Hacker News Reader

Comment by hrayr | Hacker News Reader

>> Essential's engineers are developing a proprietary connector that serves double duty for charging the battery and expanding the phone's functionality over time, one person familiar with the planning said.

This is unfortunate. I wonder where usb-c falls short in their design?

View on HN

> are developing a proprietary connector that serves double duty for charging the battery and expanding the phone's functionality ... magnetic ... sphere-shaped camera add-on that shoots high resolution 360 degree photographs

Mildly hilarious if, based on this leak, Samsung not only rushes a copycat feature to market first but is also first to file patents for it. Bonus internet points if their rushing it to market means it explodes.

And then there's the EU market where it's mandatory for phones manufacturers to equip phones with USB charging.

They'll just provide some dinky adapter.

Which is essentially meaningless right? My EU iPhone still has a Lightning port, but sure the other end of the cable is USB.

Oh no, it's not. It's really a good thing that wherever you go now you know you can charge your phone with anybody's charger or computer. The iPhone is a minor special case.

Exactly -- people forget that every phone used to have its own special power cable until the EU forced them to standardise. It was such a pain, especially for developers working with multiple phones, but even just trying to figure out which power brick is whose in a normal household!

Strength.

It is a connector, but you cannot fasten something using it. This is why they would have come up with a new connector. Hopefully it expands on USB C, as in the interface is USB C and they've just created a new fastener mechanism around it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com