Apple to Adopt Micro-USB Connectors for iPhone Charging in Europe

[Anuba]

You mean like Apple is forcing you to purchase Apple products (just read the OS X EULA)?

Did you know that it took 50.000 casualties (car crashes) in the USA before the US car manufacturers adopted the seat belt? And that it took nearly ten years before they did? Seems like regulations works after all

The big three fought against it for a long time, too. In stark contrast to Volvo, who made seat belts standard across their product line long before the Swedish government had implemented any regulations for it.

I just looked up Euro NCAP and Euro-5 which to me seems like perfect things to adopt for the US of A.

Yeah.

The EU is often the subject of flak from Americans who think that all our regulations are silly, socialist, anti-capitalist etc. The most recent example is that they're forcing Microsoft to ship Windows 7 without IE, in order to help level the field for competition between browsers. But honestly, what the EU is doing is very beneficial to consumers. If they smell a hint of monopoly or de-facto monopoly anywhere, they go after it with a sledgehammer. It keeps companies on their toes, the competition is fierce and the consumers have tons of alternatives to choose from. Here in my flat in Sweden I can choose between 24 Mbit DSL (standard for several years, they're rolling out 60 Mbit now) from a dozen different carriers, 50 Mbit cable modem or 100 Mbit fibreLAN (currently they're testing 1000 Mbit but it'll probably be a couple of years before I can get that here). Either solution costs about $30/month. 3G was rolled out in 2004-2005 and has been available from half a dozen carriers ever since. All carriers are required by agreement with the licensor (the government) to offer coverage all over Sweden so that no single carrier can corner the market in select parts of the country. We will have two iPhone carriers this summer, though I can't say TeliaSonera ripped me off when they had the exclusive iPhone deal... I didn't have to sign up for some draconian 24-month plan, I was able to buy the iPhone and keep my old plan, which I pay $3 (yes, 3 bucks) a month for + 3 cents per minute of talk time, then I added the optional unlimited data plan for $20/month. In other words I pay a total of about $25/month for my iPhone usage and I'm free to switch to any other carrier any time I want. When 3.0 enabled tethering I was able to use it instantly for no extra charge, and MMS was enabled too of course. This is by no means related directly to EU regulations, but TeliaSonera's approach is the result of operating in the EU climate. They bend over backwards to be nice and offer competitive pricing even when they technically have no competitors.

Meanwhile, in the "land of the free" you're stuck with some Soviet-style dinosaur called AT&T. They can charge whatever the hell they want (and boy do they ever), they implement new services long after the rest of the world... because they can. They wouldn't survive one week in the EU with that approach.

 

[b0ned0me]

Get some perspective, folks.

Total mobile handset sales for 2008 were about 1.22 BILLION units. Apple are a significant player by revenue because they make a high-end handset, but in terms of number of units (and therefore number of chargers) they are a tiny dust-speck on a hair growing out of a wart on a cow's backside. The amount of plastic, copper, energy and whatnot saved by standardising chargers is significant - hundreds of millions of wall-warts within just a few years. That may be an inconvenience to Apple and some of it's customers, but quite frankly that's just tough luck. Automotive standards aren't written to suit Bentley, and mobile phone standards aren't written to suit Apple.

 

[AtHomeBoy_2000]

I imagine the iPhone will ship with a "y adapter" that plugs into the dock connector. You plug the power into one part and a USB cable (for data transfer) into the other.

 

[trose]

The big three fought against it for a long time, too. In stark contrast to Volvo, who made seat belts standard across their product line long before the Swedish government had implemented any regulations for it.


Yeah.

The EU is often the subject of flak from Americans who think that all our regulations are silly, socialist, anti-capitalist etc. The most recent example is that they're forcing Microsoft to ship Windows 7 without IE, in order to help level the field for competition between browsers. But honestly, what the EU is doing is very beneficial to consumers. If they smell a hint of monopoly or de-facto monopoly anywhere, they go after it with a sledgehammer. It keeps companies on their toes, the competition is fierce and the consumers have tons of alternatives to choose from. Here in my flat in Sweden I can choose between 24 Mbit DSL (standard for several years, they're rolling out 60 Mbit now) from a dozen different carriers, 50 Mbit cable modem or 100 Mbit fibreLAN (currently they're testing 1000 Mbit but it'll probably be a couple of years before I can get that here). Either solution costs about $30/month. 3G was rolled out in 2004-2005 and has been available from half a dozen carriers ever since. All carriers are required by agreement with the licensor (the government) to offer coverage all over Sweden so that no single carrier can corner the market in select parts of the country. We will have two iPhone carriers this summer, though I can't say TeliaSonera ripped me off when they had the exclusive iPhone deal... I didn't have to sign up for some draconian 24-month plan, I was able to buy the iPhone and keep my old plan, which I pay $3 (yes, 3 bucks) a month for + 3 cents per minute of talk time, then I added the optional unlimited data plan for $20/month. In other words I pay a total of about $25/month for my iPhone usage and I'm free to switch to any other carrier any time I want. When 3.0 enabled tethering I was able to use it instantly for no extra charge, and MMS was enabled too of course. This is by no means related directly to EU regulations, but TeliaSonera's approach is the result of operating in the EU climate. They bend over backwards to be nice and offer competitive pricing even when they technically have no competitors.

