Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

EU lawmakers snub Apple's pleas, vote to push for charging cable standard

appleinsider.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 525 posts

Re: EU lawmakers snub Apple's pleas, vote to push for charging cable standard

#91

Post by nsajko »

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #69
martin-adams wrote: post #37

Let’s say this rule was in place 10 years ago and we standardised on micro USB. How would it have been possible to advance to the next generation of technology like USB-C. This feels that it’s banking on USB-C being forever future proofed or wireless connections does everything we ever need.

> How would it have been possible to advance to the next generation of technology like USB-C. The law does no say what a common charger is. Manufacturers are free to migrate to a new standard.

Presumably it is on the Commission to decide that USB-C is to be the next standard, and only then will there be a proposal for a law. (We are not yet talking about a law.)

Re: EU lawmakers snub Apple's pleas, vote to push for charging cable standard

#92

Post by ripdog »

exabrial wrote: post #66

Do we really need governments doing this? Imagine getting locked up for selling phone cables.

I'm not sure why you assume that this law, should it eventually appear, would be enforced with jail time? For that matter, why it would even be targeted at sellers of cables instead of phone makers?

Re: EU lawmakers snub Apple's pleas, vote to push for charging cable standard

#93

Post by GeekyBear »

lostlogin wrote: post #80
GeekyBear wrote: post #75

We had the 30 pin dock connector on iPods and iPhones for eleven years and now lightning for eight. Forcing people to throw away most of a decade's worth of already purchased cables and accessories does seem like an odd way to cut down on ewaste given the fact that Apple already switched the chargers themselves to USB-C. I guess my lightning compatible alarm clock/docking station can go live on a nice farm with my lo…

That 30 pin thing was barbaric and probably the least Apple-like thing they ever made.

The original iPod just had a FireWire port.

When they decided to make the iPod PC compatible we ended up with a connector that was passing through FireWire, USB, audio, playback controls, and the kitchen sink.

After a certain point, they started passing through video as well.

Re: EU lawmakers snub Apple's pleas, vote to push for charging cable standard

#94

Post by GeekyBear »

SiempreViernes wrote: post #86
GeekyBear wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple's charger already had a standard USB-A port and has moved to having a standard USB-C port. It's the cable that they include with the iPhone that has a USB connector on the charger end and a lightning port on the phone end. That included cable allows you to charge with any manufacturer's USB-C charger in the same way that the previous version of the cable worked with any USB-A charging port. So, in summary, the…

> So, in summary, the cable Apple gives you works with other manufacturers chargers, and the charger Apple gives you works with other phones, using a standard USB-C cable that, I would imagine, came with the phone. The point is you still need extra stuff just to charge your phone when you switch manufacturer. So what apple provides is in fact not a "common charger", but merely a transformer+rectifier that, using addi…

You don't need anything but the cable that came with your phone.

Re: EU lawmakers snub Apple's pleas, vote to push for charging cable standard

#95

Post by ac29 »

martin-adams wrote: post #37

Let’s say this rule was in place 10 years ago and we standardised on micro USB. How would it have been possible to advance to the next generation of technology like USB-C. This feels that it’s banking on USB-C being forever future proofed or wireless connections does everything we ever need.

This did happen 10 years ago, and they did standardize on micro-USB [0]. Use of the standard was voluntary, though.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_external_power_supply

Re: EU lawmakers snub Apple's pleas, vote to push for charging cable standard

#96

Post by eanzenberg »

SiempreViernes wrote: post #77
eanzenberg wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because gov't moves as fast as innovation /s

You mean you miss the good old innovative days when every phone model had its own charger? The days where you needed special proprietary software to access any part of your phone if you connected it with to a computer using its special cable? I remember losing plenty of sms history and contacts when changing phones because the dedicated phone software was too old to run on my windows, and the dodgy program I found on…

Seems like the free market solved all the probs you mentioned, so yeah.

Re: EU lawmakers snub Apple's pleas, vote to push for charging cable standard

#97

Post by rexf »

murderfs wrote: post #67
birdyrooster wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The USB-C ports wear out badly after a couple years of use and are loose. Lightning, as you are saying, still feels good after years of daily use. The duty cycle is higher for lightning and should be used for things which are often disconnected and reconnected like mobile devices.

It's usually not the port that's wearing out, but the cable, because USB-C moved the retention clips from the port to the cable.

I've experienced the port wearing out. Using the same cable with two different MBPs, only one MBP has loose ports when plugging in.

Re: EU lawmakers snub Apple's pleas, vote to push for charging cable standard

#98

Post by ViViDboarder »

nickserv wrote: post #29

Good news, and I hope it passes the commission. With USB-C there's no real reason to have other standards for charging a cell phone. And with that out of the way, manufacturers can focus on developing a universal wireless charging protocol.

Maybe you were sarcastic but...

Reasons to have other standards exist because they are better than USB-C. I’ve got a lightning port on my current phone, while my old phone was USB-C, as well as my current laptop and tablet both USB-C. I have to say, the lightning feels significantly more secure.

Also, we have a standard for wireless charging. Qi has been around for years. Old Nexus used to have it. New iPhones do have it. IKEA even sells cheap furniture with chargers built in.

Re: EU lawmakers snub Apple's pleas, vote to push for charging cable standard

#99

Post by Someone »

dTal wrote: post #27
Someone wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

”I'm guessing that whatever comes after USB-C will exist in the US and Asia for years before its allowed in the EU” Looking at what happened with RoHS ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restriction_of_Hazardous_Subst... ; the EU forbid the use of lead-based solder, and the world mostly followed because, if they didn’t, the logistics and lower economies of scale would cost more than using the cheaper processes), it will…

>‘USB’ is a marketing term, anyways. Current USB looks nothing like the first version How so? You can plug a first gen, USB 1.0 mouse into an Android phone's USB-C port with no more than a passive adapter, and it'll work. That's way more commonality than "just a marketing term" - it's functionally backwards compatible at the electrical, protocol, and driver level.

USB1:USB-C is a bit like 8086:x64. The latter ‘boots’ pretending to be the former, but preferably doesn’t spend much time in that mode.

USB1: 4 wires, half-duplex, with the host in control. Upstream- and downstream ports determine who’s the host. Negotiation of bus speed in hardware, using a few diodes/wires.

USB3: 9 wires, full-duplex, uses 8b/10b encoding (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8b/10b_encoding). Negation of bus speed in software.

USB-C: adds more power options, displayLink.

Re: EU lawmakers snub Apple's pleas, vote to push for charging cable standard

#100

Post by akvadrako »

pwinnski wrote: post #50
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #34

The joint motion points to adopting Directive 2014/53/EU which requires common _chargers_ but says nothing about the port that the phone uses. As far as I can tell this is only for the back half of the charger / brick that connects to the wall. Yet the Apple statement, and most of the articles about this (including the linked one), are talking about the phone's connector and talks about lightning and usb-c. Most of t…

Apple is already using USB-C on the bit that plugs into the wall, so if that's all this is, it's nothing. Apple has protested this, so it seems like it must be more.

It seems pretty clear at the current stage it’s completely vague. Probably Apple has no idea what actionable laws will result.

Will they mandate all phones have usb-c ports? That’s absurd because who knows what’ll be the standard port in 5 years.

Post reply on HN