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Common charger for all mobile phones on the way in Europe

europarl.europa.eu

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Re: Common charger for all mobile phones on the way in Europe

#31

Post by thirdsight »

coob wrote: post #29
thirdsight wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like AirPrint (IPP), AirPlay (DLNA), AirDrop (Bluetooth/OBEX), Facetime etc... Basically as usual, it's Apple and everyone else . I'll stick with my USB charger thanks as it is 100% ubiquitous as I will my Internet Printing Protocol, DLNA (which doesn't even require an Apple box to talk to my TV!) and bluetooth that works properly across all devices I've encountered. Edit to add: I have 3 Lightning iPads in my h…

Are you talking about first party connectors? We have projects in rural primary schools in Malawi and are yet to have single cable failure with our dozens of lightning iPads there.

Yes, the cables shipped with the devices.

Re: Common charger for all mobile phones on the way in Europe

#32

Post by Houshalter »

Standardization seems like a good idea but I'm not sure if I'm ok with the government forcing a single standard. Maybe another idea would be to tax non-compliant chargers, so they could still be legal, but have an incentive to comply to the standard. Or remove patents on chargers so there isn't any incentive to force consumers to buy your brand of charger, you might as well just comply with the standard. Or allow permits for non-compliant chargers if they can give a good justification for doing it.

Re: Common charger for all mobile phones on the way in Europe

#33

Post by w0utert »

mcintyre1994 wrote: post #5

It's not exactly clear but I assume this means they'll have to provide some sort of converter to Micro USB or whatever? It's a great idea to have a common connector, but Apple aren't going to use the same as everyone else and everyone else seems to be compatible now anyway. It looks like the end result might just be iOS stuff costs a bit more and governments get some more tax money from a ridiculously marked up conve…

Maybe I'm the one who's missing something here, but why is everyone so obsessed with the Lightning connector Apple uses? As far as I understand it, the proposed legislation is about universal chargers, not universal cables, and isn't intended to promote interoperability between phones from different manufacturers, but to limit the environmental impact of replacing the charger every time you switch phones.

Last time I checked you can plug the USB side of the Lightning connector to any USB charger and vice versa, I'm pretty sure you can use the Apple charger to charge anything that also charges from a USB port. Seems to me that Apple would already be in compliance...

Re: Common charger for all mobile phones on the way in Europe

#34

Post by yaakov34 »

danbmil99 wrote: post #22

The question to ask is this: if this law were already in place, would Apple (or any manufacturer) ever innovate something like Lightning or the magnetic mac chargers, given that they then also have to support the common standard, putting them at a significant cost disadvantage? This kind of regulation, while arguably well-meaning, always seems to end up distorting market forces and discouraging innovation.

I tend to agree, given my small-l libertarian tendencies and my preference for letting people do whatever they want unless it hurts others. On the other hand, there are already scads of standards (including ones that essentially say you-must-do-it-exactly-like-this) for consumer products. And it's hard to see why it's a very big imposition to standardize the DC power supplies, if the AC power supplies are standardized. The EU has shown that they are not inflexible with these standards, as they let the micro-USB standard expire and let people comply by shipping adapters. The interoperability might be worth it; we don't miss having 10 AC outlet types in our house for different brands of appliances.

Re: Common charger for all mobile phones on the way in Europe

#35

Post by przemelek »

Houshalter wrote: post #32

Standardization seems like a good idea but I'm not sure if I'm ok with the government forcing a single standard. Maybe another idea would be to tax non-compliant chargers, so they could still be legal, but have an incentive to comply to the standard. Or remove patents on chargers so there isn't any incentive to force consumers to buy your brand of charger, you might as well just comply with the standard. Or allow per…

Yeah, so maybe governments should stop setting rules about right- and left-hand traffic? Private sector will be so much better on establishing non government standards... For example Trucks (for British people Lorries) will user right-handed traffic rules, and normal cars will user left-hand traffic rules. Market will decide what is better....

