The EU has enough problems right now, they don't need to try and help Apple design iPhones.
Meanwhile, I have a box full of chargers for all kinds of old stuff. Replacing them all with 1 standard is great. And USB is doing just that, not only for cell phones but for all kinds of gadgets. Even if I only require an USB micro and an USB C charger, that's a ton of chargers not in my house, and a ton of time not hunting around for the right one.
The main problem here is Apple. The EU went to all cellphone makers and told them to either agree to a standard voluntarily, or the EU would decide from them. This kind of process is quite normal for technology decisions in europe, BTW. Most manufacturers agreed on an USB variant( might have been micro at the time, don't know if C already existed ). Apple refused to join the club or come with an other acceptable proposal.
If a kid refuses to play along, the adults have to force the situation. The kid might not like the result and whine a bit afterwards. What surprises me is that it took so many years before this happens.
Europe is technologically backwards. They got destroyed by Shenzhen and Silicon Valley because their bureaucrats keep rolling in with this sort of idiocy. They feel a need to bring this backseat design process because their local companies aren't up to the challenge of competing with more-nimble American megacorporations.
Their phone company (Nokia) was the market leader until they got wrecked by an inability to innovate. This policy will make that outcome even more likely for European companies.
Then to add insult to injury, Huawei comes along and showed that they could operate at any standard you care to ask them to. If you get outcompeted by authoritarians and communists, it is worth asking what is wrong with your economic policies.
I suspect that forcing modular designs would not have helped the Europeans get products out that consumers wanted.
Until they got wrecked by ex-Microsoftie North American Steve Elop - who drove the company agains the wall so hard that many people who looked at it at the time said that it couldn't have been accidental...
They didn't bring Elop in because they thought they needed a steady pair of hands. They'd been caught out doing what great-grandparent says they do - sticking to the herd, playing safe, doing things the standard way and not innovating too hard.
Also consider: USB-D is going to have a much harder time reaching the market penetration it needs to be relevant. It creates a chicken and egg problem. No manufacturer will want to upgrade if they are required to use USB-C, and the EU will never update the legislation if USB-D isn't widely used.
The EU has traded some extra convenience now for severely limited innovation later.
USB B micro was what the manufacturers were deciding amongst themselves (except Apple). The EU would not have created a law if they managed to agree, and some representative industry consortium could then upgrade the standard on their own. Nobody likes how the situation is forced now, including the EU. Apple foolishly fucked over everyone.
Also note that USB 4 had no touble reaching market penetration, as it was backward compatible. A backward compatible connector is still possible. So is multiple charging methods like wireless charging. It's just that a minimum has been enshrined in law.
They let the industry regulate itself before regulating, Apple didn't play ball, leading to samsung saying either regulation or we do our thing too, so, regulation.
I prefer a slightly worse technical solution and a regulation that needs to be updated every few years, than every phone going back to the waste hell that used to be the cellphone charger/cable market.
Thank goodness for the EU parliament, protecting their citizenry from accidentally being exposed to the best technical outcome? Wouldn't want that. If people can't confidently say that the EU is making the best technical choices then the EU shouldn't be legislating technical outcomes. And they can't say that, because this isn't going to be the best choice - the best choice is flexible and context dependent. There are going to be better options than USB-C in some use cases. Possibly many use cases as technology improves. The legislators can't see the future - if they could they'd make better decisions.
I bet this doesn't have any material difference on waste. People will still lose and throw charges out at the same rate they always have. And manufacturers are going to turn out to be less efficient, the market is absolutely cut-throat at dealing with manufacturing processes that generate unnecessary waste. It won't be better than it is now, and they've locked out anyone doing a cheaper and less material-intensive charger than USB-C.
That is a nice way to completly miss the point and how we got there, but you do you.
> I bet this doesn't have any material difference on waste.
I bet it does, you're again missing the point, it's about not going back to what we had before, and what we have now made a significant different to what we had before.
> the market is absolutely cut-throat at dealing with manufacturing processes that generate unnecessary waste.
Ah ah ah ah. Pretty much every phone until very recently had a paid of low quality headphones that were instantly thrown out or put in a box and forgotten, and it only disapeared because jack is going away, so your own exemple doesn't work.
> There are going to be better options than USB-C in some use cases. Possibly many use cases as technology improves. The legislators can't see the future - if they could they'd make better decisions.
Yes, so the regulation will need to be kept up to date, just like regulations on things like food, pesticides, industrial processes, ... Still, parliament recognized the inferiority on the technical level of a system driven by regulation in this specific case and offered manufacturers to handle it themselves without involving them, but they couldn't (more specifically, apple refused).
Anyway, each his point of view, these people are elected and I personnaly consider this a big issue that I'm glad to see resolved by my representatives.
On what basis do you believe that? It probably isn't true, and nothing about this legislation will change the situation. They're still going to include headphones with the phone if they think it makes sense to.
> I personnaly consider this a big issue that I'm glad to see resolved by my representatives.
There is a land war in Europe right now, that triggered an energy crisis which could see governments toppled and reformed. We've already seen some pretty impressive elections in Italy and Sweden for example.
I put it to you that while you might see headphone jacks as a big issue worthy of their time you're a bit out of touch and your representatives could end up getting you killed if they agree with your priorities.
They're going to have to send investigators to more advanced foreign countries to figure out what charger to use.
The EU is never going to produce a charger that isn't backwards compatible with USB-C. They'd better hope nobody comes up with a cheaper alternative that catches on in Asia.
Creating something in isolation, with virtually no chance of it becoming "allowed" by an hostile state actor is nice, expensive, and thus won't happen. If you want to figure out if an idea works, lots and lots of field tests are what you want.
And yet, we managed to also adopt USB-C after that.
This is a law that mandates USB-C.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_external_power_supply
So the fear that somehow the EU will freeze in time while the rest of the world adopts futuristic connectors is unfounded.
As a EU citizen I benefit each time EU forces big companies like banks, telecoms to do the right thing for the citizens and be just a tiny bit less greedy. I was not on HN when telecoms were regulated to have small roaming charges , or when companies were forced to print clear information on their product labels, or when banks were forced to have some limits on the ATM charges but something tells me americans predicted a big collapse in EU and that we will have no telecoms and banks anymore. But reality shows that for telecoms we have even better prices then US, so for some reason regulations did not collapse this giants.