What exactly is genuinely innovative about the iPhone connector at this point? It's 10 years old, and the only selling point I can see it having over USB (even when it was new) was the rotational symmetry (which is now also possible with USB C, which is what's being mandated).
No, it doesn't. The technical details are passed as a so called 'delegated act', which defers the power to set the details of acts to the European Commission.[1] They can update this when necessary, and will do so if the USB forum updates to a newer version. I detest all the people who are confidently wrong about these things, it detracts from the interesting steps the EU has taken here.
Assuming you are correct, it still means that any startup that has an idea for an innovation in the phone cable space will first need to worry about how to convince the European Commission to approve it. That's quite a road block for a startup.
> any startup that has an idea for an innovation in the phone cable space
That's a lot of money for a startup to burn on something inconsequential instead of using off-the-shelf stuff for the least important area where you can innovate.
Also, I haven't put a charging cable into my phone since... 2012 or something like that when the Nexus 4 came out. Ever since I tried wireless charging, going back to regularly using a charging cable feels like going back to the stone age.
Two things:
Just to be pedantic for a second - this is actually tautological, because innovation is defined in terms of making changes to established things.
So by the EU establishing a thing, any changes you make to it are ... by definition ... innovation :)
Once they establish a new standard, the thing that they established is no longer innovative, it is the new baseline for the next innovation.
At least, as innovation is actually defined (the colloquial usage is very messy, as you can see in this thread, making it very easy for people to talk past each other).
But let's be practical for a second - what exactly are you looking for?
What is this next physical connector innovation you are worrying you need that won't exist now?
I ask because almost all desire in phone connectors has been the same since the beginning of phone connectors. It is not new. The change in connectors was not driven by change in desire, only around capability. people want them to be reasonably sized, easy to put in/take out, not easily fall out, not break ever, charge the phone fast, and send data from the phone to a thing fast (audio/video/etc are a subset of this).
That's it. That's always been it.
For a long time, tradeoffs had to be made, and you could not achieve all desires at once.
That hasn't been true for a decade.
At this point, all desires are fulfilled.
Over fulfilled in fact - the capability of the connectors have well outstripped the need of phones.
There isn't anything left to do. It's done.
Unless new customer desires come along, and they haven't for decades, there isn't innovation left to be had. The closest you come to difference is "should i make it be held by a magnet or by itself", which, while some are vocal about it, is a very minor preference (again, at least by data).
It's also easy to claim things like "well you don't know what will come along", but as i said, what comes along is driven by customer desire. What is the unfulfilled customer desire that physical phone connectors can innovate to achieve at this point?
Over fulfilled in fact - the capability of the connectors have well outstripped the need of phones.
There isn't anything left to do. It's done. Unless new customer desires come along, and they haven't for decades, there isn't innovation left to be had
Both the connector and port are too large and the tip of the cable protrudes too far. I have an assortment of 90 degree elbows for my growing USB device collection and the myriad of different features each cable has or doesn't have(Hdmi 4k120fps, Quest Link, Thunderbolt, etc) to keep my inputs flush and organized. When connecting to a laptop you're stuck with either dangling dongles or unsightly protrusions.
As someone who actually owns over a dozen or so USB-C devices they're nowhere near as interchangeable as promised and quite frankly they suck and are hardly done improving. The last time UsB ports tried to differentiate themselves was when they started painting them blue but nowadays you have no idea what a given port can and cant do(e.g PD) unless it's explicitly written somewhere.
How is that less confusing than "this is an iphone/airpods/apple keyboard cable and this is an everything else cable" to a consumer? The fact that all new improvements will have to go through some totally unbiased and impartial incorruptible committee is terrifying.
"Both the connector and port are too large and the tip of the cable protrudes too far. "
Well good news - unless something changes in material science or cost of materials dramatically changes, this won't change :)
So you don't have to worry about this.
Recessing the connector does not require a change to the connector, but making them actually smaller would be very hard.
"The fact that all new improvements will have to go through some totally unbiased and impartial incorruptible committee is terrifying."
There are no new improvements coming that require a new connector. There haven't been for a long time. There is no evidence to suggest they are coming anytime soon.
For all the people who keep saying it will have to go to a committee, not a single person has said what the magic improvement they think this will block actually is
(you at least gave an answer, but your answer is not actually possible anytime soon)
I'm not so sure that will be the case. The particular issue with this one is the insistence of using a proprietary connector when a perfectly acceptable standardized connector exists. How quick we are to forget that the reason basically every phone (except one!) no longer uses its own proprietary connector is because of similar legislation.
> What exactly is genuinely innovative about the iPhone connector at this point
The way they fray near the connector. It is truly inovative how one of the worlds most inovative companies has been unable to figure out how to wrap plastic around a wire.
