| charging on my Nexus 4 back in late 2012/early 2013 I just can't
| go back to sticking a cable into my smartphone just to charge it.
| Makes me feel dirty.
| masklinn wrote:
| Wireless charging is an efficiency nightmare.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| Does anyone feel it is a little strange to have a government
| entity mandating a physical interconnect? I guess it has worked
| out well enough for receptacles. But on a phone it acts as a data
| connection as well. I guess I just wonder if in 20 years will
| every device still have a USB-C port on it in some odd location?
| No one is using it anymore, but it is still mandatory on
| everything.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| Is it weird the the government mandate vehicles need to have
| seatbelts?
| josefx wrote:
| The problem is that after years of everyone pulling their own
| shit we finally have USB C. Yet it seems as if a dozen
| companies still do their best to remain incompatible in various
| ways.
|
| No one wants USB C as permanent solution but the alternative
| hasn't worked out.
| adrr wrote:
| USB C is a huge mess. I have at least 3 types of USB c
| cables. Standard USB C cables, Cables that can charge my
| MacBook Pro, and cables that can hook my pro to a dock. I
| understand the differences but try explaining the differences
| to your parents.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > but try explaining the differences to your parents.
|
| Wheh my Boomer parents first got computers as adults, the
| number of radically different cables with the same
| connectors (especially DB9 or DB25) on the end was
| dizzying, as well as the set of different connectors, and
| remembering what each was for (or attaching tape and
| labelling whatever wasn't the most common function with the
| same combination of connectors) was the norm. That's also
| been true (though the set of common connectors has evolved)
| for most Gen-X and early "Oregon Trail generation"
| Millenials.
|
| "Almost every cable is USB A to USB micro-B and fully
| interchangeable" was such a narrow slice of time that it's
| really only going to dominate your parents experience if
| they were late Millenials or early Gen-Z.
| luma wrote:
| It was far worse with phone chargers before the EU
| mandated USB, nearly every manufacturer had several
| different designs across their product lineup, none of
| which were compatible with each other.
| dmitriid wrote:
| And soon there will be USB4... https://old.reddit.com/r/Usb
| CHardware/comments/mjz2pu/usb4_a... and https://old.reddit.
| com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/mjz2pu/usb4_a...
| easton wrote:
| Not soon, now. My MacBook was advertised as being USB4
| compliant, since Apple probably feels funny about using
| the trademarked "Thunderbolt" name now that they don't
| have Intel chips in their hardware.
|
| USB 4 is mostly Thunderbolt 3 but without Intel
| determining whether you can use the name. (There's some
| differences, but most devices seem to use them
| interchangeably).
| dmitriid wrote:
| > USB 4 is mostly Thunderbolt 3
|
| The second link shows exactly how USB 4 is not
| Thunderbolt, and why Apple can't use Thunderbolt with the
| new Macs.
| grepfru_it wrote:
| Because the usb-c spec had too much wiggle room. The bad
| apples will be fleshed out just like they were when usb 1.0
| came out. I credit the MacBook and androids for going all
| usb-c to jumpstart that initiative
| justapassenger wrote:
| > I guess I just wonder if in 20 years will every device still
| have a USB-C port on it in some odd location? No one is using
| it anymore, but it is still mandatory on everything.
|
| I'll love, that 20 years from now, I will be able to take a
| random device from today, buy an universal adapter for USB-C
| and it'll just work.
| capdeck wrote:
| Apple created very profitable side business of licensing its
| proprietary connector to anyone who wants to create an
| accessory to iPhones. Uber-strong commercial motivation will
| never incentivize Apple to do the right thing - which today is
| switch to USB-C. The amount of electronic trash that this side
| business generates has a huge tax on the environment, not to
| mention inconvenience and extra spend for iPhone users.
|
| While government regulation is usually the road to hell paved
| with good intentions, nothing else will force Apple to do the
| right thing. So, I guess, we'll have to choose "lesser evil"?
| bumbada wrote:
| >Does anyone feel it is a little strange to have a government
| entity mandating a physical interconnect?
|
| I believe governments mandating interactivity standards is one
| of the main reason of its existence.
|
| Before we had standards, like ISO on screws and so on mandated
| by governments, it was chaos.
|
| >But on a phone it acts as a data connection as well.
|
| Precisely, the data communication protocol should be open for
| anyone being able to interface with those devices without
| having to pay extortion rates for anything connected to a
| phone.
|
| The fact that Apple demands 30% of my income if I create a
| keyboard for a phone because they control the interface is
| outrageous.
| znpy wrote:
| It honestly feels strange that this hasn't arrived earlier.
|
| Think about going back to every device having its own
| proprietary charger, as it was in early 2000s:
|
| - mobile phone? branded charger, incompatible with everything
| else
|
| - mp3 player? branded charger, incompatible with everything
| else
|
| - boombox? branded charger, incompatible with everything else
|
| - cordless phone? branded charger, incompatible with everything
| else
|
| - cassette player? branded charger, incompatible with
| everything else
|
| That was dumb.
|
| With USB-c/thunderbolt able to do both power delivery and
| power-negotiation, there really is no honest reason to use a
| proprietary connector.
| ziml77 wrote:
| And it the connector had essentially no relation to the
| voltage or current required by the device so you couldn't
| tell just by fit alone what was compatible with what. You
| could easily damage a device with too much voltage. USB-C
| might be unclear about what the cable and endpoints
| capabilities are, but it also won't damage anything to
| connect stuff together without knowing.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| Don't forget Sony. Chargers that have different connectivity
| and voltage for almost every device.
| mindcrime wrote:
| _Does anyone feel it is a little strange to have a government
| entity mandating a physical interconnect?_
|
| Yes, absolutely.
| lol768 wrote:
| The vast majority of people who seem to be finding this strange
| (and seem to have a misconception that laws don't and cannot
| adapt to technological progress once passed) appear to be
| American or (at the very least) have less day to day exposure
| to EU legislation and the regulatory landscape.
|
| I get the impression there's a rather striking cultural
| difference in terms of views on regulation and the overall
| purpose of government's activities.
|
| I personally welcome this proposal - like many others (GDPR,
| ePrivacy, data roaming) that have come before it it prioritises
| individuals over the wants of corporations.
| diffeomorphism wrote:
| We already had the same rule with micro usb and no the "20 year
| problem" did not happen.
|
| General rule of thumb: If there is a really obvious issue, it
| is not only obvious to you and hence was already addressed.
| [deleted]
| majinuub wrote:
| Its not strange. However, I do think governments mandating it
| is an overstep and it should be strange. Then again, I am a
| voluntaryist living in the US so I'm pretty biased when it
| comes to government mandates.
| worrycue wrote:
| I feel like it's an overstep too. I don't feel comfortable
| with bureaucrats determining which technology we should use.
|
| Going to stick my neck out, and some might say this is just a
| slippery slope fallacy, but should governments mandate choice
| of programming languages? It would certainly help
| interoperability and longevity of code - just like with
| connectors.
|
| Anyway on an emotion level it just feels wrong.
| t43562 wrote:
| There's a problem - waste and people aren't solving it. So
| the government is trying.
| worrycue wrote:
| Surely there are better ways than mandating a very
| specific technology.
|
| It would be like building codes mandating the use of a
| very specific concrete mix instead of mandating that
| supporting members must be able to handle total expected
| load with a safety factor of 5 or something - I'm not a
| civil engineer.
| acdha wrote:
| This is a very popular industry standard with a well
| known path for updates - it seems pretty reasonable for
| the government to simply tell the stragglers to adopt it.
| Unlike the concrete in your example compatibility is a
| bigger concern - imagine if you needed special shoes to
| walk on AppleCrete - and the service lifetime is much
| shorter so waste is a very reasonable concern.
| worrycue wrote:
| > the service lifetime is much shorter so waste is a very
| reasonable concern
|
| Lightning has been around quite a while no? So waste wise
| Apple isn't doing too bad.
| acdha wrote:
| It's definitely not terrible -- microUSB was so fragile
| that people replaced cables a lot more frequently. My
| point was simply that if you're talking about concrete,
| the waste is on a completely different timescale --
| Lightning cables are pretty durable but even a decade is
| ages in tech while buildings and sidewalks are expected
| to last an order of magnitude longer without outside
| damage.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| The way I see it, it was the government stepping in where the
| invisible hand of the market did nothing (or not enough).
| IMO, that's part of why we pay taxes.
| throwaddzuzxd wrote:
| I honestly don't know. On one hand I'd love for a standard used
| by everyone, but on the other hand I fear it'll limit
| innovation. What if Apple want to sell a full wireless phone
| with MagSafe only for instance? What if someone invents
| something better than USB-C?
|
| I'd like an alternative where manufacturers have to sell their
| products with USB-C, but they can sell the same product with
| something else if they want (eg. Apple would sell iPhone xx
| USB-C, iPhone xx Lightning, iPhone xx MagSafe... but they'd be
| forced to sell an USB-C variant)
| ivoras wrote:
| Think of it as wall plugs. You wouldn't want every device and
| every power plant to require their own type of plug, right?
| occamrazor wrote:
| The EU also mandates the connectors for charging electric cars.
| It is a good thing.
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| I do, a little, and wouldn't say this is absolutely great.
| Nevertheless this seemingly proved to do much more good than
| evil. We would probably still have different power and data
| cables for every phone model if the EU didn't do this with USB-
| micro-B (I always wondered how did Apple manage to evade this
| for so long, even though I actually feel like Lightning and
| MagSafe are the best connectors phones and notebooks
| respectively ever had).
|
| Nevertheless I am excited about the rumors Apple is going to
| bring MagSafe back in the upcoming model of MacBooks. Perhaps
| they could do the way it's done in HP EliteBook - it can be
| charged both through a barrel adapter (could be MagSafe in case
| of Apple) and through USB-C (i.e. by a Thunderbolt dock).
|
| The only flaw of MagSafe I have to acknowledge is their ultra-
| thin cable is extremely vulnerable and you can't easily put a
| heat-shrink tube on it because the receptacle is so many times
| bigger.
| ubercow13 wrote:
| The government already mandates the electricity interconnect
| one step back at the wall socket. This is just extending that
| to modern devices.
| duped wrote:
| Government doesn't regulate the other side of that
| interconnect. There are dozens of different DC power
| connectors that go into a two or three prong wall outlet.
|
| And at least in the US I believe the regulations are local
| building codes
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| Honestly, what you're describing about the US is one of the
| worst aspects of the US. It's mostly a remnant of the fact
| that we started out as a bunch of territories. But it
| hasn't really been that way for a long time. Alaska and
| Hawaii don't really count as they are basically just so
| different from the mainland US.
|
| For example we have this thing called the NEC. It's a
| private document owned by a private organization. It's
| named the National Electrical Code. It applies absolutely
| nowhere. Every single jurisdiction either uses an outdated
| copy or so heavily amends it that it prevents anything ever
| resembling standardized electrical construction. Every
| single electrician must be a total master of his own local
| "National Electrical Code".
| cma wrote:
| Local government is still govenment. OSHA also mandates
| some electrical safety testing stuff through UL:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UL_(safety_organization)
| jhoechtl wrote:
| Just to be clear, power sockets are not standardized in the
| EU. Italy has different ones (Type L), France as well (Type
| E), and the UK too (but they are no longer ... you know) ...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mains_electricity_by_country
| Mashimo wrote:
| /me cries in Danish ;_;
| toyg wrote:
| Well, they _are_ standardized - it 's just that the
| standard (sadly) accepts a substantial number of different
| plug designs... Some countries did have to adapt when the
| standard was defined or if they joined after the standard
| was set. Compared to what we had before, it was a
| substantial simplification of the landscape, even if it
| doesn't go all the way to mandate a single plug design.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| Italian sockets can be easily vandalised into a type C
| socket in a pinch. I know, I've done it once in a fit of
| anger.
| filiphorvat wrote:
| To be fair, the CEE 7/7 plug will work almost everywhere in
| the EU, not counting the UK of course.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC_power_plugs_and_sockets#CE
| E...
| wrboyce wrote:
| If you use a screwdriver or similar to open the socket
| covers (shove the screwdriver into the earth socket) then
| you can indeed use a CEE 7/7 in a UK socket.
| e_proxus wrote:
| I used to do this with my keys every time I traveled to
| the UK and forgot my adapters.
| cma wrote:
| But still each govt standardizes them to some extent right?
| messe wrote:
| > and the UK too (but they are no longer ... you know) ...
|
| We have the same sockets in Ireland, so the EU still has
| the same number of different standards.
| Kipters wrote:
| > Italy has different ones (Type L)
|
| Non-ancient sockets in Italy are _bipasso_, meaning they
| accept both the 16 and 10 A variants of the Type L, and the
| 10A variant is compatible with the Europlug, making it
| really a non issue. In households you'll also likely find
| Type-L compatible Schuko (usually) sockets for higher power
| devices, or even combo sockets that can work as two
| _bipasso_ or one Schuko.
|
| So in the end standardization ended up working anyway and
| no one is struggling because of this (also standards about
| wire gauges made extension cords safe to use)
| ravenstine wrote:
| I guess it depends on how far you want it to go. If electric
| sockets aren't standard then that creates bottlenecks in
| infrastructure interchangeability.
|
| To me, I don't see why government has any business in USB.
| Bluetooth maybe since it takes up the air. But USB? It's bad
| enough that wall sockets haven't improved. Will we be stuck
| with USB-C long after its natural EOL?
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| Legislation is not eternal. When USB-C outlives its
| usefulness, it can be legislated away in favour of a
| different standard. Or they could let a
| standards/industrial body make the binding decision.
| nybble41 wrote:
| > When USB-C outlives its usefulness, it can be
| legislated away in favour of a different standard.
|
| When USB-C outlives its usefulness there won't be any
| ready-made standard for the legislation to switch to. Or
| at least if there is such a standard it won't come from
| the EU, or any other jurisdiction with similar
| regulations. Why would anyone develop a _new_ standard
| for mobile devices when the law says they have to use
| USB-C? There are more profitable ways to spend the
| limited R &D budget than designing new ports which you
| might not ever be allowed to use.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| The payoff is huge. Assuming that your connector will be
| allowed to charge royalties, you can make the money on
| the fact that literally every phone will be using it once
| you lobby to update the standard.
|
| Besides that, whichever organization is behind USB is the
| obvious candidate. A new standard that's backwards
| compatible with the old one (because that's what
| consumers are likely after) except for the connector is
| best made by the org that developed the previous version
| of it.
| nybble41 wrote:
| Sure, the payoff is huge if you can charge royalties, but
| so is the risk. You don't want to be the one that spends
| tons of money to develop a new standard only to have
| someone else's design chosen. You're also limited in how
| much real-world testing you can do since you can't market
| devices with the new connector to the public until the
| law is changed. And if the government is going to mandate
| that everyone use a certain kind of port then it ought to
| be made available royalty-free, which removes the
| prospect of a huge payoff.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| "It's bad enough that wall sockets haven't improved"
|
| In what way, spesifically? What can you improve in a metal
| connector carrying current?
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| I'd like to see positive clamping (perhaps by means of a
| mechanical camming action) rather than relying on the
| springiness of metal contacts, which inevitably degrades
| over time due to metal fatigue.
| [deleted]
| adtac wrote:
| smartphones are critical to living life in most developed
| countries. it's the same level of utility as electricity at
| this point. I don't see anything wrong with requiring a
| standard port.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > It's bad enough that wall sockets haven't improved
|
| There's not much need for that, to be honest, at least not
| for Continental Europe where the Schuko plug system is
| dominant. It's reasonably secure against children and
| offers enough capacity for all household loads, and
| industrial applications have all converged on the bulky
| IEC-60309/CEE-17 plugs.
|
| Sometimes, a product is simply "good enough" and does not
| require further improvements (or alternatively, a better
| solution exists, but the cost for retrofitting is
| prohibitively large).
| xdennis wrote:
| (I don't know if you are, but) this is what I find quite weird
| about Americans: they think it's unfair for the government to
| regulate a trillion dollar company, but they find nothing wrong
| when a company treats its platform like fiefdom (i.e. no rights
| for the users).
|
| You can be banned from Twitter for saying something like "men
| aren't women", but God forbid we reduce Apple's profits by
| making them not sell so many dongles.
|
| I think an individual should be prioritized over a company.
| zepto wrote:
| In both cases, the government is not regulating the behavior
| of the company.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| That's because Europeans view "freedom" from an individual
| perspective, it doesn't distinguish _who_ is causing its
| infringement (e.g. boss, neighbor, government, corporation,
| etc). Whereas in America "freedom" exclusively means
| "freedom [from government]."
|
| That's why when Europeans talk about "freedom" from your
| boss, Americans get confused. In America if you can privatize
| a thing (no matter how monopolistically) it isn't a "freedom"
| infringement (e.g. HOAs) because that isn't what the term
| freedom means there.
|
| That's why corporations run rampant in the US and the
| citizens continue to pushback on any government attempted
| intervention because that government intervention is viewed
| as a freedom-problem but the corporate invasion is not.
| GordonS wrote:
| No, I don't. Here the EU is creating legislation that forces
| manufacturers to increase interoperability, be more consumer-
| friendly, and more climate friendly.
|
| This all seems within the remit of governments to me.
|
| > I guess I just wonder if in 20 years will every device still
| have a USB-C port on it in some odd location? No one is using
| it anymore, but it is still mandatory on everything.
|
| Or course not, it's not like legislation is set in stone and
| will never change.
| gruez wrote:
| >Or course not, it's not like legislation is set in stone and
| will never change.
|
| How's that going with the EU cookie legislation?
| moviuro wrote:
| That's a symptom of:
|
| * Stupid webmasters (you don't need that cookie popup for
| my session cookie)
|
| * Greedy advertisers (that track me) and greedy web
| publishers that insist on including such privacy-violating
| scripts and third-parties on their sites
|
| * Sheep user (that have become so accustomed to cookie
| popups they now just keep pressing the most colorful
| button)
|
| Long live uBlock origin and its "annoyances" filters.
| nickpp wrote:
| So it's everybody else's fault BUT that of the actual
| people who created rules?
| LeonidasXIV wrote:
| I generally agree that the rules were well-intentioned,
| so now we have seen a bunch of loopholes being exploited
| (basically dark patterns) so I fully expect the next
| revision of these rules to come down with improvements
| that would make the current dark patterns illegal.
| lol768 wrote:
| > How's that going with the EU cookie legislation?
|
| You mean the twice-amended ePrivacy directive?
|
| I think it's going pretty well, noyb have achieved some
| fantastic results by pursuing complaints in accordance with
| the directive: https://noyb.eu/en/noyb-aims-end-cookie-
| banner-terror-and-is... and https://noyb.eu/en/noyb-
| files-422-formal-gdpr-complaints-ner...
| traveler01 wrote:
| Apple removed the charger to be more enviromnent friendly.
| Why don't do this willingly? Oh yeah... they didn't do it for
| the environment.
| grepfru_it wrote:
| Now apple can announce they support full HDMI from iPhones
| when in reality it's because thunderbolt had to do cheap
| hacks to do it properly. Everyone gets to buy all new
| dongles and accessories. Apple low-key wants this to happen
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I don't think anyone is objecting to the motives of the
| legislation, but rather that it's unconventional for
| governments to directly stipulate a technology. Typically
| they set some parameters that their subjects must comply
| with. For example, they usually say something like "cars may
| not emit more than X PPM of carbon monoxide per liter of
| fuel" rather than "cars shall use technology Y". It's not
| that speculating a technology is outside of the government's
| remit, but rather that it's typically a bad way to make
| policy (politicians aren't technologists, governments move
| slowly, etc).
|
| In the particular case of USB-C, it's a bit puzzling since
| it's not actually an interoperable standard. For example,
| while the charger shape is the same, I can't charge my laptop
| with my phone charger. Maybe the legislation accounts for
| this, but it's a bit of a disappointing standard to cement.
|
| > "legislation isn't set in stone"
|
| I suspect it's an order of magnitude more difficult to change
| that legislation than it would be for the market to bring
| another standard. You might say, "if the Americans have some
| new fangled charger, the Europeans might demand change from
| their government", but it's pretty unlikely that anyone will
| invest on a new charger that they won't be able to sell in
| Europe. For example, most phone manufacturers are unlikely to
| make a Euro-only variant, but will rather make a USB-C phone
| for the whole world, much like how Americans have to suffer
| through GDPR cookie notifications even though GDPR doesn't
| apply to us.
|
| Lastly, is interoperability even a problem? I remember the
| bad old days before USB and interoperability didn't really
| exist because every adapter was proprietary and expensive,
| but I can't remember the last time I had an issue. Similarly,
| are these chargers a major source of e-waste? And how much of
| that is this legislation going to change? Cords will still
| wear our and be thrown away whether they are USB-C or
| Thunderbolt.
| toyg wrote:
| They tried the light-touch approach for years (i.e. the
| previous rulings), and it has improved things but Apple
| insists in, basically, respecting only the letter of the
| law and not the spirit - and they are a third of the
| market. So this time, the Commission came up with a
| stricter approach.
|
| _> it's an order of magnitude more difficult to change
| that legislation_
|
| The previous attempt is from 2009. A review every 10-15
| years or so is not that difficult, when there is widespread
| political agreement on consumer matters.
|
| _> Lastly, is interoperability even a problem?_
|
| Before the EU committees stepped in, the market was a
| jungle of custom adapters. You don't remember the last time
| you had a problem partially because they forced the market
| to stop with shenanigans, and most manufacturer complied at
| least in the most visible sector (phones - stuff like
| watches is still a jungle, but they are less popular and
| definitely not as essential as phones). Some convergence
| was already happening but EU rules accelerated adoption and
| ensured it would happen across the board. Only Apple
| insisted in ignoring the spirit of the decision, so this is
| meant to force their hand somewhat to play ball (while also
| giving them something, since the unbundled charger was at
| risk of being challenged as anti-consumer).
|
| _> Similarly, are these chargers a major source of
| e-waste?_
|
| Yes.
|
| _> And how much of that is this legislation going to
| change?_
|
| More than the alternative of doing nothing.
| rglullis wrote:
| > More than the alternative of doing nothing.
|
| Are you sure about that?
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28630578
| toyg wrote:
| I'm sure it's just a coincidence that the move towards
| less-integrated chargers started after the EU began the
| standardization process in 2009.
| beckman466 wrote:
| > but rather that it's unconventional for governments to
| directly stipulate a technology
|
| aren't you forgetting that governments hand out and enforce
| patents/monopolies/IP?
|
| also it's hard for small groups to compete with giants when
| those giants have plundered the commons and more and more
| scientific and technological research is locked up behind
| their corporate firewalls.
|
| at this point ignoring that plundering is wilful, not due
| to ignorance. [1]
|
| [1] https://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-08-03/book-day-
| corru...