Meanwhile, in the "land of the free" you're stuck with some Soviet-style dinosaur called AT&T. They can charge whatever the hell they want (and boy do they ever), they implement new services long after the rest of the world... because they can. They wouldn't survive one week in the EU with that approach.

So... jealous...

Paying $50/mo for my *maybe* 10Mbps Cable, and it's more often around 4-6Mbps. Also stuck with AT&T for my 3G iPhone...

I need to get to Sweden. The weather can't be any worse in Stockholm than it is here in Maine

 

[aristotle]

dongle would make sense, some sort of charge only function?

Micro USB "is" USB so it could charge and sync but for additional functionality like remote control signals and video/audio out, the dock connector and a dock would have to be used.

So Apple could just ship a small stub that plugs into the dock connector and provides a microUSB port on the other end to which you could plug in any microUSB cable or charger.

 

[Anuba]

So... jealous...

Paying $50/mo for my *maybe* 10Mbps Cable, and it's more often around 4-6Mbps. Also stuck with AT&T for my 3G iPhone...

I need to get to Sweden. The weather can't be any worse in Stockholm than it is here in Maine

Currently sunny and 29°C/81°F -- wish I could take my socialist convertible for a spin on our socialist roads, but alas I have lots of work to do.

BTW, didn't Obama have plans for some sort of government funded nationwide broadband infrastructure rollout? That's what we did in Sweden in the late 90's... that's why my grandma has a 100 Mbit connection she wouldn't know what to do with. The government owns all of Sweden below ground so it was a piece of cake for them, they could just use existing infrastructure like sewage systems etc. I think they spent a little over a billion $ to deploy fast broadband to all towns in Sweden, which was peanut money really, about 1/1500 of the state budget that year. Then the carriers just plug into that network and do whatever they have to do in order to get cheap broadband from the city limit into people's homes.

(OT, sorry).

So, is there any consensus on how Apple will implement this micro-USB stuff? So far I've heard

1) Replacing the 30-pin connector with micro-USB (not bloody likely due to loss of functionality)

2) Y-adapter type solution with a mini USB port *on* the dock connector next to the regular USB cable (too messy IMO)

3) An extra micro-USB port next to the 30-pin port (I don't see where they'd find the room, or how they'd make it non-ugly)

4) Replacing the full sized USB male plug with a micro-USB plug, still with 30-pin at the other end, and a micro-USB female on the charger (sounds weird and I don't see how this would comply with the standard at all)

5) The cable from the charger would have a micro USB plug at the end, which would plug into a white Apple-style 30-pin connector adapter, or any standard-compliant phone of your choice.

 

[aristotle]

One page previous in this thread, a German-language blog quotes an official statement by an Apple spokesperson, I tried to translate it:
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/7977109/

The iPhone's charger is the smallest and handiest one in the world. Very easy to transport. I hope they don't change it (or charge extra for it). I love to use the Apple AV cable for watching YouTube content on my TV set (or on almost any hotel room TV set in the world). I hope they don't change it.

For your information. Official PDF document:

MoU regarding Harmonisation of a Charging Capability for Mobile Phones
by DigitalEurope and the European Commission

I hope that the other companies "copy" Apple and offer a Micro USB to MicroUSB cable with a port on the charger so that if you do need a new charger, you could just by the charger portion and reuse the cable and I also hope that Apple just provides a small adapter similar to what was posted where one end has a male dock connector and the other has a micro USB port.

 

[nachotaco]

Apps should have nothing to worry about...

I don't think apps that use the 30 pin dock connector should have anything to worry about.

At the very least apple would have an adapter from mini usb to the 30 pin dock connector.

But for the majority of apps there shouldn't be a problem because the 30 pin dock connector already communicates fine with USB.... The current cable is a USB cable so it is proven that USB will work just fine in place of a 30 pin dock connector...

 

[Mekgek]

Huh? doesn't Apple already have this......???????

