EU move to standardise phone chargers is bad news for Apple In a move that'll be cheered by phone users the world over, the European Union has decided that mobile phones should have a standard charger plug. In a unanimous vote, the EU's Internal Market Committee decided that there's no good reason the charger should be treated as a proprietary secret. As German MEP Barbera Weiler put …
Why no MagSafe on any other device (except some TomToms)? Perhaps you missed the information that Apple is a litigious troll?
The simple answer is that Apple blustered and threatened, and no vendor wanted to fight them for a benefit that, while real, is small (or perceived as quite small). I know people do suffer from accidents that would have been prevented by MagSafe, but despite Apple's marketing efforts, it doesn't seem to be enough of a problem that people worry about it (my HP laptop's connector generally just pops out with no magnets involved)!
Isn't one of the strengths of Apple's connectors that they are big enough to have some strength, and allow you to drop the device into a docking station?
Does that work with micro-USB? Or could/would Apple put a micro-USB as well as their fancy docking thingie?
I wonder if Apple could/would push their socket to BE the standard.
Just as how those useless 'cookie banners' have ruined the web (and haven't helped anyone's privacy) , the EU now want to saddle all our phones with an awful USB connector that always seems to take 3 attempts to connect. Apple already offer a micro-USB adapter that I doubt anybody bothers to use. How is this even a problem? All phones come with a charger. Saying accessories won't work etc is fair enough, but then neither will my apps if I switch from Android to iOS.
No wonder the EU hasn't produced an Apple, a Microsoft or a Google.
"How is this even a problem? All phones come with a charger"
You obviously cannot see the irony in that, can you? The whole point of something like this is that, by forcing every phone to use the exactly same charger, the phone does not need a charger in the box.
Sell them separately. A fiver for someone who has never owned a phone before. £30 if you must have a white one with a half eaten fruit on it.
The rest of us don't end up with an ever-expanding collection of chargers. The manufacturers can reduce shipping, packaging costs. Warehouse costs shrink, so on and so on.
The reduction in packaging reduces the environmental impact (OK the phone itself is far worse than the cardboard it comes in).
The reduced costs will never get passed on to consumers, but, for some manufacturers, increased profits, or just some profits at all, would be most welcome, and help keep them in business. That produces something called competition, and that is always of benefit to consumers. Two giants sweeping up all the profits is good for nobody.
Very serious point about cheap chargers that cost a fiver. By the time the retailer has taken a cut, VAT paid, and the device has been shipped from China, how much do you think the electronics cost?
There are some tear downs on Youtube of cheap chargers. They are terrifying. Very low quality electronics with a bare minimum of isolation between circuits.
The tear down of the fruity charger revealed some neat engineering and all the proper safety requisites met as no doubt most if not all proper "branded" chargers will also do.
I'm a fully paid up believer in common standards, and I wouldn't buy an iphone because of Apple's thought police completely controlling the device. I use a Samsung Galaxy 4 active, and much prefer it to my daughter's iphone 5.
I do have to admit that the lightning connector is actually better than micro USB, primarily due to not having to worry which way around you have to plug it in. So for Apple users, the EU will be doing a disservice, maybe until we can have a polarity free micro-usb , assuming Apple don't have the patent on that.
YAY!!!!!!!!
I am so sick of one phone needing 5 volts and a super tiny skinny pole to jam up the bottom of the phone or the side of it and it looks so flimsy!
Then you have the connector that refuses to stay connected if the cord is short. Why can't you companies make it longer than 6 feet please? 8 to 9 feet would be very decent indeed!
And stop making chargers that hog up the the space around it on my power strip!
Does this ruling actually stop Apple putting their own proprietary connectors on their phones - or any other manufacturer doing so?
(I like the iPhone connector as it has line out which gives a superior connection to my car's inbuilt audio than an earphone connector with its capacity to pick up interference and other noise.)
All it means is that all the phones need to be able to take charge from a standard micro USB cable.
Surely Apple have the edge (no pun intended) since they have space round their phones which are not encumbered by buttons (compared with the three on my Nokia).
I see we are in full flow here, so I'll bite.
If it is just for power the magsafe is a brilliantly simple innovation. I do not own any Apple products, but I have observed them in the wild.
Some other random observations....
My N8 charges off either the "pin" or microUSB. But it charges MUCH faster from the pin(1hr!).