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| > aren't you forgetting that governments hand out and
| enforce patents/monopolies/IP?
|
| In general, "handing out and enforcing monopolies" is a
| bug in democratic governments, not a feature. So by way
| of your own analogy, this legislation would be another
| bug.
|
| > also it's hard for small groups to compete with giants
| when those giants have plundered the commons and more and
| more scientific and technological research is locked up
| behind their corporate firewalls.
|
| I'm already sold on the idea that corporations have too
| much power and corporations often abuse it. We probably
| agree here, but I don't think that has anything to do
| with this case in particular--all of the mainstream
| connector/power protocols are already open. We're not
| talking about smaller tech companies being unable to
| manufacture and sell Lightning chargers (or whatever the
| tech is called, I've already forgotten).
| rhino369 wrote:
| >Or course not, it's not like legislation is set in stone and
| *will never change.*
|
| Regulations can be changed, but its not easy.
|
| If this regulation was proposed in 2005, would we even have
| usb-c? or would the mobile world still be stuck on mini-usb
| because that is what the EU would have mandated at that time?
|
| I don't want my cell phone designed by an EU committee.
| rhacker wrote:
| That's the other issue, it feels like the EU committees are
| composed of grouchy HN readers that want to "fix the
| world". It feels very much, "if I were king I would do
| this".
| [deleted]
| simonh wrote:
| The fact is Lightning is so widely used in practice that
| force deprecating it would drive an awful lot of kit into
| land fills.
|
| If it was one of the dozen or so variations of little USB
| with 2% or 3% market share each you'd have a point, but those
| have mostly gone already.
|
| I don't expect Lightning to be around forever, but then I
| don't expect USB-C to be around forever either. Some day it
| will be super-ceded - should be super-ceded.
|
| Apple has shown remarkable consistency and discipline in
| managing it's connector designs. Far, far more so than any
| other manufacturer I can think of. They were also at the
| forefront of adopting USB-C in the first place and
| spearheaded making it so popular.
| rualca wrote:
| > The fact is Lightning is so widely used in practice that
| force deprecating it would drive an awful lot of kit into
| land fills.
|
| An awful lot of kit is already going to landfills due to
| being rendered useless for depending on non-standard
| components to work. Personally I had to throw out a couple
| of phones because their chargers stopped working.
|
| Also, it's not as if lightning-to-USB-C adapters are
| unheard of.
|
| To top things off, even if we somehow assume that USB-C is
| unable to meet anyone's needs in a few years, and in the
| process ignore the fact that USB-A has been meeting all
| needs for some decades now, why would we jump to the
| conclusion that whatever port format comes next it will be
| technically impossible to get it to work with USB-C, or
| offer it in parallel with USB-C?
| toast0 wrote:
| Apple could make an iPhone for a few years with usb-C and
| lightning if they wanted people to be able to use their
| existing gear, but that doesn't feel very Apple: their
| laptops jumped right from zero USB-C to zero ports that
| aren't USB-C.
|
| They might also get some new customers; I was considering
| an iPhone rather than Android in my last phone purchasing
| round, but no USB-C means I need different charging, means
| I don't want to deal with it. No headphone jack is also
| something I don't want to deal with, been there, lost the
| dongle, would rather not go there again.
| foogazi wrote:
| Or use an adapter
| pier25 wrote:
| > _Lightning is so widely used_
|
| Maybe in the US, but in the EU Android has like 70% of the
| market.
|
| https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/europe
| simonh wrote:
| 30% of the market is huge.
| m000 wrote:
| > Or course not, it's not like legislation is set in stone
| and will never change.
|
| Go tell that to Moses.
| TheRealMoses wrote:
| Hello, I am Moses.
|
| Those damned stone tablets could have been iPads, they sure
| were heavy.
| jollybean wrote:
| The legislation doesn't really do any of those things, and
| 'cords', like 'plastic straws' are negligible bit of waste -
| moreover, the legislation probably wouldn't even change the
| amount of 'cord waste' that much.
|
| The legislation has risk because USBC is ill suited to many
| things and it's best to let manufactures make that decision.
|
| The EU legislators are a buit lazy on this one: they are
| legislation what is 'in front of their faces' (i.e. the
| phones they use) without recognizing the impact might not be
| what they think.
|
| Now - where there is a non-standard situation (remember A/C
| adapters?) - then it would actually help for an engineering
| body to set some kind of standard - but that should probably
| be a standards body, and not the EU.
|
| As long as manufacturers are using some measure of
| standardization that would be fine.
|
| A more rational (but difficult) approach would be to figure
| out a method and system for disposing or recycling the cords.
|
| "Or course not, it's not like legislation is set in stone and
| will never change."
|
| Government legislation does not keep pace with innovation, it
| lags it considerably. Not only that, it tends to stagnate. As
| such it risks becoming a limiting factor and push the
| dynamism to Asia.
|
| I think requiring the use of standard connectors would be
| fine, but they mostly already do.
|
| Creating an electronics recycling program would be actually
| smart, and have positive impact on the environment, but
| that's hard.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| I don't know enough about the EU to say if the laws will
| adapt.
|
| But in the US, I very much view it as once something is
| legislated it becomes a permanent fixture of our society.
| ortusdux wrote:
| I am a huge proponent of sunset provisions, especially when
| legislating tech and things that correlate with tech
| advances.
| arghwhat wrote:
| It might mean that it won't change as often as through a
| free market, but laws adapt.
|
| On the other hand, things also become permanent fixtures
| without law. Like USB-A connectors having been stuck on
| laptops and desktops for more than 20 years.
| grepfru_it wrote:
| MIDI 1.1 would like to have a word with you
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| >But in the US, I very much view it as once something is
| legislated it becomes a permanent fixture of our society.
|
| once something is legislated on it is a permanent fixture
| of society that that thing will be legislated, but that
| does not mean that legislation, in the U.S as well, is not
| updated.
|
| https://law.gwu.libguides.com/electricity/laws-LH
| marcosdumay wrote:
| The usual way to legislate about this kind of thing is that
| a legislative body writes down the goals and gives the
| responsibility over the technical design for a much faster
| executive body.
|
| But I'm not sure the EU even has an executive body that
| could receive it. So I'm not sure about how this one is
| done. Anyway, since this is a revision already, it seems to
| be adapting reasonably fast.
| toyg wrote:
| The EU executive body is the Commission itself.
|
| When it comes to technical details, what happens depends
| on the actual legislation. There are plenty of technical
| committees in Bruxelles (in fact, some would say there
| are too many of those...), but for situations where some
| trickery in application or enforcement is expected,
| directives stay light on details and national governments
| will then get a good degree of freedom in adapting the
| rules. If a government implements a directive badly, it
| will eventually be challenged in the European Court of
| Justice, that will decide if the national rules follow
| the spirit of the directive.
| toyg wrote:
| This is already a change from previous legislation that
| effectively mandated micro-USB. So yeah, it can be done.
| rglullis wrote:
| Does it count if no one ever complied to this
| legislation? Where are the micro-usb iPhones?
| lrem wrote:
| Apple complied by adding a free dongle to every iPhone
| sold in the EU.
| rglullis wrote:
| That's the opposite of compliance. Not only they didn't
| get to change their own product to match some standard,
| they went straight against the spirit of the law (add
| more electronics and yet-another source of waste).
| shawnz wrote:
| It was still considered a success because it at least
| reduced the need for proprietary AC adapters. Now it
| seems they want to expand on that to fix the proprietary
| cable/dongle issue too.
| jaywalk wrote:
| You never needed a proprietary AC adapter to charge an
| iPhone, just a "proprietary" cable.
| shawnz wrote:
| Without the dongle you couldn't use iPhones with micro-
| USB AC adapters that don't have detachable cables.
|
| However I agree that besides that specific circumstance,
| they were basically already compliant. The 2009
| initiative wasn't targeting Apple specifically.
| toyg wrote:
| Apple "complied" by putting USB-A on their chargers and
| calling it a day. EU authorities grumbled but didn't opt
| for a lenghty legal challenge; instead, they talked a bit
| more and came up with this updated legislation. Note how
| they give Apple something (the unbundled charger) while
| becoming more restrictive in other areas... if Apple
| continue taking the piss after this gets passed, I expect
| the hammer will come down.
| rglullis wrote:
| > I expect the hammer will come down.
|
| So, what are they going to do? Fine Apple for a couple of
| million euros? Give another reason for Apple to increase
| the prices of their products even more?
| TazeTSchnitzel wrote:
| They would block all shipments of Apple devices at the
| border of the EU after a certain point. The EU controls
| the customs rules for most of Europe.
| rglullis wrote:
| So, it's the latter. They will have another excuse to
| increase the prices further. "We had to spend $BILLIONS
| to change the design of the iPhone, so this is why the
| new iPhone EU Edition is going to be 1400EUR".
|
| This is the kind of thing that really makes me understand
| Brexit.
| nindalf wrote:
| I think Apple is moving in this direction on their own.
| They sell 4 products that charge by USB-C (Mac, iPad Pro,
| iPad Air, iPad Mini) and 4 that use lightning (iPhone,
| iPhone Mini, iPhone Pro, iPad). But it's a gradual
| change, each of the last few years has seen a product
| introduced using USB-C.
| rglullis wrote:
| Which is one more indication that the law is not needed.
|
| EU bureaucrats are so useless and full of themselves,
| they think they can teach birds how to fly.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| > This is the kind of thing that really makes me
| understand Brexit.
|
| It seems a tad inconsistent to be against restrictions on
| imports but also for the kind of fallout that resulted
| from Brexit. That makes your understanding of Brexit seem
| incomplete.
|
| And if you don't like price increases on Apple products,
| don't buy them. That's the only language they understand.
| rglullis wrote:
| It's not the restrictions on imports that I am against.
| It is the all-encompassing political bureaucracy that the
| EU has become and how upside-down its priorities are.
|
| > And if you don't like price increases on Apple
| products, don't buy them.
|
| I don't buy them already, but the type of connector they
| use is way down on my list of reasons not to use them.
| Closed source? Hard to repair? Exploitative app store
| practices? Spyware that scans your data? An unwilling
| intermediary into developers and consumers? Greenwashed,
| overpriced hardware that can only be used by the terms
| dictated from Cupertino?
|
| _Those are reasons to not use Apple_. Yet, here we are
| discussing the most irrelevant feature of their devices
| like it is the only issue that is wrong with them.
| toyg wrote:
| Note how many of the topics you mention as critical are
| actually discussed at EU level: GDPR, support for FOSS in
| various programs, ongoing examination of the appstore
| monopolistic practices, tax-dodging... And chargers too,
| yes, if anything because it's a pretty simple thing to
| mandate.
| rualca wrote:
| > They will have another excuse to increase the prices
| further.
|
| This sounds like a very poorly thought out slippery slope
| argument, specially taking into account that iPhones'
| manufacturing cost is already a fraction of the huge
| price they sell it to consumers (i.e., $200 vs $1200)
| rglullis wrote:
| Excuses do not have to be based on objective truths.
| toyg wrote:
| Nobody forces you to buy a consumer-unfriendly product
| that also happens to be arbitrarily expensive. If
| somebody in Milan can't afford a Ferrari made in
| Maranello because the damn company insists in pricing
| their cars beyond what is reasonable for a 4-wheeled
| vehicle, it doesn't mean Milan should secede from Italy,
| surely.
| petre wrote:
| > Are you also going to push for governments to force
| Apple to make iPhones with removable batteries
|
| That's not such a bad idea. Or at least make the iPhone
| more repairable by not having to tare it appart just to
| change the battery.
| rglullis wrote:
| If that was important for people, people would buy phones
| with removable batteries.
| jollybean wrote:
| This purview that an iPhone is 'consumer unfriendly' is a
| hint of the arrogance that drives irresponsible
| legislation.
|
| Literally the most profitable product in history, that
| 100's of millions of Europeans - including literally
| probably most of EU government - want so badly they pay a
| very high price.
|
| 'But it's unfriendly!'
|
| No, it's not.
|
| Apple has 100x more credibility than most other parties
| on what a 'consumer friendly' product might be. Making
| something work as well as the iPhone is very hard.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| Perhaps what you meant is "user friendly". Yes, iPhones
| are user friendly. No product Apple sells right now,
| however, is consumer friendly. Not even remotely.
|
| One glance at their history of handling product flaws,
| repair costs and their tendency to bend the truth until
| they can't deny the problems anymore will show that very
| clearly.
|
| But that's not just Apple, it's an industry-wide problem.
| Apple however have proven themselves to be the grand
| masters of consumer unfriendly practices.
| dmitriid wrote:
| > Nobody forces you to buy a consumer-unfriendly product
| that also happens to be arbitrarily expensive.
|
| If anything, Apple's Lightning port (and the 30-pin
| connector before that) are significantly more consumer-
| friendly than USB. Where consumers are consumers of Apple
| products, but still.
|
| In the span of time when Apple only had two connectors,
| USB went through 3 or 4. USB didn't even have a charging
| standard until _2012_ (the year Lightning was
| introduced).
|
| And even with USB-C it's still a hodge-podge of standards
| with multiple optional and non-optional parts, and it's
| not getting better: https://old.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware
| /comments/mjz2pu/usb4_a...
| toyg wrote:
| A single, monopolistic market would also be "consumer
| friendly", given those parameters. Obviously we don't
| want that, do we?
|
| Getting multiple manufacturers to agree on anything is
| always going to be a challenge and produce some
| compromises. But it's still better for the market as a
| whole, which in turn is better for consumers. I look
| forward to the chance of buying a single, universal
| charger with great features that will last me decades,
| from a vendor that may or may not be a phone-
| manufacturer. Apple would gladly do their worse to stop
| me from doing that, if they could.
| dmitriid wrote:
| > I look forward to the chance of buying a single,
| universal charger with great features that will last me
| decades
|
| I really highly doubt about the decades part. I also
| highly doubt about the "single charger with great
| features" because USB has so many optional parts that
| many manufacturers are unlikely to implement.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| I fail to see how any kind of proprietary product can be
| more consumer friendly than an open standard. As I see it
| that cannot be true by definition.
| rglullis wrote:
| Nobody forces you to buy a consumer-unfriendly product,
| period. Are you also going to push for governments to
| force Apple to make iPhones with removable batteries?
| What about the headphone jack? Why not force Apple to
| open source their OS? Why not block the sale of any
| product that is made in a country that has concentration
| camps?
|
| These are all valid reasons that make me never want to
| buy an iOS device. But it is _my choice_.
|
| Why is there this constant need for individuals to
| delegate their consumer conscience to an ill-informed and
| corrupt entity?
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > "Are you also going to push for governments to force
| Apple to make iPhones with removable batteries?"
|
| Kinda - I am pushing my government to force Apple to
| provide spare parts, and give us right to repair. Make
| ownership of digital device mean something again.
|
| US obsession with choice is a red herring. I don't want
| sadistic 'choice' between getting going backrupt and
| dying of a treatable disease, I want the problem fixed.
| rglullis wrote:
| > Make ownership of digital device mean something again.
|
| Then just go buy from someone who actually is behind
| these values, and not someone who just greenwashes their
| products.
|
| > US obsession
|
| Sorry to spoil your ad hominem, but I am born in Brazil
| and have been living in Germany for 8 years.
|
| > I want the problem fixed.
|
| The problem _is_ fixed already: I 've been having this
| discussion while typing from a fairphone, which I was
| free to install /e/ OS without any Google services, and
| it cost less than an iPhone SE. I can open and replace
| not only the battery, but also the display and the
| camera.
|
| I didn't have to wait any bureaucrat in Brussels to do
| this, and quite frankly I believe that if it were up to
| them they would find a way to screw this small Dutch
| company out of existence.
|
| Stop buying Apple products. Stop buying anything from any
| company that is consumer hostile, even if the "ethical"
| alternatives are more expensive/less adequate for your
| needs. I can guarantee you this problem (and others that
| you don't even care about) will be fixed faster than by
| waiting for the EU.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| "The problem is fixed already: I've been having this
| discussion while typing from a fairphone"
|
| Congratulations, you are part of the 0.1%. and yet every
| day millions of unrepairable phones go to landfill,
| petrol cars are still being produced, coal is still being
| burned.
|
| Maybe enough is enough, democracy is more impirtant than
| 'free market'. I want to nail the invisible hand to the
| cross to make a point.
| rglullis wrote:
| > yet every day millions of unrepairable phones go to
| landfill, petrol cars are still being produced, coal is
| still being burned.
|
| Again with the whataboutism? Who are you trying to fool
| with this lame rhetoric?
|
| You say you want democracy, but what you are preaching is
| totalitarianism.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| It's not whatavoutism, it's problems the ideology of
| 'choice' couldn't solve for 50 years.
|
| I think you are preaching anarchy.
| alwayseasy wrote:
| I'm not sur if you know, but Apple complies with various
| local laws, and it impacts their margins.
|
| Interoperability favors competition, the EU is all about
| fair markets, not protecting Apple's margins.
| rglullis wrote:
| > EU is all about fair markets.
|
| If you really believe that, I have a bridge to sell you.
|
| The EU, just like any political entity that has grown
| beyond the original intended responsibilities, has become
| the stage for cronies and the elites to play their power
| games.
|
| If the EU was really for "fair markets", Dieselgate alone
| would have been enough to wipe the German auto industry
| off the Earth. That is certainly something that has
| caused more environmental damage and stopped healthier
| market competition than a fucking power connector.
|
| And don't even get me started on the subsidies given to
| French farmers and the market quotas for eastern
| countries that kill any chance for them to develop their
| industries.
|
| But, hey, at least the EU is giving Apple fans another
| way to greenwash their consumer behavior, so that counts
| for something...
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| "If the EU was really for "fair markets", Dieselgate
| alone"
|
| Dieselgate has resulted in criminal prosecution, remind
| me how many people went to jaill after 2008? 2?
| rglullis wrote:
| "Criminal prosecution for Dieselgate" was political
| theater of the worst kind. It's an example of systemic
| and institutional corruption and all that has brought was
| a couple of scapegoats. If the same thing were to happen
| in a smaller country, say Poland or Czech Republic, it
| would be grounds for the bigger EU states to bulldoze the
| plants and to bankrupt the nations.
|
| Also, it's the second time that you try to counter an
| argument by throwing an American Whataboutism. Maybe you
| should let go of the nationalism and find better
| arguments?
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| 1 - that could be true
|
| 2 - I am not even an EU national
|
| 3 - if one is pointing at dieselgate as a failure of EU,
| there must be a place where such failure doesn't happen.
| If such a place does not exist, then it's not much of an
| argument, every system has it's failures. It's not like i
| am defending WV
| rglullis wrote:
| Every system has failures. That much is a given. The main
| issue is about scale of these systems and its failure
| modes.
|
| The problem of "big" systems - whether the EU, modern day
| US where federal govt taking over power from the states
| or Communist China - is that it fails in spectacular
| catastrophic ways.
|
| This is why you get crisis like 2008 and Dieselgate. Both
| are instances of "too big to fail" industries, protected
| by the government and that in the end screw with the
| people that they claim to serve and protect.
|
| So it doesn't matter that you are not defending VW, or
| that you are against Apple. The point is that by backing
| this ever-growing centralization of power and influence
| by one single political entity, you make the whole system
| more fragile and easier to be manipulated by those elites
| that you so loudly claim to be against.
|
| > there must be a place where such failure doesn't
| happen.
|
| Switzerland. Local governments rule over any attempt at
| centralization. Direct democracy. Individual freedom but
| without forced globalization and universalization of
| values. Not involved in any major wars. _NOT AN EU MEMBER
| STATE_.
| linspace wrote:
| If Apple thought they could charge more they would be
| already doing it, based on their considerable margins. If
| this makes you understand Brexit I doubt you really
| understand Brexit.
| toyg wrote:
| At worst, they can block sales across the Union. Somehow
| I don't think Cook would risk losing their second-largest
| market on a triviality like this, but who knows.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Man, lightning is FAR better than the fragile micro-USB.
| I've had to repair microUSB ports multiple times.
| asddubs wrote:
| micro usb does kind of suck, but it's vastly better than
| every phone having a different proprietary charger like
| it was before smartphones
| toyg wrote:
| From the perspective of a free and non-monopolistic
| market, anything from the USB consortium is massively
| better than an expensive proprietary standard controlled
| by a single vendor. Technical superiority is not the
| point.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| I would say it's easily possible to pick a standard that
| is so subpar compared to a proprietary one that it's
| worse for the consumer.
|
| A solution would be to just require any port used to be
| freely available and open. Require Apple to open the
| lightning standard and make IP related to it
| unenforceable.
| toyg wrote:
| So you are a communist thieve of IP !!11!! Who will ever
| design a plug again, if it can be stolen from them by the
| government?!?!? /s
|
| Honestly, this is the result of dialogue between
| consumers, authorities, and manufacturers, including
| Apple. It tries to do the right thing under the
| circumstances. Apple could have avoided this sort of
| thing entirely if they were only a bit less greedy than
| they are.
| galgalesh wrote:
| > So you are a communist thieve of IP !!11!! Who will
| ever design a plug again, if it can be stolen from them
| by the government?!?!? /s
|
| "jokes" like that are counter-productive to a good
| discussion. HN is not a place for such comments.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| FabHK wrote:
| One nice and welcome example of consumer-friendly
| legislation, btw: The EU prohibited mobile operators from
| charging voice and data roaming fees within the EU. So, now
| on holiday in Spain, say, you can just keep using your mobile
| contract including free minutes and data. (A typical deal is
| <10$ a month for unlimited calls, unlimited SMS, and, say, 3
| GB data; or 15$ for >10 GB data.)
|
| When traveling outside the EU, it's still best to buy a local
| SIM to avoid the ludicrous roaming charges, but there's no
| need to do that within the EU anymore.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| Very interesting (or disturbing) in this regard is the UK
| after Brexit, where one by one the mobile operators are all
| reintroducing roaming charges now that the relevant EU law
| no longer applies.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Elections have consequences.
| throwaway473825 wrote:
| Another consumer-friendly regulation that Brexit has
| destroyed is the cap on interchange fees (0.2% for
| consumer debit cards and 0.3% for consumer credit
| cards).[1]
|
| [1] https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/37706/visa-
| hikes-uk-eu-...
| beezischillin wrote:
| That's strange because I have separate roaming data in my
| contract and it's way less than my local one.
| chefkoch wrote:
| Then you have either a very old contract or one of the
| special no roaming ones.
| beezischillin wrote:
| I renewed five contracts this year, neither of them had
| the same amount of data for roaming as they did for
| local. Calls and SMS, they did (unlimited, basically).
| This seems to be the norm for Orange here. I would assume
| the same goes for Vodafone since they generally seemed to
| always offer less for more.
|
| That being said, it's absolutely lovely to be able to
| travel for business or holiday and to be able to find
| your way around, purchase things and get access to public
| transportation information abroad. Roaming costs before
| that always tended to be so eye-watering that I never
| really knew anyone who thought they were worth putting up
| with. I really dislike going outside of the European
| Union because of them, myself, too.
| piaste wrote:
| If memory serves, the amount of roaming data you get is
| computed on the basis of 'what would you get if you paid
| roughly the same amount of money to a typical provider in
| the country where I am travelling', with some caps in
| both directions.
|
| I live in Italy which has low prices, so I get 50 GB/mo
| for 8EUR (and 200 GB/mo during the summer). Last summer I
| travelled to Austria and Czechia, I had 4GB available in
| both countries, and indeed checking their biggest ISPs'
| landing pages it looks like 8EUR wouldn't have bought me
| even a gig! So 4GB is probably a mandatory minimum.
| beezischillin wrote:
| That's interesting, thanks you for the explanation, makes
| sense to me!
| alwayseasy wrote:
| You have less data because the law is for roaming not for
| people who want a Polish data plan they can use all year
| in Italy.
| nemetroid wrote:
| There are some provisions about "normal usage", and
| operators _are_ allowed to charge extra in certain cases.
| But not more than 3EUR /GB.
|
| As a comparison, my operator charges roughly ten times
| that for roaming in the US (and in 250 MB blocks,
| expiring in 24 hours).
| EduardoBautista wrote:
| Thankfully, if you have an eSIM compatible phone, you can
| use a service like https://www.airalo.com/ to quickly get a
| local data plan. Let's see if this forces carriers to
| reduce their roaming fees.
| spoonjim wrote:
| Legislating pricing is something governments can do well.
| Legislating physical interconnect is an area where they are
| much more likely to be ignorant of the relevant
| requirements. I, for one, vastly prefer Lightning to USB-C
| despite the interoperability; I hope that if the EU goes
| down this road that Apple makes a Lightning phone for the
| rest of us.
| foogazi wrote:
| > I, for one, vastly prefer Lightning to USB-C despite
| the interoperability;
|
| Why do you prefer Lightning over USB-C ?
| spoonjim wrote:
| MUCH easier to connect in the dark, which I do a lot of.
| My broader point is that government regulators are not
| product managers / user researchers and shouldn't get in
| the business of regulating specific features.
| behnamoh wrote:
| I find it interesting that our main hope for forcing the
| big tech to follow
| ethical/environment_friendly/user_friendly procedures is
| not the US, but the EU.
|
| I'm not European, but can anyone tell me how does the
| political system in the EU let (or even motivate) law-
| makers and governments to support such mandates and laws
| that are in favor of consumers?
| DangerousPie wrote:
| I'm not an expert by any means, but my impression is
| that, while they certainly still have some influence,
| lobbyists and big companies hold a lot less sway in
| European politics than in the US. Part of that may be
| tighter rules around campaign finance, part of it may be
| cultural.
| berikv wrote:
| Also, the EU government is not hugely popular in the
| public opinion. Years ago the EU government was popularly
| known for creating nonsensical rules (and there are
| indeed examples of nonsensical rules).
|
| To claim their future existence, the EU government really
| has to prove their usefulness for the EU citizens.
| LeonidasXIV wrote:
| > To claim their future existence, the EU government
| really has to prove their usefulness for the EU citizens.
|
| A lot of it has to do with the EU government being the
| punching bag of local politics. Like the German
| conservatives would throw up their hands "we can't do
| anything against this nonsensical EU legislation",
| completely omitting that they are represented in the EU
| parliament and could've done something against it there.
|
| And the population buys it because the in general the EU
| population knows less about EU governance than US
| governance. A shame.
| JJzD wrote:
| There is not really a 'european' government. There is a
| political body, which is setting some wider rules in the
| union, but only in areas which have been transferred by
| national governments.
|
| However, there is a tendency of these national
| governments to introduce laws on that level, and then
| turn around to their citizens and tell them 'Bruxelles
| told us to do this'.
|
| There are certainly some stupid laws on that level,
| especially in the area of tech. But most of the
| complaints (these laws are conflicting!) are just a meme.