I assume the input for the adapter will be a USB port. So just use the 30-pin-Dock to USB cable thing to connect it to the adapter.........No extra cables needed

 

[fabianjj]

I don't really see a reason to get upset about this, I mean the micro USB connector is smaller, it can provide all the features the 30-pin connector can, and it will bring a lot of goodwill to apple. And this is not some unfair thing which makes apple the only one who have to change, I think nokia is the only manufactor in that list that uses micro-USB ATM, all the others have to abandon all their accesories and chargers as well.

Gosh (almost) everyone here seems to think Apple is the center of the universe.

By the way, if I'm not mistaken I believe it (originally at least before Apple was mentioned in this debate) headphone support was included in this specification, which is good but I'd rather have every phone sporting a 3,5 mm jack instead.

 

[aristotle]

I don't really see a reason to get upset about this, I mean the micro USB connector is smaller, it can provide all the features the 30-pin connector can, and it will bring a lot of goodwill to apple. And this is not some unfair thing which makes apple the only one who have to change, I think nokia is the only manufactor in that list that uses micro-USB ATM, all the others have to abandon all their accesories and chargers as well.

Gosh (almost) everyone here seems to think Apple is the center of the universe.

By the way, if I'm not mistaken I believe it (originally at least before Apple was mentioned in this debate) headphone support was included in this specification, which is good but I'd rather have every phone sporting a 3,5 mm jack instead.

Pro tip: Read the thread before responding.

Many of us have already explained that the 30 pin dock connector carries USB, control signals for integration with remotes on a dock/car system etc, audio and video. Did you notice that USB is in there but other signals are also included? While you technically could transmit audio and video over USB, you would have to share bandwidth with other data and the receiving device would have to know how to decode the digital data stream and convert it back to video. There could also be bandwidth limits that could affect the quality.

I am trhing very hard to not flame the hell out of you and nachotaco. USB is only a portion of the signals carried by the dock connector.

 

[mastgrr]

Meanwhile, in the "land of the free" you're stuck with some Soviet-style dinosaur called AT&T. They can charge whatever the hell they want (and boy do they ever), they implement new services long after the rest of the world... because they can. They wouldn't survive one week in the EU with that approach.

Anuba, I think you made a really good argument for the EU's harmonization efforts. I have to add another thing because it's relevant: the GPRS and the 3G system is standard by EU practice. All cell phone carriers in Europe use the same system - so all cell phones work with all other cell phone carriers.

People here are complaining about overregulation, when this really is voluntary (simply initiated by the EU Commission). Complaining about aesthetics, when it's at best miniscule (or no change at all). The fact that this is a great environmental procedure at heart seems to escape most people, which saddens me. Apple has Al Gore as a member of the board of directors, shows advertisements on TV that it has the greenest laptops of all, prides on its small packaging which is less wasteful and easier to transport, etc. Adding a micro-USB port (or support) is an Apple thing to do.

 

[Anuba]

USB is only a portion of the signals carried by the dock connector.

Right. Micro USB has 5 pins. It's good for data transfer and power, not much else. No video/audio out through an iPod dock, no remote control.

These are some examples of what the pins on the 30-pin connector are for...

Pins 3+4 = audio out L/R
Pins 5+6 = audio in L/R
Pin 8 = composite video out
Pin 21 = acccessory identification

Then again... remote control and audio via USB is already a staple of USB peripherals. It takes a bit of software on both ends of the cable, but that should be doable here. USB 3.0 might facilitate that even further, at least in terms of bandwidth. If they would extend such a standard to car accessories, I'm sure it wouldn't be long before cars had a universal micro-USB port where you can charge stuff or plug any cellphone or mp3 player into your car stereo and have them interact.

Anuba, I think you made a really good argument for the EU's harmonization efforts. I have to add another thing because it's relevant: the GPRS and the 3G system is standard by EU practice. All cell phone carriers in Europe use the same system - so all cell phones work with all other cell phone carriers.

Yup. Here's another cellphone related story from the EU...

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/BUSINESS/07/01/eu.roaming.cellphones/index.html

# New rules limiting cellphone "roaming" costs introduced across European Union
# Cost of making calls down to €0.43 per minute; cost of texting down to €0.11
# European Commission says new system could cut bill costs by 60 percent
# Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding: Commission has ended "roaming rip off"

This isn't about dictating what companies can charge, just for the heck of it. But if you're going to have an actual Union similar to the United States, with open borders between states and the ability for EU citizens to move around freely, you can't have phone carriers pretending like it's 1954 and going "oooooh, you just crossed the border between Belgium and the Netherlands, now we'll have to use very advanced and expensive rocket science to transfer your calls across the border".

