Apple counters with a monetary donation
EU lawmakers snub Apple's pleas, vote to push for charging cable standard
181–190 of 525 posts
Re: EU lawmakers snub Apple's pleas, vote to push for charging cable standard
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
They had no problem allowing USB-C quickly, why would the next one be different?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22204605
The rule was in place ten years ago. That's why every other manufacturer ships USB now, and even Apple puts USB on one side of their charger cord in malicious compliance.
Re: EU lawmakers snub Apple's pleas, vote to push for charging cable standard
#183I'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.
How convenient, you skip all the other Apple cables
Re: EU lawmakers snub Apple's pleas, vote to push for charging cable standard
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Also: doesn't the government have more pressing concerns to worry about? Sounds like "why spend money on NASA when we have poverty here on earth?". Governments have a lot of people and a lot of resources and can work on more than one thing at a time. > Apple has kept working on improving the charging experience for its phones over time And it will continue to do so. Except it now has to convince others to adopt its…
Yes but why is it so bad to let companies choose what charging cables they provide? You get a free charging cable usually when you purchase a new phone and charging cables are cheap. I get the environment argument but I don't see how this moves the needle on protecting the environment. If anything it could scare off tech companies from developing charging cables that are better for the environment.
Today it's phones, tomorrow it's electric cars. The slippery slope could be a feature and not a bug.
Re: EU lawmakers snub Apple's pleas, vote to push for charging cable standard
#185APPLAUSE. awesome. Apple is monopolistic and is guilty of deliberate obsolescence of even proprietary standards they helped push, like Firewire.
I, for one, and completely tired of them pretending that there is any basis other than greed and the desire to control others. There is certainly a demonstrable lack of technical motivations for the vast majority of their choices, and a standard would presumably take any such concerns into account anyway.
Re: EU lawmakers snub Apple's pleas, vote to push for charging cable standard
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't need anything but the cable that came with your phone.
Whereas the entire point of the regulation is to not need the cord that came with your phone, but to use anyone's. They got tired of all the proprietary connectors back in the feature phone days.
If the cord was still hard wired into the charger like the old days, you would have a point, but this is supposedly about the chargers.
Re: EU lawmakers snub Apple's pleas, vote to push for charging cable standard
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes but why is it so bad to let companies choose what charging cables they provide? You get a free charging cable usually when you purchase a new phone and charging cables are cheap. I get the environment argument but I don't see how this moves the needle on protecting the environment. If anything it could scare off tech companies from developing charging cables that are better for the environment.
I carry two phones, my private Android phone (my personal preference) and an iPhone imposed on me by work. Not having to bother with two sets of cables would be a welcome improvement. As for "not moving the needle", every little thing sums up. Also, it's not just the cables - manufacturing lines, shelf space, redundant labor, ...
So because it would be more convenient for you we need government intervention?
Re: EU lawmakers snub Apple's pleas, vote to push for charging cable standard
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
I carry two phones, my private Android phone (my personal preference) and an iPhone imposed on me by work. Not having to bother with two sets of cables would be a welcome improvement. As for "not moving the needle", every little thing sums up. Also, it's not just the cables - manufacturing lines, shelf space, redundant labor, ...
So because it would be more convenient for you we need government intervention?
That's an obnoxious and immature way to jump into a conversation. I didn't touch on government action anywhere, nor the comment I was responding to.
I understood the parent post as arguing that having a unique cable isn't so bad because you get one for free with the device, among other things. While this is true, my counter is that having a single cable over multiple devices is still nice.
Re: EU lawmakers snub Apple's pleas, vote to push for charging cable standard
#189I'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,…
How “hefty” can the license fee be when you can buy a pack of five lightning cables for $14?
https://www.amazon.com/Charger-AYNGWRNB-Certified-Lightning-...
But if Apple is being “abusive” by having proprietary hardware, does that mean they should also force Nintendo to use standard media for the Switch? Should they also force Apple to allow iPhones to run a more standard operating system?
Re: EU lawmakers snub Apple's pleas, vote to push for charging cable standard
#190I'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.
I think Apple genuinely believe that they can provide a better product, and I believe they can too. I just don't care.
The inability to borrow cables or swap them between devices in the past was a not insignificant hassle. Keeping boxes of cables, not being able to borrow a friend's charger when visiting, not being able to replace cables except by ordering a new one from the manufacturer half a world away. Constant minor irritation.
The EU's first round of cable standardisation remains one of my favourite quality-of-life laws. No slightly more reliable cable is worth more than me than knowing I can use the same cable on as many devices as possible, and that I'm never going to be stuck in the middle of nowhere unable to buy a replacement charger for my phone.
It's also a point which the invisible hand has a great deal of trouble solving, because phones are such a vital part of life that you're unlikely to refuse to buy simply on the basis of its charger. It's an easy bit of revenue for manufacturers to jump on, because they know it's probably not quite annoying enough to significantly affect device choice. I love me a free market solution, but it's important to recognise where the market fails, and we've already seen it fail to solve this problem once.