I lost an N900 to the flaky micro USB port, hence my comment about the magsafe.
On the EU, if I understand correctly, in 2009 here in the US many phones became microUSB so it had a pretty beneficial "effec"t that here all the Androids have microUSB and the Apples don't.
However at 2 am in a bar, just try finding an apple charger...
P.
Besides, one big safety recommendation these days when connecting anything with a notable amount of power: connect the EARTH line first. USB and all the other modern plug designs follow that principle by making sure their shields (the normal use for shields is for earthing) touch first. You can't do that with the headphone-type plug. Part of the challenge you're looking it is to have a standard that follows the earth-first procedure, can carry both power and data, is relative easy to use and cheap to design, is thin so it can fit thinner phones, and put most of the wear-and-tear on the plug since it's easier to replace (thus why all the spring clips on a Micro USB setup are on the plug, not the socket like it was with Mini USB). Sure, Lightning ticks all the boxes, too, but it's not open, and it's not in Apple's interest to keep it open. Indeed, anyone with a proprietary design will be against openness since they'll seek lock-in. Allowing competition for a plug standard sounds fine until you have a dominant player with a the ability to push a standard only it can ever use.
I have a Sony Xperia S and and an Xperia T.
I have 2 'car' socket adapters - one of which charges my T and S, one that charges the S only.
Also, I have 2 of those portable add-on batteries - one solar + usb and one usb only.
Neither will charge my T but both will charge the S.
I understand, from the interweb, that there is a small difference in the way the pins work?
Actually my two-year old Galaxy Tab has a non-standard connector, so its not just Apple. For the record, I'm not actually a fan of micro-USB; its way too easy to squash the connector; and its also effectively putting a lower limit on the thickness of a phone by standardising.
I don't really see why the EU needs to get involved; if a manufacturer wants to plow their own furrow, let the market decide if it will tolerate a non-standard connector.
While an apple fanboi (albeit an increasingly frustrated one), the connectors that apple uses (whether it is the myriad of video connectors the macs have used) or the 30 pin or lightening connectors for the iProducts, drive me nuts. We intentionally bought one of the last of the 30 pin iPads, so we would not have to add Lightening to our gaggle of connector cables that seem to vanish from our house in the middle of the nite.
The 30 pin did make sense when it came out, particularly when iphod peripherals (such as speakers, clock radios, etc) were the rage. The robustness of the 30 pin connector and the potential of putting other signals through it (such as my old ipod video dock) made it a good connector for these peripheral. But with the wireless ways that you can connect these devices now (airplay, bluetooth speakers), I see little motivation in keeping it. I have a ipod classic that I used to connect all the time to my TV using the docking station. I have an iphone 4s that i rarely use this docking station with. If there is something on my iphone I want to see on the TV I use airplay.
So I think Apple has out-engineered the need for this connector or even its replacement, Lightening. I say be done with them and lets just use the micro-usb.
By the time they do draw up standards everyhing will be done without wires and this will all be pointless.
Anyway the standard will probabley whatever company that make adapters that the Euro MPs have shares in or their families have shares in,
The idea might be aimed at Apple, but RIM are just as much at fault! Not that it's likely to be a problem for people in the future, but...
My wife previously had a Bold 9700 (mini-USB) and now has the Bold 9900 (micro-USB). Each phone's USB socket appeared normal for its type and came with a normal USB to mi__-USB cable which worked perfectly for data and charging from a PC. However, try to charge either of those phones with a non-Blackberry mains or in-car charger and the phone would refuse to charge!
It's not just the socket format, it's the power levels that the device requires which also needs to be standardised.
While they're at it, why don't they do laptop chargers too?
OK: http://www.usb.org/developers/powerdelivery/
Granted, that won't totally do my laptop (a bit of a monster that would _like_ 120W) I'd be happy with a 100W system that would run the thing or charge the battery, but not both (which is what happens when I plug in a 90W adapter instead of the 120W one).
And it works over the normal USB connectors.
All well and good to create legislation to take the place of competition. If that's the way it must work, how about settling on a single wall plug format across the EU? That would reduce the number of SKU's for equipment and appliances by a factor of 10. The sheer weight of the copper saving would be more significant than the savings from the device connector standardisation.
