The standard can be changed, it's just that manufacturers have to agree between themselves on the new standard. No involvement from the government is required.

They can make USB 4, 5,6, connector C, D,E,Z, whatever. That's fine. What's not cool, is creating proprietary connector and not letting anyone else use it.

Mind you they only have to agree on charging, not data transfer.

As to whether it's worth it: hard to tell, there comes a time in a technology's maturity where compliance with a common standard is more important than incremental innovation. The power sockets in your house are dtandard, and your power company and electrician are not allowed to innovate, because at some point we decided compatability was more important.

>The standard can be changed, it's just that manufacturers have to agree between themselves on the new standard.

If an agreement of all manufacturers is needed before introducing a new standard in production, it means that it will be delayed by the lowest common denominator of manufacturers until many years later. Which isn't good for the consumer, because they could've gotten a new superior charging standard on their phones many years earlier, as opposed to waiting multiple years until all manufacturers adopt it.

The agreement doesn't need to be unanimous. And it's fine for the agreement to be "just use whatever the latest small form factor USB collector is" which has been the de facto Android standard since the beginning.

It sounds like you're arguing that the lowest common denominator phone manufacturer will be holding up progress. But the connector is the easiest part, especially if it's a truly ubiquitous standard, because it will be heavily commoditized. The lowest common denominator phone manufacturer will just buy whatever the cheapest connector from China is, and this will almost always be whatever connector is most common.

My argument is that charging is at this point a mature technology, we have a charging standard up to 100w. Do you expect future phones to draw more? What possible improvements could future charging standard have, as far as a mobile phone goes?

And yes, it is pretty normal to have manufacturers sit round a table and agree standards -most ports on a computer, 4g wireless, etc.

You cant even come up with your own phone communication standard - countries allocate frequency specifically for 4g or 5g, none will give you a frequency band for a proprietary communication standard.

Apple can still implement proprietary technology in an USB-C charging cable that allows their phones to be charged much faster than others, as long as their device can still be charged by a generic cable and vice versa (without the added benefits).

Wow so now every time that Apple gets ready to introduce a new connector they have to wait for the entire industry to agree to it?

But guess what? Only the end connecting to the wall is standard, the end connecting to devices in the house are far from standard. How is this different than iPhones?

Usb type c is a connector type. Not a protocol, you are able to run different protocol through the same physical line as long as both side understands it. PD, HDMI, miniDP, PCIE, earphone, and probably other device run through the exact same line with different protocol. And vendor is also allowed to add their own one. Apple also don't need to accept all protocols above except charging. What is the point to introduce new connector type every single time you want to add new compatibility? To earn more money from selling gadget?

Yet the iPad has a different connector type for attached keyboards.

Are you saying that no one will ever need anything besides USB C?

I am not sure I understand your argument "my toaster does not have a standard connector, so neither should my iphone"? I mean, maybe they should, or maybe none cares to regulate toasters. Or maybe its only relevant to portable electronics, so laptops should have them but toasters shouldn't.

Think a bit broader - if apple wants to introduce a new phone communication standard, like 5g but different? It can't - frequencies are allocated for a specific purpose, and none will give you any for a proprietary protocol only you control.

This is not such a revolutionary idea if you look at a broader picture

If Apple introduced a phone that didn’t comply with the 5G standard it wouldn’t be able to interoperate and would be less useful.

But the government didn’t mandate that iMessage had to be compatible with SMS (even though it is somewhat) nor did they mandate that AirDrop had to interoperate with a standard.

Should the government also mandate a standard messaging protocol must be used or that it has to work with SMS?

Should FaceTime be forced to be interoperable?

Apple would not even be allowed to sell a phone that had a standard it invented in house, as it would cause interference with other radio equipment.

Radio frequencies are some of the most strictly regulated things on the planet, and misusing them will land you in jail in most countries.

The right to use radio frequencies are auctioned by the government. If Apple bought the rights to use the frequencies it could do whatever it wanted with them.