 

[Kebabselector]

5) The cable from the charger would have a micro USB plug at the end, which would plug into a white Apple-style 30-pin connector adapter, or any standard-compliant phone of your choice.

My thoughts exactly......

Quick photoshop, I didn't have a micro USB socket to hand to use! (but the concept is the same)

 

[AidenShaw]

make it direct connect

My thoughts exactly......

Quick photoshop, I didn't have a micro USB socket to hand to use! (but the concept is the same)

I have a couple of questions about this adapter ides...

1. Won't an adapter change the problem from "anyone have an xG Iphone charger that I can borrow - I forgot mine" to "anyone have a µUSB to xG Iphone adapter - I forgot mine"?
2. Reading the report, it's a two-way affair. Not only must the Iphone have a female jack to accept the µUSB charging cable from the Samsung, but the Iphone charger must have a male µUSB plug to charge the Samsung

I know that Apple likes to sell $29 dongles to everyone, but to me it would seem like a small, easily lost dongle is not the best solution.

 

[aleksandra.]

Yup. Here's another cellphone related story from the EU...

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/BUSINESS/07/01/eu.roaming.cellphones/index.html

This isn't about dictating what companies can charge, just for the heck of it. But if you're going to have an actual Union similar to the United States, with open borders between states and the ability for EU citizens to move around freely, you can't have phone carriers pretending like it's 1954 and going "oooooh, you just crossed the border between Belgium and the Netherlands, now we'll have to use very advanced and expensive rocket science to transfer your calls across the border".

Just today I've got a text with new pricing... It's still a rip off . Kind of sad EU regulations are the only way of changing things in some countries.

 

[peters438]

Well people should be using their phones longer not throwing them out as soon as the new model comes out. And phone companies shouldn't be releasing new phones every other week encouraging upgrades just so they make more money.

So if people did what you said, there would be no reason to specially save the power brick from the landfill. And damn those phone companies, making products and encouraging people to buy them. The bastards!

But do avoid buying new things. I buy enough tech for several people anyway. Think of it like carbon offsets for technology.

Where is the rule written that technology has to be unfriendly to the environment? That short term profits and rapid advancement in technology are more important than the long term consequences? Technology companies are just making headaches for their children further down the line. A technology site is just the sort of place that environmental issues should be discussed.

There are plenty of cheap iPod port compatible products out there, and Apple has had several revisions of that port. There is nothing lasting about it. Is it because the standard does not come from Apple that you consider it fragile and short lived?

Honestly, the dock connector has done very well as a standard port across the iPod product line since the second generation iPod. I could charge my 1st generation iPhone with my 6-year old iPod firewire iPod charger and dock. Sure there have been changes to the dock to support different shapes of iPods, and some older accessories have been obsoleted. But that's technology.

 

[peters438]

I don't really see a reason to get upset about this, I mean the micro USB connector is smaller, it can provide all the features the 30-pin connector can, and it will bring a lot of goodwill to apple. And this is not some unfair thing which makes apple the only one who have to change, I think nokia is the only manufactor in that list that uses micro-USB ATM, all the others have to abandon all their accesories and chargers as well.

Gosh (almost) everyone here seems to think Apple is the center of the universe.

By the way, if I'm not mistaken I believe it (originally at least before Apple was mentioned in this debate) headphone support was included in this specification, which is good but I'd rather have every phone sporting a 3,5 mm jack instead.

But not quite. USB can't do video and audio output, as others have mentioned. And it's not a full fledged accessory connector, as I understand it, since USB is a host-based bus. Unlike firewire, where any device could talk to any other device, USB requires a host (typically the computer) for communication.

I think for the iPhone to use USB for accessory communication, it's USB circuitry would have to support host mode. Anyone with more knowledge of the USB spec?

 

[windywoo]

So if people did what you said, there would be no reason to specially save the power brick from the landfill. And damn those phone companies, making products and encouraging people to buy them. The bastards!

But do avoid buying new things. I buy enough tech for several people anyway. Think of it like carbon offsets for technology.



Honestly, the dock connector has done very well as a standard port across the iPod product line since the second generation iPod. I could charge my 1st generation iPhone with my 6-year old iPod firewire iPod charger and dock. Sure there have been changes to the dock to support different shapes of iPods, and some older accessories have been obsoleted. But that's technology.

"That's technology" isn't a great argument. The pace of technological change is determined by greedy companies competing against each other for profit, and greedy customers who demand a new buzz every 6 months or even less. This pattern destroys the natural world at an alarming rate, it can't continue indefinitely. Everybody knows this, but they choose to ignore it, because they love their TVs and phones so much.