|
| In general is the support for the EU a majority [1] and
| the UK only succesfully 'won' the referendum to leave,
| and are now seeing the difference the EU has made in
| daily life.
|
| The quotes research is a bit older, I am certain the
| Covid response and the fallout from Brexit has improved
| the support for the European union.
|
| [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/10/14/the-
| european-u...
| OneTimePetes wrote:
| Lots of right wing parties in the EU advocate for a
| "countryname-exit" and thus lobbyism in the EU has to
| fight the fear of no-existing very soon. Thus, the
| government has to fight for the approval of the people
| every day at gunpoint and thus, good legislation may
| appear for fear of loosing ones power, job and by that
| even the lobbyism bribery income.
| pif wrote:
| > Lots of right wing parties in the EU advocate for a
| "countryname-exit"
|
| Not anymore, that was the past!
|
| Bellies are still aching from laughter after Brexit, and
| EU has got the final approval stamp after 2016.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| Most of the Eastern European countries have significant
| exit moves.
| [deleted]
| JJzD wrote:
| The EU is about the internal market, but having an
| internal market means it's about standards. There should
| be no technical difference between products from Denmark
| or Spain.
|
| These rules are developed by the commision, but approved
| by national governments, which are then 'translated' into
| national laws.
|
| In some areas the rules are very specific and detailed
| (eg chemicals) but in others the national governments are
| still in control (like protected titles such as
| baristers).
|
| In the end is the motivation money. If you think your
| usb-c chargers are better than other countries, you would
| like to force apple to move to USB-C chargers. So it's a
| big economical incentive, and having countries on board
| like Germany, Scandinavia or the netherlands, makes the
| EU more suspicious of large companies, it's in their
| culture ;).
|
| US has a more liberal policy where they make mistakes
| very costly, if you can succesfully bring a claim to the
| responsible party. The european mindset just tries to
| forbid things (Things aren't allowed if they aren't
| proven safe, instead of only things proven unsafe being
| forbidden)
| jollybean wrote:
| The products in Denmark and Spain are already 'the same'
| with respect to chargers.
|
| The standards don't vary across the region on this issue.
|
| "If you think your usb-c chargers are better than other
| countries, you would like to force apple to move to USB-C
| chargers."
|
| This is definitely not it. There is no secret cabal of
| 'cable margin corporations' pushing for this legislation
| to tilt the power in the EU.
|
| This is just the EU legislators thinking about what is
| right in front of their faces and thinking of legislating
| about it.
|
| There might be some opportunity there, but probably not.
|
| If someone wanted to help, they could figure out how to
| recycle them properly,
| WinstonSmith84 wrote:
| Only partially true, let's not be misleading. It works for
| short vacations, that's about it. The EU has a so called
| "fair use policy", that basically give mobile operators the
| possibility to charge you more when you're more than xx
| days out of the country of registration (it's more
| complicated than this, but it's the idea anyway). In my
| case, traveling often abroad, means I'm constantly hitting
| this limit which force me to buy local sim card from time
| to time. It's nowhere near like in the US if some were
| thinking at this for comparison.
| jarcane wrote:
| Yup. And there's exceptions galore too. You can just
| claim that free roaming will cause "financial hardship"
| and still get away with charging roaming fees anyway.
| Nearly every provider in Finland immediately applied the
| exemption and kept charging roaming fees anyway.
|
| Goddamn 2021 and we're still pretending electrons cost
| more based on distance.
| Blikkentrekker wrote:
| I don't believe they should mandate a specific port, but I do
| believe they should mandate that any nonstandard port must
| make a show in a court of law that it's on technical merit,
| rather than creating interoperability problems for it's own
| sake.
|
| I believe that in general consumer laws should say that
| companies cannot create interoperability problems for it's
| own sake and when doing so must have a salient technical
| reason, whether the reason is so salient is for a court to
| decide.
|
| But that is a more specific version of my more general view
| that I believe that any form of crippleware, defined as
| companies investing time and resources into generating an
| inferior quality product should be illegal.
|
| Essentially, I believe that companies can only make a worse
| product from a consumer perspective, if it were cheaper for
| them to make that product, they must be legally required to
| not make a product worse except to cut their own production
| costs.
|
| Researching and producing their own port when an existing
| port suffices their needs would fall under this.
| epistasis wrote:
| I think the expectation is that there will be additional rule
| changes to adapt to technology advancement. This isn't the sort
| of rule meant to last forever. The EU also has less of a
| problem with people being elected that try to prove that
| government doesn't work by intentionally making it work poorly.
| cherrycherry98 wrote:
| Ports types have been converging naturally without government
| intervention. Even for iPhones, the writing is on the wall for
| the the lightning connector. It was introduced nearly 10 years
| ago under different market conditions (no equivalent USB
| standard existed). Apple is gradually converging on USB-C,
| MacBooks contain only USB-C ports, the iPad Pro uses USB-C
| instead of lightning. The rest of the product line can't be far
| behind given their propensity for simplicity, being able to use
| one cable for everything fits well with that.
|
| To answer the EU Commission's question, "Are your chargers
| piling up in a drawer?". No, I have far less chargers than 10
| or 15 years ago when my laptop, digital camera, game system,
| and phone all had different connectors. Now my laptop, game
| system (Switch), and phone all use USB-C (phone has absorbed
| the digital camera). My Kindle is microUSB but newer ones are
| USB-C as well.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| They have been converging way too slowly, and wouldn't have
| converged as close to one standard without an intervention.
| wyager wrote:
| > Ports types have been converging naturally without
| government intervention.
|
| Agreed, so why bother with government intervention? The
| benefit is small and the potential long-term costs associated
| with retarding technological development are high.
| galgalesh wrote:
| I think you greatly underestimate how much of this "natural
| convergence" happened because of EU influence. See the
| memorandum of understanding of 2009.
|
| https://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/electrical-
| engineering/r...
| cherrycherry98 wrote:
| An MoU is not legislation, it's agreement to work together
| on a common goal. It can be helpful but isn't binding. From
| the MoU:
|
| "The Signatories retain the right to withdraw from this MoU
| at any time with immediate effect."
|
| I was demonstrating convergence on USB-C across digital
| devices. An MoU from 2009 of phone manufacturers agreeing
| to use microUSB can only partially explain that. Maybe it
| helped give the idea of USB charging additional momentum.
| Maybe it would have happened anyway as microUSB was only
| itself introduced in 2007, and the phone landscape was
| transitioning to smart phones at this time.
| space_ghost wrote:
| Does anyone feel it is a little strange to have a government
| entity mandating interoperability details on every level of the
| tech stack? See POSIX for an example. I don't think it's
| strange at all.
| toyg wrote:
| People forget stuff like ANSI or AES are effectively
| government-mandated standards...
| snek_case wrote:
| You say that, but USB-A ports are close to 25 years old, and
| still plenty adequate for a lot of things, from headsets to
| audio interfaces to keyboard and mice. Devices with USB-A ports
| are still sold. I wish my MacBook Pro had some good old USB-A
| ports.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| I actually feel USB-B is a very robust plug. But it is just
| so large that most devices nowadays don't have the real
| estate for it.
|
| The other advantage is that since it is so large, if you get
| dust and stuff in it you can often use something non-
| conductive to clean it out.
| asddubs wrote:
| yeah I only ever really see it on printers, and maybe
| larger external harddrives (although these days I would
| never buy an external hard drive that needs a power supply,
| what a hassle)
| beckman466 wrote:
| > Does anyone feel it is a little strange to have a government
| entity mandating a physical interconnect?
|
| Does anyone feel it is a little strange to have a private
| company forcing users to use a black box physical interconnect;
| Apple's black box 'lightning' adapter?
|
| USB-C is a well developed standard.
| [deleted]
| lmilcin wrote:
| Nothing strange there.
|
| There is already a lot of mandates like that.
|
| If you look at your house, almost every single piece of cable,
| pipe or joint, and so on is standardized so that you can
| connect stuff from different manufacturers and it will fit and
| not blow up on you. Then the correct ways to connect stuff
| together are standardized. Then the people who do these things
| are going through standardized certification.
|
| You don't need to buy different wall sockets to connect up
| different appliances because the sockets are standardized and
| your country decided to mandate that all appliances must follow
| specific rules and choose only from available standardized
| options when connecting to AC.
|
| See, it is so ubiquitous that you don't think about it.
|
| You don't need to think about it because somebody at some point
| stepped in and said that it is not ok to have every
| manufacturer to have their own standard and homeowners to bear
| the cost of navigating those multiple standards.
| kurthr wrote:
| It'll be particularly hilarious, if everything on the phone
| (charging, audio, data) is wireless, but there's a USB-C port
| to nowhere sticking out one side.
| kurthr wrote:
| To be fair the arstechnica article clearly calls out that
| devices with wireless charging won't be covered by the
| current regulation, though they may be regulated in the
| future.
|
| https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/09/european-union-
| annou...
| foxrider wrote:
| It worked really well for SCART in the past
| cblconfederate wrote:
| Is it OK to mandate non-plastic packaging or paper straws?
| corobo wrote:
| Imagine how great it would be if everything was USB-C
|
| Need a cable? Grab one. Sorted
| [deleted]
| _moof wrote:
| The FAA approach to something like this would be to incorporate
| an industry-defined standard by reference (e.g. altimeters
| "shall meet the standards set forth in SAE Aeronautical
| Standard AS 392C") which has the benefit of requiring that
| there be a standard component while leaving it up to an
| industry group to figure out specifically what that component
| should be. It's not perfect but in cases like this I think it's
| a better approach than explicitly requiring a particular
| technology, and it gives industry the freedom (within the
| constraints of its standards body) to redefine the standard
| without overly onerous regulatory machinations. I'll note
| though that new revisions still have to be incorporated by the
| regulatory body; they aren't automatic.
| kibwen wrote:
| This is what the EU did. They gave the industry a decade to
| decide upon a uniform standard, and at the end of that decade
| Apple was the only holdout.
| _moof wrote:
| Ah, well then--nobody but themselves to blame, I suppose!
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| I don't worry about multi billions dollar company having to
| lobby a little more to update the default port format in 10
| years. They are good at it.
|
| I do worry about the invisible hand of the market not being a
| good balance for interoperability or sustainability.
| foxfluff wrote:
| I feel like there's bigger fish to fry. There's more and more li-
| ion appliances and tools, most with proprietary chargers (think
| all the power tools), and in many cases no user replaceable
| battery packs (e.g. vacuum cleaners).
|
| It really sucks that I need a new charger + battery if I want to
| use some bosch or dewalt tool instead of a ryobi or whatever I
| happen to have. And I can't use these tools' batteries to power
| USB devices..
|
| I'm sure all these electric vacuum cleaners are a big lump of
| e-waste when the battery inevitably dies.
|
| Phones have standardized pretty well. Apple is an outlier but I
| don't think that's a huge deal, and the cost of forcing them (and
| their users) to switch may be worse than the status quo.
| foota wrote:
| I think that's a lot harder problem, since there's a wide
| variety of needs that general batteries will have, vs
| smartphone chargers (and not even smartphone batteries)
| foxfluff wrote:
| There are some hard parts (e.g. I don't expect mechanical
| compatibility across appliances anytime soon) and easy parts
| (charging). There's really nothing fancy about the chargers
| that all the appliances use.
|
| USB PD isn't designed for smartphone batteries, it can power
| lots of things, including laptops, monitors, soldering irons,
| large power banks. Appliances' batteries are hardly any
| different from a power bank. There is no "battery smarts" in
| the charger itself, it just gives juice to a charge
| controller located by the battery. I don't know if it scales
| enough to be usable for 48V appliances, but a lot of stuff
| could be powered by a common interface (and, conversely, most
| large batteries could easily double as a power bank, and they
| indeed do if you just attach the right electronics downstream
| of it; having this built-in would be an interesting step).
| danhor wrote:
| With the new usb-c pd standard 48V is possible.
|
| A step-up converter would probably make more sense though,
| since the power requirement is not >100W.
| rand49an wrote:
| USB-C can supply up to 100W, so there's no reason it can't be
| used for the bulk of those use cases too.
| foepys wrote:
| USB-C 2.1 will be able to carry 240W with supported cables.
| _Understated_ wrote:
| What version of USB-C? There are several and they are confusing
| as hell!
| Wolfenstein98k wrote:
| "The proposals only cover devices using wired, not wireless,
| chargers, EU commissioner Thierry Breton said in a press
| conference, adding that "there is plenty of room for innovation
| on wireless.""
|
| This quote typifies why Europe is miles behind on tech and
| innovation more generally.
|
| "I can't imagine a better way of doing this, so we should mandate
| that everyone does this way."
|
| We would've never even got wireless charging with this logic back
| in the USB-A days.
| ewidar wrote:
| Actually what that quote is saying is:
|
| - Wired charging is now a pretty well known topic, and USB-C is
| considered a good standard by the vast majority of the
| industry. So let's make sure that everyone uses this standard
| to simplify the life of the users.
|
| - Wireless charging is still a hot topic, with no clear winner,
| there is time for the industry to settle on a semi-standard.
| We'll wait until then to see if a legislation is required.
| noptd wrote:
| Sounds reasonable.
|
| I wonder whether Apple would comply to a USB-based standard or
| move directly to only supporting wireless charging.
|
| Thinner iPhones anyone?
| tazjin wrote:
| > I guess I just wonder if in 20 years will every device still
| have a USB-C port on it in some odd location?
|
| Yet another indicator that all regulation like this should come
| with a time limit. For another popular example, see the whole
| South Korea Internet Explorer fiasco.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| A time limit actually sounds like a very good idea.
| golemotron wrote:
| No mention of wireless chargers. The EU is so cute.
| fmajid wrote:
| The EU has been talking about this for a decade or more. Time to
| act.
| intrasight wrote:
| I expect that this is a battle that Apple will lose. But I don't
| think they really care that much - because there is neither
| business or technical justification for a custom connector. Now
| they can focus on highlighting why their AC converters are
| superior - which generally they are.
| masklinn wrote:
| I expect this is a battle that Apple isn't even trying to
| fight: they just released an USB-C iPad, and next year marks
| the 10th anniversary of Lightning.
|
| The dock connector lasted ~10 years (it was first made
| available in 2003, lightning was released in 2012, the 30pin
| stopped being produced in 2014 outside of India).
| nso95 wrote:
| Let's hope no advancements in phone chargers come around
| eemil wrote:
| I don't get it.
|
| Apple went all-in with USB-C on their computers (starting _5
| years ago_ with the macbook pro). And that was a pretty unpopular
| decision at the time.
|
| Now that the mobile phone industry has standardized on USB-C,
| they want to stick with lightning? Are they doing it just to be
| contrarian?
| etskinner wrote:
| It seems likely that there are separate teams that develop the
| phone vs. the laptop. The laptop team embraced USB-C, and the
| phone team didn't.
|
| That, or being lightning-only is simply more profitable. Public
| companies (like it or not) have a fiduciary duty to maximize
| shareholder wealth.
| wutbrodo wrote:
| > Are they doing it just to be contrarian?
|
| If they continue to avoid the widely-used standard, they reduce
| the likelihood a consumer will buy their overpriced first-party
| peripherals. This hardly even counts as nefarious: it's openly
| their brand to dismiss the benefits to the user of
| interoperability.
| dahfizz wrote:
| It makes me uneasy to have governments mandate technical
| implementations like this. Would USB-C ever have been invented if
| all companies were required to use USB micro-B for everything?
|
| Maybe I'm jaded by my American government, but I have zero faith
| in the ability of a group of politicians to stay up to date with
| technical standards and keep legislation like this up to date.
| zepolen wrote:
| Micro USB became ubiquitous because Europe put forth a
| commission in 2009 to make it so. Before that every phone had
| their own weird charger. It was hell. Life got much better
| after 2009.
|
| Guess who didn't participate? Apple. Because they weren't
| forced to. This time, they are, and life will get much better.
|
| On American government, yea, it's hard to trust something that
| is bought and paid for by corporate America, Europe however has
| some balls in that department.
| zepto wrote:
| Thank god they didn't comply. Micro usb is appalling compared
| to lightening, but if Apple had complied we would probably be
| stuck with it.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Yeah, odd to me that people point to microUSB as a victory.
| That connector is absolutely terrible! I've had to fix
| microUSB ports multiple times. It's super fragile.
| [deleted]
| mmastrac wrote:
| > Maybe I'm jaded by my American government,
|
| It might not surprise you, but there is a wing of politics
| where their goal is to make government as dysfunctional as
| possible to drag everyone towards a certain political ideal
| they have.
| KernelPryanic wrote:
| That's a good move
| dexen wrote:
| Bad move, an unforced error. This will stifle innovation
| needlessly, similarly to how US' (previously) mandated single
| model of sealed beam headlights stifled their automobile
| headlights innovation for several decades.
|
| Seems some bureaucrat has dusted off the bad old "Everything that
| can be invented has been invented." quote.
|
| The only possible upside would be manufacturers standardizing on
| wireless charging in all devices just to avoid this limitation.
|
| For reference: _sealed-beam headlamps were introduced in 1939,
| becoming standard equipment across all American-market vehicles
| starting in 1940 and remaining the only type allowed for almost
| four and a half decades, until the 1984 model year._ -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parabolic_aluminized_reflector...
| tapland wrote:
| It was an absolute disaster before somewhat unified chargers
| and there was some legislation forcing that unification as
| well.
|
| Being able to reliably find a charger or borrow others' has
| been crucial for smart phone adoption.
| masklinn wrote:
| > there was some legislation forcing that unification as
| well.
|
| FWIW there was not.
|
| There was the _threat_ of legislation, which led to an MoU,
| and the EC expressed satisfaction with the results. In fact
| multiple manufacturers effectively reconducted the MoU
| unrequired (but probably to show good faith and further
| mitigate the risk of legislative action)
| owisd wrote:
| Not really comparable. Apple could both innovate and comply by
| having two charging ports, one EU approved and one Lightning.
| Come to think of it, I would love a phone like that -- maybe
| government intervention can force innovation.
| Ginden wrote:
| > This will stifle innovation needlessly
|
| Do we have any room left for innovation in charging ports?
| USB-C provides 24 pins, up to 240W Power Delivery (negotiable),
| up to 40 Gbit/s, ability to negotiate alternate modes (so
| manufacturer can implement new proprietary protocol if they
| want/need to and put basically anything over those 24 pins).
| dexen wrote:
| _> Do we have any room left for innovation in charging
| ports?_
|
| Absolutely!
|
| The sheer amount of optional features in USB-C cables makes
| charging - in particular fast charging, and charging
| tablet/laptop sized devices - a hit-or-miss game.
|
| USB-C's design was made to balance of costs with regards to
| client device complexity: 12 pins in total, three twisted
| pair signalling pathways, of which two are optional. All this
| is because both of need for backwards compatibility, and also
| current limitations on low-power, low-cost USB devices that
| need compat back to USB 1.1. Two thirds could conceivably be
| done away, using two pins for power and two for singalling.
| On a large volume production, a smaller number of pins pays
| off in costs - once Super Speed-grade transceivers are cheap
| enough for all devices. Alternatively, once optical
| interconnect becomes cheap enough, we could return to that
| technology - two power pins & one optical connector. For
| example Thunderbolt originally started out as optical
| connector [1], and was only later shifted to copper due to
| still costly technology.
|
| A phone would also benefit from a contact connector similar
| to Apple's magsafes (attached via magnets) rather than
| insertion plug; both due to mechanical concerns and also
| savings on internal space. That we are stuck with plugs and
| sockets is largely artifact of requirements for uses other
| than charging, including pendrives & other USB dongles.
|
| Lastly, a clear directionality hint to charging cables would
| be good: if you connect a phone to a tablet, which should
| charge which? Some sort of marking or indicator for the
| (rare) ambiguous case would be nice.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbolt_(interface)#Cop
| per...
| nottorp wrote:
| > USB-C's design was made to balance of costs with regards
| to client device complexity
|
| Actually usb has and always has been made to confuse users
| about what cables they should buy.
| Ginden wrote:
| > Alternatively, once optical interconnect becomes cheap
| enough, we could return to that technology - two power pins
| & one optical connector.
|
| Why would we need to? Smartphones don't even use USB 3.0,
| because smartphone can't realistically saturate 480 Mbit/s
| of USB 2.0. Of course, power of smartphones will increase
| over time, but, assuming current speed of progress in
| technology, we won't exceed USB4 speeds (40Gbit/s) before
| 2040.
|
| > A phone would also benefit from a contact connector
| similar to Apple's magsafes (attached via magnets) rather
| than insertion plug
|
| Magnetic cables already exist and aren't really popular.
|
| > savings on internal space
|
| USB-C port is 8.4mm _2.6mm_ 6.65mm = 145mm^3 = 0.000145L.
| Volumetric density of modern batteries is around 210 Watt-
| hours/liter, so, with saved space, you can store 0.03 Wh.
| It's 6 mAh at 5V.
|
| Though, connectors based on magnetic pins are easier to
| waterproof (but it's still possible with USB-C).
|
| > That we are stuck with plugs and sockets is largely
| artifact of requirements for uses other than charging,
| including pendrives & other USB dongles.
|
| These things aren't going anywhere.
|
| > Lastly, a clear directionality hint to charging cables
| would be good: if you connect a phone to a tablet, which
| should charge which?
|
| None should charge other by default. User should be able to
| decide directionality of charging.
| axiosgunnar wrote:
| "640K of memory ought to be enough for anybody" :-)
| jounker wrote:
| I have a giant bin of old chargers that says you've chosen the
| wrong analogy.
| ramboldio wrote:
| Not sure, whether legislating a particular standard might
| backfire in the long-term?
|
| I imagine that there was a time when it made sense to force
| everybody to have a VGA port..
| lagadu wrote:
| What you do to avoid that is legislate it for a limited time
| (lets say ~5-10 years) and then not renew it. This forces
| everyone to move to the standard in the medium term and doesn't
| impose long-term restrictions to new, better formats coming
| along.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| That's marginally useful, but if the aim is indeed to reduce
| waste then the key measure would be to stop bundling chargers
| with phones, as also suggested by the article.
|
| What creates waste is that every time people buy a new phone they
| get a new charger, which they don't need in 99% of cases because
| they already have a box full of them.
| gostsamo wrote:
| Selling the charger separated from the device is also part of
| the proposal.
| yummybear wrote:
| Can someone explain why it's a problem that different phones use
| different charger cables?
| masklinn wrote:
| Waste. Specifically, the need to replace all your cables when
| you replace your phone even if they're all in working order.
| Wronnay wrote:
| Unnessecary electric waste. You could use one cable and charger
| for all your devices and wouldn't need a drawer full of cables.
| barbazoo wrote:
| > the EU is in favor of having a single charger for all popular
| gadgets in order to cut down on the environmental impact as
| well as make it easy for consumers to carry just a single
| charger for all their gadgets instead of using different
| proprietary connectors
| connor-brooks wrote:
| An average consumer probably gets a new phone every 1-2 years.
| That means 50-100g of junk plastic every year per person.
|
| This seems very small compared to the amount of non-recyclable
| plastic I get every time I go to the supermarket (Fruit and veg
| in plastic wrapping).
|
| Are USB cables very resource heavy to make? Is there something
| that makes them especially bad when compared to other waste?
| qalmakka wrote:
| Well USB cables use some copper and some have gold-plated
| contacts. In any case, the EU has been complaining about cables
| for who knows how long, so I guess they have their own reasons,
| backed by data, to argue for their standardisation.
|
| It surely doesn't make that much sense to let Apple do its own
| hypocrite thing where they spew out platitudes about the
| environment while clearly the only driving force behind their
| decisions is how they suit their financial targets.
| thefz wrote:
| Agree. given that USB-C has an insane bandwidth and can power
| even laptops, there is absolutely no need for different
| standards. Let's all agree on one and move on. Apple's stance
| is ridiculous and justifies only some more profit.
| cute_boi wrote:
| How about we solve both problems? Its not like we should solve
| these sequentially we can always solve problems in a parallel
| way?
| srg0 wrote:
| The valuable part of the charger and the cable is not actually
| plastic. The point is that replaced chargers account for ~
| 1_000_000 kg of e-waste per year.
|
| Cable is 30% copper, 24% stainless steel, 16% other non-plastic
| materials. EPS is 13% copper and copper alloys, 7% aluminium,
| 6% steel, 37% other non-plastic components.
|
| According to EU studies, 31% of the EPS and cables are
| incorrectly disposed.
|
| https://op.europa.eu/o/opportal-service/download-handler?ide...
|
| They are not _especially_ bad compare to other waste, but it is
| the waste that be easily avoided.
