Nokia Design Guru Urges Apple To End Cable Chaos 791
An anonymous reader writes "Nokia's former head designer has called on Apple to work with the broader technology industry and end its policy of having proprietary connectors for its device chargers and accessories. Other experts say Apple cannot continue to go it alone with Lightning Connectors and ignore Micro USB."
Oh, I totally agree... (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, and before you accuse me of being an Apple fanboy. I'm still on a non-Lightning iPhone and if it wasn't my employer who paid for my phone, I wouldn't even have a smartphone.
Re:What's their problem? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What's their problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
Micro-usb 3.0 is so awful, Lightning makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:European regulations (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple uses the charge port/connection for handling all of the accessories and controlling what goes on the market for their phones while also getting a nice chunk of change in licensing fees.
If they are forced to comply with the European regulators, my bet is they will just add a micro USB-B port to the side of the device that is only connected for charging period while keeping their proprietary connector for everything it does now. I predict it will also be in an inconvenient location say the right side of the phone. And it may only be done for phones intended for orginal sale in Europe (although that is more dependant on sales volume their vs. supply chain cost/impact).
Either way they are going to do their best to comply with the letter of the law, and keep every bit of their business model and revenue streams intact.
I'd actually be willing to put money on this one,
Re:Oh, I totally agree... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Oh, I totally agree... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh, I totally agree... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh, I totally agree... (Score:2, Insightful)
It'd rather see all phone manufacturers switch to the Lightning connector instead.
Ah, but even phone manufacturers did adopt Lightning connector and it sold cheaply, Apple would design a new Thunder connector to once again sell them at $30+ each
It's not the question of who has the better design -- it is that Apple intentionally keeps their connectors completely incompatible with the rest of the phones.
Re:Oh, I totally agree... (Score:4, Insightful)
Neither microUSB nor Lightning meets these requirements. If Nokia wants to fix this, they should get together an industry group to design and agree to use such a connector. Don't complain at Apple, design a better connector than the Apple one, get everyone except Apple behind it, and market the hell out of it. Make every non-Apple phone have a big sticker on it saying that it supports the standard connector and list the features that make it better than the Apple one.
Re:One Apple got right (Score:2, Insightful)
One that Apple did right was the headphone jack with the mic. If you want to see a bad selection of incompatible devices, try the multitude of cell phone wired headsets. Nokia was just as bad as the rest. My old Nokia phone had a connector that did not match anything by anybody else. Apple wired headsets, earbuds with mic, etc work fine on Motorola and other phones and some tablets. I first saw that configuration on Apple phones. It would be nice to unify on chargers. Motorola has a standard connector, but it does check for an authorised charger.. bummer. Plugging in a charger and the phone display unauthorized charger is the pits when you are low and borrow one away from home.
It will charge from a PC - if nobody is logged in on Windows7, and it will charge from Linux. Wierd. Not sure why I have to log out of Windows to charge the phone.
Re: Oh, I totally agree... (Score:5, Insightful)
The difference being that Apple makes it very difficult for third party manufacturers, while the USB consortium are keen to get broad industry support. For Apple the patent seems to be used to exclude competition, while the USB patent holders and USB manufacturers are engaged in reciprocal and royalty-free licensing arrangements.
From a libre point of view, a patented standard is not the same as a patent-encumbered standard; the difference lies in the licencing.
Re:Oh, I totally agree... (Score:5, Insightful)
Micro-USB, while ubiquitous, is rather fragile and has orientation.
This.
What complete muppet designed USB, a frequent plug-unplug connector by nature, to have orientation?
Yep (Score:5, Insightful)
If Apple's issue really was that micro USB was too fragile, well they could have introduced a new, standard, connector to fix that. Design a "mobile USB" standard, that is durable, orients either way, integrates pins for HDMI, etc. Get it all nice n' designed and tested, then hand the design over to the USB Group, royalty free (like all USB standards). Particularly if it was going to be part of new Apple phones I don't imagine that there'd be a lot of resistance to adoption.
The EU's mandate doesn't come from a love of micro-USB, but rather the need for a standard, whatever that is. Micro-USB is the best we've got and the most prevalent, so that is what they are going for. If there was a better one out there, particularly if you could show how increased durability could lead to longer life and less waste, I think it'd have a good chance of being the standard.
