The world’s biggest mobile phone makers and network operators have backed plans to create a universal phone recharger. Most manufacturers now produce chargers which work only with their own devices.
The re-charger will consume 50% less stand-by energy than today’s cables, the GSM Association (GSMA), an umbrella group for the industry, said. The majority of new handsets will support the re-charger by 2012.
The mini-USB connector will be used as the common charging interface.
Every one of these companies must think they are Sony.
my money is apple not doing this.
My solution is simple. Stick with PDA Phones, they all use a Mini-USB attachment for a charger.
There’s my standard. :/ Not hard to make it happen if the industry gave a damn about consumers.
That’ll happen around the same time Duke Nukem Forever is released.
FTA: The re-charger will consume 50% less stand-by energy than today’s cables, the GSM Association (GSMA), an umbrella group for the industry, said. The majority of new handsets will support the re-charger by 2012.
Surely Al Gore won’t stand for Apple not taking part in this. He is on the board.
Why? What’s the motivation?
They are giving up profiting from semi-proprietary accessories. And I don’t buy they want to go green.
Many phone makers have been using the mini-USB connection for a long while, its just a pity their phone suck (motorolla).
I agree with EvilPoliticians; what’s the catch? There’s got to be some profits on the line here. And will the new charging attachments work in a car charging socket?
If they really want to promote standards, make plug-in headset jacks in a universal format. My bluetooth headset works fine but there are a lot of times I find a standard wired headset preferable – like when my bluetooth headset battery dies.
I thought I read a while back that they were planning to use micro-USB. Whatever.
And how does a charger consume less power than a cable?
So long as it’s designed by Apple it will be worthwhile. If the clowns who created the rat’s nest charger for PC laptops have anything to do with it, forget it!
#9 you mean the same apple that have patented (and will probably introduce before too long) a system that encodes (DRM) the device and its charger together so that you can only charge up your ipod/macbook with the charger it came with and NO others.
So if you ever need another charger you can’t just use one from an identical ipod, it HAS to be made by and purchased from an apple store so they can re-encode it to your hardware and charge you an extra 80%-300% over a nice cheap 3rd party charger.
God bless apple and their consistently consumer friendly attitude, it almost makes me want to kiss steve jobs on his cancer ridden ass.
#1, #4, #9 – Apple is not part of the group that created the standard, so they’re not going to play ball. Realistically, having their own port allows them a certain degree of sway over third party parts makers, and they’re never going to give that up.
As for Algore, I’m sure he’d hate the waste of throwing away all of those Apple-specific devices more than any power savings.
Right now, every time you buy a phone it comes with a charger. With universal chargers they can leave the charger out of the package and make $3.00 more profit.
Proprietary phone chargers. Obviously the phones’ maker/carrier see this as just another revenue stream, that they can exploit. And kept the design of a universal device, as a last resort to stimulate sales, for much later. This isn’t the first time such funny business has happened.
I got this small portable audio cassette player, years ago. And it had the tiniest DC plug hole I’d ever see (1.1mm). While all the generic power adapters were still only being sold two sizes larger. All one could do was buy a power adapter thru the brand maker. Which hadn’t even started offering it yet. So I constructed my own plug to work with an existing power module. A decade later, all the generic modules have an array of plugs that feature this smallest one. And BTW, it wasn’t a Sony cassette player. It was a Sanyo. But I’m sure all the brands chose the tiniest DC socket they could. Just to sell power adapters.
It’s about time they did this.
It’s about time. Now when are they going to do the samething for laptops?
I would also like to see laptops that can use a bank of replaceable NIMH AA batteries
I don’t use a cell phone but do have mobile devices. My retired Palm Tungsten E recharged over mini-USB which was great. I dropped Palm because the E2 doesn’t use mini-USB for charging.
And what’s this about Apple? I’ve got three Apple devices, all charge over different connectors and all are proprietary. They don’t seem to be better or worse than anyone else.