| southerntofu wrote:
| Entirely agree with your point. However, i would point out
| that there's many other sources of waste that can be easily
| avoided:
|
| - food waste and related food wrapping waste
|
| - planned obsolescence (TVs, cars, washing machines, and just
| about every product out there)
|
| - car-oriented architecture in the cities, where public
| transportation is an afterthought
|
| - energy waste due to personal infrastructure/tooling
| (cooking/washing/heating infra, personal TV vs shared
| screening rooms, etc)
|
| - war and social control: what's the environmental cost
| (transportation, manufacture of mechanical/chemical weapons)
| of repression (of, say an environmental protest like the
| anti-COP21 movement)? what about an outright war on a foreign
| nation?
|
| These are just examples, but environmental concerns are
| rather "easy" to tackle given proper political will. The
| problem is people concerned with the coming ecological
| apocalypse are either ignored, silenced, bullied, mutilated
| or murdered by Nation States and multinationals.
| zaarn wrote:
| The EU can tackle more than one issue at once. In fact, the
| EU has already put out mandates and regulations to reduce
| food packagin waste and a directive to combat planned
| obsolescence in TVs and Kitch Appliances.
| foepys wrote:
| The EU is also tackling all those points you mentioned.
| Many single-use plastics are already banned in the EU, the
| EU wants smartphone manufacturers to support their hardware
| for at least 5 years, many EU members give out incentives
| to improve house insulation, EV will become the norm in a
| few years and energy standard get stricter every few years.
|
| It's not like the whole EU legislative body is now pushing
| with all their might to ban phone chargers, it's just a
| single working group of many.
| [deleted]
| ksec wrote:
| >An _average_ consumer probably gets a new phone every 1-2
| years.
|
| Much closer to 4 years.
| [deleted]
| benhurmarcel wrote:
| > An average consumer probably gets a new phone every 1-2 years
|
| We don't know the same "average" consumers.
| schleck8 wrote:
| I don't know a single person who gets a new phone every year.
| And I'm happy about that.
| wreath wrote:
| I don't know of anyone who gets a new phone every 1-2 years
| regardless of their income level. Is this really the case? Any
| data on it?
| cblconfederate wrote:
| I think the biggest benefit is that you won't need a charger if
| basically every train/plane/hotel/school etc can have charging
| bases for all phones. Just like we don't need to carry a power
| plug adapter wherever we go
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| I would say 3-4 years, at least here in the USA
| dbbk wrote:
| The average consumer absolutely does not get a new phone every
| single year.
| oaiey wrote:
| Oh they targeted plastic bags already. The food industry will
| get their blast, but their problem is harder to solve than
| chargers.
| squiggleblaz wrote:
| Is this something yet to come into law? I find it very hard
| to buy the vegetables I want at German supermarkets because
| they so often come wrapped in plastic sets of three. Even
| bananas have a substantial amount of sticky tape around them.
| qayxc wrote:
| Is it always plastic, though? Might be cellophane instead,
| which is not plastic and especially suited for packaging
| food.
| oaiey wrote:
| Plastic shopping bags are regulated. The supermarket
| packaging madness is ripe for regulation.
| thefz wrote:
| Digging up rare earth and metals to use them a coupe of years
| and then throw them in a landfill is insane. I'm happy the EU
| has stepped in for this kind of regulation. As for the
| supermarket, vote with your wallet and buy the less plastic you
| can.
| wasmitnetzen wrote:
| The EU very recently banned a lot of single-use plastics[1], so
| it's not like they're just targeting a random small problem
| here.
|
| [1]: https://ec.europa.eu/environment/topics/plastics/single-
| use-...
| squarefoot wrote:
| Great news but needs serious enforcement and vigilance against
| various tricks that manufacturers might employ to "encourage"
| users to buy their own charger. Example: if a phone sets a lower
| charging current when it is not connected to the same-brand
| charger, no matter if that charger can source the necessary
| current, that would trick the user in believing the original
| charger is better by shorting the charging time, so the user
| would be lured into buying one, and we could end up in a even
| worse situation in which for most people a product and its
| charger would come in two packages and two shipments.
| sarvasana wrote:
| Now also force them to allow us to install our own OS.
| jsudi wrote:
| If this was done years ago we'd be stuck using micro or even mini
| usb. I shudder at the thought. Lightning was superior to those
| two. Under this regulation, Lightning and USB-C couldn't have
| happened.
| iSnow wrote:
| That's why the EU back then banged the heads of the
| manufacturers together to force them to come up with a common
| standard, instead of picking one and forcing it down their
| throat.
| Aerroon wrote:
| Is that why the standard that USB-C cables use is such a
| ridiculous mess?
|
| > _Even the seemingly most basic function of USB-C --
| powering devices -- continues to be a mess of compatibility
| issues, conflicting proprietary standards, and a general lack
| of consumer information to guide purchasing decisions._
|
| https://www.androidauthority.com/state-of-usb-c-870996/
| mclightning wrote:
| Worst examples of USB-C in that list is better than
| USB2.0...
|
| USB-C is not lacking. You simply get what you paid for. I
| am using USB-C to charge my laptop, phone, earbuds. It's
| been amazing having just 1 single cable dangling on my
| desk, instead of several. This alone has been enough
| positive to justify the move over to USB-C.
| nottorp wrote:
| How much time did you spend on researching what USB-C
| cable you should buy? :)
|
| Also, does it have data? At 2.0 speeds? At 3.1 speeds?
| mclightning wrote:
| I know what I should expect if I am paying a cable $5 vs
| $40.
|
| Just because tip of the cable is looking like USB-C, you
| shouldn't expect it to support HDMI etc.
|
| Most people are not looking for full set of USB-C
| features. Most people are just looking to charge their
| device.
|
| I don't remember last time I wired up my phone to my
| computer for any data transfer, and I am a nerd who reads
| HN. Think about the average folk.
|
| If we go further, a big chunk of people, don't even use
| anything like a file manager.
|
| In short, biggest reason we have cables around these days
| is; To Charge Up. That's it.
| nottorp wrote:
| > I know what I should expect if I am paying a cable $5
| vs $40.
|
| Actually you know you shouldn't expect much from the $5
| one. But the $40 is a lottery.
| Aerroon wrote:
| Even charging from cable to cable is completely
| different. But I do not believe at all that regular
| people do not ever have the need to connect their device
| to a computer. They might not _most of the time_ , but
| that one time they do they'll be kicking themselves over
| it.
|
| Also, $40 per cable is completely and utterly ridiculous.
| That's 5-8% of monthly salary of Bulgaria (EU country)
| for a _short cable_.
| mclightning wrote:
| >> Also, $40 per cable is completely and utterly
| ridiculous. That's 5-8% of monthly salary of Bulgaria (EU
| country) for a short cable.
|
| That's why you don't buy a $40 usb cable for charging.
| You don't need all the pins in usb-c standard for all
| purposes. You can have a few USB-C cables for various
| purposes. Fully-implemented ones are easy to identify,
| just by their weight difference really.
|
| >> Even charging from cable to cable is completely
| different. But I do not believe at all that regular
| people do not ever have the need to connect their device
| to a computer. They might not most of the time, but that
| one time they do they'll be kicking themselves over it.
|
| I wouldn't say they will be kicking themselves over it.
| If they really cared and knew about transfer speeds of
| different cables, they would be one to invest in a better
| cable ahead of time. If they didn't know about those
| details, they will have no surprises to begin with.
| Because it works on par with USB2.0 at least.
| jsudi wrote:
| So we'll be unable to ever improve on usb-c? How's that good
| for anybody?
| iSnow wrote:
| First off, I am not sure we need to improve on it in the
| short term. USB-A has existed for ~20y by now on the
| desktop and is still going strong. If USB-C lives as long,
| we'll get a break from having to buy different cables for
| quite some time, which at least is great for /my/ nerves.
| When I threw away old phone chargers from 1996 and later,
| it was literally 10 different models.
|
| And if USB-C doesn't cut it anymore, who's to say that
| industry can't move to a different system? EU legislation
| usually isn't outlandish but follows industry practices. If
| device manufacturers bring up a pressing need for USB-D, EU
| will allow both for a transition period and then mandate
| USB-D (or split up mandatory standards by device class if
| need be).
|
| I don't see how every tiny iteration of a standard has to
| result in a different plug system - the incentive for
| companies to iterate plugs just to force consumers to re-
| buy gear is just too high.
| zokier wrote:
| Why do you think it can't be changed to something else in
| the future?
| oaiey wrote:
| See other thread. If the industry wants it, it is highly
| effective in influencing legislators. It is called lobbyism
| and typically we complain about it but sometimes it is also
| good.
| zokier wrote:
| It was done years ago and that's partially how we got microusb
| charging to be so common in the first place.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_external_power_supply
| solarkraft wrote:
| The thing I hate the most about my iPhone is the stupid charging
| port. For sure it's better than micro USB, but it's not better
| than USB-C.
|
| I think they're preparing to transition over anyway, with devices
| gradually replacing the port. But I guess the iPhone is going to
| be among the last.
| hereforphone wrote:
| Of course there are positives. But the overall effect will be to
| stifle advancement. We grow through trial and error.
| nerbert wrote:
| The lightning port has been such a great process of trial and
| error... to milk money out of iphone users.
| jonplackett wrote:
| It seems to me thr EU is very good at making plans without
| considering second and 3rd order consequences.
|
| This seems like a good idea on the surface but look at the shit-
| show that the cookie/data regs have created on the web today.
|
| I hope whatever law they write is encompassing enough that we
| don't get the equivalent of horrible workarounds - maybe apple
| just stops having a cable and we all have to buy MagSafe now.....
| birdman3131 wrote:
| Im not a fan of the quick charging standard being forced as it
| sounds like it will be one hell of a step back for anybody on a
| oneplus/oppo phone. The quick charging there is absolutely
| amazing. Im on an older version but even then my 1+ 7 pro charges
| fast and never gets hot while charging. Compared to PD or QC it
| is leagues better.
| zamadatix wrote:
| OnePlus 9 Pro (and previous 7 Pro) owner chiming in. OnePlus
| was quick to market with good fast charging but it's not all
| that special these days. You'd never be able to practically
| tell if my phone used QC 5 or Warp Charge 65T for instance.
|
| But that note aside QC/Warp Charge/<marketing gibberish name
| here> is just out of specced USB PD and most (including
| OnePlus) have already moved to supporting in spec USB PD on top
| of their proprietary modifications. The law is written to
| support your use case:
|
| "2. Hand-held mobile phones, tablets, digital cameras,
| headphones, headsets, handheld videogame consoles and portable
| speakers, in so far as they are capable of being recharged via
| wired charging at voltages higher than 5 volts or currents
| higher than 3 amperes or powers higher than 15 watts, shall:
|
| (a) incorporate the USB Power Delivery, as described in the
| standard EN IEC 62680-1-2:2021 'Universal serial bus interfaces
| for data and power - Part 1-2: Common components - USB Power
| Delivery specification';
|
| (b) ensure that any additional charging protocol allows the
| full functionality of the USB Power Delivery referred to in
| point (a)."
|
| and because the law doesn't allow bundling chargers anymore
| you're free to pick whether you want to use a standard USB PD
| charger (which the device must support) or buy the
| manufacturer's proprietary charger (which the device can
| optionally support).
| birdman3131 wrote:
| Did they finally get rid of the can't charge very fast while
| the screen is on and gets hot enough to cook eggs while
| charging issues with QC5? Because at least with QC3 and
| previous that was a major issue.
| Aerroon wrote:
| Have they figured out how a mere mortal can tell what a USB cable
| can do without plugging it in? Because USB might be one of the
| most confusing standards there is.
|
| And I don't believe for a second that making all USB-C cables
| capable of everything in the standard isn't massively wasteful
| itself. If the intent is to cut down on waste then that would
| miss the mark.
| southerntofu wrote:
| I'm also curious about this. 99% of Ethernet cables i've come
| across had "CAT5e" (or another cat) spelled out on the cable's
| coat, and that proved useful. With USB, on the other hand...
| esseeayen wrote:
| Wait does this mean that the EU will also prevent the USB-if from
| charging licensing fees? Or is someone in the EU getting some
| kickbacks?
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| I believe that EU law allows anyone to make USB ports and
| stuff. It's the USB logo that you're not allowed without
| licensing fees.
| [deleted]
| jjcon wrote:
| That was my first thought, it seems weird to throw a mandate on
| proprietary licensed hardware.
|
| It could lead to very weird outcomes if usbif decides to throw
| its weight around for political (or geopolitical) reasons.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| LOLNO.
| letmeinhere wrote:
| While we're at it, can we enforce some labeling standards? USB-C
| has become this mystery port/cable that might or might not be
| capable of video/data/charging at ? throughput. Earlier USB
| standards had this issue to some extent, but C takes it to
| another level.
| turtlebits wrote:
| Considering lightning has been around for longer than any of the
| USB variants (mini, micro and USB-C, approx 7 years each), this
| makes no sense.
|
| Is the EU going to restrict innovation and prevent another USB
| connector from being developed?
| thebean11 wrote:
| Lightning is proprietary to Apple. I'm not saying this is a
| good thing, but it's apples and oranges.
| elmimmo wrote:
| I don't get it. Is this about chargers or charging cables? All
| news sites seem to be conflating both. What phone maker today
| ships a charger not with a USB (A or C) female connector
| therefore compatible with pretty much any other phone?
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| The article focuses on forcing USB-C ports (popular), but the
| proposal also unbundles chargers from products like cell phones
| (unpopular).
|
| Apple and several other vendors already unbundled chargers from
| their boxes with mixed reception. Will be interesting to see how
| this proposal is received when people realize it means they'll be
| purchasing chargers separately.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| My only thought is what will happen when someone invents a new
| charger that is significantly superior to what currently
| exists.
| goalieca wrote:
| Like wireless charging pads?
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| Unless those transfer data and charge as quickly I dont see
| that being the case, I mean moreso in the case of actual
| charging cables. Apple dropped the ball on their magsafe
| wireless charger by not including a wall plug and charging
| $40 for something a lot of people couldn't use. Some of the
| Amazon reviews are people who think its a counterfeit.
| goalieca wrote:
| Airdrop transfers data at full wifi speed and I'm sure we
| could make a universal standard for that. The charging
| pads go as high as 15 watts right now. I'm certain we
| will see more improvements in the future.
| rojcyk wrote:
| Probably not, Gian said superior
| cnst wrote:
| Before Covid, every booth at every trade show would give you a
| free wall charger. Some of them were just 1-port 1A 5W
| throwaway, but also some better stuff, too.
|
| I can't imagine buying a charger together with the phone is a
| thing. You either lose them nonstop, or you have so many of
| them you don't need anymore.
| kylecordes wrote:
| Yet I threw away many such throwaway-grade chargers, and use
| the one that came with my Pixel phone, because it delivers a
| much faster charge.
|
| If we all shift the buying the wall charger separately,
| hopefully something can be done about the wide variety of
| incompatible fast-ish charging systems. Rather than everyone
| revert to the lowest common standard of a very slow charge.
| cnst wrote:
| Isn't slow charging actually better for the phone?
|
| I prefer to slow change even if the phone supports fast
| charging -- I wish it was easier to do by having a setting
| instead of having to use incompatible charger and/or cable.
| The stop limit at 80% should also be made available as a
| setting, too.
| kylecordes wrote:
| Although I think generally a regulation to get a handle on port
| proliferation can be very helpful and pro-consumer, inevitably
| consumers will primarily blame phone manufacturers greed as the
| reason they don't get a charger in the box anymore.
| reeealloc wrote:
| Presumably unbundled chargers will be fine with USB-C on
| everything. It's not proprietary like Apple's chargers and easy
| to find.
| ZekeSulastin wrote:
| ... but Apple's chargers have been USB on the charger side
| for ages (previously USB-A, currently USB-C). The easy
| availability of chargers that work with the phones did little
| to stop the complaints when they were unbundled.
| zepolen wrote:
| One needs a charger and a cable to charge a phone, so even
| if you can use the bricks, you'd still wouldn't be able to
| use existing cables.
| sbuk wrote:
| What is proprietary about Apples chargers? They sell USB-A
| and USB-C wall warts, and their devices happily charge on
| non-Apple chargers. Their laptop chargers are USB-C and have
| been for some time. I charge my MBP from a Lenovo power
| brick. The only proprietary part is the lightning connector.
| bad_good_guy wrote:
| stop being pedantic
| zepolen wrote:
| > What is proprietary about Apples chargers? > The only
| proprietary part is the lightning connector.
|
| > I charge my MBP from a Lenovo power brick
|
| Way to avoid the issue at hand, can you charge your iPhone
| using your Android charger/cable?
|
| Laptop chargers aren't the problem, phone chargers are. As
| you saw, USB-C solved the problems for laptops, it's about
| time we solve it for phones too.
| sbuk wrote:
| To answer the question, with a usb-c/micro usb cable? No,
| obviously not. With a Google/Samsung/Anker manufactured
| wall-wart? Yes! Android "chargers" aren't a thing that
| I'm aware of with USB-C, just with micro usb, which would
| be pointless, because the proposed law would make those
| redundant anyway.
|
| When was the last charger sold with a built in cable? And
| honestly, why is carrying 2 cables such a hardship? I
| agree that USB-C would be more convenient, but the
| bluster that is made every time this "issue" comes up
| really is over the top. Look at it this way; the argument
| goes that having Lightning cables produces e-waste.
| Changing to USB-C will render existing Lighting cables
| useless, thereby producing significantly _more_ e-waste!
| At this stage both arguments are redundant.
|
| As to being labelled a 'troll'; the OP made a _factually_
| incorrect statement. I questioned, genuinely, other than
| the cable, what was proprietary about wall-warts and
| charging bricks currently made by Apple?
| zepto wrote:
| You can certainly charge an iPhone using an android
| charger.
| ewidar wrote:
| We're talking with no adapters here, as in you have a
| single plain usb-c charger for all your phones.
| wutbrodo wrote:
| Why feed the trolls? It's plainly obvious to everyone
| here that "charge X with Y" doesn't by default include
| special adapters or connectors.
| zepto wrote:
| Not really. The biggest claim is that this measure will
| reduce e-waste, but that's a red-herring since the
| e-waste is in the charger not the cable, and chargers are
| already interchangeable.
| rhino369 wrote:
| Not if the cable is built into the power adapter. But if
| the power adapter just has a USB-C port, then you can
| charge it using the cable that comes in the iphone box.
| Invictus0 wrote:
| Clearly these lawmakers don't understand that USBC cables are
| not readily interchangeable from one device to another. I don't
| even blame them, the USB foundation made the mother of all
| marketing blunders with this standard.
| p4l4g4 wrote:
| Just charged my phone with my laptops Usb-C charger, without
| any issue. Apart from special features like fast-charge, I'd
| say compatibility is very good.
| Invictus0 wrote:
| I used to work at a company whose products included USB-C
| ports that only supported cable insertion in a single
| orientation--if the cable was inserted incorrectly, it
| would fry the board. Manufacturers have a lot of freedom to
| cut corners with this standard in all different places, and
| you better believe that they are going to do that to the
| greatest possible extent.
| toyg wrote:
| Warranty laws in the EU (2 years mandatory) make this
| less of a problem - eventually a manufacturer must
| realize they'll make more money doing things right than
| replacing tons of fried returns.
| Invictus0 wrote:
| This particular company simply made USB-C cables with
| massive overmolded pokeyokes that ensured they could only
| be inserted in the proper orientation--which works great
| until some poor bastard comes along and tries to assemble
| the thing with the cable he brought from home. Oh well,
| not my problem anymore.
| vanviegen wrote:
| That was my initial thought as well. But by forcing more
| unity in fast-charge protocol variants and by requiring clear
| information about required/delivered power on the packaging,
| it seems that they have an answer to this.
| diffeomorphism wrote:
| For charging? They pretty much are.
|
| For everything else? Maybe with somewhat reduced
| speed/features but good enough.
| sokoloff wrote:
| > For charging? They pretty much are [the same].
|
| If only that were true:
| https://www.engadget.com/2015-11-04-google-pixel-engineer-
| vs...
|
| I've had more trouble with crappy USB-C cables [charging
| only] in the short time that's been a thing than the entire
| time of micro-USB.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Do they all support the high voltage modes? USB PD goes up
| to 20V/5A (100W).
|
| https://www.cui.com/blog/usb-type-c-pd-and-pps#usb-power-
| del...
| doikor wrote:
| Yes. The A4 and A9 (A1 and A19 are ground) are the only
| pins that transmit power. Putting 20V/5A through the
| copper is not a problem even for the cheapest cable.
|
| edit: Ok looking at the other reply with the link to the
| google engineers stuff some have messed up the A5
| (configuration channel) pin and thus the negotiation for
| giving more power fails and just defaults to normal
| levels that are safe for any device.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Sure the wire can almost certainly handle it, but are the
| contacts always going to be able to handle 5A? They are
| very small after all, and not treated very nicely. Not
| sure how it's handled by the protocol, but I've known
| cables to get hot due to contact resistance.
| lovemenot wrote:
| Yes, and if approved USB PD EPR (extended power range)
| proposal, will take it to 240 Watts over USB-C
| connectors.
|
| This moves USB close to the domain in which government
| regulation has long been necessary for safety reasons.
|
| It may be the case that the EU believes a standard
| domestic DC power supply is imminent and the EU believes
| PD (EPR) over USB-C meets the need.
|
| If so, that would make sense, and I am pleased to see the
| EU trying to get ahead to standardise and remove risk
| from vendors as well as consumers.
|
| By analogy, California had no natural right to export its
| CAFE automotive regulations. Yet CA had the foresight to
| cause that to happen anyway. Bravo.
| wutbrodo wrote:
| The unpopularity seems a little shortsighted. I have no clue
| where my Galaxy S's included phone charger is, because using
| USB-C means I already have a dozen appropriate cables sitting
| around. I think at the moment I use the charger from my
| previous laptop to charge it.
|
| It's just a shift in framing. To use a silly example, you don't
| expect a phone to ship with a generator: an electricity hookup
| is a general piece of infrastructure that a user can be
| expected to have.
|
| In a world full of mandated USB-C-compatible devices, having a
| single commodity cable slots much more cleanly into "infra
| you're expected to have already" than "hidden tax on buying a
| new phone" (Apple's strategy)
| bognition wrote:
| I understand why unbundling chargers from devices is unpopular,
| especially as charging cables move from USB-A to USB-C but
| honestly its the right call.
|
| I currently have more than a dozen USB-A plugs (wall warts)
| lying around and who knows how many more I've already thrown
| away. Not once have I purchased a device that used USB-A and
| needed to buy a wall wart for it.
|
| I will have to buy a few USB-C wall warts but i wont buy a
| dozen of them.
| moviuro wrote:
| USB-A to USB-C cables are a thing.
| datavirtue wrote:
| This is good as it will end up an example of what a government
| product looks like. Soon outdated and inadequate, and the only
| thing available--infinite wisdom, stifling innovation.
|
| Sounds like a good idea, but probably not. However, this also
| looks like a "problem" they feel capable of solving, so that
| makes the idea more attractive when their world is littered with
| real, difficult problems yet unaddressed.
| enlyth wrote:
| Maybe unpopular opinion but I like lightning more than USB-C, it
| makes more sense to me to have the connective parts of the cable
| on the outside of it, which gets rid of that little "notch" on
| the inside of USB-C ports which just seems like it can get bent
| at any time.
| iSnow wrote:
| So do I, I would have preferred Lightning ports over USB-C.
| Unfortunately, Apple never plays nice and always has
| restrictive and money-making standards, so I guess they never
| tried to pitch it to the USB standards body.
|
| USB-C is a very capable plug system, so I'll be happy if
| everything converges on this one instead.
| mclightning wrote:
| I'm sure mechanical engineers calculated the entry, insertion
| distance and wiggle room, so that you can't apply any relevant
| force onto the notch inside.
| cube00 wrote:
| Wish they had done the same with Micro-USB, those get real
| flaky after a while.
| mclightning wrote:
| They always do. These things have mechanical physical
| standards as well as the electronic/software side.
|
| Micro-USB requires more force because of its 2 teeth
| underneath, that's made to latch onto the socket. That was
| a mistake. In comparison, Mini-USB don't have this problem
| and slides straight similarly to USB-C in that sense.
|
| A lot of thought process goes into this mechanical
| interaction of male/female plug/sockets.
|
| I design/3d printed a lot of mechanical stuff for hobby for
| some years now. You can't make stuff work without
| calculating these tolerances. I am sure professionals who
| work on standards know/do better than me.
| squiggleblaz wrote:
| I dunno, I seem to go through Lightning charging cables like
| water, whereas I've never replaced a USB-C charging cable. That
| may have less to do with the intrinsic properties of the design
| so much as Apple's unwillingness to build stable cables, but
| usually I have two or three cables (at home, at the office)
| which are usually whatever's cheapest, so it seems like it must
| be intrinsic to the market's ability to produce durable third
| party cables.
