Common charger for all mobile phones on the way in Europe(europarl.europa.eu) |
Common charger for all mobile phones on the way in Europe(europarl.europa.eu) |
This kind of regulation, while arguably well-meaning, always seems to end up distorting market forces and discouraging innovation.
What I would love to see insofar as wall outlets is an adjustment of the current standard wall box and outlet+plate so that you could quickly replace the entire wall place in one go very quickly. With that innovation I would love to see the same on the appliance end where it is trivial to replace the entire code on an appliance. This already exists with IEC320, but if would be nice if everything used IEC320.
Then every 5-10 years the industry innovates to dramatically improve one end and then 5-10 years later works to dramatically improve the other end. This would give a very reasonabe 10-20 years between completely replacing all the appliances (or using adapters or switching neither), and 10-20 years between replacing all the wall plates. You wouldn't even necessarily have to upgrade every 10-20. If an appliance is working fine on an old appliance to cord standard or a cord to wall standard, you can leave things alone.
It was this interface approach that allowed Apple to have one dock connector for the longest time but many different shaped devices, since all that had to be done is replace the plastic dock insert [0].
This approach wouldn't work for cellphones and laptops, but should work swimmingly for 120v mains since space isn't at a premium except in the appliance.
[0] http://km.support.apple.com/library/APPLE/APPLECARE_ALLGEOS/...
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC_power_plugs_and_sockets [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_60906-1
[1]: http://store.apple.com/uk/product/MD820ZM/A/lightning-to-mic...
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
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...
So I may be wrong, but I think this is about actually forcing Apple to provide micro-USB directly.
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? ;-)
Additionally, I said in my comment that maybe the government should regulate it, I just proposed alternatives that would allow for some reasonable exceptions.
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 this is possible - yes, it's certainly possible to require compliance with a certain standard as part of product certification for marketing in the EU. To what extent they want to make it mandatory (extra fees, or outright requirement if you want to market in the EU) - we'll see.
[1] http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/12/04/next-gen-usb-conne...
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.
I'm always on the side of standard connections. Which is one of several reasons I never choose Apple products. Having it imposed by law feels vaguely wrong, but Apple's behavior (on this front, and several others) also feels vaguely wrong to me.
USB 3.0 micro plug is order of magnitude inferior to Lightning in arguably the most important part - experience of plugging and unplugging, which you'll do at least twice a day.
Until we can survive on wireless power, I'll take reversible Lightning over that ridiculous oversized Micro-B USB 3.0 (even the name is ridiculous) plug any day.
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.
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 house (none are mine personally). The male connectors aren't durable - two dead ones so far. I'm not sure about the sockets either which are way more expensive to replace.
I've seen tons of dock connector issues with broken ports, but none with lightning so far.
Apple will move, if pressed hard enough. I also think economies of scale will force the world to follow what the EU proscribes, just as the EU's lead free soldering requirements changed soldering (almost) everywhere, and just like California's emission guidelines affect cars (almost) everywhere.
If an adapter that goes from [whatever port is on the device] to micro-USB would be enough to be compliant with the proposed legislation, Apple is already in compliance, because not only do they sell such an adapter already, the charger end of their Lightning cable also has a standard USB connector (which means it effectively is a Lightning-to-USB adapter itself).
I know the EU already talked about standard chargers for mobile phones even before the iPhone existed, because back then every phone used to have a non-standard charger plus attached, non-removable cable. The whole idea behind the legislation was that the charger got useless the moment you lost or replaced your phone, so lots of them ended up on landfills. Mandating a common charger would allow selling phones without a charger, and re-using old chargers with different phones.
Unless you can quote the exact bits of the proposed rules that say 'any mobile device will have a micro-USB port' (or whatever port would be considered even more 'standard'), I'm going to assume everyone is just getting all worked up about nothing again, because "OMG iPhone does not have micro-USB, make them add it!".
* Because it's an active cable, not just a pin mapping.
* Because they can.
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
Sony is a good example - look at their MiniDisc fiasco (I owned several MiniDisc devices), or their MemoryStick format.
Just use a open format like SD, and stick to it.
Or look at every single phone manufacturer back in the early 2000's, that had to invent their own (usually) inferior charging standard, in some misguided hope you'd stick with them due to all the chargers you'd bought.
Or the proliferation of laptop charging standards/pins.
Guys - we're delivering power to a portable devices - it's not like we're designing the bloody ISS.
Yes, I can admire the engineering that goes into say, the Lightning adapter being reversible.
But look at all the ridiculousness of Apple's previous 30-pin connector. They could have just used USB. But then the Apple fans goes "But...but....you can't use TV out!". Yeah, well, the Samsung Galaxy II and MHL would disagree with you.
And look at their MagSafe versus MagSafe 2 connectors - they had to change their entire adapter and make it incompatible just to make it what, 2mm thinner?
And even though I don't own an iDevices, I think it's absurd that Apple charges "licensing" fees to use it's connector, and needs to add in "authentication" chips. Really?
This is as bad as inkjet manufacturers like Lexmark putting in authentication chips to their ink catridges.
Same sort of proprietary vendor lock-in nonsense.
It's not about preferred configuration. It's about not producing tonnes of electronic waste by having to require an unreasonable magnitude of charger and device configurations.
