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EU lawmakers, with eye on Apple, call for common mobile charger

faceless

faceless

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
4,198
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - EU lawmakers overwhelmingly called on Thursday for rules to establish a common charger for all mobile device makers across Europe, a drive that iPhone maker Apple has criticised.

Members of the European Parliament voted by 582-40 for a resolution urging the European Commission, which drafts EU laws, to ensure that EU consumers are no longer obliged to buy new chargers with each new device.
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They also want one wireless charging standard. Almost everything uses the one in this case though. Also, a small amount of low end Android phones still used MicroUSB last year. Peripherals are another story. Amazon releasing Echo Buds and Fire 7 in 2019 with MicroUSB, c'mon son!
 
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Jarmel

Jarmel

The Jackrabbit Always Wins
Member
Oct 25, 2017
19,383
New York
All for this. It'll probably push Apple into wireless only but I like to see how incentivized they'll be if there's a wireless standard as well.
 
Lukar

Lukar

Unshakable Resolve - Prophet of Truth
Member
Oct 27, 2017
23,424
Do new iPhones still use lightning? I remember hearing new iPads use USB-C instead.
 
LewieP

LewieP

Member
Oct 26, 2017
18,100
Feels like Apple have a pathological aversion to using ubiquitous industry standards for anything when they could instead have a needlessly complicated or limited proprietary solution.

I say this would be great news, and honestly it's been extra dumb not having USBC on their phones since they use it on their tablets now.

Force them to change, even if only for the environmental harm reduction.
 
mikeys_legendary

mikeys_legendary

The Fallen
Sep 26, 2018
3,009
Haribokart said:
I'm all for standardised ports but how are they shitty?
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They're much weaker than USB-C in almost every way.

They don't transmit data nearly as fast, nor do they carry as much current.

And it's not even remotely close.

Edit:

Just for clarity, Lightning carries data at about 480mbps. USB-C is capable of more than twenty times that at 10Gbps.
 
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ScottyJayMan

ScottyJayMan

Member
Nov 1, 2017
152
LewieP said:
Feels like Apple have a pathological aversion to using ubiquitous industry standards for anything when they could instead have a needlessly complicated or limited proprietary solution.

I say this would be great news, and honestly it's been extra dumb not having USBC on their phones since they use it on their tablets now.

Force them to change, even if only for the environmental harm reduction.
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They were one of the first to have usb-c as the standard on their laptops.


And lightning came before usb-c, android phones were using micro usb. Usb-c came out 2 years later. That's 2 years of iPhone accessories already made.

I agree iPhones should have usb-c but to say they have an aversion to standards isn't right
 
HommePomme

HommePomme

Member
Oct 30, 2017
1,052
LewieP said:
Feels like Apple have a pathological aversion to using ubiquitous industry standards for anything when they could instead have a needlessly complicated or limited proprietary solution.

I say this would be great news, and honestly it's been extra dumb not having USBC on their phones since they use it on their tablets now.

Force them to change, even if only for the environmental harm reduction.
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Ah yes, nothing like obsoleting millions of existing lightning cables purchased over the last 9 years to reduce harm to the environment
 
LazyLain

LazyLain

Member
Jan 17, 2019
6,501
As much as I appreciate the sentiment, I'd much rather have a proprietary port than no port.
 

Deleted member 39374

Banned
Feb 1, 2018
5,083
iPhone and ALL iPads (not just Pro) should be USB-C, it's time. Make a $9 lightning —> USB-C dongle for people who still want to use their legacy accessories

Lightning still makes sense for peripherals (remotes, KBM, airpods, etc) though

Also lol at the people in this thread painting Apple as IO-averse, they're literally always the first ones to embrace new protocols (USB 1.1, wifi, thunderbolt) or even outright partake in their development (USB-C), everybody else follows their move
 
LewieP

LewieP

Member
Oct 26, 2017
18,100
ScottyJayMan said:
They were one of the first to have usb-c as the standard on their laptops.


And lightning came before usb-c, android phones were using micro usb. Usb-c came out 2 years later. That's 2 years of iPhone accessories already made.

I agree iPhones should have usb-c but to say they have an aversion to standards isn't right
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It goes way beyond just a single charging port.

Look at them being pretty much the only major computing platform not supporting Vulkan, all the dongles you need to do basic stuff with their hardware, locking out third party repairs, all the stuff where if you want to use Apple products and devices you better do everything the Apple way (which with charging ports they can't even keep things consistent across their product range) or you're going to run into trouble.
 
CorrisD

CorrisD

Member
Oct 25, 2017
804
Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but this seems to have less to do with the connector on a device and more to do with the actual plug in charger bit?

Members of the European Parliament voted by 582-40 for a resolution urging the European Commission, which drafts EU laws, to ensure that EU consumers are no longer obliged to buy new chargers with each new device.

The Commission should adopt new rules by July, the lawmakers' resolution said.

The resolution said voluntary agreements in the industry had significantly reduced the number of charger types, but had not resulted in one common standard.
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Again maybe I am wrong but this wouldn't necessarily mean that device makers would have to a single connector, just all use the same charger/connector at the other end of the cable? So Apple and anyone else could continue to sue their own standards on their devices, just as long as it connects to the same charger as everything else.
 
Mendrox

Mendrox

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
9,439
Wilf Netherton said:

Fire risk, lack of standardized feature sets, and need to replace all of your own cables. The second one is the biggest concern for me; USB-C is NOT a single unified cable, it's a whole galaxy of different cable feature sets encased in one form factor.
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It's really not that big of a problem as that article says. We have over 1800 USB-C devices (including every single Dell XPS type that released with USB-C and also lots of MacBooks V2017+) and the only thing that gives us problems are the Dockingstations for those devices because Microsoft has some problems with Windows 10 and Thunderbolt dockingstations. Otherwise if you want to just transmit data, need more ports (most devices already come with adapters) or anything like that you can just use about any USB-C cable without troubles. You shouldn't buy the cheapest cables though like with micro usb back then too where we had the same problems with badly produced cables.

The only device that has a tons of trouble with USB-C is really the Nintendo Switch because Nintendo changed the standard up a lot so there were lots of problems with the controller in the switch and dock which is the reason some people fried their Switches by using wrong cables.
 

Eric_S

Member
Nov 29, 2017
832
Good. A common standard will reduce waste over time.

Before the last( as in before this) round of EU legislation, every phone manufacturer had their own solution and sometimes they updated the charging solution with a new generation of phones to force you to buy new extra chargers.

A good example of when the market really, really, really can't be trusted to be left on its own.
 
OP
OP
faceless

faceless

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
4,198
Apple is sometimes the first and sometimes dragging and sometimes somewhere in the middle. depends on the technology.
 
Graefellsom

Graefellsom

Avenger
Oct 28, 2017
1,638
Linus tech Tips has a good video explaining why this would be a bad law while also dunking on apple for their reasons not to want it. I can't seem to find it at the moment for some reason
 
Kthulhu

Kthulhu

Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,670
Lightning was great in 2012. It's time we embrace USBC until something superior comes along.
 
Stinkles

Stinkles

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
20,459
Dalek said:
No you're right. But everyone saw Apple in the thread title and started foaming at the mouth.
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that literally makes no sense. They can't mandate voltages or capacity universally fir different hardware needs - and Europe already has multiple incompatible power socket form factors so without redoing 100s of millions of houses or designing cpu and hardware it can only refer to cable/connector form factor
 
Lkr

Lkr

Member
Oct 28, 2017
9,528
Just get rid of the port altogether. Wireless charging and WiFi sync only
 
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