[eru]

What does any deity have to do with it? Btw, has anyone done a post mortem analysis of that mandate? I wonder if it delivered what it promised. I doubt it:

All they saved consumers from is buying a 5 dollar replacement cable.

The EU certainly hasn't done such an assessment yet.

The predicted savings of a quarter billion Euro come mostly from unbundling chargers, which they could have forced down customers throats without also making technical mandates about how customers are allowed to charge.

[clownpenis_fart]

Unbundling charger without standardizing the connectors would result in every manufacturer using their own proprietary bespoke charging connectors. Which is exactly what the situation was before usb was made mandatory.

How much cool aid do you have to drink to genuinely believe the corporate argument that using proprietary connectors is "innovative"?

[eru]

> Unbundling charger without standardizing the connectors would result in every manufacturer using their own proprietary bespoke charging connectors. Which is exactly what the situation was before usb was made mandatory.

Eh, no? USB-C was already pretty much the standard before, and you could plug in lightning cable with a cheap adapter cable.

[thrownthatway]

Not even that.

Consumers still need to buy replacement cables, because they break.

And the USB-C cable end connector is a fragile piece of shit designed by committee and forced upon everyone buy another committee, neither of which must’ve had a single mechanic engineer even once walk passed their bike shed.

Future historians will do a postmortem on the EU and discover the USB-C enforcement act as an inflection point that marked the downer trend to the EU’s eventual collapse, and the reclamation of its land and people to the great nation of Russia, where it always belonged.

Or some other equally as dreadful outcome befitting the UBS-C Bike Shed & Enforcement Committee formerly know as the European Union.

[sham1]

> Not even that. > > Consumers still need to buy replacement cables, because they break. > > And the USB-C cable end connector is a fragile piece of shit designed by committee and forced upon everyone buy another committee, neither of which must’ve had a single mechanic engineer even once walk passed their bike shed.

Well, the USB committee did ask Apple for the superior connector, but for whatever reason they said no. So we're stuck with this.

OTOH, USB-C is not nearly as bad as your bizarre post would seem to imply. It could be better, but as we know from experience with things like micro-USB, it could be much, much worse.

> Future historians will do a postmortem on the EU and discover the USB-C enforcement act as an inflection point that marked the downer trend to the EU’s eventual collapse, and the reclamation of its land and people to the great nation of Russia, where it always belonged. > > Or some other equally as dreadful outcome befitting the UBS-C Bike Shed & Enforcement Committee formerly know as the European Union.

Russia can't even handle Ukraine, a country significantly smaller in population, economy, and land area than Russia. And you think that they could take on the EU‽ A block, mind you, which has more population and a significantly larger economy. Oh, also nukes.

And you think that the EU would fall in this case because of... USB-C? Please explain the mechanism which would lead to this situation.

[eru]

> Well, the USB committee did ask Apple for the superior connector, but for whatever reason they said no. So we're stuck with this.

They didn't need to ban all other connectors..

[sham1]

Well good thing is that they didn't. The only thing you need is to provide a USB-C port for charging. Nothing stops a manufacturer adding additional ports for charging, data sharing etc.

So Apple could give people the ability to use their oh-so-superior Lightning cable while also being able to use USB-C for charging. If nothing else, it means that there are no longer any "does anyone have an iPhone charger" discussions at parties because people can just charge all their phones with USB-C.

[eru]

> Well good thing is that they didn't. The only thing you need is to provide a USB-C port for charging. Nothing stops a manufacturer adding additional ports for charging, data sharing etc.

That's a bit silly. There's only so much space in eg a phone.

[ssl-3]

Apple switched to USB C years before legal standardization took place.

(actually, which single-vendor connector are we mourning, here? I forget.)

[account42]

Companies often comply with upcoming/expected legislation ahead of time if its expected to be cheaper to do so rather than having to rush things afterwards.

[eru]

Yes, Apple switched to USB-C for some of their stuff.

So I'm not quite so sure why the EU needed to outlaw alternative chargers.

[ssl-3]

On one hand: It does seem a bit late to regulate that.

On the other hand: I used to work with a briefcase full of different phone cables, when the people that paid me had the swell idea to offer the service of transferring phone books between dumb phones and nobody agreed on how the connectors should be shaped. I think the number of them was >40. Some of them even looked identical in shape, but were not identical in function. Some were USB. Some were serial, with different voltages. Some used two data wires for serial comms, some used only one.

I was very pleased when we stopped doing that and I got to get rid of that stuff.

I'm also pleased that someone is making assurances that we won't go back to that way of doing things.

It's OK to have a common standard, and to stick with it. (It's also OK to draft a new standard when the old one turns old-and-busted somehow.)

[fl4regun]

I don't understand your issue with USB C. Mini and micro USB connectors routinely got loose and fell out of multiple devices I owned, USB C is everywhere now and I have not encountered such issues.

[account42]

The only issue I had with USB C has been lint collecting at the bottom of the port that would then prevent the cable from plugging in far enough for a good connection. Far easier to clean that than replacing the connector though.

[thrownthatway]

The Lighnting connector and its port are superior in every way.

[eru]

Physically, maybe. (I don't know.) Legally and economically, I don't think Samsung can just use lightning without having to pay Apple.

[thrownthatway]

Without the EU mandate, perhaps I would still have a Lightning port in my instead of the currently broken USB-C port.

I never had a Lightning port fail.

[eru]

Good on you!

I just wish that all of them would be legal, and consumer like you be allowed to pick what they like best.

[ChoGGi]

That's the one where the springs are on the device instead of the cable yea?

[fl4regun]

how so? I genuinely don't understand, as someone who has a phone with the lightning connector and other devices with USB C

[eru]

I don't mind USB-C. Most of my devices have USB-C charging, and it works well.

I mind bureaucrats locking that in.

> Future historians will do a postmortem on the EU and discover the USB-C enforcement act as an inflection point that marked the downer trend to the EU’s eventual collapse, and the reclamation of its land and people to the great nation of Russia, where it always belonged.

Haha, what? I like to complain about this piece of legislation, but it's not that important. And it's not like Russia has better policy. Oh, just the opposite. (Like waging wars they can't win, or running crazy high corruption.)

[thrownthatway]

Thanks for decontextualising that paragraph by not including the following paragraph.

I really appreciate it, keep up with the good work.

Bloody Clippers.

You always got to watch out for the Clippers, they’ll take whatever you say or write and clip it out of context and make it mean something completely different to what you really said.

The European Union will fall to Russia while they're looking for a USB-C charge cable that works, or looking for a charged swappable battery for their MANPADs.

[Toutouxc]

There’s nothing important in the last paragraph.

[eru]

> Thanks for decontextualising that paragraph by not including the following paragraph.

Eh, you know that people can just scroll up?

> The European Union will fall to Russia while they're looking for a USB-C charge cable that works, or looking for a charged swappable battery for their MANPADs.

Are you willing to bet on this?

[thrownthatway]

Yeah, sure, $10?

$10 says that by 2040 Europe will institute massive concessions to Russia for helping deal with the Islamic Caliphate in Europe.

Which wouldn’t have happened if Europe had been paying more attention to stuff that mattered, and less on which charge port people had on their phones.

[eru]

What odds are you offering?

At 1:1 I'm very willing to bet. We just need to nail down exactly what 'massive concessions to Russia for helping deal with the Islamic Caliphate in Europe' means in a way a neutral third party can adjudicate.