Re:Google says it will run entirely on renewable energy in 2017
by forsberg on Tuesday December 06, 2016 @04:50PM
(#13118645)
Actually they do follow the EU regulation. It states that the power adapters use the standard USB connector which Apple complies with. What you're thinking about is the cable between the adapter and the phone/tablet/whatever, and that cable isn't part of the regulation, only the power adaptor.
Re:Google says it will run entirely on renewable energy in 2017
by ghostly_s on Tuesday December 06, 2016 @06:33PM
(#13119228)
> The European Standardisation Bodies CEN, CENELEC and ETSI (independent of the OMTP/GSMA proposal) defined a common External Power Supply (EPS) for use with smartphones sold in the EU based on Micro-USB. [...] Apple, one of the original MoU signers, makes Micro-USB adapters available – as permitted in the Common EPS MoU – for its iPhones equipped with Apple's proprietary 30-pin dock connector or (later) Lightning connector.[1]
Nonetheless, framing ones' opinion of Apple's sustainability practices on this one pet issue seems quite myopic. The actual sustainability complaint stems from the alleged poor durability, not the choice of connection; but even if we accept that criticism, replacing charging cables occasionally seems like small drop in the bucket vs. the company's environmental impact as a whole.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#Mini_and_micro_connectors
Every other phone or tablet sold in the E.U. has a sensible power adaptor, usually the mini USB flavour. Apple though, they don't think the law applies to them, or at least not the spirit of the law, so they keep churning out these Apple only power adaptors complete with the cables that fray and break a lot easier than normal cables.
Sure the data centres may be green but the landfill is not. Meanwhile, Google (who have far larger and more useful data centres) have been providing E.U. compliant power adaptors (or lack of) since the first Nexus phones, if not a long time before.