[seanmcdirmid]

Yes, let's just limit ourselves to standardized connectors, innovations sucks and we are tired of change. Now please get off my lawn. /sarcasm

Just let the free market decide things like this, it is extremely efficient at that. Right now, Apple still sells loads of iPhones without using a standard connector. And frankly, I think my wife's iPhone 5 plugs in a much better way than my more standard Nokia 925 does.

[claudius]

> Just let the free market decide things like this, it is extremely efficient at that.

Yes, it absolutely did not take an EU intervention to standardise mobile phone chargers on Micro USB, instead, the manufacturers recognised that it is a good thing to get rid off proprietary chargers as consumers all only bought the phones with the standardised chargers.

Or are you saying that needing a new, different, charger for your phone is actually a good thing™?

[seanmcdirmid]

But your point is? Apple is able to satisfy this requirement easily with a cruddy adapter (the cable actually).

Anyways, if apple's solution is simply better than the android micro USB solution, who wins?

[mikeash]

Apple wins, while the rest of us get stuck carrying around a wide variety of cables for no good reason.

The argument that the free market will find a solution works when competition is allowed. It doesn't work when every company who isn't Apple is legally prohibited from adopting Apple's connector.

[seanmcdirmid]

There is quite a good reason to carry around an apple cable. The connector is just better than micro-USB. The better arguments are that Apple should share their innovations with the rest of the industry so they can all have good connectors, but why should Apple even do that?

[mikeash]

Actually, the question isn't why Apple should share their innovations, but why the rest of us should enforce Apple's desire not to share. Would Apple really have refrained from developing Lightning without the ability to control it? Are we better off granting them this power?

[seanmcdirmid]

Apple would have refrained from developing Lightning if it didn't give them a competitive advantage. I think that is obvious. Why would Apple just donate Lightning to the rest of the industry? How would we as consumers reward them for such altruism?

That I give Apple the power to develop innovative proprietary solutions is a choice I personally make and I want the freedom to make. Why should everyone be forced to buy Android? So the idealists don't feel bad about their standard but hard-to-use connectors?

[claudius]

> Anyways, if apple's solution is simply better than the android micro USB solution, who wins?

I win, because I don’t have to buy a new charger for every phone, because I can use standard USB cables to charge my phone and because said USB cables are ridiculously cheap; allowing me to carry one cable to connect my phone, my camera and 90% of my other gadgets to my computer (the rest using eSATA).

Frankly, I don’t care whether Apple’s solution is ‘simply better’ if it is only available for Apple’s products and hence necessarily restricted to a small percentage of the overall market.

[pessimizer]

Even better, lets create a new proprietary system for every innovation (or arbitrary change), because the market is great at forcing interoperability between proprietary systems. Why wouldn't it be? The alternative would be a monopoly, or a broken, inefficient industry - and avoiding that is always primary in each individual actors' mind.

And frankly, the picture on my eTeeVee(TM) is much better than the picture on my Samsung, even though it isn't compatible with OTA or cable standards.

[seanmcdirmid]

So you'd rather force the decision on apple rather than let consumers decide? Or are you claiming that apple has a monopoly on smart phone designs that don't suck, and they are abusing that?

[lucian1900]

Yes, it is a nice plug. No, it should not be proprietary. While Apple are entirely within their rights to keep it proprietary, it is in everyone else's disfavour, particularly their customers.

[ddeck]

It is efficient at generating the best outcome for the company in isolation, but that may not be an optimal outcome for society as a whole - externalities are typically not priced into the product.

For example, consider the 51,000 tonnes of redundant chargers that were estimated by the GSMA to have been distributed in 2008 prior to the common charger initiative[1]. One can argue that the costs of landfill, carbon impact (est 13-22 million tonnes/yr), pollution effects etc. should be priced into the product, but the reality is that they are not.

I have no view on the iPhone connector vs uUSB, but standardization has enormous benefits for consumers and society as a whole, and typically it takes an external agency to "encourage" it.

[1] GSMA analysis from UNEP, Gartner, European Commission Integrated Product Policy Pilot on Mobile Phones, University of Southern Queensland data.

[clauretano]

Regarding redundant chargers and their carbon impact: wouldn't it be wonderful if with every non-apple device using MicroUSB, devices didn't all come with a USB to Micro-USB cable and a mains to USB transformer?

Surely many of us have drawers full of these bits and only really need one or two to keep all our devices topped up.

[fps]

Unfortunately, they keep increasing the minimum charge amperage on devices, so the micro USB charger I got with my first android phone won't charge my newest one.

[arjie]

Apple's Lightning port is protected by law. No free market can exist while such a law exists.