For instance, Sprint had WiMAX for 4G before they had LTE, two carriers have GSM and two have CDMA. The government didn’t mandate the protocols nor did they force the carriers to use the same protocol or the phone makers to support both.

You also had the proprietary Nextel push to talk.

Government absolutely do care what you do with the frequencies. The UK government auctioned 5G frequencies for a specific purpose. It took great pains to clear these frequencies, they weren't just lying around unused.

All the protocols you listed are open for adoption by various manufacturers. Apple absolutely would not be allowed to use them for a private protocol they keep to themselves. Airwaves are a public good, not private property. They even come with coverage obligations.

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/latest/media/media-rele...

But yet, we have an existence proof that a cellular carrier in the US - Sprint - had its own 4G protocol - WiMAX - that was only supported by Sprint

https://www.rcrwireless.com/20160401/opinion/worst-week-bold...

Not only that, even before Sprint acquired Nextel, Nextel was using the spectrum it had for its own proprietary wireless protocols and it wasn’t Big Government that killed either initiative - it was people exercising their own free will not buying Nextel phones and later WiMAX phones.

Most would link Sprint’s WiMAX decision back to its acquisition of Nextel Communications, which wrapped in 2005, and brought with it a significant load of 2.5 GHz spectrum licenses with specific build out dates. Nextel prior to being acquired had been testing various IP-based mobile broadband technologies, including various proprietary ones like Flash-OFDM and TDD-UMTS, as well as WiMAX and HSDPA.

> Should the government also mandate a standard messaging protocol must be used or that it has to work with SMS?

Wait, are there places in the EU where is SMS is still that popular?

Is this the new version of the old Slashdot meme - “Does anyone still watch TV? I haven’t owned a TV in 15 years.”

https://www.smseagle.eu/2017/03/06/daily-sms-mobile-statisti...

No I'm genuinely asking whether and where SMS is still that popular in the Europe (your link talks about US and "worldwide"). I know many/most people in the US use SMS text for messaging.

But as far as I'm aware in Europe everybody is on WhatsApp, Telegram or something similar that uses data. But maybe I'm wrong and there's still some holdout EU country still texting, that is why I asked. But they generally all have pretty good data plans.

You did see the part about 4.2 billion people use SMS daily? What’s the likelihood that that doesn’t include the EU.

This did happen 10 years ago, and they did standardize on micro-USB [0]. Use of the standard was voluntary, though.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_external_power_supply

And because it was only voluntary, Apple was able to innovate and create the lightning port which worked in either orientation and inspired the adoption of USB-C by the rest of the world

They could have proposed a USB connector which worked in either orientation to the USB implementers forum back in 2012, couldn't they?

And then wait 20 years for everyone to agree?

That is an order of magnitude exaggeration.

Lightning appeared in 2012. USB-C appeared in 2014.

20 years means we'd apparently still be waiting for another 12 years for USB-C. Hardly helps your argument.

USB-C is a complete mess. The physical appearance of the connector is nice, but the design by committee that resulted in invisible but critical differences is horrible. You cannot tell by looking at a cable or devices you are trying to connect or charge of the cable will provide the needed bandwidth or voltage. Two cables might look identical but one won't work at all for what you need and you have no way to tell.

As an example, I have had to purchase a very specific usb-c data cable for my 4K monitor so I can connect my MacBook with one cable. The standard cables which can charge are not able to carry data at the correct rate.

At the office, this was solved by giving me two cables - one for charge and one for data which connect to the DisplayPort.

The only thing as painful is the box of unlabelled hdmi cables I have that all works to varying degrees.

There is an easy solution to this, either require all cables be the same specs or require that cables have their specs labeled. It's already an improvement over the past where every device had a different cable, I can at least slow charge instead of no charge.