However Apple has no interest in that at all. Their new connector wasn't made because micro-USB is so bad, it was made because Apple desires to be the only place you buy Apple accessories.
Obligatory xkcd (Score:4, Insightful)
If Nokia wants to fix this, they should get together an industry group to design and agree to use such a connector
XKCD tells you about what happens when you promote a new standard to supersede previous ones [xkcd.com].
Re:Oh, I totally agree... (Score:2, Insightful)
i think you mean 98. and I didn't think usb was ushered in by the imac in any sense because.. eh, who used 3rd party mice or keyboards on imacs? fucking nobody! and what did they use for video, ipods etc for several years before dropping it? firewire.. it was just a cheap way for them to get a bus for mice and kb that they could get cheap parts to instead of their own crazy adb - adb chips for kb and mice would have const considerably more for them.. it was a miracle they didn't add a bend to the connector just to fuck with people.
microusb is good if you just want some power in and be compatible with what most people have...
microusb would not have enabled them to chip their fucking _cables_ without an outcry though(now if you want to protect from bad _chargers_ chip the fucking _chargers_ and not the cable!).
(and you can squeeze some extra pins on the microusb if you want for video and what have you.. some manufacturers do it)
Classic EU bureaucracy (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's mandate an inferior standard and kill a superior standard so everyone can be the same on paper.
If you bothered to ask iPhone owners, you would find three things:
1. They enjoyed the same 30-pin connector for nearly a decade (a decade!) while other handset makers changed their connector and chargers for every new handset. They will likely enjoy the clearly superior Lightning connector for another decade.
2. They have no beef with their connector, or the cable - it works really well.
3. They don't care what Android is using or dream of having a compatible connector because they don't have an Android handset.
It's uniformity for the sake of a pencil pusher's concept of uniformity - not for consumers.
Re: Oh, I totally agree... (Score:5, Insightful)
The difference being that Apple makes it very difficult for third party manufacturers
On the contrary, they gladly help third party accessory while at the same time they lock out handset manufacturers as that's very effective a lock-in of their customer base. Someone that have spent USD300 on a Bose SoundDock are less likely to change to a different handset maker than they otherwise would be since a SoundDock without an iPhone/iPad it is just a very expensive paperweight.
This customer lock in via third parties would evaporate the very instant that Apple gave other handset makers access to their proprietary connectors. And while Apple have equivalents to many of the third party accessories, it would not be possible for Apple to keep it all in-house as people want/need more variety on their accessories than Apple can and want to offer.
Apple need 3rd party manufacturers more than 3rd party manufacturers need Apple.
Re:Frank Nuovo (Score:5, Insightful)
Nokia. Nokia. Where have I been reading about Nokia lately? Oh yeah, that was the world-dominating handset company whose senior team decided in 2007 that the Apple iPhone was not a serious threat to their existing business. And a few years later killed their potentially iPhone-competitive product line. Good source of techno-business insight without a doubt.
sPh
Re:Oh, I totally agree... (Score:2, Insightful)
What complete muppet designed USB, a frequent plug-unplug connector by nature, to have orientation?
Someone who wanted to make sure it was always plugged in the right way round?
Re:Oh, I totally agree... (Score:5, Insightful)
What complete muppet designed USB, a frequent plug-unplug connector by nature, to have orientation?
It was the genius who understood the product requirements for a ubiquitous, low cost and robust connector.
There are only two ways to avoid having orientation. You can have pins on both sides of the connector in a mirrored formation, or you can have a multiplexer in the device. Mirroring requires duplicate sets of pins, which means twice as many failure points and more PCB space dedicated to pads and signals instead of large anchor points to give the connector mechanical strength. It also increases cost. Multiplexers for high speed signals are not cheap either, and having a more complicated PCB layout for high speed signals also adds cost.
Lightning works for Apple because their products are expensive. It isn't suitable as a universal connector for all manufacturers. The genius of Micro USB is that it is cheap but also robust (the cables are designed to break in order to save the connector, which is rated at 10k cycles minimum) and supports very high speed signals like MHI/HDMI which the Lightning connector does not.