As we can see market standard for charges was "every company has its own standards, and charge customers more", after UE and China decided ruled at created regulations for charges it was short time and every (except one) producers started to support microUSB/minuUSB as standard. Strange, don't you think? ;-)

Re: Common charger for all mobile phones on the way in Europe

#36

Post by zobzu »

danbmil99 wrote: post #22

The question to ask is this: if this law were already in place, would Apple (or any manufacturer) ever innovate something like Lightning or the magnetic mac chargers, given that they then also have to support the common standard, putting them at a significant cost disadvantage? This kind of regulation, while arguably well-meaning, always seems to end up distorting market forces and discouraging innovation.

afaik the law is already in place (apple pays some fees i suppose) and this is a more general law to generalize more chargers, connectors etc.

That's why everyone else uses usb ports.

Re: Common charger for all mobile phones on the way in Europe

#37

Post by MBCook »

SwellJoe wrote: post #20
coob wrote: post #15

Ugh no thanks. Lightning is orders of magnitude superior to other current solutions (except cost). If it came to the point where this was actually enforced, I bet Apple would just pay the fines it receives and just continues to use Lightning.

USB 3.0 is not an order of magnitude inferior to Lightning. As I understand it, the primary reason Lightning was chosen over micro USB was simply that the iPad needs more power than micro USB is specified to provide. That kind of thing can be resolved in the two years we have before this has to go into effect. I'm always on the side of standard connections. Which is one of several reasons I never choose Apple product…

> As I understand it, the primary reason Lightning was chosen over micro USB was simply that the iPad needs more power than micro USB is specified to provide.

I don't think that's the case. First, they were coming off the older 30-pin dock connector. Second, the connector needs to do far more than just syncing and charging. It's also used for video out, audio out, sensor input, and who knows what other future updates. Apple designed Lightning to be very flexible for future use.

Honestly I don't believe that if USB 3 was more common Apple would have gone with it.

Re: Common charger for all mobile phones on the way in Europe

#38

Post by MBCook »

yaakov34 wrote: post #21
coob wrote: post #15

Ugh no thanks. Lightning is orders of magnitude superior to other current solutions (except cost). If it came to the point where this was actually enforced, I bet Apple would just pay the fines it receives and just continues to use Lightning.

The upcoming USB standard connector is apparently going to adapt and extend most of the nice features of Lightning. There is a nice article on appleinsider about it [1]. I'll bet that the new EU standard adapts that, rather than enshrining some current solution. In fact, the sort-of-non-mandatory previous EU standard (which was micro-USB) was allowed to expire, since they were working on the next one. As for whether…

Except it won't be here for 2+ years and no one has even seen a doodle of what it looks like. Right now, it's basically vaporware.

I do find this odd though. I thought everyone else had standardized on USB-micro because of a previous dictate by the EU. I'm not sure why they're doing it again.

Re: Common charger for all mobile phones on the way in Europe

#39

Post by nolok »

bencoder wrote: post #26

I don't understand this. It's pretty much standardised on micro-usb anyway. Any enforcement of this is just going to be a pain as better technologies arise (USB type C).

It is standardized because in 2009 the EU told them to either sign an agreement to do it, or have a law to force them [1]

They signed, but most refused to extend beyond 2012 (partly because they saw apple not really playing game), so here come the law. As long as I can keep a single cable to charge everything, I'm happy.

> The Common EPS Memorandum of Understanding expired at the end of 2012. The European Commission reported that all of the MoU signatories, "have met their obligations under the MoU," but that most of the signatories declined an EC request to extend the MoU beyond 2012

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_External_Power_Supply

Re: Common charger for all mobile phones on the way in Europe

#40

Post by nolok »

MBCook wrote: post #38
yaakov34 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The upcoming USB standard connector is apparently going to adapt and extend most of the nice features of Lightning. There is a nice article on appleinsider about it [1]. I'll bet that the new EU standard adapts that, rather than enshrining some current solution. In fact, the sort-of-non-mandatory previous EU standard (which was micro-USB) was allowed to expire, since they were working on the next one. As for whether…

Except it won't be here for 2+ years and no one has even seen a doodle of what it looks like. Right now, it's basically vaporware. I do find this odd though. I thought everyone else had standardized on USB-micro because of a previous dictate by the EU. I'm not sure why they're doing it again.

The previous standardisation was based on an agreement, not a law [1]

As for why a law now when it worked without it until now

> "The Common EPS Memorandum of Understanding expired at the end of 2012. The European Commission reported that all of the MoU signatories, "have met their obligations under the MoU," but that most of the signatories declined an EC request to extend the MoU beyond 2012"

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_External_Power_Supply

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