Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
EU Power Cellphones Iphone Technology

Europe Plans Law To Give All Phones Same Charger (zdnet.com) 215

On Monday, members of the European Parliament (MEPs) discussed the idea of introducing "binding measures" that would require chargers that fit all mobile phones and portable electronic devices. The company that would be impacted most by this legislation would be Apple and its iPhone, which uses a Lightning cable while most new Android phones use USB-C ports for charging. ZDNet reports: The EU introduced the voluntary Radio Equipment Directive in 2014, but MEPs believe the effort fell short of the objectives. "The voluntary agreements between different industry players have not yielded the desired results," MEPs said. The proposed more stringent measures are aimed at reducing electronic waste, which is estimated to amount to 51,000 tons per year in old chargers.

Apple last year argued that regulations to standardize chargers for phones would "freeze innovation rather than encourage it" and it claimed the proposal was "bad for the environment and unnecessarily disruptive for customers." Noted Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo reckons Apple has a different idea in store: getting rid of the Lightning port and not replacing it with USB-C, which is a standard that Apple doesn't have complete control over. According to the analyst, Apple plans to remove the Lightning connector on a flagship iPhone to be released in 2021. Instead it would rely on wireless charging.

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Europe Plans Law To Give All Phones Same Charger

Comments Filter:
  • back in the day before they even had their phone out, apple joined up the announcement from the phone manufacturers to standardize on microusb.

    they made those converters back then.

    standardizing on usb-c would be fine I guess. but, the real thing is about what you put through said usb-c.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Thursday January 16, 2020 @09:57AM (#59626314) Homepage Journal

      Apple seem to have given up on the high priced dongle game. Airpods are selling well and I doubt many people bought those pricey Lightning to HDMI converters anyway. So USB, despite lacking the DRM features that Apple likes to implement, might be acceptable for them now.

      They claim they want to be all-wireless eventually which would be nice. Who knows if they will support an open standard for things like video, but at least it will mean that wireless chargers become much more common.

  • by niftydude ( 1745144 ) on Wednesday January 15, 2020 @09:22PM (#59624978)

    According to the analyst, Apple plans to remove the Lightning connector on a flagship iPhone to be released in 2021. Instead it would rely on wireless charging.

    I love wireless charging and use it a lot: all the time at home, and all the time at work.

    But for travel such as driving and flying, I charge with a cable. It's easy and relatively cheap for airlines to put usb sockets in their seats. I can't imagine any airline installing wireless chargers with adaptable, flight-safe cradles for every potential smartphone size out there.

  • we give all chargers the same phone?
  • by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Wednesday January 15, 2020 @09:47PM (#59625038)
    From my understanding of the USB-C spec, it includes an alternate mode [wikipedia.org] - where the pins in the cable can be repurposes to transmit something else other than USB-C signals. Thunderbolt does this to use USB-C cables to carry PCIe and Displayport. There are Displayport and HDMI alternate mode standards.

    A USB-C cable has 12 wires [allaboutcircuits.com] (24 actually, but they're doubled symmetrically to make the cable work in either orientation, so 12 unique wires). 6 of these are available for data in alternate mode. A Lightning cable has 8 wires [wikipedia.org], only 4 of which are used for data. 6 > 4 so in theory at least Lightning should work over USB-C. Does anyone know of a technical reason why Apple can't just create a Lightning alternate spec for USB-C?
    • by Arthur, KBE ( 6444066 ) on Wednesday January 15, 2020 @09:58PM (#59625044)
      Anyone know a reason why Apple can't use USB-C?

      Courage.
      • by Pieroxy ( 222434 )

        Anyone know a reason why Apple can't use USB-C?

        Courage.

        Nope, they do use it. iPad pros and MacBooks charge with USB-C. All chargers for iPhone and iPad use USB-C. I'd say it looks to me like they're not opposed to it.

      • Anyone know a reason why Apple can't use USB-C?

        Courage.

        I'd say inertia is the reason.