| nottorp wrote:
| Is it because you move your phone while it's charging a lot
| more than you move your laptop?
| connor-brooks wrote:
| I also prefer Lightning. The central pin of USB-C being in the
| device's port rather than the charger seems like a bad idea to
| me. Lightning is the opposite.
| MayeulC wrote:
| I think it helps against dust getting stuck inside though.
|
| Also, more ports on USB-C make for better "alternate mode"
| functionality, where some data lanes are re-purposed (with an
| analog mux) for another use, like displayport, or audio DAC.
| Philip-J-Fry wrote:
| Normal USB A ports have that little notch on the inside too.
| For all the years I've lived on this planet I've never broken a
| USB port. USB C is perfectly fine.
|
| The worst part of lightning is how flimsy it feels once it's
| been worn in.
|
| Plus having the connectors inside with something to line it up
| seems like a battle hardened design choice now. Unless you're
| an idiot, you're not gonna break anything.
| proto-n wrote:
| Fwiw I broke I think more then 10 micro usb cables / ports
| throughout the time when they were everywhere, it was kind of
| prone to breaking. Never managed to break a regular usb, mini
| usb or usb c though. So I don't think proneness to breaking
| is inherent to this design, but the opposite isn't true
| either.
| ptman wrote:
| micro usb should be more durable than mini usb:
| https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/21/facebook-paid-
| billi...
|
| it would be sad if they didn't try to improve on previous
| designs
| MayeulC wrote:
| I have broken at least two female USB-A ports, with a cable
| pulled sideways tearing the inside tab off. Luckily, this
| always was on motherboards that had a spare one just next to
| it.
|
| In later revisions (at least starting with micro USB, perhaps
| mini as well), the cable was explicitly designed to be the
| part prone to breakage, as it's easier to replace.
| pjerem wrote:
| I wholeheartedly agree. Lightning, as a connecor, is really
| superior to USB-C : solid, stable, simple and compact.
|
| Too bad Apple didn't wanted to give this one to the USB
| consortium and we'll now be stuck with USB-C (and don't get me
| wrong : as much as i love the lightning connector, I vastly
| prefer a standard connector for everything, so USB-C it'll be).
| aristofun wrote:
| Even though as a user i'd love to use same charger and all -- as
| a thinking man I realize that law people dictating technical
| decisions is something deeply wrong, dangerous and anti
| democratical phenomena :(
| srg0 wrote:
| You may find links to EU Commission studies on this page,
| downloadable as PDFs, distributed under CC-BY license.
|
| https://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/electrical-engineering/r...
|
| 1. Impact assessment study: common chargers of portable devices
| (December 2019)
|
| PDF: https://op.europa.eu/o/opportal-service/download-
| handler?ide...
|
| 2. Impact assessment study: unbundling of chargers for mobile
| phones and similar devices (June 2021) - to identify different
| regulatory and non-regulatory policy options to achieve
| unbundling and address the technical pre-conditions and
| consequences of unbundling
|
| PDF: https://op.europa.eu/o/opportal-service/download-
| handler?ide...
|
| 3. Technical supporting study: wireless charging technologies
| used for mobile phones and similar devices (April 2021) - to
| analyse and update on the status of wireless charging
| technologies
|
| PDF: https://op.europa.eu/o/opportal-service/download-
| handler?ide...
| theHIDninja wrote:
| It will be interesting to see how Apple weasels their way out of
| this.
| pete_b wrote:
| Remember the EU started as the EEC. More feature creep in realm
| of transnational governance.
| nickpp wrote:
| I went through such a transition with my iPad Pro: from Lighting
| port (like my iPhone) to USB-C. The result was subjectively
| worse: the USB-C port is harder to insert into as the margins are
| straight and "catch", while the Lighting port had a slight bevel,
| making insertion as smooth as butter.
|
| The fit is not perfect and touching the inserted cable moves it
| slightly inside the port. The Lightning connection was rock solid
| in comparison.
|
| The USB-C port is also a male port hidden in a female one.
| Because of that dirt accumulates around the little knob inside
| which the limited space makes it much harder to clean than the
| Lightning port.
|
| Finally, I had to purchase separate chargers and cables instead
| of the ones I already had.
|
| Not as bad as micro-USB though. That always takes me 3 tries (one
| on each side then again on the original side) after which I have
| to look at the damn connector and try for a 4th time.
| asddubs wrote:
| I do actually agree with these points, lightning is the better
| connector, but it's proprietary and the other one is a widely
| used standard, so what are ya gonna do
| cs702 wrote:
| The big deal about is not so much the choice of USB-C, but the
| fact that manufacturers will be required to have at least one
| compatible charging/communication connector. Quoting from the OP:
|
| _> Manufacturers will also be forced to make their fast-charging
| standards interoperable, and to provide information to customers
| about what charging standards their device supports. Under the
| proposal, customers will be able to buy new devices without an
| included charger._
|
| Vendors would continue to have the option of adding proprietary
| connectors, so long as consumers also have the option to use a
| standard connector. Consumers would have _more_ choice. _That_
| sounds like a great idea to me.
| paxys wrote:
| Last time this happened (with micro USB) Apple just put a dongle
| in every box.
| agilob wrote:
| That's good, but also make it DRM-free. I don't want to label
| which cable fits which device when they all have the same
| physical connector.
| donatj wrote:
| Hear me out, I'm an Android guy at heart and I genuinely believe
| the lightning connector is vastly superior.
|
| I never have lightning connectors fail to seat, nor fall out of a
| socket while I'm using a device, nor have I ever broken a
| lightning connector on a device.
|
| These are all seemingly fundamental problems with USB-C. I have
| had THREE USB-C sockets fail on two phones through normal use, on
| Pixel and OnePlus devices. I have never had a USB socket of any
| other type fail on any device, and I've had umpteen cellphones
| since the late 90s. I genuinely baby my electronics.
|
| Almost every USB-C socket after a couple months of use loses its
| gripping power, whereas the lightning connector on my 2017 iPad
| I'm writing this on right now is still fantastically grippy. The
| USB-C on my current phone, a year old Pixel 3A XL is so loose
| that while mounted to my cars dash, the cable pops out when
| taking hard turns. The socket is clear of debris, and will do so
| with a brand new cable. It just has zero holding power left after
| only a year.
|
| I think the vast majority of people who prefer USB-C are those
| who haven't spent a significant amount of time with both. iPhone
| users who blindly assume the other side is greener, and Android
| users mocking Apples weird connector.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Maybe they can make a USB-C-1 that fits at the start and then
| USB-C-2 and USB-C-3 that are microscopically bigger to fit
| those old and wrinkly connectors?
|
| Wouldn't that be great?
|
| (Semi-joking, I know some NES games (Konami?) had slightly
| thicker PCBs that would always work, but at the expense of
| decreasing the machine's life overall on every other game). I
| guess ZIF is the way to go, but hard to fit into small form
| factors than something slide/brush contractors.)
| concinds wrote:
| I've read on forums that if you use a really thin, small metal
| device, e.g. a sewing needle for example, you'll be able to dig
| up tons of tiny lint and make the port work like new again. You
| say yours is free of debris but it's possible you used thicker
| tools, and didn't manage to dislodge it all.
| deelly wrote:
| Looks like all other people on internet with broken lightning
| connector are blatant liars..
| donatj wrote:
| You can break anything if you try hard enough. I make no
| claims of lightning being indestructible, but USB-C is
| genuinely fragile.
| advanced-DnD wrote:
| I plug USB-C cable into my iPad and MBP more than I do to
| my boyfriend... so yours is only an anecdote of perhaps
| badly manufacture devices.
| contravariant wrote:
| You plug your USB-C cable into your boyfriend?
| y4mi wrote:
| I haven't had a single USB-C socket fail, so I kinda think
| the same applies there.
|
| Not even a single cable broke, so I am really confused when
| people like you seem to manage to destroy them left and
| right
| rattlesnakedave wrote:
| I love lightning for this exact reason. It's very difficult to
| break the actual port in the phone by design.
| walterbell wrote:
| They need to mandate the presence of a physical cable, otherwise
| Apple will drop the port and move to wireless charging. Wired
| cable remains important for high-quality audio and secure data
| transfers. Both WiFi and Bluetooth have a long and storied
| history of vulnerabilities.
|
| While they are at it, can we please have a dedicated physical
| cable port for audio? It doesn't have to be TRRS 3.5mm, but it
| must be possible to have a wired audio/mike connection that is
| separate from wired power, without power-hungry dongles. e.g. an
| entire ecosystem of 3rd party audio devices was sidelined by the
| removal of headphone jacks.
|
| Now that everyone who wants a Bluetooth headset has one, can we
| go back to the pre-Beats era of optional, high-quality wired
| audio? It can be restricted to Pro devices, if necessary.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| I wonder what % of phone users have actually used a cable to
| move data to or from their phone in the last couple of years. I
| have, but I'm a weird nerd who likes to plug in removable
| storage once every 6 months or so.
| walterbell wrote:
| The ones who still own their data? If data is money, they can
| also afford to buy new phones. iXpand USB-Lightning drives
| are supported by some iOS apps which process large files,
| e.g. media playback and editing.
|
| There's no need for everything to be lowest-common-
| denominator. Product management is not statistics, it is
| aspirational leadership for upward mobility in human values,
| including but not limited to function, form, and creative
| power. e.g. a tiny minority of humans create art for
| millions, yet both can use the same device + accessories, if
| devices are not neutered.
| sgent wrote:
| iPhone can backup to a PC or NAS wirelessly, no reason for
| a cable other than charging.
| walterbell wrote:
| WiFi is vulnerable to many, many, many, many attacks.
|
| How do you backup iPhone to NAS? Do you mean mounting a
| NAS drive on a PC/Mac and then using WiFi for iTunes
| backup?
| 0_____0 wrote:
| I'm curious what your threat model is. State actors?
| Hanging out at DEFCON?
| walterbell wrote:
| Corporate IP protection, which these days includes state
| threats.
|
| A recent WiFi vulnerablity, https://www.fragattacks.com/
|
| _> The discovered vulnerabilities affect all modern
| security protocols of Wi-Fi, including the latest WPA3
| specification. Even the original security protocol of Wi-
| Fi, called WEP, is affected. This means that several of
| the newly discovered design flaws have been part of Wi-Fi
| since its release in 1997! Fortunately, the design flaws
| are hard to abuse because doing so requires user
| interaction or is only possible when using uncommon
| network settings. As a result, in practice the biggest
| concern are the programming mistakes in Wi-Fi products
| since several of them are trivial to exploit._
| dhosek wrote:
| I do on a daily basis, but I'm a bit of an oddity in that
| I've strenuously avoided the shift to streaming music. I
| don't _want_ all the music. To me that 's the same as having
| none of the music. Heck, I don't even want all of _my_ music.
| I have a set of smart playlists that keep my phone loaded
| with a mix of less played and less-recently played songs that
| give me a set of music that changes every day (although it
| would take me a few weeks of continuous listening to listen
| to everything on my phone as it is). I 've found wifi sync to
| be flakey enough that I do my daily sync with a cable.
| kukx wrote:
| For the love of God, we do not want a government to be in
| charge of the innovation. When government declares specifically
| what technology is mandated then we can be quite certain that
| there will be no more progress in this area. For example why
| bother working on a better port than USB-C, if there is this
| new risk of not being able to even use it.
| walterbell wrote:
| Agreed, but IF there are going to be government mandates, let
| those mandates be used to balance the non-transparent power
| of corporations prioritizing business interests (e.g. selling
| more wireless headphones) instead of serving a diverse set of
| customer use cases.
| TadasPaplauskas wrote:
| > otherwise Apple will drop the port and move to wireless
| charging
|
| Since the aim is to reduce e-waste, I suppose going all-in with
| wireless charging wouldn't be a problem (or even preferable) in
| the eyes of the law.
| krzyk wrote:
| > Since the aim is to reduce e-waste, I suppose going all-in
| with wireless charging wouldn't be a problem (or even
| preferable) in the eyes of the law.
|
| wireless charging uses more energy than cable one, so it is
| not that eco friendly
| walterbell wrote:
| A thin cable is much less waste than a wireless charger,
| which has a larger surface area and is still an evolving
| standard, e.g. magnetic docking, so it will be years of
| generational upgrades. Cables exist today and work much
| faster.
|
| Should human time spent waiting for phone chargers be a
| metric for central planning regulation? e.g. what does a 100%
| speed increase in rapid charging mean for the economy, vs.
| travelers waiting at an airport or cafe, or running their car
| to charge their phone?
|
| The laws of physics still apply to wired audio, networking
| and electricity, no matter how many billions are spent on
| glitzy ads for wireless.
| q-rews wrote:
| Not to mention the inefficiency.
| [deleted]
| zibzab wrote:
| wireless charging is less efficient and may even affect
| battery longevity.
| tzs wrote:
| Are dongles for audio actually noticeably more power-hungry
| than a wired connection?
|
| The device is still a digital audio device, requiring a DAC for
| output and an ADC for input to connect to your analog
| headphones and microphone. I don't see why putting the DAC
| and/or ADC in a dongle would use more power than putting them
| in the device.
|
| I'd argue that the DAC and/or ADC are best placed as close to
| the headphones and mic as possible. If I'm using very high
| quality headphones or mics I'm going to want a very high
| quality DAC/ADC. If I'm using low quality headphones or mics
| I'm fine with a lower quality DAC/ADC.
|
| With the DAC/ADC built into the device I'm either limited by
| the quality the device maker chose or am paying for more than I
| need.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| In practice a good phone amp and DAC such as those in the LG
| V series is the best audio quality you can get without
| massive boondoggles.
|
| A good amp/DAC combo in the phone is much cheaper than an
| external amp/DAC of similar quality.
| [deleted]
| gwbas1c wrote:
| > They need to mandate the presence of a physical cable,
| otherwise Apple will drop the port and move to wireless
| charging.
|
| I think the free market can take care of that. If you want a
| physical connector, just buy a device that comes with one.
|
| You just might need to go to a place like Guitar Center
| (instrument store) to buy one. That's what I did when I needed
| headphones.
| walterbell wrote:
| Sadly, non-iOS devices have way less security, so that's not
| an option. Spoken as a former user of Android, Blackberry,
| Symbian, Maemo and Meego. And current owner of Sailfish and
| Pinephone.
|
| Network effects mean that some apps are only on iOS and
| Android. Of those two, only iOS has a net-effective security
| and privacy story, if used without iCloud.
|
| The free market includes feedback from existing users.
| Microsoft learned that over time. Even Apple does, reversing
| course on keyboards and touch bar.
| anothernewdude wrote:
| Yeah, it's called microusb.
| CivBase wrote:
| Why is this so important to the EU? The stated purposes of this
| proposal are to reduce e-waste and improve consumer convenience,
| but it's easily argued that the actual impact of the proposal is
| the exact opposite.
| alwayseasy wrote:
| Please argue the opposite because I don't see what you mean.
| [deleted]
| nickpp wrote:
| Existing iPhone owners (and there are a lot of them!)
| throwing away their Lightning cables/chargers when purchasing
| a new phone?
| t43562 wrote:
| A one off cost.
| CivBase wrote:
| But what's the gain? People will buy just as much
| electronic crap. It will just have USB-C ports instead of
| lightning ports.
|
| And it's not like USB 3.1 Type C will be the top end
| forever. People will still replace their old stuff
| whenever the next USB spec lands or some fancy new
| connector is released. It wasn't long ago that Micro USB
| 2.X was standard.
| rocgf wrote:
| I would be genuinely impressed if you can successfully defend
| your point of view.
|
| I fail to see how it would be possible for a single type of
| port for everything to increase waste and worsen consumer
| convenience.
| CivBase wrote:
| iPhone users who buy new models with USB-C would have to
| replace any old stuff that uses the lightning connector. All
| this proposal would do is force a bunch of stuff to become
| obsolete.
|
| How would it significantly _reduce_ ewaste? Most phones -
| including the iPhone - come with a cable that connects to a
| USB-A or USB-C port. I guess it would reduce the amount of
| male lightning to female USB-C dongles manufactured, but that
| seems pretty inconsequential.
| esseeayen wrote:
| So does this mean the eu will cover the licensing costs for
| everyone? https://www.usb.org/getting-vendor-id
| GhostVII wrote:
| Am I the only one who thinks this is completely insane, just
| based on principle? How have we reached a point where we think it
| is OK for the government to tell me that I can't buy a phone
| without a specific charger. This isn't a safety issue, and there
| isn't any massive infrastructure requirement, let people make
| their own decisions.
|
| If I want to make a crazy phone that is 2mm thin and needs some
| special charger, I shouldn't be banned by the government from
| doing so. And if I have some charging port that I think is better
| than USB-C, I shouldn't have to lobby the government to get it
| implemented.
|
| Right now new phones either have lightning, or USB-C. Seems
| pretty reasonable to me. USB-C is not faultless - imagine if we
| had been stuck with micro-USB instead.
|
| How about the government leaves us alone and lets us make our own
| decisions. I think that would be nice. Just make people pay for
| their externalities.
|
| Hopefully in practice, all this means is that Apple will include
| a lightning to USB-C converter in the box.
| ghostDancer wrote:
| Do you remember when every phone had a different charger?. I do
| it was crazy, stupid and expensive. They had to regulate it.
| Now is starting again.
| GhostVII wrote:
| Just because something is annoying doesn't mean it should be
| regulated. Especially when that regulation is going to stifle
| innovation.
|
| And right now we don't have a tonne of different chargers, we
| have two, both of which are good in different ways.
| jollybean wrote:
| A bridge too far, dictating terms they don't understand.
|
| 1) Manufacturers don't use USB-C in some cases because it takes
| up a lot of space. The point being, you can't dictate at this
| level of design.
|
| 2) 'Connectors' are like 'sraws' - they don't take up landfill.
| They are negligible waste item.
|
| These are things that legislators think of 'because it's in front
| of them' i.e. they literally see these things every day, instead
| of thinking more deliberately about both waste and products.
|
| 1) Requirement to use a 'standard connector' would be
| appropriate, but they all do now. Or rather, lightning is not
| standard, the EU could encourage the open sourcing of it.
|
| 2) Some efforts to recycle all electronics would be interesting
| as well. Cords could be sold with a $1 'recycle markup' that goes
| to the recycler or something like that - this, along with other
| bits of operational impetus, might make an appreciable dent.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| From the announcement
| https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_21_...
| (linked in article)
|
| > _Today, the Commission is proposing:_
|
| > _A harmonised charging port for electronic devices: USB-C will
| be the common port._
|
| > _Harmonised fast charging technology will help prevent that
| different producers unjustifiably limit the charging speed and
| will help to ensure that charging speed is the same when using
| any compatible charger for a device._
|
| > _Unbundling the sale of a charger from the sale of the
| electronic device: consumers will be able to purchase a new
| electronic device without a new charger._
|
| > _Improved information for consumers: producers will need to
| provide relevant information about charging performance,
| including information on the power required by the device and if
| it supports fast charging._
|
| There's also a proposed 2 year implementation delay, before it
| comes into force. And a subsequent rule requiring charger-side
| USB-C ports, handled through a different regulator.
| scohesc wrote:
| Wait, they want to have USB-C ports on plug chargers?
|
| Guess I'm getting a bunch of USB-C to USB-A adapters to plug in
| my USB-A to USB-C cables.. :\
| dspillett wrote:
| I'm sure (admission: not read the details at all yet) it
| doesn't say _only_ USB-C, so there is nothing to stop a wall-
| plug charger having both port types, C for modern, A for
| legacy, as a great many already do.
| agilob wrote:
| I already have these in my wall sockets. Some sockets have
| USB-A, another one with USB-C. It's great. I hope EU/EEA will
| pick that up and we can stop travelling with stupid adapters.
| GhostVII wrote:
| Wait isn't unbundling the sale of the charger the thing
| everyone got mad at Apple for? And now they are legislating it?
| Hamuko wrote:
| Apple's charger unbundling was stupid.
|
| They sold the iPhone with a USB-A charging brick for like 12
| years. Then when the iPhone 11 came out in 2019, it came with
| a USB-C charging brick and a USB-C to Lightning cable, which
| would not work with any of the chargers they bundled for the
| past decade and some. And then, one year after changing the
| cable, they took away the USB-C charging brick.
|
| "Just use the ones you already have" when you'd only have a
| wall charger that could take the cable that came in the box
| if you bought the iPhone 11 as well, or bought a separate
| charger.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| alxhill wrote:
| I think it's reasonable for Apple to assume that if you
| kept the old charger, you also had the old cable for it
| which would also work with the new iPhone.
| Cosmin_C wrote:
| It is also completely unreasonable to assume your clients
| all upgraded to the previous model which still had an
| USB-C charging brick when all the previous chargers had a
| USB-A port.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Then they'd still be shipping e-waste in the form of a
| cable that you cannot plug into anything.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Cables are pretty low on the e waste front, since it's
| mostly pure copper and shielding. The e waste for the
| charger is worse.
| 8ytecoder wrote:
| Plus usb-c to lightning cables were essentially for
| connecting the iPhone to the Mac. I'd bet that's the
| reason the cables was retained.
| kyriakos wrote:
| the law is not meant to punish companies but to reduce
| e-waste. if everyone uses the same charger there is no need
| for a new one every time you buy a new device
| Version467 wrote:
| Apple didn't lower the price after removing the charger.
| hexa22 wrote:
| The charger probably costs about $1 to the BoM. I wouldn't
| expect to see any change.
|
| But this is not the biggest thing which is that the parts
| of the iPhone do not determine the price. The price is
| already set and determines what parts go in. If something
| somewhere else becomes cheaper, that's more room in the
| budget to spend elsewhere whether that be better hardware,
| hiring more software developers, higher skilled retail
| workers, etc.
|
| In the end it's up to the user to decide if what's in the
| box provides enough value to justify the price. And from
| the sales data of the last year, that's an astounding yes.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| > I wouldn't expect to see any change.
|
| But then you subsequently need to buy a charger, which is
| what? $15 if you want to get a reputable one?
|
| Even if you only got a new one every three phones, that's
| essentially a $5 tax on every device. ($6 if you consider
| that the cost of the device wasn't reduced, with a $1
| actual cost like you suggest)
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Does this mean the iPhone going powerless (EDIT: portless)
| would render the rule moot?
| gumby wrote:
| Moot for now, though they call out explicitly that if
| wireless charging becomes common in the EEA they reserve the
| right to extend the directive to that domain as well.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| > going powerless
|
| A device that uses no power, like a rock, is clearly beyond
| the scope of this law ("electronic devices").
