One-size-fits-all chargers? What a great idea Of course Apple would hate it
theregister.com
theregister.com
I would have preferred that they made the text something more like manufacturers must all agree on a standard every 3 years or something along those lines, to allow for more rapid updates but still reduce the excess, waste and be more convenient for consumers. Not that this is a great solution either, but it at least seems less restrictive on innovation.
To be fair, I haven't read the full text of the rule so maybe there is something to help minimize the delay on innovation, but seeing it came from a government body it doesn't make me optimistic.
So now unfortunately we have to rely on the nanny state to whip our childish businesses into line. Hopefully after this they can move to a self-governing standard
I still think the better way would've been to force the industry to comply by stating whatever the agreement was any devices not meeting it would be barred from sales in the market. That would put teeth into the industry agreement but still keep technical implementation details out of the legislation.
At least with what you are saying I get more why they moved this way, just wish it would've been slightly more logical and not so potentially innovation stifling. Hopefully there is something in the full text about the innovation cycle and future changes, but I doubt it.
Meanwhile the Lightning adaptor inspired USB-C. Apple has adopted USB-C on their iMac, MacBook and iPad product lines. I expect Apple to adopt USB-C on next year's iPhone as well, since it's the 10th anniversary of adopting Lightning.
On the bright side, by "Apple hating it", we're not stuck with the abomination known as micro-USB. We've come to a better place. Who knows? Maybe Apple was right all along.
With the new MacBooks and some iPads (I've never figured out why) having just USB-C it would make sense to have a common set of cables and chargers even amongst Apple devices - being able to use a single charger and cable to charge both MacBook and iPhone would be very neat.
Compared to Micro USB, Lightning is more durable, is fully symmetrical, has built in authentication. At the time in 2014 it also had faster charging (12W vs 8W), faster transfer speeds, and did streamed video and audio all of which Micro USB got several years later.
The charging power issue was a big deal because Lightning was suitable for tablets with bigger batteries and higher power ratings (two of our lightning devices in 2014 were iPads). This his is why the Galaxy tablets at the time used a proprietary connector. So Apple would have had to keep Lightning anyway for the iPad. Lightning has also always been more consistent, several variants of Micro USB connectors and cables are incompatible. So much for standardisation.
So reverting to Micro USB at the time would have been a significant regression in capability, and wouldn't even have got rid of Lightning because it would still have been needed for the iPad. The whole situation would have been an utter debacle.
Apple is known for sticking to one thing for quite a while, where Android manufacturers were free to experiment with all sorts of connectors, like that Samsung microUSB 3 one.
This cuts off one line of potentially differentiating your phone in the future for them.
Sure, for Apple it’s millions of dollars in MFI money, but it’s not like Android manufacturers won’t see any detriment in time.
The microUSB 3 plug is just an extension and normal microUSB charges it fine.
If we want less toxic waste, why not tax the sales of toxic stuff? This way, the manufacturers would not only produce less USB chargers, but a gazillion other things that can be reduced would be reduced as well.
In the same way, mandating the abolition of roaming fees across the EU was great for everyone, and it's not really something that could have been solved with markets and taxes