I don't know, I find out much worse that I might go to a store to buy a cable and then find out that it only charges very slowly and might not do data at all. I'd rather spend $15 bucks on a cable (or just carry the one that the devise came with anyway) and know it does what it's supposed to. Even after this legislation, I still need more cables anyways, since this only covers cellphones. My Kindle still uses micro-usb. Who carries around multiple phones by different vendors anyways which is the only issues this would solve. I'm generally neutral on regulation, but this is just completely pointless regulation that solves no real problem.

Presumably companies are a lot faster after one competitor is actually shipping a connector with dual orientation. What's the hurry if everyone has to wait for consensus?

I think it's a reasonable possibility that we would all still be waiting for dual orientation if this mandate had been in place back then.

It's a ridiculous waste & entirely unjustifiable environmentally, innovation or not.

Dual orientation vs carrying two sets of dongles & cables isn't a net win either, so don't think the innovation argument sticks either.

Why? The resolution states that the commission should make sure the standard can be updated as technology develops:

"[...] the Commission, without hampering innovation, should ensure that the legislative framework for a common charger will be scrutinised regularly in order to take into account technical progress; reiterates the importance of research and innovation in this domain to improve existing technologies and come up with new ones;"

This removes the incentives to innovate though. If you are found to have created the latest innovation surely there’s only two outcomes: either you can’t go to market or you are compelled to allow competitors to piggy back off of your technology en masse

When a technology matures, at some point standartisation becomes more important than innovation.

Power distribution, wall sockets and fire safety, fire hydrant connections were all unregulated and subject to innovation at some point. A fire engine from a different city could not connect to your water supply. At some point we decided that it wont do. We are gradually arriving to that point in software.

Are we at that point yet? The other thing about power distribution, wall sockets and fire safety is that they hardly ever change. If this had been in place 10 years ago, we could be stuck with micro USB.

Wall sockets are standard - but what about the other end?

My point is that at this point, benefits of standartisation outweight benefits of marginal innovation.

What are you actually saying? "if a toaster doesn't work off USB C, neither should an iPhone have to?

If consumers would agree, people would stop buying Apple products because of this. Apple would be forced by the market to adopt the same connector. Clearly none of that is happening because nobody cares. If it's a big issue for someone they can just not buy an iPhone. That option already exists.

I’m saying that the analogy is flawed. There has never been a mandate or standard for the device end of a power cord.

It's not an analogy, it's a general principle: we put a standard in place in important industries with mature technology. Your car has a standard interface to a petrol pump. Fire engine has a standard interface to a fire hydrant.

Some people believe it's time for a standard interface between a phone and a charger.

Those are all examples the market would solve really well. If some car manufacturer were to release a car that cannot be filled up at a regular petrol pump, nobody would buy the car. Those isn't happening with phones because clearly not enough people care.

> Those are all examples the market would solve really well.

Fire engines? No.

We don’t have to reach for other industries. Electricity in the home is definitely “mature” yet we never saw the need for the government to mandate a standard for a plug on the device end.

The "other end" almost always has IEC connectors in Europe. Is this not the case in your country?

If there's no regulation enforcing this, it's because the EU doesn't think it's necessary — the industry has agreed upon a standard without intervention.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_60320

> If there's no regulation enforcing this, it's because the EU doesn't think it's necessary — the industry has agreed upon a standard without intervention.

Which is exactly what the EU asked them to do with chargers, 15 years ago :) And then they didn't so here's the resolution.

And if they had done it even when the iPhone 5 came out in 2012 they would have been stuck with micro usb. Would that have served customers well?

Maybe it’s a good idea to let the market compete and come up with better ideas than the government mandating things....

I have multiple laptops and various other gadgets that use different connectors.

What a weird coincidence that the power cable to my desktop fits my flatscreen monitor! What are the odds that would happen by pure chance?!

And yet my power cable from my Dell laptop doesn’t fit in my work provider HP laptop. Not does the cable from my son’s Sony fit the XBox....