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| The fact sheet speaks to "harmonising charging ports" and a
| "common port". That leaves ambiguity between (a) all
| electronic devices requiring a USB-C port and (b) all ports
| on electronic devices requiring to be USB-C.
|
| [1] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/i
| p_21_...
| drdaeman wrote:
| I suppose GP meant "portless", assuming that iPhone may
| drop lightning port without replacement and only rely on
| the wireless charging.
| pg_1234 wrote:
| The intention is clearly that the consumer be able to
| charge any phone using a generic usb-c charger. Apple's
| proprietary wireless charging would fail that criteria.
|
| I imagine that if Apple made their technology an industry
| standard, that a) others could implement, and b) Apple
| were themselves governed by, then the EU would consider
| it in addition to usb-c.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _intention is clearly that the consumer be able to
| charge any phone using a generic usb-c charger_
|
| The stated intention is to reduce e-waste. Removing the
| cable altogether accomplishes that goal.
| ziml77 wrote:
| Wireless charging doesn't mean that there's no cable. It
| just means that the cable terminates in a coil instead of
| a plug.
| hughrr wrote:
| Can they please mandate replaceable USB-C sockets then because I
| see a shit load more broken ones than I do lightning connectors.
| And usually the infernal USB-C things are soldered into the logic
| board of whatever resulting in damage to that too. Also USB-C
| sockets are impossible to replace without very specialist
| tooling.
|
| Really not a big fan of this unless there are some additional
| constraints on it.
| krzyk wrote:
| I have never seen broken USB-C.
|
| But I have already replaced my wifes lightning cable twice
| (dirt goes on it and it stopps working).
| blululu wrote:
| As a helpful tip, I find that pocket lint will collect in the
| iPhone lightening port and needs to be cleaned out
| periodically. A toothpick does the job here.
| bobbylarrybobby wrote:
| Replacing a broken cable is far superior to replacing a
| broken port. In fact I think lightning is designed so that
| the cable takes the bulk of any stress on the connection.
| avian wrote:
| > usually the infernal USB-C things are soldered into the logic
| board
|
| There is no reason why a USB-C receptacle can't be mounted on
| an easily-replaceable flex/daughterboard like Apple does it
| with Lightning.
|
| > Also USB-C sockets are impossible to replace without very
| specialist tooling.
|
| On the other hand, I can get spare USB-C receptacles from any
| number of local distributors. I'm not limited to getting an
| exact matching connector assembly for the specific Apple
| product that may or may not be out of production.
| hughrr wrote:
| Yes I agree. In fact Apple do that with the MacBook Air.
|
| I'd like to see that mandated on all devices.
| d--b wrote:
| This is silly. Apple's just going to add a $5 converter to their
| boxes that no one is going to use. They will also sell the
| converter for $75 just in case you do use it and lose it.
| ewidar wrote:
| > Unbundling the sale of a charger from the sale of the
| electronic device: consumers will be able to purchase a new
| electronic device without a new charger.
|
| Maybe not, depends how this gets interpreted.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| Good. We need this. The USB-C connector is capable of providing
| laptop-grade power supply, and Apple is the only straggler that I
| know of.
| mclightning wrote:
| I am surprised we are not seeing more positive sentiment for
| this among HN members. I had to scroll quite a bit to find this
| comment.
|
| In the other hand, HN is US-dominated and they don't like
| regulations over there.
|
| This is absolutely a good regulation, proven by previous
| similar regulations. I have about a kg of waste cables laying
| around. We need to start acting smart about how we deal with
| plastics.
| Aaargh20318 wrote:
| I think it's a horrible idea. It means moving to a future,
| better standard (let's say, USB-D) is neigh impossible as it
| would require a change to an EU directive (that is: 27
| countries need to agree on it).
|
| Just getting this into law has already been in the works for
| years and years, if the EU had worked a bit faster we would
| have been stuck with micro USB-B, which would have been
| unfortunate.
| foepys wrote:
| This could've all been avoided if all manufacturers just
| followed the previous EU _guideline_ (explicitly not a law)
| and agreed on a connector. It more or less said "we don't
| care what you choose, just choose one".
|
| But Apple didn't want to listen and now the EU commission is
| sick of it and introduces a law. It's the industry's own damn
| fault that it didn't take the hand that reached out to it.
| vegardx wrote:
| You mean that Aprils fools joke USB-D?
| seszett wrote:
| > _27 countries need to agree on it_
|
| No, this has to be voted by the parliament like any law, not
| approved by each member.
|
| > _getting this into law has already been in the works for
| years and years_
|
| The goal was to not require a law and make manufacturers
| agree to a standard without legislation, because that makes
| it easier to evolve.
|
| Apple is the only one that wouldn't agree to that, so that
| means it has to become a law apparently, otherwise they won't
| do anything.
|
| If a new standard appears, I expect the USB-IF to notify the
| EU while they're working on it so that legislation can evolve
| in time. The EU parliament is very quick to pass new laws
| when necessary.
| M2Ys4U wrote:
| >No, this has to be voted by the parliament like any law,
| not approved by each member.
|
| Almost all EU legislation needs the approval of the Council
| of the European Union - which comprises representatives
| from all 27 member states.
|
| The Ordinary Legislative Procedure goes Commission ->
| Parliament -> Council -> Adoption. If the Council and
| Parliament don't immediately agree then there's a step in
| there for negotiation between all three institutions.
|
| Aaargh20318 is probably wrong that all 27 need to agree,
| though, most things are decided in Council on the basis of
| Qualified Majority Voting which does _not_ need _all_ 27 to
| agree.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| We're stuck with USB A on desktops since the late 90s. It
| hasn't harmed us. The connector is non-reversible, but it's
| robust with many, many disconnect-connect cycles and can
| support higher speeds with USB 3.2. I still use USB chargers
| made 10 years ago. They work fine.
|
| I think it's fine to be stuck on a "good enough" standard, if
| this results in less e-waste and less need to upgrade all
| accessories simply because the dominant connection port
| changed.
|
| If we wanted to have the standard update itself every 15
| years or so, we can have a body dedicated to selecting, or
| creating, such a standard. We don't write automotive
| standards directly into our laws, so we don't have to the
| same with charging port technology either. As the maxim goes,
| "every problem of computer science can be solved with another
| layer of indirection, except for having too many layers of
| indirection".
| jsudi wrote:
| > I think it's fine to be stuck on a "good enough"
| standard, if this results in less e-waste and less need to
| upgrade all accessories simply because the dominant
| connection port changed.
|
| That's your opinion. I disagree and I certainly don't want
| to see it written into law.
| cute_boi wrote:
| but without writing in law apple will never care about
| environment right? They are getting money from each
| connector so why would they? Is it possible to solve such
| issue without law?
|
| What solution do you propose? If you have solution let us
| know?
| ben_w wrote:
| I don't think that's entirely fair to Apple: they are
| trying to _not include a charger at all in the first
| place_ (just the cable), which does a lot more for the
| environment than including a charger which you can use
| with anything _as well as_ forcing the cable to be useful
| for more than one device.
| foepys wrote:
| The law introduced by the EU commission also addresses
| this. They don't want chargers to be included by default
| anymore exactly because of this.
| ben_w wrote:
| Good, but not relevant to me defending Apple in this
| instance; Apple are even doing this (or at least tried to
| do this) where there not only wasn't a legal requirement
| to do so, but a legal prohibition against doing so:
| https://www.engadget.com/apple-brazil-fine-over-
| iphone-12-ch...
| jsudi wrote:
| If citizens care about the environment they will stop
| buying Apple products. They don't, hence they don't care
| about the environment. Why make laws that go against the
| citizen wishes?
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| The problem is that they don't care enough to act.
| Tragedy of the commons.
| theranger wrote:
| Apple recycles huge amounts of materials from old
| products. I really hope that people are not following
| your suggestion and estimate the environmental impact
| only by iPhone cable and connector port.
| ibrcic wrote:
| It's not that they don't care, it's that they are not
| knowledgeable enough about the issue and don't have time
| or will to research it further. That's why we have laws
| and regulations, so that average Joe doesn't have to
| research the impact of everything he buys on his
| body/environment.
|
| With that logic you could say, "why ban dangerous levels
| of pesticides in the food, if people don't like it, they
| will not buy the product."
| foepys wrote:
| The same reason why there are regulations about pollution
| in general.
| Deukhoofd wrote:
| Depends on the legislation, so lets wait on that.
| boudin wrote:
| What you say is not necessarily true, but I couldn't find
| anything that talks about how the connector that is mandated
| is chosen.
|
| It will be interesting to know how the connector is agreed
| upon and by whom.
| sfg wrote:
| Yeah.
|
| Plus, this is such a minor issue. You get a device and the
| charger for it and that is the end of it. If you buy multiple
| devices that you carry around with incompatible chargers then
| you carry (assuming you even need to charge on the road) a
| couple of cables (or one with multiple connectors). It's
| about as much of a none issue as you will ever get.
| iSnow wrote:
| It wasn't a non-issue till the EU stepped in. Every
| manufacturer had their own plug and some (eg. Nokia) even
| had more than one, of course they were incompatible. I'm
| grateful that the EU stepped up here.
|
| I feel for Apple's hurt pride here that they should adopt
| something they didn't invent, but since we are a mixed
| Android/Apple household, getting rid of Lightning will be
| nice.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| Precisely. Nokia was blessedly standardised, in fact,
| because you only ever had 2 charging ports so you could
| mix and match. Most other manufacturers were a mess with
| proprietary connectors that weren't barrel jacks.
| sfg wrote:
| It was always a non-issue.
|
| I live in a mixed Apple and Android house and its a non-
| issue. If it was an issue, we'd just consolidate our
| house, but we don't, because -- like you -- we don't find
| it enough of an issue to care.
| Kbelicius wrote:
| Do you make sure that your cables are properly disposed?
| How do you dispose of them?
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| This is not a minor issue.
|
| Sony had a different charger model (with a different
| voltage down to tens of volts, or with a different
| connector) for nearly every single device released.
|
| Want more than one power brick (one for the office and one
| for the home/vacation home)? Spend a lot of money for the
| convenience, or carry 2 kilos of chargers wherever you go.
|
| Some devices eschewed power supplies altogether and used
| cradles. Lose the cradle and the device is unusable. Carry
| the cradle, and it becomes an extra 500g in your everyday
| carry.
|
| If you were lucky, your device supported a barrel jack or
| another generic connector, but you had to carry around a
| universal power supply with adjustable voltage and polarity
| because they all used different configurations. Get
| something wrong, and your expensive device is fried.
|
| I remember the early 2000s and the pre-USB charger era. I
| don't remember it fondly, because it was frankly stupid.
| Even the worst universal standard is better than no
| standard at all. And I say this having lived through the
| era of Micro USB dominance, an era that has killed the
| charging ports of many of my phones.
| adrianN wrote:
| The way it usually works with industry standards is that if
| the industry agrees that a different connector would be
| superior, their lobbyists are highly effective at changing
| the legislation.
| avianlyric wrote:
| We don't know the language to the legislation yet, so I think
| it's worth withhold judgment for now.
|
| Based on other recent legislation from the EU that I've had
| to work closely with, I would say the EU legislators are very
| aware of the pitfalls that come with writing a specific
| technology into law. They seem to deal with this by writing
| an initial recommendation, or providing a few concrete
| examples of how to conform int to the law. But hand off the
| longer term management to some sort of agency or regulator
| that already exists, and instructs them to work directly with
| industry to fine tune the technical aspects.
|
| Taking this approach create a natural escape hatch for new
| standards being introduced without new law being written.
| It'll still create a natural dampener on innovation in
| specific area, but it avoid completely stifling it.
|
| Also on quick FYI, USB-B has never been used on a modern
| mobile phone. The port is bigger than most phones!
|
| https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:USB-3.0-Stecker_(Typ.
| ..
| Aissen wrote:
| The comment now says "micro USB-B", which is in fact the
| previous de-facto standard before the type C family.
| Reason077 wrote:
| USB C's physical form is likely to remain stable for years to
| come. There seems to be plenty of room to evolve the cables
| and device capabilities while retaining physical backwards
| compatibility.
|
| I mean, USB 4 can already do up to 40 Gbps, and upcoming
| versions of the standard are said to be going to 80 Gbps[1]
|
| [1] https://www.anandtech.com/show/16858/intel-executive-
| posts-t...
| bencollier49 wrote:
| Wasn't this a news item ten years ago?
|
| Ah, yes - confirmed in the article!
| Arnt wrote:
| It was, and quite a success, and probably encouraged the
| current step.
|
| It changed a problem from "find the right charger" to "will
| this charger charge this phone quickly or slowly?" with hardly
| any problems. Someone will post a link to that Google engineer
| who tested cables, and there was a manufacturer who supplied
| non-USB power via a USB plug (can't remember which voltage but
| it wasn't 5V1A), but on the whole, a _great_ improvement over
| the old state.
| gambiting wrote:
| If only USB-C PD was less of a mess......
|
| Somehow my 25W USB-PD original genuine Samsung charger
| doesn't charge my 2021 iPad Pro which normally uses a 20W
| USB-C charger...it just makes no sense.
| Arnt wrote:
| Sure. I too have a device that "won't" charge from a
| particular charger. The device and that charger negotiate
| some ridiculously low effect, and the device turns on its
| screen while charging. The net effect is awfully close to
| zero, sometimes it's negative.
|
| But compare it to the mess phone chargers were in 2005.
| gorgoiler wrote:
| Hey EU!
|
| I already have a common charger. In fact I have three! They are
| all USB-C Power Delivery devices: small lightweight charger,
| large powerful charger, and a battery pack.
|
| I also have special cables for different devices, but it's hardly
| onerous.
|
| Please go back and rewrite your cookie law to be implemented in
| HTTP / some wire protocol so that I can use browser whitelisting.
|
| Ambivalence,
|
| gorgoiler
| 1_player wrote:
| Good, though in practice it's not the charger the problem, I use
| the same USB plug everywhere, it's Apple and their cable. Right
| now I always need with me a micro USB cable, an USB-C one, and
| Lightning, because Apple thinks different(tm).
|
| What's Apple reasoning for not abandoning Lightning for USB-C on
| their phones?
| jve wrote:
| You can get away with 1 cable actually :) That's what I do. Be
| it car, home - it is convenient to have any port available.
| https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001490533074.html
| zo1 wrote:
| Is that the exact one you've ordered from them before? Is it
| reliable, can fast charge, etc? I've found usb cables such a
| huge hit and miss, even buying from "reputable" places, as
| they just re-sell cheap chinese knockoffs that don't work.
| jve wrote:
| I have another thst doesnt support data or quickcharge. But
| does charge devices so OK for me. A basic one.
|
| Actually stumbled on this right now and if I ever need
| another one, will give this a go.
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| I haven't tried that cable, but I've had a good experience
| with that shop (Baseus). Unlike Amazon, Aliexpress doesn't
| comingle listings, so generally I shop by seller I have
| good experiences with, or just popular ones as they list
| the number of times an item has been purchased.
| sbuk wrote:
| I have quite a few branded ones from companies giving them
| away at conferences. They work well enough.
| tinus_hn wrote:
| I think they made commitments to manufacturers to keep
| Lightning around for a certain period. Regardless of
| standardization Lightning is already showing its age, it's
| limiting charging and sync speeds.
| misnome wrote:
| > because Apple thinks different(tm).
|
| This is a little unfair, when Apple has been more consistent in
| keeping the same ports and cables, and moved to generic USB-
| chargers long before it was standard for anyone else?
|
| USB-C wasn't even finalised until 2014; I can't remember how
| common USB-C was on phones before that, but Apple was using
| lightning for _years_ before that.
|
| What's the e-Waste consequence of changing and forcing everyone
| to buy new chargers, adapters, cables when they next buy a new
| device? Suddenly all the cables and chargers you've been using
| for ten years are useless.
| 542354234235 wrote:
| >USB-C wasn't even finalised until 2014; I can't remember how
| common USB-C was on phones before that, but Apple was using
| lightning for _years_ before that.
|
| Everyone else was using micro USB _for years_ before usb-C.
| So for years, every phone cable except Apple could also be
| used to charge your headphones, Kindle, Tablet, etc. It isn't
| _just phones_ we are talking about. When pretty much all
| _devices_ are on one standard, and Apple refuses, that is
| where the e waste comes from. All my micro usb cables are
| still useful for random older products around the house. All
| my USB C cables are useful for random newer products around
| the house. My lightning cable is useful for exactly one item
| around my house ever at any given time. I have zero other
| uses for it. People don't need to go out and buy new chargers
| and cables because they already have them for their other
| devices. That's the whole point of interoperability.
| acdha wrote:
| > Everyone else was using micro USB for years before usb-C.
| So for years, every phone cable except Apple could also be
| used to charge your headphones, Kindle, Tablet, etc.
|
| There were multiple other connectors in use (the 4 most
| common were Mini-USB A, Mini-USB B, Micro-USB A and Micro-
| USB B but that's not exclusive) -- I still have a few of
| them because that "every phone cable" nirvana was never
| true at any point prior to USB-C. microUSB's fragility also
| meant that most people ended up buying many cheap
| replacement cables so from an e-waste perspective I'd be
| hesitant to say that was an advantage over the lifetime of
| the device.
|
| microUSB also had many limitations -- not just the
| inconvenience of being handed and easily broken in normal
| usage but also core features like not being able to supply
| enough power: many non-Apple tablets used proprietary
| cables because otherwise it would have taken hours longer
| to charge.
|
| USB C came out years after Apple shipped Lightning and
| unsurprisingly is a lot more competitive -- it's not like
| the industry didn't learn from the problems with earlier
| USB standards and I think that it makes sense for Apple to
| switch now.
| msh wrote:
| Their existing customers will be super pissed having to change
| all their cables and docks, just like they where when apple
| went from 30 pin to Lightning.
| IvanK_net wrote:
| I think by a "charger", the EU means everything needed to
| charge a device, i.e. including the cables. Which means, that
| the charging ports should be identical on all devices sold in
| the EU.
| amelius wrote:
| Can't we have protocol-agnostic cables?
|
| I mean, we use hundreds of different protocols over-the-air, so
| why can't we do the same with cables?
| harvie wrote:
| 3.5mm headphone jack with hole drilled in midle carrying
| optical fiber would handle all use cases i can imagine. From
| delivering power, charging phones to connecting several 8K
| monitors. multiple protocols can use separate wavelengths of
| light, all at once in single fiber. Hundreds of gigabits are
| possible, maybe more, depending on the length. While still
| being able to connect wired headphones.
| londons_explore wrote:
| I'd support this.
|
| The sockets would need some work for decent power transfer
| - it needs to do at least the 150 watts that USB-C can do,
| and preferably 150 kwatts for charging a car.
|
| For 150 watts while maintaining backwards compatibility,
| all that's needed is larger contact area (curved spring
| clips) to support 3 amps and the use of 48 volts after
| negotiation.
|
| For 150 kilowatts we'd be talking some cutting edge stuff,
| but not beyond the realms of possibility. Specifically,
| you'd probably need to use voltages up to 20,000 volts, 10
| amps, which is going to mean you need to have mating and
| sealing rubber isolators on both plug and socket at least
| 3mm thick between poles. At these voltages, you cannot have
| air between the pins, so it must be a hermetic seal. You'd
| also need to measure leakage current and keep the cable
| capacitance low enough that when someone cuts through the
| cable with scissors the voltage can be dropped in
| microseconds to prevent zapping them.
| amelius wrote:
| Charging a car over a 3.5mm headphone jack, that would
| certainly be worthy of a HN post ...
| londons_explore wrote:
| The engineer in me says I want to quit my job and spend
| the next 6 months and $100k prototyping a 3.5mm
| compatible jack that can charge a car, and safe even when
| licked by toddlers, underwater, full of grit, and cut
| with powertools...
|
| But the business person tells me that even if I could do
| it and make it safe enough to use, there is zero chance
| any big company would license the tech.
| emteycz wrote:
| No, but I'd jump at the opportunity to build my startup
| around your tech
| londons_explore wrote:
| If your startup has funding...
| amelius wrote:
| Yes, and superimpose signals on the power connection, I
| suppose.
|
| The only problem I see with this is that fiber optic cables
| are physically less robust (you can't bend them as much).
| londons_explore wrote:
| fiber optics are pretty robust to bending, as long as
| you're happy to suffer lost light.
|
| Pretty much, if you bend it too much, your connection
| will slow down temporarily till you straighten it again.
| That seems like a fine tradeoff.
|
| Industrial fiber systems usually used fixed speed, so too
| much bending leads to a total failure of the connection -
| hence the strict bend limits on fibers.
| akvadrako wrote:
| USB-C is protocol-agnostic. In alt-mode the extra wires can
| be used for HDMI, DisplayPort, PCIe, analog audio, or
| anything else really.
|
| You can also put whatever voltage that can be physically
| handled over the power pins after negotiating with the other
| side. USB-PD is the common standard but it can be extended.
| xorcist wrote:
| > I use the same USB plug everywhere,
|
| That's because of EU regulation. All the big manufacturers had
| their own connector before that, micro-USB started to look like
| a common connector among the low end manufacturers.
|
| This is the next step for that regulation and has been in the
| cards for some time.
| dexen wrote:
| _> >I use the same USB plug everywhere,_
|
| _> That's because of EU regulation._
|
| Patently untrue: the Micro USB has won over proprietary
| connectors before the EU regulation, thanks to being cheaper
| than ever-changing charging & data cables that used to be the
| norm. That in turn was possible through large volume, and
| also through well designed standard; it was the third
| iteration of the plug - after original full sized A/B, and
| after the somewhat underwhelming Mini USB.
|
| In particular the Micro USB was specced for quite good
| reliability - including 10,000 plug-unplug cycles, which is
| quite high for consumer grade hardware, and that was made
| possible thanks to the sheer experience amassed over years by
| the USB consortium. Not by regulator's fiat.
|
| That currently USB-C is ruling the market is again thanks to
| USB consortium's active push, together with large volume of
| all sorts of devices using it.
| whizzter wrote:
| There isn't any regulation because the THREATS from the EU
| to impose it from above was enough for everyone but Apple
| to fall in line, and that's damn lucky because otherwise we
| might've not seen USB-C emerge in phones as well as it's
| done now. (Do we need a new standard in the future?
| Hopefully that can happen without clunky regulatory
| processes)
|
| Personally I like my lighting cables and I do hope there'll
| be a grandfather clause but Apples behaviour(logical for
| them) has put us in an uncomfortable seat tbh.
| nousermane wrote:
| > All the big manufacturers had their own connector before
| that
|
| Worse yet, "before micro-USB", chargers universally had a
| captive cable. Situation that GP describes - same charger, 3
| cables - is already an improvement on that.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| >>> That's because of EU regulation.
|
| I am interested in that (because the "secret history" of many
| market driven change often ends up being a regulator in one
| influential area made a good decision - the usual example
| being California and car pollution standards)
|
| Edit: just to say I am not commenting either way on the EU
| here, or on regulators in general. I am just interested if
| there was a clear point in USB standards process that EU
| intervention made a difference.
|
| If so it would be useful to know their track record in this
| when judging this situation.
| fundatus wrote:
| EU basically said to manufacturers: Find a common ground
| for charging cables / chargers, otherwise we will simply
| regulate it. So all manufacturers apart from Apple agreed
| to use microUSB (at the time). Apple was still part of
| this, but decided to simply provide an adapter to microUSB.
| gumby wrote:
| These regulations aren't secret, and are usually heavily
| reported on -- the government _wants_ people to know it is
| doing things in their favor.
|
| Before the charger regulations the biggest world wide
| impact of EU regulations was RoHS. That's when the EU
| really started to come into its own as a global player. Did
| you realize all those old cables you still have lying
| around have lead in them to make them flexible?
| kalleboo wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_external_power_supply
| jounker wrote:
| I Lived through it. It was not obscure. It was major tech
| news.
| elzbardico wrote:
| No. Android phones made micro USB popular.
| rvense wrote:
| Because they were forced to use it due to EU legislation.
| elzbardico wrote:
| Absolutely no, you're making things up. USB was part of
| the android specification since day one as it was a
| natural technical choice at that time, due to the
| availability of chipsets, and due to the fact that google
| wanted standardization across android manufacturers.
| There's no alternate universe where google wouldn't use
| USB because it was not told so by some eurocrats.
| rvense wrote:
| Plenty of feature phones in the late 00's had USB on non-
| standard connectors.
| jonplackett wrote:
| I agree in theory that it's good. It's a pain having to also
| have a lightening cable with me.
|
| But I will say this - the lightening connector is a lot more
| reliable than my usb-c connector. It fits better. It falls out
| less. And it breaks less often - it's not as bad as the old usb
| connector but it's not as good as lightening.
| avianlyric wrote:
| Probably they think they can make the jump to a completely
| wireless phone before any USB-C mandates come in.
|
| Apple's timing with the lighting port wasn't great, with it
| arriving just before USB-C, and I imagine they're very
| reluctant to change the port on their phones because people
| already have lightning cables everywhere.
|
| Personally I would love to see USB-C on my iPhone, but I look
| at my parents, and having the port change for them would be a
| pain in the arse. All their cables are lightning cables, they
| don't have any USB-C devices, and ofcourse, all of their cables
| are the ones that came in the box. I suspect a significant
| portion of Apple's customers fall into that category.
| gumby wrote:
| > Apple's timing with the lighting port wasn't great, with it
| arriving just before USB-C, and I imagine they're very
| reluctant to change the port on their phones because people
| already have lightning cables everywhere.
|
| Apple was on the USB-design committee (and lightning
| experience informed the design) and knew all the timing. The
| standard wasn't even finalized for quite some time after
| Apple started shipping lightning.
|
| Lightning has now been around longer than the 30-pin
| connector, I really don't understand Apple's reluctance. I go
| of my way to by Type C devices for simplicity's sake, though
| still have to travel with micro-A, Type C, lightning, and a
| special watch charger, grr. At least I have only one type of
| power brick.
| amelius wrote:
| > Probably they think they can make the jump to a completely
| wireless phone before any USB-C mandates come in.
|
| What is the efficiency of wireless charging?
| Kirby64 wrote:
| An interesting point to think about is that MagSafe appears
| to be about 75% efficient (due to alignment of coils from
| the magnets), but also the battery size on iPhones tends to
| be much smaller than competitor phones.
|
| For example, Samsung S21 uses a 4000mAh battery. iPhone 12
| Pro uses a 2700mAh battery.
|
| At 75% efficiency, it's effectively like charging a 3600mAh
| battery.
|
| Both likely get a full charge every day. So, even with less
| efficient charging, you come out ahead vs. a Samsung
| device.
|
| That's also assuming efficiency of the actual charging
| bricks is similar. Apple tends to be known for high quality
| and efficient charger bricks, so it wouldn't surprise me if
| that has an impact.
