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0 pointsavar2y ago0 comments

Couple of years? The only mention I can find of a review is every 5, per[1].

I assumed the directive had some "go with the flow" upgrade path, but after reading the directive I can't see any wording to that effect.

If the USB-IF depreciated USB-C in favor of a USB-X the EU's directive wouldn't change, the only "upgrade path" appears to be that the commission will "asses" whether the directive should be changed every 5 years, starting in 2025.

I think the EU should have done something about Apple's insistence on their own custom connector, which is clearly only there to create a moat at this point.

But it also seems like if we'd had this law 10 years ago we'd still be using micro-USB everywhere.

Who in the EU bureaucracy is going to risk their neck in approving a new connector, which might become the next industry standard, but might also be a rubber stamp approving future Apple-like fragmentation.

1. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=uriserv%...

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delecti2y ago

Looking at the USB connector history, it actually looks like most plausible "what if this was adopted X years ago" would have resulted in USB-C being adopted even earlier. The USB-C spec was finalized in 2014, and I had my first phone with USB-C in 2016. It's hard to come up with a timeline where a requirement for Micro doesn't get replaced by C in that time window, while not getting us ahead of where we are now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_hardware#Connector_types

avarOP2y ago

We can imagine that micro-USB got standardized in 2015, so in anticipation of that the first USB-C phone I bought that year came with micro-USB instead.

The law would then have been reassessed in 2020, at which point some EU bureaucrats would have had to weigh "reversible connector" etc. on one hand, and "take the career fall for forcing half a billion people to buy new chargers" on the other.

I'm pretty sure that in this scenario I'd still be using micro -USB in 2050.

I live in the EU, and I can't even drive two countries over without encountering incomparable electric sockets, and that's 19th century technology.

I think that says something about how willing the EU is to standardize, v.s. rocking the boat.

delecti2y ago

If the law had been passed in 2015, they probably would have picked USB-C as the newly finalized, and increasingly adopted, standard. Micro had already started to show its flaws by that point. Also, it's not like everyone in the EU needs to buy a new charger overnight; plenty of people would have a while before their next replacement, and plenty of others would have already gotten some other peripheral with the new port.

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nordsieck2y ago

> Who in the EU bureaucracy is going to risk their neck in approving a new connector, which might become the next industry standard, but might also be a rubber stamp approving future Apple-like fragmentation.

It's easy to do if there are regions in the world that aren't so tightly regulated. Then they can just look at what works elsewhere. If USB-D comes out and the rest of the world moves to it, it's a no-brainer for bureaucrats to get behind the switch.

It's much more complicated if the rest of the world fragments into say... 3 different standards that are all better than USB-3, but are mutually incompatible.

revelio2y ago

You might call it a five year plan. Funny how those crop up so often!

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 pointsavar2y ago0 comments

Couple of years? The only mention I can find of a review is every 5, per[1].

I assumed the directive had some "go with the flow" upgrade path, but after reading the directive I can't see any wording to that effect.

I think the EU should have done something about Apple's insistence on their own custom connector, which is clearly only there to create a moat at this point.

But it also seems like if we'd had this law 10 years ago we'd still be using micro-USB everywhere.

1. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=uriserv%...

0 comments

delecti2y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_hardware#Connector_types

avarOP2y ago

We can imagine that micro-USB got standardized in 2015, so in anticipation of that the first USB-C phone I bought that year came with micro-USB instead.

I'm pretty sure that in this scenario I'd still be using micro -USB in 2050.

I live in the EU, and I can't even drive two countries over without encountering incomparable electric sockets, and that's 19th century technology.

I think that says something about how willing the EU is to standardize, v.s. rocking the boat.

delecti2y ago

1 more reply

nordsieck2y ago

It's much more complicated if the rest of the world fragments into say... 3 different standards that are all better than USB-3, but are mutually incompatible.

revelio2y ago

You might call it a five year plan. Funny how those crop up so often!

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse