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Are you old enough to remember the early 2000s when every phone and portable media player had it's own charger, which often wasn't even transferable between dev
by fy20 4y ago
Are you old enough to remember the early 2000s when every phone and portable media player had it's own charger, which often wasn't even transferable between devices by the same manufacturer? It led to lots of old chargers when devices were replaced, which were useless for anything else (I remember having bags of cables and chargers). And if you wanted a second charger for whatever reason (this was before you needed to charge your device every 3 hours), you needed to find the specific charger for your device. If it was a few years old, it might not even be possible to purchase one.
Then almost by magic everyone switched to micro USB. You could charge different devices from different manufacturers with the same cable. This wasn't some feat of magic, it was because the European Commission worked to bring manufacturers to an agreement on a common charging standard.
Well, everyone except Apple, who did actually sign the agreement. They just decided to bundle a dongle to be compliant.
Mini-USB was introduced in 2000, so manufactures had plenty of time to choose a common interface themselves, but decided not to.
Even amongst Apple's own devices it is a mess. To charge an Apple Pencil with an iPad Pro you need not one, but two adapters.
- KerrickStaley 4y agoMicro-USB is not the same as Mini-USB. Mini-USB was introduced in 2000; Micro-USB was introduced in 2007.
- fy20 4y agoGP said: > When a standard makes sense companies will generally adopt it naturally. My point was that manufacturers could have done so (with Mini-USB) if they wanted to, but chose not to. Until smart phones came around, most phones were more than thick enough to have a Mini-USB port (and a lot did).
- izacus 4y agoIn most cases, yes, people writing these comments are too young to remember era before Apple brought shining and light to their existence.
- givinguflac 4y ago| Even amongst Apple's own devices it is a mess. To charge an Apple Pencil with an iPad Pro you need not one, but two adapters. I’m curious what you’re referring to. I charge my Apple Pencil while connected to my iPad, and my iPad chargers via usb c. No adapters for me?
- Fiahil 4y agoHe's referring to the pencil v1, which had to be charged via lightning.
- fy20 4y agoOh I forgot they added wireless charging in V2. Yeah that part of my argument doesn't really make sense then.
- truculent 4y agoThey are referring to the original Apple Pencil which used a lightning port at the end.
- ClassyJacket 4y agoWorse, the Pencil 1 didn't have a lightning port, it insanely had a lightning plug - it had to be charged precariously sticking out of the bottom of the iPad like this: https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0276/6463/files/How-to-Charge-Apple-pencil-2-with-iPad-Pro-2018-3.jpg?v=1542229206 https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0276/6463/files/How-to-Cha...
- dubya 4y agoNot entirely true. It came with a little female-female lightning adapter so you could charge it with whatever other lightning cable you have. The pencil end of the adapter is deeper than the other end, I think so you can't plug a lightning cable into each end.
- inkyoto 4y ago> Are you old enough to remember the early 2000s when every […] One does not have to be that old enough. Look no further than personal care and small home appliances (electric shavers – yes, Braun, I am looking at you; electric toothbrushes – and you, too, Philips! As well as household and kitchen appliances) the vast majority of which still come with incompatible proprietary chargers that are so hard, expensive or inconvenient (usually all of the above) to procure to replace that the entire gadget oftentimes gets disposed of because of the failed charger. Governments ought to crack down on those ones as well, and crack down real, real hard.
- JacobiX 4y agoIt would be nice if those same EU regulations where applied to all industries and not some specifically designated ones. For example my German Braun Shaver Charger will not be impacted by this regulation ...
- enriquec 4y agothe total idiocy of adopting usb-c for a shaver charger... what a waste that would be.
- fy20 4y agoWhy? I got a new shaver recently and it has a 5V 1A charger. The old one had a 5V 0.5A charger. A common interface would make perfect sense, and the power range is within what the USB standard can provide.
- bentinney 4y agoI bought an electric xiaomi shaver about two years ago and it is only chargeable via USB-C. It works great for long term travel!