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EU may force iPhone to switch from Lightning to USB
- rbanffy 8y agoPlease, make it USB-C
- jacobush 8y agoApple already has it on their Macbooks, so I'd not be surprised if their long term plan ("plan B?") is to go with USB-C for their iOS devices too.
- dasmoth 8y agoAt this point, I strongly suspect Apple are hoping to keep Lightning going until they're ready to make phones wireless-charge-only. That's probably still a few years away, but I'm sure they're thinking in that direction. It'll cause some initial grumbling, but I'm not sure it would be a terribly thing. As well as making waterproofing easier, little sockets at the bottom of phones always seem to collect lint in my pockets, which ends up causing dodgy connections. What would the EU do in this case?
- LyndsySimon 8y agoI agree with this. Lightning seems like a mostly dead standard, being kept on life support because it allows a slightly thinner device. I seriously doubt I'll ever buy another Lightning cable to charge a device; the ones I have now are high enough quality that I expect they last longer than the devices I have, and the next generation will charge wirelessly.
- swebs 8y agoThat seems like the perfect plan, in my opinion, and I'm surprised why Apple hasn't done it already. Those who already have an Android phone with wireless charging quickly find the USB port useless, especially since Google removed USB mass storage support a few years back and replaced it with some awful MTP implementation that never fucking works. It would certainly fit Apple's image to have a sleek, futuristic looking device like that.
- yoz-y 8y agoUntil the wireless charging works at a distance of at least one meter and is way more powerful, there will be need for cables. Currently there are still quite a lot of uses which require constant charging and not being just placed on a table. Namely debugging apps and gaming.
- dasmoth 8y agoI'm not the biggest mobile gamer, but I'm not sure I've ever played a game on my phone while it was plugged into a charger. The "debugging apps" case doesn't entirely convince me, either. Unless you're pushing it pretty hard, I'm fairly certain an iPhone will make it through the day on one charge. If not, drop it on a charging mat when you go for lunch. (note that recent versions of Xcode can deploy and debug iPhone apps over Wi-fi -- so the cable isn't really needed for data any more...) But for those who do need this, it's pretty easy to imagine a case with some charging coils embedded in the back.
- yoz-y 8y agoiPhone does allow debugging over Wi-Fi but sadly it is not as reliable as a cable (hopefully yet). My phone is a bit on the older side and has took a beating. My iPad would drain after less than an hour of PUBG were it not plugged in.
- TomMarius 8y ago> What would the EU do in this case? Fine Apple for not following its regulation, of course. Classic EU.
- swift532 8y agoIf you want to express how oppressive the EU is, it might be better to use "late modern EU".
- sjwright 8y agoIf I were Apple, I'd just not pay the fine and let the EU try to ban the iPhone from being sold. And then I'd ignore the ban until they tried to enforce it, at which point I'd just stop selling them. It would cause an absolute uproar. No iPhones because the EU doesn't like the Lightning port? The argument won't stand a moment's scrutiny and within a week, individual governments will be so averse to the controversy that the EU would be forced to fold.
- rbanffy 8y agoI think the chargers are already OK - they use a cable and they output via USB. Most phone makers here provide you with a charger and a cable or, sometimes, just the cable (and you can use an Apple charger if you want - I do because the design is good and I have a bunch of them). For Apple, it'd be a no-brainer to ditch Lightning, except for the fact it's a bit thinner than USB-C. If Apple goes pocketless, putting a USB socket on the charging platform is a no brainer. Lightning is much smarter and does a lot more than charging, which is not needed for this.
- r3bl 8y agoI believe they're just going to skip that step and go straight to wireless charging, removing the only ("unnecessary") port in their design.
- imglorp 8y agoIs the standard fixed yet and is everyone following it? There was a bunch of incompatibility issues for a while.