In short, its people who set the pace of technological change, its not some written law of the universe that products should be out of date as soon as they're in the shops.

 

[Jaster Mereel]

This is good news that Apple finally agreed to this, but this isn't that big of news since the OMTP has already agreed on the micro USB connector as well. It is good that both entities have agreed on the same connector though. What I am worried about is if companies that make other phone accessories such as Bluetooth headsets will also adopt the micro USB as the default charging connector. If not, it'll be annoying as hell still but not so much annoying. I just want to take one charger to charge all of my devices. Actually, what I'll end up doing is getting a dual USB wall charger or car charger and then have two USB -> micro USB cables so that I can charge two devices at once.

 

[j26]

But not quite. USB can't do video and audio output, as others have mentioned. And it's not a full fledged accessory connector, as I understand it, since USB is a host-based bus. ....

There's nothing to stop Apple for creating a new Dock Connector that has a micro USB port on one side, and pins for audio/video etc on the other.

Then you could use micro USB for charging, but if you want the fuller connection, you use the new cable.

 

[JFreak]

I don't see Apple dropping the IDC, but it sure makes sense for them to agree on this universal charger thing. It will benefit everyone. What most of you seem to have forgotten is that Apple's *approach* to these problems has always been unique. Something that most of us will say "why didn't I think of that" or just simply stare at it in awe.

My prediction would be small protector-like stub that has mUSB connector on the back. Remove the stub and you have IDC. Really a win-win solution, because having that stub attached would keep dust out of the iPhone but still make it available to use IDC and features that are impossible with mUSB.

I cannot think of Apple just throwing features away because of this, therefore IDC will stay. But what's their solution in adding the mUSB charging feature remains to be seen.

It will be interesting for a while, then it becomes 2nd nature

 

[JFreak]

This is something like I imagined. Though the real Apple solution will either be something very much smaller (that you don't object keeping attached to your phone at all times) or one that has some kind of tight connector that almost feels like locked to the standard mUSB charger.

 

[whyhateapple]

the future

It's clearly stated in the future chargers won't be included with phones free of charge.

You can use someone else's charger without having to carry your cable with you even if you have different phones = more convenient. The best solution would be perhaps to split the standard in a charger with USB port and a micro-USB cable to connect the phone to it (or to a computer).

Well how about a new standard concerning batteries?!?!?! Today the most used batteries are AA and AAA size batteries and if every company used the same standard battery, think how cheap would it become to produce those things! Well, this was just a thought, standards are good if it does not bar innovation technically but yet help to reduce costs. Just remember the 80s. Sony pushed its Beta videos and VHS video cassettes were supplied by JVC. In the end, no government decided no standards, the market decided as it was supposed to be, or as it was not supposed to be. In the end, people used VHS for more than a decade (and surprisingly continues to be used in the United States!! as far as I have seen!! weird) Yet, for many years, millions of video player units that were sold playing BETA videos became obsolete after the standard war has ended.

Today, the same thing will happen after all, but not to us- consumers- but to producers in China, where, hundreds of millions of unnecessary chargers are being built -and just for cell phones- -and every year, yeah thats true, every year- are not going to be built after 2010. In fact, any production is made for the sake of a NEED, and NEEDS boost demand, and where demands meet the possible production frontier, there is a QUANTITY produced and sold, and an appropriate price for that quantity of product is being assigned. And believe me, that price was HIGH! The only cause for this was the market segmentation. Producers tried to segmentate the market, to protect their area against other producers, and even they segmentate the products between their brands. Take Motorola for. ex. The charger for Razr and the bluetooth headset are not the same. Same brand, same time but different chargers. They could have easily adopted the same charger but they did not. They only want us to buy more chargers, another charger for the car, another for travel/hotel, another desk stand/cradle and charger combination for the office.. And they make extra money on this. Think about this, the price of copper and plastic, and NO TECHNOLOGICAL COST for a charger, I think that would be roughly more than a dollar, at most 2 dollars. But they sell it starting from 10+ dollars at discount and up to 29 dollars at Apple.

All things I always believe to be economical, there was a force needed over the greedy corporations. Thanks to the Commission of the EU

 

[MorphingDragon]

The thought of having to move to USA to make the most money sends shivers down my spines. I dont want to leave EU/Japanese/Aus/NZ space but I do want to work for one of the big three... or Red Hat. Maybe Ill take up Japanese again and work in Japan. Those big numbers will make me feel extra special.
私は日本を愛する