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India follows EU's example in requiring USB-C charging for smart devices

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Re: India follows EU's example in requiring USB-C charging for smart devices

#41

Post by iinnPP »

DarthNebo wrote: post #5

Also need replaceable batteries or atleast some standardized Li-Ion flat packs

At the very least they can add an environmental tax on anything that is not coming with a removable battery.

Then we can stop tossing entire phones in the garbage.

I have a Pixel 5. The Pixel 7 isn't even an improvement to me. The fact that my battery is at 15% after the day is done means I am on my last year with the device.

I have a Nexus 6 with basically no battery to speak of but it works great still outside of that.

So for my second suggestion, if a company claims to be focused on climate change reduction, using a non-removable battery will double the tax.

All proceeds go to renewables for whatever state has the best(lowest) carbon footprint not yet at 0.

Let's see how long the "thinness" of the phone matters.

Re: India follows EU's example in requiring USB-C charging for smart devices

#42

Post by playingalong »

londons_explore wrote: post #11
andybak wrote: post #8

I'm sure I'm not the first person to raise this concern but when tech improves to the point where there's a better option to USB C (or USB C is holding back other advances), are we going to have to wait for legislation to catch up before we can adopt it?

The real solution is to not legislate a standard, but instead to say: "A 10% additional tax shall apply to the sale of any portable device. The tax will be reduced to zero if the device uses the most common charging port in the year the device was sold. The tax is reduced to 5% if it uses the 2nd most common port in the year it was sold." That means any big industry effort to move to a new port will, when it gets mor…

This assumes any vendor can use any port. But that's not true. Is it? Can Samsung adopt Lightning if they wanted to?

Re: India follows EU's example in requiring USB-C charging for smart devices

#43

Post by [deleted] »

mrtksn wrote: post #28
andybak wrote: post #8

I'm sure I'm not the first person to raise this concern but when tech improves to the point where there's a better option to USB C (or USB C is holding back other advances), are we going to have to wait for legislation to catch up before we can adopt it?

Why would that be a problem at all? If a significant advance in charging connectors is made, they can simply amend the law. These laws don't say you can't make better chargers, they say if you make a mass produced device from the provided categories and it's going to charge by cable you will need to make sure that it has at least one USB-C charging port. Besides, this is only in EU(and India now). Sure, there's a Bru…

[deleted]

Re: India follows EU's example in requiring USB-C charging for smart devices

#44

Post by rippercushions »

andybak wrote: post #8

I'm sure I'm not the first person to raise this concern but when tech improves to the point where there's a better option to USB C (or USB C is holding back other advances), are we going to have to wait for legislation to catch up before we can adopt it?

This is India, it can take quite a while for legislation to catch up. I recently saw a colleague's customs form for shipping household goods, and the list of itemized goods to declare included Walkmen, digitizers, personal electronic diaries, modems, dictaphones and floppy disks.

Re: India follows EU's example in requiring USB-C charging for smart devices

#45

Post by mrtksn »

philliphaydon wrote: post #40
mrtksn wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would that be a problem at all? If a significant advance in charging connectors is made, they can simply amend the law. These laws don't say you can't make better chargers, they say if you make a mass produced device from the provided categories and it's going to charge by cable you will need to make sure that it has at least one USB-C charging port. Besides, this is only in EU(and India now). Sure, there's a Bru…

> Why would that be a problem at all? If a significant advance in charging connectors is made, they can simply amend the law. The problem is if the law of 1 country is not amended then you have fragmentation. What does apple do? Change for 1 country and be fined in another? Not release in some countries? Have different devices?

EU is like %5 of the world population. Sure, it's a wealthier %5 but companies have different product lines all the time.

This year the US iPhone doesn't have a physical SIM tray. So if EU acts slow on adopting this amazing new charging port, the Americans and Japanese can have it and EU can wait.

It doesn't make much sense to keep having fragmentation now so that we don't risk a fragmentation in the future.

Re: India follows EU's example in requiring USB-C charging for smart devices

#46

Post by wongarsu »

philliphaydon wrote: post #31

I wonder if other companies will follow Apple in crippling USB-C. https://www.xda-developers.com/iphone-15-models-different-us...

It's apparently still par for the course in cheaper laptops, like having USB-C ports without Thunderbolt or without Display Port alt mode.

I'm more surprised Apple didn't just remove the connector from the cheaper models, claiming inductive charging and bluetooth are all anyone needs.

Re: India follows EU's example in requiring USB-C charging for smart devices

#48

Post by the_mitsuhiko »

andybak wrote: post #8

I'm sure I'm not the first person to raise this concern but when tech improves to the point where there's a better option to USB C (or USB C is holding back other advances), are we going to have to wait for legislation to catch up before we can adopt it?

If only there was a way to put a second connector to the device.

Re: India follows EU's example in requiring USB-C charging for smart devices

#49

Post by crote »

mlindner wrote: post #27
nullcipher wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why the whataboutism? Just cheer the progress.

Mandating standards by laws isn't progress. It holds the future back. This and the EU will be looked back on as a disastrous piece of legislation in the future. It's amazing how nearsighted these governments are being. Standards are universally created by industry organically, not created by governments.

The EU law explicitly includes a provision that it must be reviewed every few years to keep up with industry progress. It previously mandated Micro USB, and now it mandates USB-C.

It's not a law which says "the industry must use connector X", but a law which says "the industry must standardize on a single connector" - which is exactly what you seem to be asking for.

Re: India follows EU's example in requiring USB-C charging for smart devices

#50

Post by sylware »

pretext-1 wrote: post #35
andybak wrote: post #8

I'm sure I'm not the first person to raise this concern but when tech improves to the point where there's a better option to USB C (or USB C is holding back other advances), are we going to have to wait for legislation to catch up before we can adopt it?

The law allows newer standards to be used. USB-C is just the required minimum. The goal of the law is to ensure standardization of connectors is happening, not to enforce USB-C forever. If "no laws" would be the solution, Apple would have switched to USB-C already. Unfortunately they didn't, proving the law was necessary.

It is like for the web: the minimum interop requirement is the support of noscript/basic (x)html browsers, but it is perfectly ok to run on the side a full javascript GUI which will run in the few vanguard/blackrock massive web engines (aka blink/geeko/webkit detected via the user-agent http header).
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