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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

#121

Post by nsonha »

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?

> 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

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

#122

Post by squiggleblaz »

oaiey wrote: post #61
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?

Oh they targeted plastic bags already. The food industry will get their blast, but their problem is harder to solve than chargers.

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.

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

#123

Post by p49k »

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…

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.

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

#124

Post by InsomniacL »

kozlowsqi wrote: post #73
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 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 whi…

> 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.

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

#125

Post by srg0 »

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...

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

#126

Post by kataklasm »

mojzu wrote: post #101
Aaargh20318 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s more likely that Apple will drop the port completely and move to a wireless-charger only approach.

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)

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.

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

#127

Post by ben_w »

cute_boi wrote: post #97
jsudi wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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?

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.

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

#128

Post by squiggleblaz »

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.

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.

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

#129

Post by harvie »

amelius wrote: post #90
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?

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.

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

#130

Post by ThatPlayer »

josefx wrote: post #25
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?

> 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 a…

If Lightning was superior, the new iPad Mini and new (and previous) iPad Pros wouldn't be using USB-C rather than Lightning.
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