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zghst

Way too much government overreach. It’s ridiculous for government to intervene at this level of product development.

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> Way too much government overreach. It’s ridiculous for government to intervene at this level of product development.

I'm very glad government demanded standards for power plugs. Not sure why that should not extend to mobile devices.

Primarily for safety reasons.

What do you mean?

I'm guessing here, but probably that plugging in something that expects a different voltage could start a fire

It's just like that mains socket on the wall that every electronic device uses. Would you prefer if each manufacturer had their own 110v/220v plug?

Especially since the newer devices start to draw more significant amounts of power - that calls for safety, one reason governments got involved in standardizing power plugs.

A poor argument since iPhone uses, and has always used industry standard USB-A on the "wall" side.

I really don't understand what the EU is complaining about. I'm not aware of a single smartphone that doesn't charge over USB. Or do they really have stick up their bum about both ends of the cable?

Having multiple connectors on the phone side results in more cables, more waste.

A valid argument if USB cables were durable in the hands of the typical ham-fisted end user... AND if the EU forced all phone makers to stop bundling USB cables and chargers with every phone.

I mean this is pure hypocrisy; the EU couldn't even standardise wall sockets. What next, are they going to force all mains devices to use the IEC C14 socket? Perhaps they should levy a steep tax on all aftermarket USB cables?

> AND if the EU forced all phone makers to stop bundling USB cables and chargers with every phone.

If all bundled cables were the same, people could reuse them more often.

While we're at it, let's ban Displayport and force everyone to use HDMI. Oh, and all headphones must now connect over USB-C, as 3.5mm TRS is banned too.

HDMI, Displayport and 3.5mm TRS will all be replaced by USB-C at some point. It's a little too earlier to force it though.

Surely forcing change will cause more wasted cables than maintaining the status quo.

Plus Apple uses lightning in many more products than the iPhone; so unless they're going to force companies to standardise on cables for charging set top box remote controls (for example) then it's not going to have the desired effect long term.

> Surely forcing change will cause more wasted cables than maintaining the status quo.

Not in the long run.

  I really don't understand what the EU is
  complaining about. I'm not aware of a single
  smartphone that doesn't charge over USB.

You know why that is? Because in 2009, the EU told them to [1].

The fact you're not aware of a single smartphone that doesn't charge over USB is, in fact, a major success for the EU bossing phone manufacturers around!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_external_power_supply

That's basically a lie; the industry was already unifying around USB charging because it's so cheap to implement and reduces the part count.

(To the extent the EU did anything right, they correctly predicted the future, which is I suppose fairly impressive.)

If the market was going to give us USB chargers anyway, why do cheap phones which are excluded from Common EPS rules, like the Samsung E1200, often not use USB chargers?

So again, they correctly predicted that dirt cheap shit with internal electronics designed more than fifteen years ago will continue to be dirt cheap shit today. Wow, the EU is amazing.

What's their next trick? Banning spinning hard disks from laptops? Forcing all consumer grade digital cameras to use SD cards?

What makes you think that every device would have its own plugs? It's certainly not what happened way back when electric plugs were not regulated as it was a new technology.

Because phones all had their own plugs before the EU (and later China) threatened to legislate a common plug.

Not true. PDAs used mini USB way before the first iPhone came out (and a lot of PDA users were very unhappy with their proprietary plug). The threatening came way after the plugs were already standardized on USB. Remember that smartphones are not evolution of mobile phones, but PDAs and MDAs - that had mini USBs for a long time before any smartphone has existed. This started at least around 2003 and around 2007, it was already clear that not using USB is a disadvantage, and in 2008/9 it was irrelevant what "dumb" mobile phone manufacturers are doing as it was clear that smartphones have won in the long run.

Regulating something that is not a problem anymore is typical EU propaganda move. After they did it, they flooded our TV and newspapers with ads saying "we saved you" - they forgot to say that dumb phones wouldn't be a problem anyways, though, and no one else was interested in proprietary plugs.

Not true. Do you want me to share a photo of some 2010-2015 phone chargers and their plugs? Because just recently I've found some of those lying around, and let me tell you: 5 phones, 5 different plugs.

Also one phone with a micro USB port, except it won't charge through it, data only.

You're talking about dumb phones, I suppose. I don't care, this market is diminishing every year and will be a completely niche market soon. It's bullshit to spend tax money on regulating a market that will almost cease to exist soon. The charger waste largely comes from old phones made pre-2010, as new dumb phones mostly have USB, but more importantly, are not sold at all.

I'm talking about PDAs (ancestors of smartphones) and smartphones as these matter - as was already clear around 2008, and it was clear since at least 2006 that USB is the way to go and the market has been following it.

If we spent the same amount of money we would spent on this regulation on cleaning the environment directly, we would get a much better result.

I remember before the EU's previous threats, when Nokia had their "FastPort", Sony Ericsson had their "PopPort", Motorola has theirs, Samsung had theirs. I'm very glad for consumer-friendly government intervention.

> It’s ridiculous for government to intervene at this level of product development

That really is a matter of personal politics and opinion.

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