EU votes to have universal mobile device power adapters

[HockeyJon]

Apple claims this new law will stifle innovation.
I can understand that opinion.

I’m half-surprised that Apple didn’t welcome the news so they could sell $70 dongles to their customers in order to allow them to continue to use their existing peripherals.

 

[naib]

Please say you were ethical and charged them full price tech support!?

Well the last instance was my wife so she did pay full price

 

[Red Falcon]

Apple claims this new law will stifle innovation.

Corporatism, thy name is Apple.

There are people trafficking child sex slaves and the EU government decides converging and mandating smartphone power adapters is the way to spend their time...

Bought and paid for... very sad that these are the people in charge who are supposed to "care" for their nation and their citizens, but instead only care about the girth of their bank vaults.

 

[faugusztin]

Bought and paid for... very sad that these are the people in charge who are supposed to "care" for their nation and their citizens, but instead only care about the girth of their bank vaults.

National governments, EU parliament and EU commission have different responsibilities. If anything, "trafficking" is an issue for each national government, each national police and Europol - EU is not United States of Europe, it is not job of EU to solve criminal issues.
EU commission and parliaments job are about the common market, common labor laws, consumer protection and so on. Sure, here and there they go more political, like the refugee distribution program to help southern countries with the influx of the refugees. But in most cases, their job is to bring exactly stuff like common charger, minimum 2 year warranty, internet order full refund during few days after purchase.

 

[Red Falcon]

National governments, EU parliament and EU commission have different responsibilities. If anything, "trafficking" is an issue for each national government, each national police and Europol - EU is not United States of Europe, it is not job of EU to solve criminal issues.
EU commission and parliaments job are about the common market, common labor laws, consumer protection and so on. Sure, here and there they go more political, like the refugee distribution program to help southern countries with the influx of the refugees. But in most cases, their job is to bring exactly stuff like common charger, minimum 2 year warranty, internet order full refund during few days after purchase.

So, basically reaffirming what I already said, right.

 

[termite]

Corporatism, thy name is Apple.


Bought and paid for... very sad that these are the people in charge who are supposed to "care" for their nation and their citizens, but instead only care about the girth of their bank vaults.

The EU has its issues, but they were already working on anti-human trafficking measures since the 90's. And do not be alarmed, but the US is a Tier 1 human trafficking country.

But you are correct, what you stated is pretty much the general description of 99% of all politicians.

Otherwise standardization is one of the things the EU pushes to it's members, which makes absolute sense.

 

[M76]

You don't seem to understand how socialist governments work. First they came for the lightning connector...

Really conspiracy theories? Sometimes it's easy to forget that I'm on a tech forum.
This is not outlawing the lightning connector or anything new, it's there in the proposal that the standard should be revisited and changed in case of future developments necessitate it.
You can have a lighting connector on your mac even ifiphone batteries are charged trough an usb-c cable.

 

[sc5mu93]

No sure why they need a law for this. Don't like the connector on a certain phone? Don't buy it.

 

[Darunion]

Universal connectors...Do we want to bring up the auto industry's connector choices and how many of those there are? Is going after a market where there really are only 3 worth it? I do agree it will stifle innovation, and likely is just a measure to generate money due to fees of not using the designated connector.

It was worse before smart phones, everyone had a different charger. You couldnt just plug into usb and there was no wireless charging. And after you upgraded your phone you tossed away the 3 chargers you had to buy for that phone.

 

[dgz]

Really conspiracy theories? Sometimes it's easy to forget that I'm on a tech forum.
This is not outlawing the lightning connector or anything new, it's there in the proposal that the standard should be revisited and changed in case of future developments necessitate it.
You can have a lighting connector on your mac even ifiphone batteries are charged trough an usb-c cable.

Heh, I knew I should've said "socialist dictatorship" to make it even more obvious it was SARCASM.

This forum...

 

[M76]

Heh, I knew I should've said "socialist dictatorship" to make it even more obvious it was SARCASM.

This forum...

Well sorry, I've seen worse uttered without sarcasm and irony on this forum.

 

[GoodBoy]

Even if a "new" standard isn't needed as USB-C is perfect right now, it's still funny they flip the middle finger to Apple.

Stifle innovation? It's a power source not a phone.

"Apple only uses pure electrons in its' electricity", said Tim Cook, alongside a slew of reporters at the New York launch of their new iTron charging device. "The iTron fuses natural electric power with cool design. We can make it look like anything!" The one he was displaying looked like an anus, with the charging port right at the pucker. "Kiss this, EU!" he was heard muttering while posing for beauty shots with the device.

 

[Jandor]

There are people trafficking child sex slaves and the EU government decides converging and mandating smartphone power adapters is the way to spend their time...

Exactly.
You can't imagine all the stuff coming from these guys that just force you to do stupid things. EU, Euro are a pure nonsense. Apart from civil servants and people living from social aides, people from all EU countries may agree. Especially true in France.

 

[Lakados]

I don't think Apple gives a crap about having to include USB-C connector as they use it on almost everything they have. I think they care more about now not being able to remove the power connector. They want to move exclusively to wireless tech with their phones.

If you read the full article, Apple is opposed to the government forming a comittee to develop and design a new standard and instead said they should just stay with the USB standards, which currently would be USB C, and in a decade could then be USB-D or what ever else comes along. IF they create a new connector and standard just for phones and in a few years it is outdated or glitched or contains security holes, too bad because it is a standard the government mandated and wont likely be easily changed with out going through comittee all over agan taking years to accomplish.

 

[defaultluser]

USB-C would be too simple and what happens when they decide USB-C isn’t up to the task some 5-10 years from now and they need to change it only to find they can’t? What ever standard they are designing will be what is used for the next decade or maybe longer and who is going to be designing it? And what will they do if they find that there is a fundamental hardware security flaw some 5 years from now? While I understand the sentiment this is a terrible idea.

Fixing "a fundamental hardware security flaw some 5 years from now" is as simple as doing another chip revision.

Having a software-hackable USB port on the Nintendo Switch didn't stop software sales on the platform.

Also, I don't foresee Internet -Connected being part of the charging standard - if its not, the worst you can do hacking your USB-C charger is through DIRECT CONNECT ATTACKS (like the Switch was).

I you don't forsee 40 Gbps bidirectional bendwidth (using active cables) and 100w power delivery to be an issue anytime soon. The insertion lifetime of USB-C also seems to be better tha n Micro was.

But I will agree that creating a new connector seem,s like a waste.