- sbuk 8y ago> "The idea is to cut down on the 51,000 tons of old chargers thrown away each year." Am I imanging it or is this a bit strange? Every single mobile device that I have owned in the last 5 years, exluding laptops has either come without an adapter (Kindle, Moto G5) or with its own 5-9W adapter and a plug-in cable (Chromecast, iPhone)[0] [0] https://goo.gl/images/aD7Qxa https://goo.gl/images/aD7Qxa
- imari 8y agoThe EU has been doing this since 2009 (almost a decade) and is mostly the reason why smart-phone manufacturers have settled on micro-USB port as the standard port for chargers (of devices) manufactured since 2009. [0] http://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/electrical-engineering/red-directive/common-charger_en http://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/electrical-engineering/re... [1] https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-others-agree-to-universal-cell-phone-charger-standard-in-europe/ https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-others-agree-to-universal-ce... [2] https://www.engadget.com/2018/08/07/eu-study-harmonize-phone-chargers/ https://www.engadget.com/2018/08/07/eu-study-harmonize-phone...
- kalleboo 8y agoThe "51,000 tons of waste" number comes from the original 2009 EU campaign that led to the near-universal adoption of USB you see today. It's outdated and doesn't fit in an article written today.
- yebyen 8y agoThe pictured adapter is the standard one. What do you think you're imagining exactly? Kindles don't come with a charger? That seems a bit silly, for a device that has to charge... You can use this adapter to charge your phone, or power your chromecast. It's not automatically junk if either of the two aforementioned devices should ever become junk, like the traditional "wall-wart" with randomly sized barrel plugs, or some other standard. If anything is strange, it's that seemingly this law takes no account of non-USB devices that don't have any reason to plug into a computer, and may have variable power requirements other than 1A or 2.1A provided by USB at 5V. Don't get me wrong, I think it's great to have a common standard, it's a shame there aren't more of them /s Also wondering what happens under this law when USB-C comes around? It's been a while since I've seen a new phone that doesn't use USB-C here stateside, but according to this law I would think that to be impossible and illegal. (So how does that shake out in practice?) A quick google search doesn't seem to indicate that this is a solved issue, finding this result on the front page concerned in 2015 that the wrong thing will happen: https://medium.com/@gfrontera/usb-type-c-and-the-eu-35482b314f89 https://medium.com/@gfrontera/usb-type-c-and-the-eu-35482b31...
- fpoling 8y agoIf EU wants to save on e-waste, it should dictate that phone should be sold without chargers or cables. If one wants a new cable or a charger, the person should pay for it extra.
- xg15 8y agoAnd if the chargers weren't standardized, you'd have to buy that extra cable if you actually want your device to turn on.
- fpoling 8y agoThat automatically puts pressure on manufacturers to standardize things and made them think twice before introducing incompatible charger/cable.
- xg15 8y agoWhy would that be the case?
- fpoling 8y agoThis makes the price of the charger explicit and unrelated to phone purchase. If I have a previous version of a device and I replace it with newer one why should I pay for the new charger as well?
- xg15 8y agoBecause the vendor introduced a new, incompatible plug for the new version of the device.
- sschueller 8y agoThe issue is that not all charges are the same especially with new phone that have quick charging. Ideally the industry would have a standard for charges and how much power they provide. So for example you buy a new phone and it says you need a charger type 5 and if you don't have that you can buy it. Trying to figure out how many watts you have and what you need is too complicated for the average person. Make it super simple.
- zghst 8y agoWay too much government overreach. It’s ridiculous for government to intervene at this level of product development.
- officialchicken 8y agoIt'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?
- jacobush 8y agoEspecially 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.
- sjwright 8y agoA 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?
- jhasse 8y agoHaving multiple connectors on the phone side results in more cables, more waste.
- sjwright 8y agoA 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?
- sschueller 8y agoThe EU should force apple to open NFC to all. The only reason we have these stupid slow bluetooth adhoc payment systems here is because apple refuses to let anyone other than their own apple pay use NFC. I can use my android phone to pay via NFC directly from my bank account (no android pay, no third party or extra fees.). Why can't apple?
