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EU plans to force OEMs to use a common charger for all phones

xda-developers.com

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Re: EU plans to force OEMs to use a common charger for all phones

#81

Post by cute_boi »

mrsuprawsm wrote: post #71
sph wrote: post #4

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™. What's Apple reasoning for not abandoning Lightning for USB-C on their phones?

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 t…

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.

Re: EU plans to force OEMs to use a common charger for all phones

#82

Post by iSnow »

sfg wrote: post #42
Aaargh20318 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

Re: EU plans to force OEMs to use a common charger for all phones

#83

Post by maccard »

avianlyric wrote: post #54
iSnow wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

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.

or $0.70 per year at current energy prices.

Re: EU plans to force OEMs to use a common charger for all phones

#84

Post by qalmakka »

connor-brooks wrote: post #34

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?

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.

Re: EU plans to force OEMs to use a common charger for all phones

#85

Post by hocuspocus »

eptcyka wrote: post #74
maeln wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 restricte…

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.

Also, Apple's own USB-C equipped iPads are slimmer than any of their phones.

Re: EU plans to force OEMs to use a common charger for all phones

#86

Post by IvanK_net »

sph wrote: post #4

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™. What's Apple reasoning for not abandoning Lightning for USB-C on their phones?

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.

Re: EU plans to force OEMs to use a common charger for all phones

#87

Post by proto-n »

Philip-J-Fry wrote: post #64
enlyth wrote: post #45

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.

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.

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.

Re: EU plans to force OEMs to use a common charger for all phones

#88

Post by cute_boi »

connor-brooks wrote: post #34

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?

How about we solve both problems? Its not like we should solve these sequentially we can always solve problems in a parallel way?

Re: EU plans to force OEMs to use a common charger for all phones

#89

Post by endless1234 »

mrsuprawsm wrote: post #71
sph wrote: post #4

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™. What's Apple reasoning for not abandoning Lightning for USB-C on their phones?

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 t…

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.

Re: EU plans to force OEMs to use a common charger for all phones

#90

Post by amelius »

sph wrote: post #4

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™. What's Apple reasoning for not abandoning Lightning for USB-C on their phones?

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?

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