        The Lightning connector came to market in 2012, while the USB-C spec wasn't published until 2014 and it took at least a year before any products with the port came out. There is a lot of speculation on how much influence the Lightning connector had on USB-C. One theory is that Apple was lobbying the USB group to adopt the Lightning connector and instead they built something that copied many ideas, with Apple's blessing. One theory is that the two groups were ignorant of the other's efforts, the similarities are largely coincidental, but once Apple came out with the Lightning port the USB people had a fire lit under them to release something better real soon. The truth is likely somewhere in the middle.

        Then why didn't Apple adopt the USB-C port on their iProducts once the USB-C was on the market? They had just dropped the 30-pin connector and switching so soon would have pissed of a lot of customers. Also, many features we expected from USB-C but existed in Lightning, and even the USB micro-B connector, did not exist until years later.

        One example of USB-C being problematic for Apple to adopt was that there was no standard for audio out on the port, and people could argue that there is still not a standard. Video output on USB-C was standardized shortly after it's introduction in 2014 but MHL on micro-B was standardized in 2010. The micro-B connector had USB-On-The-Go, MHL A/V out, 12 watts of charging capability (and there were phone makers pushing this higher by violating the spec), and so adoption of the USB-C was very slow until USB-C reached feature parity with micro-B years after USB-C was first introduced.

        I believe that people don't realize just how recently the USB-C was brought to market, and how limited the USB-C port was when it first came out. Or realize just how rocky this transition has been to get cell phones to use the port for chargers and other accessories. On laptops the adoption was far less rocky because there's room for many other ports on a laptop, adapters to USB-A are cheap and fully functional, and it offered high data transfer rates that were far more critical on a laptop than a phone.

        There's rumors Apple will adopt the USB-C port on more iProducts soon. This would be far less a problem now because the USB-C port is more common, more functional, the 30-pin port is far enough in the past, and as good as the Lightning port was in 2012 it's leaving people wanting more in 2020.

        • by mjwx ( 966435 )

          Anyone know a reason why Apple can't use USB-C?

          Courage.

          I'd say inertia is the reason.

          Nope, Apple has a policy of being incompatible with anything else.

          This is why they had custom ports with no benefits over standard USB ports for years.

          • Nope, Apple has a policy of being incompatible with anything else.
            This is why they had custom ports with no benefits over standard USB ports for years.

            Apart from the iPod port, what custom ports are you referring to? FireWire wasn't an Apple only venture, and FAR outperformed USB at the time. I'd call that a benefit. Thunderbolt is an Intel thing that Apple adopted, again it far outperformed anything at the time. Also a benefit.

          • Nope, Apple has a policy of being incompatible with anything else.

            This is why they had custom ports with no benefits over standard USB ports for years.

            You must be too young or too deluded to clearly remember the dark days of the terrible micro-B USB ports.

            The Lightning port was a huge upgrade, and USB-C didn't yet exist. Just having the port "flip-able" was a big upgrade. USB, power, and audio, over a single connection, was a very nice upgrade from micro-B ports. There were some halfway successful attempts to provide similar functions on micro-B but none were universal.

            The micro-B was "compatible" only to the point of getting 5 watt charging, maybe. I

    • Financial technicals... Bad for margins.
    • by Misagon ( 1135 )

      Apple iPhones from iPhone 8 upwards do support fast charging with their USB-C - to - Lightning cable [apple.com]. This supports USB Power Delivery, which is USB-IF's preferred standard and used also by Apple's laptop chargers.
      There are some issues though. The cable might not be bundled with all iPhones, and the support is incompatible with Apple's Lightning Dock which doesn't have pass-through for the pins on both sides of the port.

      USB Type C is a bit of a jungle, but USB-PD does not require Alternate Mode over Type C

    • Does anyone know of a technical reason why Apple can't just create a Lightning alternate spec for USB-C?

      I can't think of a technical reason why they could not create a Lightning alternate mode for USB-C. I can think of a reason why they would not bother to do so. This is because there are already enough alternate modes to make this unnecessary, adding a Lightning mode would only make things more confusing and more expensive.

