
Europe Just Voted in Favor of Making iPhone and Android Use the Same Charger - ArtDev
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xgqwbd/europe-just-voted-in-favor-of-making-iphone-and-android-use-the-same-charger
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dang
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22204174](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22204174)

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djrogers
> “ One of the most ubiquitous pieces of e-waste is device chargers. We seem
> them as disposable because every new device comes with one. Why not just
> toss the old one out and let it rot in a landfill? Every new upgrade means a
> new charger. But that may be about to change.“

Is this 2004, when every charger is hardwired to it’s transformer? Nope - last
time I checked my iPhone and android devices all shipped with the same USB
_charger_ but they have 4 different cables (lightning, mini usb, micro usb,
and usb-c). Are those cables a huge contributor to e-waste?

Also, we’ve been through this before - what would have happened if the EU was
successful last time and we were all forced to use micro-usb? No usb c, that’s
what.

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utahcon
why not force the companies to pay a bounty for these "useless e-waste"
instead of forcing them to stop innovating? Maybe they are forced to pay $0.05
(or more) per charger found in the waste. Those that have been collected are
sent to the manufacturer for repurposing, at their cost.

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spullara
I believe this is only talking about the piece that connects the charging
cable to the electrical system. Apple already ships a charger that has a
female USB-C on one side and male electrical plug on the other which will
satisfy this proposal. You would then still use a USB-C to lightning cable to
charge the phone but you could reuse the the charger itself between android
and apple.

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ydnaclementine
What's the punishment, a big fine (one time?), can't sell in EU? (linked
articles don't clearly state)

It's great they did this, but we'll see if it's just lawmakers playing house

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movedx
Is it great that they did this? I think the EU has a lot of good qualities,
but this might stifle innovation. Think about it...

What if I create a new charging cable that's super fast charging, 10x safer,
supports massive transfer rates and so on and so forth... how do I test that
in the market? I can't, because it would be illegal to sell it.

This is a law that, to me, seems good on the surface and potentially products
consumers, but actually it prevents people/companies trying new ideas and
using the market to test them.

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ta999999171
You mean like all of the innovation that Apple has made with their
connectors...that they only allow in their devices?

Is that really "innovation" for the commons? Or just more proprietary
products?

~~~
movedx
k m8

~~~
ta999999171
A subreddit is missing its idiot...

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noodlesUK
My experience is that there _already is_ a universal charger that works with
almost all phones made in the past couple years. That is a Qi inductive
charging plate. I suspect Apple will be ditching the lightning cable fairly
soon, and will be replacing it with wireless charging as the only charging
solution. I currently have a snazzy Qi mount in my car that works great, and a
plate by my bed. The only downside is if I want to watch a video whilst
charging or similar, it’s nearly impossible to do that with current
plates/docks.

These chargers work with my phone (iPhone 8) and my partner’s phone (Samsung),
and I couldn’t be happier with them.

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qsymmachus
That's a good point, but I think it would be a shame if wireless charging
completely replaced wired, because it's much less efficient.

Something like 20-40% of input energy is wasted when using wireless charging
versus a wire. If every existing phone switched to wireless charging, that
would cause a non-trivial increase in total power usage.

~~~
kickling
Not saying it's entirely unrelevant, but when looking at energy consumption by
production and by usage of smartphones, the usage basically consumes no energy
at all ([https://imgur.com/VHpJ5et](https://imgur.com/VHpJ5et)).

That is probably because batteries can hold a very limited amount of energy
and therefore mobile software is developed to use very little electricity.

But on the other hand, less energy efficient chargers wont help this. I just
mean it's not the big problem about our smartphones energy consumption.

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kickling
Sorry, meant co2 emissions, not energy use.

~~~
marta_morena
Ahh because these two are decoupled. I am sure smartphone usage contributes a
significant portion to CO2 then.

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justizin
it's a real problem, but it also seems unlikely that we would have USB-C
without lightnight, basically every generation of apple's various connectors
have driven improvements in USB.

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anon73044
....so....why isn't Apple contributing to the USB working group instead of
making a competing product?

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chwilson
Didn't this also happen years ago with the EU trying to force Apple to use
Micro USB?

