Europeans will have a much easier time finding chargers for their phones in 2011 and beyond. A law that has been several years in the making will go into effect and mandate that all phones be able to charge via micro-USB. The list of manufacturers who came together to support the law is surprisingly large and includes many big name companies including Apple, LG, Motorola, RIM, and Samsung to name a few…
As a consumer it’s not hard to see why this is an awesome thing — one standardized charger means less headache and less cash doled out in the name of proprietary crap. Not to mention, less proprietary junk means less waste thrown away ultimately resulting in a happier planet.
But the most interesting thing will be how it is implemented on Apple products in particular. Supposedly, Apple was one of the biggest supporters of this new European law. And as the law is being voiced, it appears that manufacturers can’t simply toss a micro-USB adapter into the box, but that an actual micro-USB port is built into the device. As we all know, iDevices have a dock connector as the main do-it-all connection to the outside (save for the headphone port of course). How Apple will implement a micro-USB port remains to be seen as thus far, no leaked documents or “inside sources” have spoken of a micro-USB port on the upcoming 5th generation iPhone. Though chances are, any special iPhone designed to meet European laws will be exclusive to said market. But if Apple has devised a way to weasel around this new law, we’re quite curious to see how they did it.
And then reality sets in — this doesn’t matter to anyone in the U.S as it’s European-only….
