EU lawmakers snub Apple's pleas, vote to push for charging cable standard • Hacker News Board

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

#151

Post by crooked-v » Sat, Feb 01, 2020, 12:46 AM UTC

alt_f4 wrote: post #128

_bxg1 wrote: post #125

I'm not someone who's shy about regulation, but even I think this is totally unnecessary. As an Apple user, I should be the first to complain about their own internal (inexplicable) lack of a standard (Lightning for phones, USB-C for everything else). It's annoying, sure, but it's far from a material burden on my quality of life. Is this really the problem we need to be spending our regulatory energies on in 2020?

Every time you are buying a charger, wired headphones or any other iPhone accessory, Apple collects a hefty license fee and you, indirectly, are paying it. Originally, the lightning port was a big improvement over existing tech. Currently though, the only reason the lightning port still exists is because it is a good way for Apple to use their market dominant position to milk consumers. It is not good for consumers,…

I suspect a major factor in keeping the Lightning stuff is also because of how intense the complaining would be if they switched it to USB-C. The introduction of Lightning got endless negative PR over all the old 30-pin accessories, and this would be that plus the extra complaining about how they keep "constantly" changing it.

For similar reasons, I suspect there's at least some factions in Apple that would be secretly pleased with a mandated switch to USB-C, because then they'd be able to get past it by redirecting any complaints to the government involved.

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

#152

Post by int_19h » Sat, Feb 01, 2020, 12:47 AM UTC

Someone wrote: post #99

dTal wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>‘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…

It doesn't matter how it's implemented from the user's perspective. The important part is that it's guaranteed to work - and it does.

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

#153

Post by kevin_thibedeau » Sat, Feb 01, 2020, 12:47 AM UTC

gpm wrote: post #142

jakear wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what that will do for security. It seems the publicly known exploits tend to use the wired connection to swipe data from the phone. It would likely be much more difficult to do that wirelessly. It would be a shame to lose the potential hardening benefits because of some lawmakers who may not have privacy as a core interest... or indeed quite the opposite.

You can always not connect the data wires to the port.

Then you can't use USB-PD protocol and only get the gimped resistor-based current negotiation.

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

#154

Post by CharlesW » Sat, Feb 01, 2020, 12:48 AM UTC

veeralpatel979 wrote: post #127

I'm with Apple on this one. Apple has kept working on improving the charging experience for its phones over time. The original iPhone cable, then lightning, then wireless charging. This stifles innovation. Also: doesn't the government have more pressing concerns to worry about? I doubt Apple's lobbying against this for some nefarious reason, like locking users into their proprietary technology.

> The original iPhone cable, then lightning, then wireless charging.

It's also worth noting that Apple began the move from Lightning to USB-C charging on iOS devices in 2018. The next generation of iPhones won't use Lightning.

EDIT: The point is that Apple's been moving to standards-based charging for both macOS and iOS products for some time, making this EU effort even less necessary than it may first appear.

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

#155

Post by mvanbaak » Sat, Feb 01, 2020, 12:48 AM UTC

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #6

This is a good move. Finally my partner and I, with apple and android devices respectively, can share chargers if need be. it's a pity that Apple didn't play ball voluntarily, and had to be ordered to be nice.

Lol. What if the standard turns out to be lightning?

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

#156

Post by kevingadd » Sat, Feb 01, 2020, 12:49 AM UTC

exabrial wrote: post #66

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

A significant portion - if not the vast majority - of laws and regulations have no criminal penalties and have civil penalties at most. Many are just advisory. Notice how Apple has technically been in violation of these rules for years and is only now getting punished and nobody is going to jail.

Everyone shouts about GDPR but fines are something like the 3rd or 4th stage of the remedy process - up until that point the regulator is working with you and no punishment of any kind has occurred. Of course since the GDPR is at an EU level, individual member states could opt to jail people for violations - I couldn't find any examples of that, however.

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

#157

Post by alt_f4 » Sat, Feb 01, 2020, 12:50 AM UTC

crooked-v wrote: post #151

alt_f4 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time you are buying a charger, wired headphones or any other iPhone accessory, Apple collects a hefty license fee and you, indirectly, are paying it. Originally, the lightning port was a big improvement over existing tech. Currently though, the only reason the lightning port still exists is because it is a good way for Apple to use their market dominant position to milk consumers. It is not good for consumers,…

I suspect a major factor in keeping the Lightning stuff is also because of how intense the complaining would be if they switched it to USB-C. The introduction of Lightning got endless negative PR over all the old 30-pin accessories, and this would be that plus the extra complaining about how they keep "constantly" changing it. For similar reasons, I suspect there's at least some factions in Apple that would be secret…

It's not quite an apt comparison because the vast majority of people already own USB-C chargers and accessories, whereas lightning was a brand new thing.

Also if Apple were that bothered by complaining, it would not have taken them 5 years and 3+ years of service programs to replace their laptops' butterfly keyboards with regular scissors switch keyboards.

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

#158

Post by mvanbaak » Sat, Feb 01, 2020, 12:51 AM UTC

Its sad how almost all of HN blindly points to apple and states they are the bad guys. With the number of devices out there, its totally more natural that the standard will be lightning instead of micro-usb ir usb-c.

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

#159

Post by bonzini » Sat, Feb 01, 2020, 12:53 AM UTC

henryfjordan wrote: post #122

ac29 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

And because it was only voluntary, Apple was able to innovate and create the lightning port which worked in either orientation and inspired the adoption of USB-C by the rest of the world

They could have proposed a USB connector which worked in either orientation to the USB implementers forum back in 2012, couldn't they?

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

#160

Post by int_19h » Sat, Feb 01, 2020, 12:57 AM UTC

nemothekid wrote: post #64

vincnetas wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well legislations are not written in stone. If there is a reasonable need for upgraded standard in future legislation can be updated.

>If there is a reasonable need for upgraded standard Are you saying that politicians should be designing technical standards? And how will you ever know there is a need for a new standard if you can't even deploy it?

Engineers design technical standards. Politicians enforce them.

It's not like this is something new. We've had national standards for things like AC power plugs and outlets for over a century, and they are mandatory in many countries.