Re:Yep (Score:2, Insightful)
If Apple's issue really was that micro USB was too fragile, well they could have introduced a new, standard, connector to fix that. Design a "mobile USB" standard, that is durable, orients either way, integrates pins for HDMI, etc. Get it all nice n' designed and tested, then hand the design over to the USB Group, royalty free (like all USB standards). Particularly if it was going to be part of new Apple phones I don't imagine that there'd be a lot of resistance to adoption.
The EU's mandate doesn't come from a love of micro-USB, but rather the need for a standard, whatever that is. Micro-USB is the best we've got and the most prevalent, so that is what they are going for. If there was a better one out there, particularly if you could show how increased durability could lead to longer life and less waste, I think it'd have a good chance of being the standard.
However Apple has no interest in that at all. Their new connector wasn't made because micro-USB is so bad, it was made because Apple desires to be the only place you buy Apple accessories.
I disagree, the micro USB connector is a mediocre design at best. In fact both mini and micro USB are bad designs, they do not sit firmly in the socket and micro USB connectors have a tendency to break off the little plastic contact plate inside the socket. I look at that the Micro USB system and marvel at the fact that they managed to create a socket with a plug in it and a plug with a socket in it. There is nothing more annoying than to have an expensive USB device bricked by a broken micro USB socket or getting a brand new USB drive that you can hardly touch during a data transfer for fear of the connection breaking thanks to a crappy connector. There are actually devices with micro USB sockets that are so crappy you can push the micro USB connector into them up-side-down. You can say what you want about Apple but their Lightning cable is a better design than the micro USB connector. The Lightning connector is more robust, you don't have to check the orientation, it plugs in more smoothly and there is no fragile connector panel inside the socket that you can break off because Apple put it on the connector where it belongs. I do agree with you that I wish Apple would pull it's head out of it's own ass, donate the Lightning connector and make it an open standard.
Re:Oh, I totally agree... (Score:5, Insightful)
MicroUSB's orientation isn't the problem.
The horrible part of the design is that the orientation is something you can only tell with good eyes in clear light.
Why the hell you'd design a modern plug that way is beyond me.
Bias: fine, sometimes necessary. I might even say its a preferable simple-physical solution to requiring everything using the plug to have the extra few-cents' worth of circuitry to switch around the pin that's taking in power before it burns out your system completely. FAR simpler to have an L-shape or right triangle or SOMETHING that I can feel for in the dark and plug in without wrecking either my cable or the device.
Re:Oh, I totally agree... (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, there's also a third way, commonly used in audio cables: Make the plug and all contacts rotationally symmetric. That strategy might not work well for the type of signal USB carries (I have no idea if it does), but in terms of being rotationally symmetric, it can't be beaten. You can even rotate the plug while plugging it in.
Re:Yep (Score:4, Insightful)
I disagree, the micro USB connector is a mediocre design at best.
As compared to?
they do not sit firmly in the socket
all of mine do. in fact, I often have devices hanging by these connections. I wonder how many cellphones are hanging from uUSB connectors worldwide right now? I'll bet it's at least in the thousands.
and micro USB connectors have a tendency to break off the little plastic contact plate inside the socket
Contact plate? You mean the blade?
There is nothing more annoying than to have an expensive USB device bricked by a broken micro USB socket
Nothing?
There are actually devices with micro USB sockets that are so crappy you can push the micro USB connector into them up-side-down.
I've never seen one. Stop buying the cheapest possible shit.
Re: Oh, I totally agree... (Score:5, Insightful)
effectively destroyed any "lock-in" that it commanded.
Did they destroy it in favor of a design they do not own the rights to, or did the move from one design lock-in to another?
Hint: Not very much happened that invalidate my argument.
Re: Oh, I totally agree... (Score:5, Insightful)
Embedding a proprietary security chip in the cable so that the device can refuse to work with third party cables is helpful to third party manufacturers?
That's one weird-ass definition of helpful you've got there.
Re:Obligatory xkcd (Score:5, Insightful)
xkcd 301
Re:Sure. (Score:5, Insightful)
Because nobody will every try to make another new kind of USB connector.
There's a difference between "the existing standard connector doesn't have the features we need, so we will colleborate with the rest of the industry and design a new connector for everyone to use" and "the existing standard connector is unsuitable*, so we will develop our own connector and patent the hell out of it so no one can ever be compatible".