      What do people plug into Lightning ports? There's chargers, headphones/headsets, USB devices, A/V adapters (for things like HDMI, MHL, VGA, and DP), and I think that about covers it. USB-C does this already with the alternate modes already defined. A USB-C port in the DP video alternate mode can provide two high speed channels for DP video (up to 4K/60Hz), two high speed channels for 10Gbps USB 3.x (bandwidth that can be divided up as one wishes with an inexpensive hub or dock), a USB 2.0 channel (used for USB-PD negotiation and supporting legacy devices), and up to 100 watts of power transfer in either direction.

      What would a Lightning alternate mode add that does not already exist in the DP alternate mode or Audio Accessory Mode? The DP alternate mode alone is very flexible in outputting an A/V signal along with power and USB. The Audio Accessory Mode covers every other use case for the Lightning port in that it provides power in or out, stereo audio out, and a microphone input.

      If someone believes I am mistaken then please enlighten me.

    • by beezly ( 197427 )

      Like this? https://www.apple.com/shop/pro... [apple.com]

  • by AndyKron ( 937105 ) on Wednesday January 15, 2020 @09:58PM (#59625046)
    Does this also apply for portable sex toys?
  • They made everyone go with a micro USB and it actually worked and carried over to the USA.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Is the EU insane? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SmaryJerry ( 2759091 ) on Wednesday January 15, 2020 @11:18PM (#59625252)
    How can mandating specific ports on a phone be good for anyone? They are basically saying there is one best option when in reality we probably haven't even found the best charging type yet. They are considering the experience for consumers but what about phone design, speed, reliability, water proofing, screen sharing, or even VR headsets connected in the future, or more? The hassle of finding a charger is basically no hassle. I wish life was so good everywhere that to have stores carry multiple types of phone cables was a noteworthy issue.
  • ... and it[Apple] claimed the proposal was "bad for the environment and unnecessarily disruptive for customers.".

    My charger is broken so I can simply just borrow yours or yours, or a mate's or my kid's, anyones. I can replace theirs with an off the shelf one from....ah now I see! You mean Apple can't charge me $75 for a new charger cable when I could just buy one for $2-$10 off eBay! Got it!

    Actually I alrady by cheap clone cables off eBay already but as soon as you can use any charger cable on your phone lo

  • Apple will just ship a Lightning to USB-C charger with their products, causing more waste, not reducing it.
    • Apple will just ship a Lightning to USB-C charger with their products,

      Which is something they already do.

      causing more waste, not reducing it.

      How?

  • Apple last year argued that regulations to standardize chargers for phones would "freeze innovation rather than encourage it" and it claimed the proposal was "bad for the environment and unnecessarily disruptive for customers."...

    Apple also claimed that its phones are increasingly unrepairable because repairability would stifle innovation. Blackberry had wireless charging in 2015. Other android phones had it earlier and are more repairable than anything Apple has made since 2012. Apple's proprietary charging connectors don't even last as long as aftermarket Android connectors

    Apple should stop pretending and admit it likes its uproprietary earphones, connectors, chargers and protocols because they're profitable planned obsolescence.

    T

  • by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Thursday January 16, 2020 @03:44AM (#59625556)
    How about making it mandatory for batteries to be user serviceable in consumer electronics such as phones, computers, bluetooth devices etc. Kneecap Apple and their imitators who would rather people throw away phones and buy new ones rather than replace a worn battery.
    • by sad_ ( 7868 )

      that would probably do more to fight electronic waste compared to the waste generated by chargers.

  • by Chrisq ( 894406 ) on Thursday January 16, 2020 @07:15AM (#59625888)

    Europe Plans Law To Give All Phones Same Charger

    That will be a real pain if you are in Denmark but the charger is in Italy.

  • This law sounds like a great reason to get rid of the port altogether and just use wireless charging, Already standard, boom they are following EU law.

If all else fails, lower your standards.

Working...