I believe Apple got around it by selling Lightning to Micro USB adapters in
their stores.

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zepto
This seems like a lot of weird ideas unconnected from actual practice.

For example who throws away their old charger when they get a new device? Why
would anyone do that when you can have more than one charger in convenient
places, have one for travel etc?

Is there any research behind any of this?

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mattlondon
I have thrown away loads. I need 2 or 3 maybe. I would easily have 30 or 40 by
now if I didn't regularly take them to the dump and chick them in the
electronic bin. All of my wall sockets have USB charging sockets built in
already anyway.

Often you get crap ones bundled with stuff anyway - e.g. 500ma or 1a output.

~~~
Yetanfou
Why do you buy so many devices which come with chargers - i.e. phones and
tablets, mostly? I'm on my 4th 'smart phone' in total, counting from the
original Nokia N-GAGE (the 'taco phone', got it because it was a cheap and
easy way into the 'smart' phone world). I replaced the Nokia because I cracked
its screen, the Qtek S200 because I ran out of replacement batteries, the
Motorola Defy+ is still in use as a 'work phone' and the Xiaomi Redmi Note 5
is my current main device. Add to that 2 tablets (plus an early third one
(Ainol Novo 8 Advanced) which charges off a 9V adapter, still works) and I'm
up to 5 USB chargers (plus a Nokia charger) in 16 years.

Also, don't take those chargers to the dump, instead take them to a thrift
store or some charity. They can sell the things for a few €, the things get
reused, everybody is happy.

~~~
utahcon
clearly he is using burners, and the governments are now on to him. Sucker.

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Kikawala
This Vice article is confusing because of the interchanging use of Charging
device and Charging cable. So what is it, the cable or the wall wart that has
to be standardized?

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hydroreadsstuff
My guess is that Apple is getting rid of the charger rather than supporting
USB, in favor of wireless charging.

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ocdtrekkie
Androids and iPhones both support Qi charging. They can arguably continue to
support Lightning indefinitely as a legacy accessory port.

Recently got an iPhone and never even unboxed my Lightning cable, I already
have wireless chargers plentifully spread from my Windows Phone.

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utahcon
I wouldn't be surprised to see Apple argue that Lightning is in fact a form of
"USB" and thus Lightning should be the standard or... we are already compliant
with your nonsense laws

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ArtDev
Its fine if USB-C is the new standard.. as long as its actually a real
standard.

Its funny that we need a law for this, but we really do.

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anoncake
The EU tried to get the manufacturers to cooperate without a formal law but
Apple continued to apple.

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olliej
Indeed, think, if apple had only kowtowed a few years ago we could be using
the wonderful mini-usb forever. A single plug means never migrating from
whatever is standardized now, because doing so would me violating the law.

Never mind the bizarre obsession the usb group had with making as many holes
to get stuff stuck in as possible, nor the excessively loose tolerances in the
spec.

But hey, now we get to have usb-c forever, with no way for any company to move
to anything else.

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ISL
I doubt that the new law would prevent USB-C _and_ a new plug. If the new plug
turns out to be awesome (magsafe, anyone?), voters could clamor for it to
become a new standard...

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olliej
nope, that means for (take your example, MagSafe) to ever be shipped the EU
would have to create new legislation for it.

That means you'd be unlikely to ever see something like MagSafe be shipped.

Similarly, for anyone to iterate on usb-c they'd have to get a new spec
standardized, and then go to the EU parliament to get that new spec bought in.
The moment that happens you're back to multiple plugs.

I still don't understand what problem they think they're solving with this -
the first change is millions of cables and devices become defunct through
legally mandated obsolescence.

The next change is what...?

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WanderPanda
Next change is building a wall so we citizens can‘t escape the hell they are
creating with their abundance of good intentions. Further steps: -US led
international coalition needs to intervene to free the europeans from their
overlords -The europeans need to rebuild everything from scratch once again
-British people laughing up their sleeves

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option
will they require to use the same charger (as now) 10 years from now? What
about 20, 30 years from now?

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utahcon
Had the same thought. In theory as long as future connectors fit the same form
factor (backward compatible) it shouldn't matter and USB 3.1 has plenty of
head room as far as the protocol goes.