All Apple users I know are joyous because of this, simplification of life long term. Nobody enjoys carrying lightning cable for their phones and USB for everything else
Maybe if Apple would make their lightning an open free standard, this would be now adopted, but since Apple is... well Apple their arrogance met the laws of place not governed by corporations (that much)
"The government will force companies to make a product decision that I happen to like"
This is an extremely bad reason to support this legislation.
The government could legislate any number of product changes, they don't do that, because that's not their role.
Apple has always been a leader in these areas, and this kind of thing will definitely stifle from making the decisions they need to, in addition to the fact their are all sorts of unintended design consequences on these forced choices.
There are really only 2 kinds of charges floating around these days, and several mechanisms for handling both, it's not even a 1/10 on the problems we face.
This is really bad populism, the EU is running up the wrong tree here.
> The government could legislate any number of product changes, they don't do that, because that's not their role.
In many cases they do, because it is their role. They have done so now with charging cables. You can whine about it until you turn blue but the objective fact remains that the EU has now made regulation of charging cables part of their role.
Roles of governments aren't set in stone, they can in response to changing cultural and social norms, corporate practices, economic conditions, etc. The EU is not obliged to neatly confine itself according to your demands.
Both Lightening and USB-C have similar failure mode where a tab can break. It’s not common but trouble when it does. Neither one is clearly more durable than the other though both are definitely more durable than Micro-USB.
With lightning, the paddle is on the cable and can easily be replaced. With USB-C the paddle is on the device and is difficult if not impossible to replace.
Yes, have you ever visited the United States? Their AC wall plugs are extremely bad. They wiggle out all the time and expose hot connectors before falling out. You can literally shock yourself by partially unplugging a wall connector and putting your finger on exposed connectors.
The result of the same sort of regulation in the UK is the opposite; they have excellent plugs and sockets. It doesn't seem that regulated standardization inherently stifles innovation, but you do run the risk of standardizing on the wrong thing.
I think the problem with something like USB-C is that technology is still evolving (while AC power distribution is pretty much settled). Just imagine solid state batteries allowing multi kW charging. USB-C isn't physically able to do this afaik.
They are slightly different but inter-compatible when using only 2-plug (without ground IIRC). Which means basically all non-energy-intense appliances including ie TVs. Heck, even Switzerland is compatible with them all.
Notable exception of course are British, but they are not part of EU as we all know too well.
It makes life so much easier. I can't understand why anybody would ever oppose this, either vested interest or butthurt ego?
To a large extent, the 3-plug version with ground is also compatible.
The CEE 7/7 plug works both in the Schuko Type F socket and the French Type E socket. The former covers 30ish countries, the latter covers 5.
The only countries which do not use either E or F are:
- Denmark, which is the only country to use Type K. It (relatively) recently allowed installing E or F sockets too, so K will probably die out over time.
- Italy, which is the only country to use Type L. It is rapidly switching to L+F hybrids, as most devices sold these days are equipped with CEE 7/7
- Ireland, which uses the British plug. As far as I am aware, no intention to change. Doing so would probably start a civil war.
And outside the EU there are the UK and Switzerland.
Not all are compatible. There are at least two different diameters of pin, not to mention several variations on three pins. I hit this myself this week.
The type G plug is the best design available, by a very long way. If anything, that should be adopted by the EU and indeed the rest of the world.
Fair point. Those different plugs are standardized though so adapters & travel plugs can be made.
I wondered why this has not yet been standardized EU-wide, but of course the cost of doing so would be huge, since those plugs & outlets are built into millions of buildings.
Whereas phones and electronics change much faster and can thus more easily be transitioned, I suppose.
USB C was designed to be the "last" physical connector, the whole point was standardisation. Now that the market has failed to deliver this, government steps in. In this case it's supporting an innovation. More "innovation" in connectors is what we're trying to avoid.
No they didn't, compliance is voluntary, just read the linked wiki page.
I agree with the point that it won't stifle Innovation though. The swift passing of the USB-C mandate has proven to me that the EU can move quickly, so if a new connector comes along they will be able to switch the law reasonably quickly.
If you've followed the EU for a few decades, you'd know they occasionally move quickly, but not often, and the movement is rarely in the best direction.
But, crucially, they were able to effortlessly move to a better connector when one came along. They were not legally forced to stick with Micro-B. Now they are legally stuck with USB-C indefinitely.
I think 4 years is a reasonable time frame. Especially considering they weren't sitting around doing nothing for 4 years, most of it was research and surveys
> Although compliance is voluntary, a majority of the world's largest mobile phone manufacturers agreed to make their applicable mobile phones compatible with Europe's common external power supply specification (EN 62684:2010).