| amelius wrote:
| Still, throwing away 25% electricity because "minor
| convenience" is not such a great idea.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| Sure, but let's say efficiency comes up to closer to like
| 85-90%, which should be achievable. Would you suggest
| that it's still not worthwhile? You'd never need to worry
| about damaging your charging port, since everything is
| now solid-state.
|
| I know a few folks that moved to exclusively wireless
| charging because they broke the USB port on their phones
| over the years.
| llampx wrote:
| It is terrible, adds heat and is worse for the environment.
| See any long-term review of the Magsafe wireless external
| stick-on battery for the iPhone.
| avianlyric wrote:
| I'm not advocating for wireless charging, I'm simply
| answering the question posed.
| iSnow wrote:
| Not great, but better than I personally expected:
| "Inductive charging is not as efficient as direct charging
| [...] An analysis of energy use found that charging a Pixel
| 4 from 0 to 100 percent on a classic cable used 14.26 Wh
| (watt-hours), while doing so with a wireless charger took
| 21.01 Wh, a 47 percent increase. "
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_charging
|
| Of course problems like heating up the battery and the huge
| amount of power needed if everyone does it remain.
| InsomniacL wrote:
| "900 million active iphones in use" - CFO Luca Maestri
|
| 14.26 Wh * 900000000 * 365 (days) = 4684 GWh/yr
|
| 46% = 2154 GWh/yr wasted energy
|
| That's about the total energy output of Madagascar with a
| population of 27 million people.
|
| There's a lot of reasons why the above numbers are wrong
| but I just wanted to highlight that at current
| efficiency, there would be a lot of wasted energy. :)
| elzbardico wrote:
| not exactly a lot of energy in the big scheme of things
| jopsen wrote:
| Yeah, it's not so much efficiency.. phones don't have
| that big batteries anyways.
|
| I would be more concerned about charging speed and
| heating.
|
| Inefficiency implies heating :)
|
| And wow, do I love charging my phone using my laptops
| USB-C charger.. it's just so fast!
|
| I don't really see the appeal of wireless charging.
| Faster direct charging would be a bigger win, IMO.
| saddlerustle wrote:
| Thats about the energy demand of a single small aluminium
| smelter
| avianlyric wrote:
| I did some maths (which maybe some should double check),
| but for an iPhone with a 12 wh battery. Doing a complete
| charge cycle everyday would consume an extra 5.6kwh over
| a year! Far more than I expected.
| maccard wrote:
| or $0.70 per year at current energy prices.
| zatarc wrote:
| Germany: hold my beer! 1.78EUR or $2.09
|
| But thats not point here. Everyone is talking about the
| climate change and then we want to charge millions or
| billions of phones with ~50% extra power?
|
| Good idea!
| swebs wrote:
| Sure, as long as the electricity doesn't come from fossil
| fuels. Why not?
| maccard wrote:
| In absolute terms it's nothing though. An average
| household uses 4000 kWh of electricity in the UK (less
| than half of the average us household), so saving the
| 5kWh on 4 phones is a 0.5% saving, which is roughly
| equivalent to running your home boiler for 10 minutes per
| year. Turning off your thermostat for one evening would
| have the equivalent impact of not using a wireless
| charger for a century.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _In absolute terms it 's nothing though._
|
| Symbols can hold power though.
| maccard wrote:
| Do we not have enough symbols? Plastic bags, domestic
| recycling, plastic straws are all strong "symbols" and
| yet we're still fighting about a couple of kWh rather
| than making any meaningful change.
| dbbk wrote:
| I see a lot of comments suggesting that Apple want to go
| fully wireless but it makes no practical sense to me. Their
| MagSafe charger not only charges far slower (as of now),
| but it's also huge. It's just not practical to ask someone
| to carry that around with them or take it when they go
| travelling.
| amelius wrote:
| Also, next time EU will rephrase their law such that
| every device should really use the same charger (whether
| wired or wireless).
| oaiey wrote:
| Good luck believing that the next regulation in that spirit
| will not target wireless charging. The motivation on this
| regulation is the waste produced by endless stream of
| chargers. wired or not, does not make a difference in that
| thinking.
|
| But it will give them some years.
| dfcowell wrote:
| iPhones are already compatible with iQ charging, the
| dominant standard for this kind of thing.
| adamors wrote:
| But you cannot use a Qi charger for the Apple Watch.
| p49k wrote:
| Only at the slow 7.5W speed. Despite the fact that
| MagSafe follows the 15W Qi standard, the iPhone will only
| charge at 15W with a MagSafe-branded device.
|
| If Apple, for example placed both a USB-C and lightning
| port on future phones, but the charge speed of the USB
| was crippled, I'd argue that they wouldn't be compliant
| with the EU regulation.
| sildur wrote:
| That won't work. They will have to include an USB-C port,
| wireless charging or not.
| cbo100 wrote:
| So due to the EU we will never have a port less phone of
| any brand?
|
| That doesn't sound right either.
| dbbk wrote:
| A portless phone is not a good idea anyway.
| onion2k wrote:
| _I suspect a significant portion of Apple 's customers fall
| into that category._
|
| Existing customers, yes. Apple are probably trying to grow
| their market share though, which means they also need to
| consider those people who have usb cables too.
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| How do you use a phone while charging it wirelessly?
| Scoundreller wrote:
| I think some automotive holsters do this so you're not
| plugging/unplugging it, but still using it for
| nav/music/handsfree calls.
|
| Which is even more of a waste given the inefficiency of
| wireless charging and the kWh cost of electricity in an
| ICE.
| rblatz wrote:
| Magnets
| GuB-42 wrote:
| Wireless charging is terrible from an energy efficiency
| standpoint. Considering that the standardization effort is
| supposed to be for the environment, and that includes energy
| efficiency requirements for chargers, I don't think switching
| to a less efficient charging method will be looked over
| kindly.
|
| But it is Apple, who knows what they are going to do to avoid
| regulation.
| thefz wrote:
| > What's Apple reasoning for not abandoning Lightning for USB-C
| on their phones?
|
| Profit.
|
| What was the reason for abandoning FireWire?
| josefx wrote:
| > Good, though in practice it's not the charger the problem, I
| use the same USB plug everywhere
|
| This isn't the first time the EU mentioned those plans, the
| current situation is basically the phone manufacturers
| regulating themselves to avoid an explicit regulation by the
| EU.
|
| > it's Apple and their cable.
|
| Of course there is always that one greedy asshole ruining it
| for everyone else.
|
| > What's Apple reasoning for not abandoning Lightning for USB-C
| on their phones?
|
| They probably considered Lightning to be superior but couldn't
| make it the industry standard without loosing their ability to
| charge absurd amounts of licensing fees for it.
| danpalmer wrote:
| > They probably considered Lightning to be superior but
| couldn't make it the industry standard without loosing their
| ability to charge absurd amounts of licensing fees for it.
|
| I don't think it's this. Lightning was superior to micro-USB,
| but it's certainly not superior to USB-C.
|
| I think the problem is that everyone remembers the transition
| from the 30 pin dock connector to Lightning. Apple has a huge
| reputation for just changing their cables all the time.
|
| This is largely unwarranted. For the portable devices they
| had 30-pin for ~10 years, then lightning for ~10 years, and
| it looks like it's on its way out soon. I think 10 years is a
| fairly reasonable time to keep ecosystems the same. People
| don't have 10 year old cables and chargers around.
|
| This reputation is pervasive though. I think they're holding
| off until they can drop the cable entirely in 1-2 years.
| zxcvbn4038 wrote:
| > People don't have 10 year old cables and chargers around.
|
| Just looking in my cable drawer I have USB types A, B,
| mini-A, mini-B, micro-A, micro-B, and C. I also have
| lightening and apple dock from the original iPhone. I have
| some weird Chinese cable that looks like USB micro-A and
| micro-B but doesn't fit either. There are a few barrel
| connectors from my old Nokia phones. A couple of my wife's
| old Samsung phone cables. This is just from the stuff I've
| owned.
| pantulis wrote:
| Just curious, why do you keep all that stuff around?
| MagnumOpus wrote:
| > People don't have 10 year old cables and chargers around.
|
| Yes they do, why wouldn't they? I have mini/micro USB
| chargers and cables that are older, same for USB A/B
| cables, same for network cables.
|
| Only cables that get tossed are Apple lightning cables
| because they are crap quality and fray within 2-3 years,
| and other non-standard crap (pre-2010 proprietary
| phone/camera chargers like 30-pin and the like)
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| If Lightning was superior, the new iPad Mini and new (and
| previous) iPad Pros wouldn't be using USB-C rather than
| Lightning.
| mrsuprawsm wrote:
| I think that the idea of the USB-C port on the iPads is to
| connect external devices. These are more likely to have a
| USB-C <-> something (e.g. USB-C -> USB-[micro|C|A]) cable
| that people already have lying around, as opposed to
| lightning -> something cable.
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| From the perspective of Apple though, that's another
| adapter for them to sell. They already make a lightning
| -> USB-A adapter.
|
| And the idea of a common, readily available for most
| people, port is exactly what this legislation is about.
| It should apply to charging cables for phones too.
| gswdh wrote:
| The only vaguely reasonable argument I've heard for lightning
| is waterproofness.
| roenxi wrote:
| It is reasonable to believe Apple builds a better phone. While
| I can't speak for the mass of Apple customers, it seems
| unlikely that they secretly want the European Commission to
| design their phones.
|
| This is a bad decision, because:
|
| 1. The European Commission doesn't have the time or resources
| to make consistently good decisions about phone design. It is a
| minor miracle that Apple managed to gather enough talented
| people together in one spot to give us the iPhone. The EU can't
| replicate that level of ability (observe the quite remarkable
| failure of EU phone manufacturers).
|
| 2. If (when, really) technology improves, progress will be
| slowed.
|
| 3. Heaven help us if we need a bureaucratic response to protect
| indifferent customers from nonuniform chargers. There are
| actual problems in the world they could be focusing on.
| vnlalpg wrote:
| Charging via USB is an idiotic idea that saves the
| manufacturers _$2.27370001_ and opens all USB security holes:
|
| https://mg.lol/blog/badusb-cables/
|
| But perhaps that is the intention: the government can just
| switch out your USB charger and then has access to everything
| that isn't covered by Apple cloud yet.
| taylodl wrote:
| Simple. They changed from the 30 pin adaptor to Lightning 9
| years ago. People complained to the high heavens about it. I
| recall Apple promising they would keep the new Lightning
| adaptor for at least 10 years. Guess what? When the new iPhones
| are released next year it will have been 10 years. The EU is
| probably aware of this situation and simply want to ensure
| Apple doesn't try to come up with some other solution. I don't
| think they needed to do that since Apple has already adopted
| USB-C on their iPads.
|
| Bottom line? My prediction is next year's iPhone is going to
| have USB-C.
| rblatz wrote:
| I came to the same conclusion. There is so much hand wringing
| on the internet about it, and most of these people don't
| remember the 30 pin to lightning transition. Specifically
| people don't remember what a huge upgrade lightning was over
| 30 pin or even the USB standard at the time.
|
| The people also talk about huge profits apple is making on
| charging cables, which just doesn't make sense if you take
| even a cursory glance at the price of lightning cables on
| Amazon. I saw numerous multi packs of cables selling for
| ~$2.25 for a 6ft+ cables. Apple has already signaled the
| direction they are going with charging standards, and it's
| USB-C. They are just waiting for the supported lifetime of
| the lightning cable to be over.
| 8ytecoder wrote:
| I buy something like this with all three in the same cable
|
| https://www.amazon.com/ASICEN-Retractable-Lightning-Charging...
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _What 's Apple reasoning for not abandoning Lightning for
| USB-C on their phones?_
|
| The original iPod (remember those?) 30-pint connector was
| around for eleven years, 2003-2014:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dock_connector#Mobile_devices
|
| Lightning has been around for "only" nine as of 2021, having
| ben released in 2012:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_(connector)
|
| An article from 2012:
|
| > _As for Lightning 's expected lifespan, the format is
| estimated to be in use for the next five to ten years, almost
| identical to the now-defunct 30-pin standard._
|
| *
| https://appleinsider.com/articles/12/09/21/analyst_lightning...
|
| Yes, it's nice that we finally have a supposedly universal
| plug, but we only recently got here. It may be that they simply
| don't think it's worth it yet to 'force' people to switch
| infrastructure yet. That the USB-C ecosystem is universal
| enough (though I'm sure them switching would push it forward).
| nathias wrote:
| It's the core reasoning of Apple, it would have their own
| proprietary chemical elements to construct their hardware if it
| was possible.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > What's Apple reasoning for not abandoning Lightning for USB-C
| on their phones?
|
| The benefits don't outweigh the inconveniences of switching.
| There's a mature ecosystem around Lightning for third party
| accessories. And at 50% market share, their cables are pretty
| ubiquitous. [0]
|
| And they added Lightning charging to other products they ship
| (Apple Pencil, Mouse, Keyboard, Remote...).
|
| Right now, I don't think USB-C, especially with the smart
| cables that might or might not support every features, is an
| improvement over Lightning.
|
| [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/266572/market-share-
| held...
| nsonha wrote:
| > What's Apple reasoning for not abandoning Lightning
|
| I don't know about other technical aspects but I really like
| the fact that Lightning male is just a solid block. It's
| definitely more durable than type-C
| maeln wrote:
| > What's Apple reasoning for not abandoning Lightning for USB-C
| on their phones?
|
| I can think of 3 reasons:
|
| 1. A lightning port is slightly smaller than USB-c, so it
| enable Apple to keep their phone slimmer than the competition
| in theory.
|
| 2. Apple loves to be in control of everything. With lightning,
| they could make a switch to a "lightning 2.O" cable / port
| whenever they so pleased. With USB-C they would be restricted
| by the USB-IF.
|
| 3. They can sell more cable and licensing fees this way. With
| USB-C, everyone will be able to buy a better and cheaper cable
| than the Apple ones, and Apple won't receive even a cent from
| them.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| > With USB-C they would be restricted by the USB-IF.
|
| Apple will still find a way to do what they want, especially
| given they play a non-trivial role in the USB-IF and provided
| significant resources towards developing USB-C in the first
| place.
|
| I would like USB-C on my iPhone, but I think the biggest
| reason why Apple hasn't done it is just because of momentum,
| and that it _is_ a switch from the current situation.
| maeln wrote:
| I mean, technically, they can keep using the same connector
| (usb-c) but make extensive change to the underlying
| protocol making it required to buy an "Apple cable" for
| anything else than charging and maybe still respecting the
| U.E law.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| Moving to USB-C doesn't mean anything from licensing or
| certification fees. USB-C offers ways of cable
| authentication, so nothing needs to change there. There is
| nothing that USB-IF restricts that would get in the way of
| certification or licensing.
|
| The lightning cable is not required for the MFi program, you
| can certify lots of things for MFi. Not sure why they
| couldn't expand the program to USB-C cables. They might do it
| already, honestly.
| AnthonyUK wrote:
| On Macs they now have Thunderbolt over USB-C e.g. the port
| works for both standards.
| belltaco wrote:
| Can't one make similar arguments for cars for types of
| gasoline(beyond premium gas) and the gas pump/tank receptacle
| design?
| gumby wrote:
| They do so -- for example hose pipe diameter is regulated
| so you can't accidentally put regular fuel into a diesel
| car (sadly, not the opposite though).
| occamrazor wrote:
| Actually the opposite. The Unleaded nozzle is thinner
| (and the reason was to avoid leaded fuel that would
| damage the catalyzer)
| nmstoker wrote:
| Similar-ish but the waste aspect isn't there: each car does
| not come with its own gas station and most people do not
| own multiple redundant gas stations already.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| They use USB-C everywhere else, including their iPads. If it
| was about control, why did they abandon lightning for their
| iPad line, or FireWire for their computer lines?
|
| To me, this smells like internal turf protection or politics.
| Causality1 wrote:
| You also don't have the issue of an errant foot or chair
| wheel squishing the connector flat and ruining it.
| maeln wrote:
| You mean with a lightning connector or a usb-c one ? In my
| experience, lightning connector were much more easy to
| break than usb-c one, since there is no actual
| protection/shielding to the actual pads/connector. It is so
| easy to snap the connector part of a lightning port.
| LinAGKar wrote:
| How have you been able to flatten a USB cable with your
| foot?
| brtkdotse wrote:
| > keep their phone slimmer than the competition in theory.
|
| This always struck me as a solution looking for a problem.
| Are modern phones really that chunky that we have to
| sacrifice functionality to shave a few fractions of a mm?
| alserio wrote:
| The real problem right now should be the weight, the trend
| is going in the wrong direction.
| piaste wrote:
| Just curious, for which use cases is weight a significant
| problem? Even the heaviest phones - rugged or foldables -
| seem to hover around 300g.
|
| That shouldn't be at all tiring unless you are holding
| them for literal hours nonstop, or unless you're a small
| child - and in both scenarios it's good to be encouraged
| to put the phone down after a while.
| alserio wrote:
| While reading in my bed my phone has fallen on my nose
| while more than once. Anyway, my usual official answer is
| long commute to work.
| 015a wrote:
| Those are all reasonable arguments, but the argument I most
| believe reflects Apple's internal thinking is pretty much
| just "everyone already has lightning at this point, switching
| to USBC would make headlines in a bad way, generate a ton of
| lightning e-waste, and Qi is so close to wide adoption that
| maybe we can just jump USBC for these small devices which
| don't need 30watt+ of power".
|
| The argument that its a physically smaller port feels like an
| "Apple circa-2016" argument, not an "Apple circa-2021"
| argument. They just made the iPhone 13 0.25mm thicker to fit
| a bigger battery (among other things); I think they've moved
| past the "thinner at any cost" argument (though I do believe
| that _was_ an argument for lightning at one time).
|
| "Control" is a tenuous given they've thrown USBC/Thunderbolt
| on everything except the iPhone. They already have a massive
| voice inside the USB-IF; switching the iPhone to USBC would
| only increase their strength among the USB community. And
| sure, they'd still have to be standards compliant, but I
| really don't think "lightning 2.0" is ever coming, period. I
| think they have the hard metrics to prove that 0.1% of iPhone
| users ever use that port for anything except charging.
|
| And selling more cables is also tenuous. They'll sell USB-C
| cables anyway; I just paid them $30 or whatever for one for
| my laptop charger, because the two offbrand ones Best Buy
| sold me couldn't carry 85 watts.
|
| The best argument I've ever heard for lightning is actually:
| Physically, its a MUCH sturdier connector. Just look at the
| inside of a USBC female port, versus lightning. There's just
| less stuff; USBC has a big tooth that sticks out, whereas
| lightning is just contacts along the outside. Lightning
| connectors, and cables, are much simpler, and thus less
| likely to experience damage over time.
|
| So, yeah; I think they want to skip USBC and go right to Qi,
| basically seal up the entire outside of the phone. And I
| can't say I disagree; my iPhone only ever charges over Qi.
| But, maybe its worthwhile to just make them keep USBC around,
| if for no other reason than e-waste.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Lighting still has a "tooth" (actually two) on the socket
| side. The choice of keeping the teeth in the connector for
| USB-C is intentional, the idea is for the wear to be in the
| connector and not the device.
|
| You also don't need a 30$ cable for 90W, any cable that is
| rated for 5 amps will do the job.
| gumby wrote:
| > wear to be in the connector and not the device.
|
| I think this was a typo and you meant to say "cable
| connector (plug), not device connector (socket)".
|
| It's a good design and specifically designed to avoid a
| USB mini A design botch in which the device side would
| wear out before the cable side did.
|
| FWIW Apple is a USB member and participated in the USB-C
| design, including learning from lightning (which was
| comtemporaneously secretly under way). This is like Intel
| and IEEE-754
| doikor wrote:
| > 1. A lightning port is slightly smaller than USB-c, so it
| enable Apple to keep their phone slimmer than the competition
| in theory.
|
| In theory sure but in practice there are thinner Android
| phones with USB-C connectors than any iPhone. Basically these
| days the thickness is purely about how good camera you want
| and how much battery. The usb/lightning plug is not really an
| issue.
|
| For the record the thinnest iPhone is iPhone 5 at 7.6 mm and
| thinnest Android is Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite at 6.8mm
|
| Also from a purely user experience point of view making the
| phones thinner then they mostly are now does not add anything
| instead just makes the experience worse as the phone will
| feel worse when hold (if the other dimensions and weight stay
| the same)
| maeln wrote:
| I completely agree and I really doubt that it is the real
| reason, but it is something that Apple might still
| consider.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Apple is a little bit like Oracle, in that, they think the
| world thinks as they do. EG, employees are a bit zealous.
|
| So I suggest
|
| 4. They think lightning may become a real standard, everyone
| will adopt it, with licensing fees.
| kergonath wrote:
| This argument does not make any sense , it's not even
| standard across all the iPads. They haven't done anything
| to make it a standard.
| croon wrote:
| Where reason 2 and 3 are specifically why I understand why
| any regulatory body would do something about it.
|
| Reason 1 I can kind of understand (if valid).
| eptcyka wrote:
| I think most iPhones on offer are a fair bit thicker than
| their Android counterparts. Specifically, most Google Pixel
| and Samsung Galaxy phones are smaller than all but the Mini
| iPhones.
| hocuspocus wrote:
| Also, Apple's own USB-C equipped iPads are slimmer than any
| of their phones.
| sgtfrankieboy wrote:
| Besides, what's the point of a thinner phone when you got
| a huge bump for the camera's. Rather it be a bit thicker
| so that there is more room for battery.
|
| I personally really wish for a flag ship phone like the
| Galaxy S21 Ultra that doesn't have such a huge camera
| array.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| That and the more fragile the device, the bigger the case
| you (should) have anyway.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I'm always amused at people who upgrade to the latest
| phone regularly and then keep it in a bulky case. Around
| iPhone 5, I switched to buying 1-year old used phones
| about every 2-3 years and enjoying them without a case.
|
| Only non-minor damage I've suffered is I broke the volume
| down button (the spring behind it, really) on my Xs Max.
| Minor scratches I don't care about. I'm pretty amazed at
| how durable the phones actually are and, if I break one
| now, it's probably an $85 screen and an hour of my time
| or worst case a $400-600 replacement phone.
| elzbardico wrote:
| Cases are overrated. Sure, they may protect from some
| scratches, but they don't protect agains fall as much as
| people think, and I think they induce falls by making
| large phones even more difficult to hold. I bought a
| IPhone 12 pro max six months ago, never used a case,
| still looks like new.
| skydhash wrote:
| I used a cheap silicone case because of the glass (iPhone
| 8). Without it, the phone just slide on almost anything.
| corobo wrote:
| The bump looks so bad haha. I've never found anyone that
| agrees
|
| Yeah I'd much prefer a phone that's what, 1mm thicker?
| Maybe 2 at a push
| hef19898 wrote:
| IMHO, the camera bumps are also just ugly. That is
| mitigated by protective cases, but still thicker phones
| would be more robust and have place for larger batteries.
| That being said, modern day phones all look the same
| anyway, once they are in a non-transparent case.
| gumby wrote:
| I use a case solely so the phone lies flat on the table.
| They should arrange the battery to be thick enough to be
| the same height as the lens array.
| planb wrote:
| Yes, they earn money from the MFI program, but there's no
| reason to ditch that when changing to USB-C.
|
| Remember the outrage among "normal" users when the Dock
| Connector was replaced by Lightning? Everyone was upset they'd
| have to buy new cables - even though Lightning was vastly
| superior. Now, there's hardy a difference in the form factor.
| And make no mistake - normal people don't have USB-C chargers
| and cables lying around.
| VLM wrote:
| Seems like most USB-C cables and chargers on the market are
| fake. And as per "the market for lemons" the fake $2 chargers
| that can't output full power without smoking or have zero
| isolation from power line or refuse to use X/Y safety rated
| capacitors will push the good more expensive chargers off the
| market. The "Real World" is a lot more like "DiodeGoneWild"'s
| autopsies of power supplies than most people think. Its odd,
| really, just how much more often USB-C hardware catches fire
| than Lightning hardware.
|
| Submarine patents and the like can't appear on products you
| invented for yourself. Admittedly kinda far fetched in the case
| of USB-C. Then again look at historical madness like USB to
| RS232 adapter knock off chips and drivers written to brick
| knock off hardware.
|
| Nobody wants the wild west experience of USB-C where nothing is
| reliable or trustworthy. The user experience is just likely to
| be better with lightning.
| ksec wrote:
| >What's Apple reasoning for not abandoning Lightning for USB-C
| on their phones?
|
| There are currently more than 1 _Billion_ active iPhone
| worldwide, even at one lightning cable per iPhone that equates
| to 1 _billion_ lightning cable in use. And you have iPad and
| other accessories. I would not be surprise if there are more
| than _2_ _Billion_ Lightning cable currently in use.
|
| Seems wasteful to abandon 2 billion cables? Although I suppose
| Apple could stop shipping cables as well. And only include a
| Lightning to USB-C adopter.
