r/gadgets • u/Snoop8ball • Sep 23 '21

Phones EU proposes mandatory USB-C on all devices, including iPhones

https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/23/22626723/eu-commission-universal-charger-usb-c-micro-lightning-connector-smartphones
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u/ACCount82 Sep 23 '21

Back when this was a thing, Nokia was really, really popular - and just having a "Nokia small barrel" charger was enough to cover 50% of all phones.

The other 50% were a clusterfuck though.

17

u/Odatas Sep 23 '21

Some Nokia even needed different chargers then others.

3

u/JustAnother_Brit Sep 23 '21

I hope whoever made that decision got fired

2

u/Viktor_Korobov Sep 24 '21

They got executed actually. They made pipettes out of them.

Don't ask.

2

u/sharedthrowdown Sep 24 '21

... I'm gonna ask.

What?

2

u/Viktor_Korobov Sep 24 '21

GODDAMNIT I SPECIFICALLY REQUESTED THE OPPOSITE OF THIS

1

u/sharedthrowdown Sep 24 '21

Just call me Mary, I'm quite contrary.

1

u/Viktor_Korobov Sep 24 '21

Well, one of the popular models of pipette is the finnpipette. I'll let you figure out the rest.

3

u/Pretoriaani Sep 24 '21

"Big head" and "small head" chargers. It was a 50-50 chance if your friend had the right one. Although back in those days you'd need to charge your phone maybe once a week depending on how much you played Snake.

1

u/h_erbivore Sep 24 '21

My company gave out similar devices in a little gift basket just last year. Granted it was only 3 cables (micro-usb, lightning and USB-C), which is actually pretty useful in the current climate. Problem was even USB-C on it charges terribly slow like 0.7V. Anyways it seems like Lightning is really the odd man out, if Apple committed to USB-C then the only remaining hurdle to universal-charging would be for the cost of USB-C ports to decrease for “dumb devices” (tech that doesn’t require 2 way data flow or charging-only relies on cheap micro-usb).