They can innovate to their heart's content, so long as the connector is compatible, and the legacy charging protocol still works. So e.g. if USB-C is the standard, Apple could still use Thunderbolt 3.

So they can innovate, so long as it is within a strict and limited set of boundaries. That is the very definition of stifling innovation

Because gov't moves as fast as innovation /s

You mean you miss the good old innovative days when every phone model had its own charger?

The days where you needed special proprietary software to access any part of your phone if you connected it with to a computer using its special cable?

I remember losing plenty of sms history and contacts when changing phones because the dedicated phone software was too old to run on my windows, and the dodgy program I found on the internet wouldn't work with my specific model.

I also remember how in these heady days of unbridled innovation my girlfriend saved her sms's by writing them down on paper. And this was a fairly sensible solution to the innovation rich state of the market, where every manufacturer and close to every individual model, was its own silo.

Seems like the free market solved all the probs you mentioned, so yeah.

No, most manufacturers switched to a standard so they wouldn't have a separate SKU for the EU market. Apple is fighting this because the rent seek hard on patents for their proprietary connectors.

Apple could define an USB-D standard tomorrow and use it for their phone charging cables, as longs as they allow other companies to use the same standard.

I don't think it works that way. They need to actually agree, use it, and you can't switch every day.

It's good that they don't. I'm fine waiting a bit longer for a slightly better charger port.

An IETF-style process to swap to a new standard, presumably.

Which will be captured by a bunch of manufacturers who like to innovate on "cheapest / crappiest" and who will outvotes the one manufacturer who actually innovates on "best"...

As a customer, I'd like to keep the option for "best."

Presumably that's why you are still using SNA to network your machines.

Micro USB would be kind of mediocre. But if the rule had been in place 20 years ago, cell phones today might be featuring SCSI connectors.

And of course, all laptops would be mandated to have VGA connectors, eliminating a ton of conference room presentation guesswork.

Why would you use SCSI to charge a phone? It'd be a standardized power connector, probably like those small round ones that are used for all sorts of household appliances.

Similarly, your projector is already using a standardized power cable: The one that goes into your wall socket.

For cables that don't terminate with a regular 2/3 prong on the other end, there are a few standardized shapes there too. My monitors and PC PSUs all take the same sort of connector on the non-wall-socket end even if they pull different amperages.

The charge ports of cellphones have almost always had data capabilities built in.

Old Nokia chargers disagree with various barrel connectors. It is not like "Anyone with thin-barreled Nokia charger?" was in the distant past.

Correct, thus my use of "almost always". For an example of an earlier dual purpose port, the Sony Ericsson line from 2000.

> But if the rule had been in place 20 years ago, cell phones today might be featuring SCSI connectors.

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/RC-9-2020-0070...

"5. Points out that the Commission, without hampering innovation, should ensure that the legislative framework for a common charger will be scrutinised regularly in order to take into account technical progress; reiterates the importance of research and innovation in this domain to improve existing technologies and come up with new ones;"

The law doesn't define the protocol. Apple could introduce USB-D as superior standard provided it is not proprietary. If this is a superior standard, other companies will adapt it too, becoming the new standard charger.

I believe you are mistaken. The EU resolution calls for the development of "a common standard" (to be updated from time to time): https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/RC-9-2020-0070...

Implementing a different standard, even if it is non-proprietary, won't do.

They call on the industry to agree on a common standard. 15 years ago. They explicitly do not mandate the protocol.

> How would it have been possible to advance to the next generation of technology like USB-C.

The law does no say what a common charger is. Manufacturers are free to migrate to a new standard.

Presumably it is on the Commission to decide that USB-C is to be the next standard, and only then will there be a proposal for a law. (We are not yet talking about a law.)

> Presumably it is on the Commission to decide that USB-C is to be the next standard, and only then will there be a proposal for a law.

No, it literally says they're calling on the industry to agree on a common standard.

That didn't happen with the USB-A charger either.