|
| Not to mention lightning is a better design and higher quality
| cable than USB-C. Apple could mandate MFi for iPhone USB-C
| charging as well, but that sort of defeat the purpose of USB-C?
|
| Or even better if EU could mandate USB-C quality and standards.
| Say not to crappy USB-C cables. Which would be even better than
| forcing USB-C on devices.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > What's Apple reasoning for not abandoning Lightning for USB-C
| on their phones?
|
| It's the $25 lightning cable, which is literally engineered to
| break.
| mrsuprawsm wrote:
| The lightning connector is a more physically robust one than
| USB-C.
|
| The male lightning connector is a single flat piece; the female
| connector is a hole with the contacts on the top + bottom of
| the port.
|
| Compare to USB-C, which has an exposed "tab" in the middle of
| the female connector, and the male connector has a matching
| "hole" in the middle.
|
| This makes USB-C more vulnerable to e.g. dust collecting, and
| damage of the exposed tab. Unlike lightning, which can collect
| dust in the female port, but it's easily cleaned out using a
| paperclip or SIM card removal tool.
| hungryforcodes wrote:
| We don't really know that -- USB-C hasn't been out long
| enough. I can tell you that for durability I hate lightning,
| because it always seems to have connection problems after a
| while and the plug itself seems overly complex for what it
| does. I can't recall ever having any such connection problems
| with micro USB or USB A for example.
|
| In general it's easy to see also that the lightning connector
| itself is far more exposed to the environment than any of the
| USB connectors which are largely enclosed.
| jonplackett wrote:
| This is weird. My experience has always been the opposite.
| I've broken lots of usb-c cables with the metal bit coming
| loose. Lightening hardly ever. Any connection problems are
| usually pocket lint in the hole and fixed with a paper
| clip.
| ksec wrote:
| Same here, I have had lots of broken Lightning _Cables_ ,
| but never the connector. While I have had lots of USB-C
| connector issues.
| southerntofu wrote:
| Sounds like both tech could be improved?
| jounker wrote:
| Get a toothpick an scrape out the socket.
| hungryforcodes wrote:
| Lovely! What a solid design.
| cute_boi wrote:
| This applies in theory but I see things happen differently in
| real life. I have got macbook 2016 usb c cable and that dust
| problem etc has never happened to me. And my android cable
| are pretty robust too. But the funny thing is I always need
| to put spring so that join don't gets damaged in iphone
| charger.
| endless1234 wrote:
| It can be argued that lightning is slightly better, sure. But
| billions of people use USB-C daily, and even half of Apples
| product line only has them instead of lightning, so not sure
| if the difference is that meaningful.
| midasuni wrote:
| I don't own a single usbc device, I have lightning on my
| phone, and tons of microusb-usbA devices/cables
|
| "Billions" sounds like a HN bubble statement.
| notacoward wrote:
| So you cite a sample of N=1 and then claim than anything
| _else_ must be from within a bubble? Interesting.
| vetinari wrote:
| Same applies in reverse.
|
| I don't own a single lightning device, but everything
| (minus older devices) has usb-c. Even rechargeable
| battery inside a flashlight.
| Aeolun wrote:
| I think that's where we are headed though. I used to have
| only microusb, but everything I bought in the past year
| has had usb-c.
| endless1234 wrote:
| 6 billion smartphone subscriptions worldwide (according
| to https://www.statista.com/statistics/330695/number-of-
| smartph...), Android is about 70%
| (https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-
| share/mobile/worldwide), and has been predominantly USB C
| for the past 5 years or so (eg Samsung S7, released in
| 2016, was their first phone with USB-C afaics). I don't
| think it's that far fetched.
| agurk wrote:
| According to Wikipedia the S7 was first released
| 2016-03-11. The Oneplus 2 was released on 2015-07-28
| which was one the first with a USB-C port.
|
| One of the big reasons for me getting the OP2 was the
| port and I'm still using it (with LineageOS). I'm sure I
| would have upgraded long ago if it didn't have a USB-C
| port as that's what I've standardised on for all my
| portable electronics.
| IvanK_net wrote:
| This is not about what connector is better. It is about
| everyone using the same connector. I believe if Apple allowed
| others to use their connector for free, they could "beat"
| USBs and become the only existing standard.
| mrsuprawsm wrote:
| The parent comment asked:
|
| >What's Apple reasoning for not abandoning Lightning for
| USB-C on their phones?
|
| I would think that "what connector is better" definitely
| plays an important part in Apple's reasoning.
| hexa22 wrote:
| The lightning connector only supports usb 2.0 so even apple
| binned it on the iPads now.
| ksec wrote:
| The lightning connector is perfectly capable of
| supporting USB3.0, ( and they did at one point in time ),
| but it just doesn't make sense when iPad's ecosystem are
| more general purpose and requires interaction with USB-C,
| from display port to memory sticks.
| hungryforcodes wrote:
| If we're only allowed to use one connector, it had better
| be the "better one".
| IvanK_net wrote:
| If the better one is expensive (e.g. the creator asks for
| license fees), we should choose the cheaper one. Just
| like the VHS has beaten the Betamax.
| hungryforcodes wrote:
| I'd rather pay for the nice one to be honest. So I guess
| we can't just have one connector.
| tim333 wrote:
| >USB-C more vulnerable to e.g. dust
|
| A trouble with lightning is the dust etc. gets stuck in the
| phone socket - I've had to replace two at like PS50 a go.
| Getting a new cable is often easier.
| kergonath wrote:
| A paper clip or a cocktail stick is enough to clean a
| Lightning port with dust in it. No need to change anything.
| daxelrod wrote:
| You're best off with something that isn't conductive to
| avoid shorting any of the pins. I'd stay away from paper
| clips. Toothpicks also work well.
| mrsuprawsm wrote:
| I have had similar issues in the past, but instead of
| having to have a port repaired, when I brought my iPhone to
| the Apple Store, they simply cleaned out the dust from the
| port with a SIM removal tool and sent me on my way.
| marcan_42 wrote:
| USB-C puts the compliant side (springs) in the plug. This is
| the part that fatigues and wears out. Lightning puts it in
| the socket. This means that Lightning will wear out after
| sufficient connection cycles, and you need to repair your
| device; with USB-C you can wear out a cable and just replace
| it, the device will be fine.
|
| Additionally, Lightning plug connectors have a higher
| tendency to corrode. This is, I believe because the exposed
| mating surface on the plug end easily gathers debris (in
| particular e.g. oils and grease), and that can cause poor
| contact which can result in oxidation due to heating and
| electrolytic effects. USB-C does not have this problem, as
| none of the mating surfaces are exposed to being touched. The
| debris that tends to collect inside USB-C ports is usually
| solid fluff, not liquids.
|
| And Lightning is just a terrible standard anyway. iPhones to
| this day use compressed video over USB2 for their "HDMI"
| output dongles (which actually have an Ax class CPU in them
| just to decode the video) because Apple were too short-
| sighted in their design to allow for enough expandability to
| support uncompressed digital video properly.
| cesarb wrote:
| > The male lightning connector is a single flat piece; the
| female connector is a hole with the contacts on the top +
| bottom of the port.
|
| Which means that the part which wears over time (the springs)
| is on the port instead of the cable.
|
| On USB-C, the springs are all in the cable; the port is a
| single flat piece (the tab in the middle) surrounded by a
| metallic shield.
| p49k wrote:
| They are both physically robust and very reliable, to the
| point where I don't think this is a valid excuse. We've come
| a long way since the early days of mobile phones.
| stared wrote:
| It does not match my experience. My lightning connectors wear
| off - it is only a matter of time. It has never ever happened
| to any on my USB-C cables.
| kozlowsqi wrote:
| I have like 3 lightning cables, apple deprecating lightning
| would account to me throwing these cables away and buying
| usb-c. I suppose other apple users would have to do the same.
| Not to mention other lightning accessories, headphones and
| such. Lightning is still included on airpods (pro and max).
|
| Furthermore, usb-c is younger than lightning. And lightning was
| arguably superior to previous usbs (more durable).
|
| So while unification sounds nice, net gain would be actually
| close to nothing, it would be a change for the sake of change,
| and would probably annoy as much people as it would please.
| tengbretson wrote:
| The phone you already have would continue to have a lightning
| port, so I'm not sure what the issue here is.
| Shadonototra wrote:
| people always look for short term gains while completely
| ignoring the long term benefits
|
| go look for phone charger waste and why it is important to
| stop having 4685486468478 different type of chargers, people
| are very selfish in this thread
| InsomniacL wrote:
| > I have like 3 lightning cables, apple deprecating lightning
| would account to me throwing these cables away
|
| I'm sure that's the same argument every phone manufacture
| made before the EU legislated it and Apple found their
| loophole.
|
| An adapter to fit on the end of the lightening could
| alleviate that problem until people have switched.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| I use old cables to tie up and support tomato plants...
| it's a big bundle...
| shrikant wrote:
| Keep the cables, and buy Lightning-to-USB-C dongles that will
| inevitably show up in the market?
| wwtrv wrote:
| How is that any better than just buying a new cable?
| shrikant wrote:
| Saves on the e-waste caused by throwing away the old
| cables...
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > What's Apple reasoning for not abandoning Lightning for USB-C
| on their phones?
|
| People having _a lot_ of legacy MFi stuff. Car docks and stereo
| systems in particular are expensive to replace.
| foepys wrote:
| They didn't see this as a problem when they introduced
| lightning and USB-C on their macBooks and high-end iPads,
| though. Instead you were supposed to buy more future
| electronic waste in form of dongles.
| ksec wrote:
| >They didn't see this as a problem when they introduced
| lightning
|
| Apple now ship more lightning cable in a single year than
| all the 30 Pin exist in the ecosystem combined. The scale
| is just different.
| avianlyric wrote:
| I think the iPad pro etc lives in a different category.
| They're all high end devices that are bought by people who
| either like tech, or use it for work. People who want the
| latest everything, and are happy to change things like
| cables to make it happen.
|
| The iPhone at this point is just a phone. I suspect most
| people own them because their good tools for everyday life.
| Based on an observation of my parents, their friends, and
| parents of my partner, I would say that most of them don't
| give a rat-arse about the port on the bottom. They just
| want the phone to work with the cables they already have.
| For many of these people an iPhone and iPad Air will be the
| only computers they own.
|
| I appreciate that my point is a little undermined by the
| new iPad Air, but I suspect that iPhone will go to wireless
| only charging, something the iPad can't do, and Apple don't
| want to go through two transitions in less than 5 years.
| theranger wrote:
| And this is not a problem for MacBooks and iPads. Nobody
| docks them in a cradle or to a car phone stand.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| USB-C to USB-A dongles were and are cheap, and USB-C/TB on
| MacBooks enabled one-cable docking solutions for the first
| time on the MBP platform so people actually welcomed that.
| Reason077 wrote:
| Most car docks I've seen had a swappable base plate to
| accommodate either lightning or USB C.
|
| Now days of course, they're all moving to wireless charging
| anyway.
| janlaureys wrote:
| My car has two wireless charge pads and it's honestly one
| of the best features.
| smashah wrote:
| This concern does not translate well to anybody wanting to
| switch platforms. This level of sunk cost fallacy would not
| fly as an excuse for any other technology, let alone on HN.
| hexa22 wrote:
| I have never seen a lightning dock ever. Docks seemed to die
| after the 30 pin was discontinued. Every car I have seen now
| uses Bluetooth and has a usb A port for cables.
| deepsun wrote:
| $29? https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MD819AM/A/lightning-to-
| us...
| dtech wrote:
| This is non-news, this has already been the case since 2009 [1].
| It mandates micro USB, EU iPhones come with an adapter. I'm not
| sure what the current status is, USB-C phones don't come with an
| adapter.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_external_power_supply
| gopaz wrote:
| > EU iPhones come with an adapter.
|
| Source? Since 2009 I probably had 8 iPhones or so, never seen
| or heard about any adapter
| boudin wrote:
| I don't know if it's what the author of this comment meant,
| but iphone chargers have an USB plug and the charging cable
| is a USB - Lightning cable. But it's the case everywhere no?
| dtech wrote:
| It might differ per country. In NL it has been the case. The
| latest comes with an USB-C -> lightning cable [1]. I think
| the micro-USB might have been around iPhone 7 era.
|
| [1] https://www.apple.com/nl/iphone-13-pro/specs/
| Aaargh20318 wrote:
| That's a different law, it requires a USB connection on the
| side of the charger. This would require a USB connector on the
| side of the phone.
| 88 wrote:
| I don't think Apple provided an adapter, they merely "offered"
| one.
| akmarinov wrote:
| Apple has until 2024 to conform, but by that time it's likely the
| iPhone will be portless.
|
| Interesting is that the older iPhones they sell which at that
| time would be something like iPhone 13/14 will also need to have
| USB-C.
| zamadatix wrote:
| > but by that time it's likely the iPhone will be portless.
|
| Seems exceedingly unlikely unless the law changes by then.
| kube-system wrote:
| > The proposals only cover devices using wired, not wireless,
| chargers
| akmarinov wrote:
| > Today's proposals from the EU only cover wired charging and
| don't seek to enforce rules on wireless charging just yet. A
| spokesperson for the Commission has confirmed to The Verge
| that if a device charges only wirelessly, then there is no
| requirement to integrate a USB-C charging port.
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/23/22689432/eu-iphone-
| usb-c-...
| bennysomething wrote:
| So this will be the end of any charging port technology, what
| would they have selected pre iPhone I wonder? As usual the
| government knows best when figuring out what a consumer wants or
| needs.
| andrewfong wrote:
| I don't know the timelines for these things, but how would this
| work if someone wanted to introduce a hypothetical USB-D? They'd
| just need to petition the EU once a new standard was adopted?
| rvense wrote:
| I can only say I really, really hope this substantially slows
| down the introduction of new ports and connectors. USB-C is a n
| overly complicated clusterfuck, but it'll do for the vast
| majority of applications for a very long time.
| Asmod4n wrote:
| There are two ways how to handle this.
|
| 1) legislation forces a standard upon every device maker. Because
| technology advances all the time legislation will have to change
| the port every ~10 years. This might happen or not, potentially
| forcing device makers into building obsolete tech into their
| devices.
|
| 2) make a law which forces device makers to hold regular
| meetings/whatever to decide upon themselves which port they want
| to use. The port that gets 51% or more of the votes becomes the
| standard. If two consecutive rounds of voting can't find a
| standard legislation will decide the standard.
| vasco wrote:
| I can think of many more ways, one of which being to just let
| companies decide which port to use without enforced
| coordination.
|
| I think it's way more likely for new port technology to advance
| if a OEM can immediately put it in their next product to
| validate it in the market than waiting for coordination.
|
| If someone designs a new port that is way better, how will they
| convince other manufacturers at the regular meeting that this
| should be the new one if it's not even tested in the market?
|
| What you're proposing are two "design by committee" ways of
| handling this and making it look like there's no other way to
| handle this or that the status quo isn't better than the
| proposed changes.
| Asmod4n wrote:
| I can think of other ways too, but the EU wants to regulate
| this part of the economy and i believe they will take way too
| much time to adopt new standards or simply ignore new ones.
| Making USB-C the port for decades and stopping any advance in
| technology here.
| acdha wrote:
| Your second scenario is basically what happened: the EU MOU
| gave the industry a decade, they came up with USB C in 2014,
| and here we are with most of the industry using USB C and
| legislation pushing Apple to adopt it.
| ulzeraj wrote:
| Might sound like a good idea but might also leave us stuck with
| usb-c for decades.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| We are not going to be stuck with usb c for decades. Good
| grief. If a significantly better technology comes along that
| requires a new connector I am sure new legislation can make way
| for it. That said I don't support laws like this. I don't like
| laws that limit possibilities for consumers. I prefer laws that
| expand them like right-to-repair and network neutrality when it
| comes to tech.
| yawaworht1978 wrote:
| Does this include apple?
|
| And I hope they will all be forced to use the same
| voltage/quality.
|
| Same should be done for laptops, most ridiculous company in this
| regard is Asus (other than that, i love the products).
| clement_b wrote:
| Would it be possible for EU to select a standard, and request
| each member state to tax non-standard products sold at an
| increasing YOY rate. This would give some time to Apple to figure
| it out while putting the words in action now without punishing
| consumers from day one. Also, making some money on the back of a
| GAFA.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| There is a time to figure it out. The whole thing is discussed
| for years. Apple must have seen it coming. In addition the
| legaslative process isn't finished, yet. And then the final
| legislative measure will have a grace period and only affect
| new products.
| beezischillin wrote:
| This might be a naive question but couldn't they just mandate
| something like 'the latest and or most appropriate revision of
| the USB standard for the use case' within reason and have that
| include potential future updates as well, making the law at least
| mostly future-proof instead of having to wait for politics to
| catch up with technology?
| post_break wrote:
| I can see the good and bad in this. But as of right now USB C
| looks like the future with both the amount of power it can
| deliver as a port, as well as speed in terms of Thunderbolt 4,
| plus thunderbolt 4 will open up to not just intel if I understand
| correctly. Every single device in my house now uses USB C. From
| phone, laptop, tablet, to keyboard, air monitor, even my
| flashlights charge via USB C.
| nicce wrote:
| Actually Apple is moving a way from USB-C-only charger on the
| next gen laptops, because it does not provide enough power(to
| get even better charging speed). (Physical size limits that)
| So, maybe for phones it is enough in the future, but not for
| all devices.
| post_break wrote:
| Yeah I don't know where you're getting this info. The most an
| Apple laptop pulls right now is 100w because the intel chip
| pulls a ton of power. 240w in lab testing now. And with Apple
| chips they are going to sip power. Unless Apple puts a 6900XT
| into a laptop they won't be hitting that charging limit.
| nicce wrote:
| Especially the 16 inc Macbooks can go over that
| consumption. But however the main point is in charging, you
| need a lot more watts to charge faster, as the batteries
| are getting bigger and if you want to improve existing
| charging speeds.
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-15/apple-
| mac...
|
| https://www.macrumors.com/2021/01/15/magsafe-coming-to-
| macbo...
| sudosysgen wrote:
| That's bullshit. You can carry 240W over USB-C. Physical size
| limits current, not voltage, and you can increase voltage.
| [deleted]
| dspillett wrote:
| Is anyone actually selling devices that can output or
| consume that yet? IIRC the updated standard was only made
| public a few months ago.
|
| I know some off-spec devices (some XPS laptops for
| instance) can shovel 130W around where 100W is the usual
| maximum but I don't remember hearing of any that make use
| of more.
|
| There is another option without that standard too: you
| could always draw from more than one source. Many USB
| connected DVD writing devices did (probably still do if not
| using USB-C) this, so they could be used to write reliably
| at full speed if the host PC couldn't give more than the
| lower power standards down a USB port (with higher power
| support you only need one connection, with legacy ports one
| connector was data+power the other just power).
| sudosysgen wrote:
| None of them have hit the market yet, indeed. But it's
| still not an issue for Apple, adding a 48V mode to their
| USB PD controller is trivial.
|
| Drawing from multiple ports is a good idea! But if you're
| MacGyvering something, it's much easier to connect the
| right resistor to the USB C connector and solder the
| power lines right into a 48V PSU.
| nicce wrote:
| > Physical size limits current, not voltage, and you can
| increase voltage.
|
| Exactly, you need to increase both for better charging
| speeds. 240W is not a lot for charging if the battery sizes
| keep growing. To add, increasing only voltage is not good
| for battery and gets challenging.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| But battery sizes are not growing anymore. The latest
| macbooks have under 60Wh batteries.
|
| Also it's very wrong that voltage is bad for batteries.
| The voltage going through the cable is transformed down
| to the exact voltage that the battery charge controller
| decides is appropriate for the charge of the battery at
| any given moment.
|
| If you really wanted even more power, which you don't
| really, there's no reason you couldn't go to 60V.
| concinds wrote:
| Sadly, this doesn't seem like it'll ban Apple from removing the
| port from iPhones:
|
| > - harmonise the charging interface for mobile phones and
| similar categories or classes of radio equipment (tablets,
| digital cameras, headphones and headsets, handheld videogame
| consoles and portable speakers) that are recharged via a wired
| charging
|
| The EU needs to get in front of this, because forcing all iPhone
| users to use a bigger, heavier charging puck, waste 50% more
| electricity, and be unable to transfer files quickly to or from
| the iPhone, seems utterly unacceptable to me.
|
| https://ec.europa.eu/docsroom/documents/46755/attachments/3/...
| ComSubVie wrote:
| Why not wireless charging?
|
| I don't mind the connector (lightning works well), better would
| be mandatory quality of the cables (the iPhone cables are
| regularly breaking).
| dspillett wrote:
| _> Why not wireless charging?_
|
| Much less efficient, so not a good environmental strategy which
| is the key thing this is aiming at (reducing electronic waste
| as people throw out old chargers with old devices). Also, for
| the same efficiency reason, best charging speed is not as fast
| at least with current tech.
|
| Furthermore, wireless charging standards are much more in-flux
| than USB-C ATM and might be for some time.
| Reason077 wrote:
| I can't wait for an iPhone with a USB C port, and I'll buy it
| immediately.
|
| There's nothing technically wrong with Lightning, but it's a
| monumental pain to have to carry around 2 sets of incompatible
| cables because of it!
| Aaargh20318 wrote:
| I think it's more likely that Apple will drop the port
| completely and move to a wireless-charger only approach.
| Reason077 wrote:
| That doesn't really solve the problem, though. In fact it
| makes it worse if you have to curry around a wireless charger
| that is more bulky than the cable it replaces!
| Aaargh20318 wrote:
| The proposed law is not about convenience for the user but
| about reducing waste.
|
| Also, you don't need to carry around a wireless charger,
| you leave the charger at home and charge your phone
| overnight.
| Kuraj wrote:
| That's extremely shortsighted. You never run out of
| battery before coming home? _On an iPhone_?
| Aaargh20318 wrote:
| No, that has never happened to me. How much time do you
| spend away from home that this becomes a problem ?
| lagadu wrote:
| So you never travel?
|
| I travel a significant amount of times, sometimes for
| work, mostly for leisure. Nowadays I carry one single 65w
| USB-C charger, it charges: my work laptop (if travelling
| for work), my personal laptop, my phone, my book, my NC
| headphones for the airplane, my TWS earbuds. I only own
| two chargeable items that it doesn't charge: my watch
| (which I charge with the reverse wireless charging my
| phone does so I still don't need to carry a charger) and
| my car (lost cause, obviously usb-c will never replace
| CCS).
| Aaargh20318 wrote:
| > So you never travel?
|
| No. Why would I ?
| chairmanwow1 wrote:
| As a constant traveler, I consistently need to charge up
| while on flights, airports, random coffee shops, bars etc
| Reason077 wrote:
| That's the theory with all charging, isn't it? But I'm
| talking about while travelling or all those unexpected
| circumstances when you find yourself needing a charge
| when you're not at home.
|
| One night recently, I managed to get locked out of my
| flat, after midnight, with nothing but my phone in my
| pocket. On about 15% charge! Thankfully that was enough
| to book a hotel and buy a lightning cable (and a
| toothbrush) at a 24-hour convenience store using Apple
| Pay, enabling me to recharge the phone on the hotel's USB
| charging sockets. If I'd needed to find a wireless
| charger I would have been totally screwed!
|
| I suppose wireless chargers will become similarly
| ubiquitous if they're the only way to charge phones. If
| you can expect to find wireless charging in every hotel
| room and every train seat then it's not a problem. But I
| suspect that's a long way off.
| swebs wrote:
| >If you can expect to find wireless charging in every
| hotel room and every train seat then it's not a problem.
| But I suspect that's a long way off.
|
| I have seen them in many commuter trains and most coffee
| shops, like Starbucks. They're surprisingly common if you
| know to look out for the symbol.
| mojzu wrote:
| Could they do this given current or near-future technology?
| My understanding is wireless charging is ~30% less efficient
| then using a cable, and degrades the battery more. I'm not
| sure it'd be much of an environmental win to have to use more
| energy/replace batteries more often (although perhaps Apple
| would see it as replacing lightning revenue with battery
| replacement revenue)
| kataklasm wrote:
| You think Apple cares about environmentalism? If anything,
| Apple is the king of green-washing and being anti-
| environment. Just take a peek at the gargantuan amount of
| e-waste Apple is producing year after year with their
| device-repair policies (= "buy a new one, we can't repair
| it, sorry. oh and third party repair are terrorists that
| steal your data and money. just buy a new one, willya?").
|
| Apple cares about one thing only, and that is market
| capitalization and profits.
| lagadu wrote:
| And miss out on selling all those accessories? Doubtful.
| Aaargh20318 wrote:
| You old accessories no longer work, so they can sell you
| all new MagSafe ones.
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