OOOP's, Oh, I'm sorry, I almost forgot that the European Union doesn't stand for a group of countries that agree to work together as one country, it stood for a group of countries that do NOT agree to work together, they just agreed to LOOK like they do. There, that's much better now, I thought there might have been a massive outbreak of common sense in Europe. God forbid THAT should ever happen.
Let's hope that they don't decide to legislate the orientation of all forms and types of connections, that could get really dicey given the state of things in Russia.
Why should we have to buy micro USB cables? I don't have a single one, never needed them and can't see why I would.
Have a couple of rarely used Mini-USB cables but find it easier to get hold of a Lightning or 30 pin cable when needed.
Oddly enough the only non-Blackberry chargers that will revive my wife's detested and unreliable business phone are the Apple ones, so much for that pet theory...
Hopefully Apple will just ignore the EU and give away their tiny m-USB to Lightning adapters to cover their backs and meet the legal requirement (have one but never needed it so far).
Lightning is certainly tougher and easier to use than fiddly USB and despite what other folk have opined, you clearly can struggle to insert a USB cable (and bloody annoying it is too!) but if you've never used a better system you would not realise how crap micro/mini-USB really is... Just wait till you see the next iteration of the USB —makes SCART look elegant.
Leave us in peace — we don't want a backward step that makes connectivity harder.
Future Apple Manual: Under the removable cover (17) is a hidden micro-USB socket that can used for charging, thus meeting EU regulations. However the charging current into this socket is limited by design to 500mA and it would require 11 hours to fully recharge. We therefore recommend leaving this little, easy-to-misplace, intentionally-awkwardly-placed cover in place and just using the goldarn Lightning connector. Nah nah nah.
I asked if micro-USB is going to be mandatory for mobile phones at the Europe website. They answered this : (short answer: No)
Thank you for sharing with us your question, which I try to answer below.
Actually there are no European Directives that makes it mandatory to use Micro-USB chargers for mobile phones (both provided or not with data communication).
A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed on June 2009 by major producers to allow these devices to be charged through a common charger interface agreed by the Signatories, thus addressing incompatibility of chargers.
The standard chosen at the time for common chargers was Micro-USB B-plug. More information about the Mou is available on http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/sectors/rtte/chargers/story/index_en.htm .
As the MoU has expired on December 2012, the Commission has launched a study to evaluate the results achieved with the MoU. The study will take into account technological innovations for appropriate follow and will consider the possibility of using alternative solutions than the ones used in the past MoU. A possible extension of the harmonization of chargers initiative to new categories of products, such as the new generation of mobile phones and other small portable electronic devices like digital cameras, tablets and music players will be also taken into account. The study, other than analysing technical and economical issues, will take into account the opinion of involved industries, stakeholders and consumers. The outcomes of the study will be available by the first semester of 2014.
The study will be the basis for any future follow-up activities including voluntary agreement and legislation. At this time, there is no evidence at all that the scenario you are indicating will be the implemented one.
Hope to answer to your question. Please do not hesitate to contact me should you need this answer in Dutch.
Yours sincerely,
Luca DEL COLOMBO
@Algingautr you do realize you're interrupting some good old EU bashing here by posting those so-called "facts", right?
I mean, that response you posted seems rational, and it reports a rather different viewpoint: it was an MoU (not a regulation), the MoU has expired, the EU is looking at the results, considering whether it worked, and on the basis of the previous experience looking to see if it would be worthwhile doing something similar and/or more ambitious again.
How are people supposed to getting hysterically nationalistic about that ?
(OK, the bit about getting an answer in Dutch is, obviously, a hint that IF you asked the question in that language, your answer would have been something like:
Ja! Ve vill force der stupid Englanders and Yankee scum to zeir knees! Vive Edam!
Or something.)
As an aerospace engineer I am APPALLED by the complete stupidity of such a decision, that the possibly WORST technical solution has been found.. .!
Instead of forcing all manufacturers to use adopt or best some of Apple's brilliant ideas (just plain LOOK at the universal power connectors of laptops or the Lightning adapter) they choose to use the FAR INFERIOR, breakage prone, voltage sub powered Micro USB, which reflects entirely the LOW IQ QUALITY of the average Eurobureocrat... For POWER a old fashioned coax plain connector is FAR more practical and carries far more power AND if made of honest materials is quite unbreakable !
I sincerely hope the US will threaten the EU of imposing a MINIMUM CAR WIDTH REQUIREMENT of 200 cm as retaliation....
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