<story><title>EU: Call to introduce common charger for all mobile phones</title><url>https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/agenda/briefing/2020-01-13/13/call-to-introduce-common-charger-for-all-mobile-phones</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>Renaud</author><text>Apple really dropped the ball on this and the argument they make (thing about all of the old accessories!) is pretty moot for the consumer.&lt;p&gt;I want all phone to standardise on USB-C. No adapter for Apple, no exception.&lt;p&gt;The point is not just about charging: accessory manufacturers have to develop 2 physical versions of their equipment, for Apple devices and for Android devices.
This increases development and manufacturing costs and restricts the use of the accessory to a single system.&lt;p&gt;Having more USB-C accessories would also force Apple to increase compatibility with a broader range of accessories. For instance it&amp;#x27;s impossible to use an off-the-shelf USB drive and connect it to an iPhone to, say, dump pictures to it.&lt;p&gt;If the iPhone had a standard USB plug, it would be harder for Apple to ignore the perfectly reasonable expectation that plugging in a drive should allow you to do something useful with it.&lt;p&gt;Today the fact that lighting is not a common port means that you have to buy a &amp;#x27;special&amp;#x27; USB drive with a lighting port and then have to find some app that takes advantage of it.</text></comment>
<story><title>EU: Call to introduce common charger for all mobile phones</title><url>https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/agenda/briefing/2020-01-13/13/call-to-introduce-common-charger-for-all-mobile-phones</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>jacknews</author><text>Didn&amp;#x27;t the EU force phone makers to standardize on USB a couple of decades ago?&lt;p&gt;It was an absolute nightmare before that with every brand having completely different connector, voltage etc.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not sure how Apple got (and are getting) around this.</text></comment>