- jbrooksuk 8y agoYou mean https://developer.apple.com/documentation/corenfc https://developer.apple.com/documentation/corenfc?
- sschueller 8y agoThat's limited to NFC tags. You can't do proper card emulation for payment terminals with that.
- grezql 8y agoto be frank that corenfc has limitations which i think the threadstarter is complaining about. Namely it doesnt work if the app is not in foreground. Only Apple Pay can use corenfc when phone screen is off or the app is not running in foreground.
- LyndsySimon 8y agoDoes it use it in the background, though? I've always double-tapped the power button to open Apple Pay before trying to read the phone. Likewise, when I had an S7 Edge, I opened Google Pay before attempting.
- Sidnicious 8y agoYes. On both iOS and Android, the wallet should open on its own when the phone detects a payment terminal. You don't have to double-tap the power button.
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- eecc 8y agoApple already provide USB-Lightning cables and USB ported DC adapters, admittedly a greener configuration compared to hardwired options. It's the competition that must provide an Apple like option.
- icebraining 8y agoMy Asus tablets and Moto phones also came with a separated charger + cable. Is hardwiring common?
- lwkl 8y agoNot anymore and we have the EU-law and smartphones tonthabk for that. I remeber when Nokia, Sony etc. all had a different charger and they all were hardwired except the iPods and later the iPhones.
- TomMarius 8y ago> Not anymore and we have the EU-law and smartphones tonthabk for that. What? The EU did absolutely nothing that got us this outcome. It was purely the market itself, when everyone started switching to smartphones and it was common to connect your smartphone to your PC. 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. Yeah, the EU has created a memorandum. A completely irrelevant memorandum, as it was created in 2009, very very late in the game.
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- pergadad 8y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_external_power_supply https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_external_power_supply
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- timwis 8y agoWhat if Apple comes up with some new invention for the charging cables in a year or two, for example some even faster Quick Charge that USB C can't handle?
- sjwright 8y agoOr what if they invented a better wireless charging system than Qi? The EU is basically saying innovation is dead. At this rate they'll be requiring all phones to support Adobe Flash and 3.5 inch IDE hard disks.
- kuschku 8y agoThe EU merely requires that the currently largest manufacturers form a council, which decides on which charging standard to use. This council can change it again at any time, but all manufacturers have to use the same standard at each point in time. If the manufacturers want to switch to a different standard, that’s absolutely fine — just all should use the same.
- kalleboo 8y ago> for example some even faster Quick Charge that USB C can't handle More power than 100W?
- gruturo 8y agoI think Apple may have even been eyeing a migration to USB-C for its phones and tablets, but held it back to avoid pissing off their customers after the (relatively) recent switch from the old 30pin connector. This provides them with the perfect excuse for going ahead while avoiding (or redirecting) a bit of customer rage which would result.
- sjwright 8y agoIf it could be argued that Apple changed because the EU forced them to, it would be a monumental scandal. There's no way Apple would be so stupid as to walk into that PR disaster.
- otp124 8y agoHow would this be a scandal? The post you responded to sounds more plausible to me than it becoming a monumental scandal or PR disaster.
- sjwright 8y agoApple changing the plug on their iPhone again? After they've told everyone to invest in lightning cables and accessories? It creates a stir when they change voluntarily; it would be an utter scandal if it was foisted upon Apple by a foreign government. Did you not read about Macbooks and USB-C? Scandal.
- pedrocr 8y agoYou're extrapolating your own care for this topic to all of Apple's customers. You've done it all over the discussion and it massively overestimates how much people care about this. If there's anything the last few years taught us is that Americans are quite immune to outrage and scandal. Your example of Macbooks and USB-C is hilarious. No one outside hacker news actually cares.
- gruturo 8y agoNot a scandal. A scapegoat, for a change I'm sure they actually wouldn't mind. Less dongles, more uniformity. Yeah a few less MfI certification fees (they would still have plenty of "officially certified" cables and chargers esp. from better brands, so this revenue wouldn't disappear, just somewhat shrink).
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