(* Why Apple thought the micro USB connector is unsuitable is debatable... many suspect it was considered unsuitable *because* they couldn't patent the hell out of it).
Re:Oh, I totally agree... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Oh, I totally agree... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:First world problems. (Score:5, Insightful)
Usually those extra accessories will try to take advantage of a unique feature in the phone, so even if the cable fits it doesn't mean the software will work with it.
USB is a standard. The USB on my kyocera will work on your HTC. That's what STANDARD means. "Sticking it to the Americans" is just stupid. Remember, Google's Nexus uses the same STANDARD mini-USB as everyone else's phones... except Apple, who seem to be taking a page from Microsoft's playbook.
Introducing the iLamp (requires iBulbs). See the problem?
Re:Oh, I totally agree... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's an open design that has been in use for years in most phones with no trouble at all. Why would it need to be tested further? The marketplace has shown that it meets its goals.
Re:First world problems. (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of these phones become obsolete before the need a new cable. Usually those extra accessories will try to take advantage of a unique feature in the phone, so even if the cable fits it doesn't mean the software will work with it.
Bullshit, every single usb charger I've ever owned has worked with every single non-Apple usb device without any issues. The whole point of this standard is so that every phone does work, hassle free, with every charger (in fact the only devices I've seen complain about usb charging are Apple devices, go figure).
Also just because almost all phones come with a charger doesn't mean you won't need to either replace it or buy a 2nd charger, and if you had a previous phone you already have a perfectly good 2nd charger with no need to buy another one because your new phone is incompatible.
You know what? I count being able to borrow anyone at work's usb charging cable and have it work on my usb phone as a good thing.
The EU Law on this is just one of their Lets just find a way to stick it to the Americans law, because they had a fit that Apple took over Nokia lead.
Or maybe the EU cares about doing what's good for consumers and not just what's good for the company that pays them the most money.
If Apple "needs" a proprietary connector then they can put both a micro-usb connector and their expensive proprietary DRMd [appleinsider.com] cable.
Re: Oh, I totally agree... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, Apple uses patents for what they're intended for - to keep competition at bay while capitalizing on their 'invention'. They developed their invention, they get to keep it. (off course that is before entering into a discussion on the MERIT of a patent which I personally think there is none in the field of mathematics (software) or science)
The USB manufacturers use their patents to capitalize on standards. Every time you implement USB you got to pay a couple of cents to someone who is totally not involved in your design process simply because they bought somebody else's idea. It's perverse to think about it because if you do think up a similar solution, it's thoughtcrime. They didn't develop any hardware, they didn't think about it, they don't even sell you any hardware. USB patent holders and manufacturers are indeed in reciprocal arrangements because they ALL have similar patents and they are ALL infringing on each other, that's how ubiquitous and general these "inventions" and patents are that they rather not fight each other in endless court battles because they all know once they do, half their patent portfolio will be destroyed. But if you're not in the select group of patent holders or manufacturers, you don't get to benefit from these arrangements. You can't 3D print a USB-like connector because you're in violation of someone's patent, you have to buy them from a select number of manufacturers, if you're not big enough to fight them you're shit out of luck. But hey, it's a "standard", let's legalize these solutions so the oligopoly can raise the prices from cents to full dollars.
Re:First world problems. (Score:5, Insightful)
in america we believe in something called private enterprise. where people can make products and sell them.
Rubbish, the US has plenty of standards. Would you like to see every home and apartment have its own proprietary mains power sockets? Every car manufacturer have its own type of filling nozzle? Every wi-fi router require a proprietary wi-fi adapter? Every TV and DVD player have its own proprietary video connector? No, I didn't think so. Why should phones be any different?
Remember that this [aliimg.com] was the free market's answer to phone charging, the EU decided that it was in citizens interests that a standard be set up so we don't have to deal with endless proprietary cables any more.
Re:Oh, I totally agree... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll tell you why this is so consumer-unfriendly. Sure, on the surface it seems convenient to re-use your chargers. But the state of the art now cannot change. What incentive does a manufacturer have to build a better connector? What if they had passed this stupid law in 2005, before micro-usb was invented? We'd be stuck with that horrible mini-usb port that only lasted for a couple thousand insertions by design.