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I know how regulation works :)
The trick is to regulate the right things in the right ways so that you get the right outcomes. There doesn't appear to be any obvious consumer safety angle here, the environmental angle is tenuous, the consumer convenience one I kind of get* but last time I checked my phone still has a Lightening connector, and the charging and data transmistion requirements of these devices aren't exactly static so whatever standard is implemented needs to be replaced in a couple of upgrade cycles anyway (hello USB-C).
* and that isn't the regulator's job, really
Anyhoo
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Yes, up till now it's still a voluntary thing which is how Apple kind of gets away with not doing it properly, but as someone who doesn't use Apple stuff, I very much enjoy not having to worry about some company's specific chargers. Of course the standard needs to be updated every so often, but that's no argument against it - the same would happen with proprietary chargers, just multiplied by the number of companies.
Additionally, this has helped make USB the absolute standard for most things that need to be charged these days (and that aren't Apple-related).
I definitely think it was a great move, and the environmental argument is not a bad reason either.
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Apple are actually one of companies that hold a board position at the organisation that developed USB C. Quite why they are still releasing products with lightning I don't know.
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I think the environmental argument is pretty strong, I have shitloads of old chargers at home that don't fit anything else. It also prolongs the life of the product as losing the proprietary charger doesn't mean it's unusable. Also, micro-USB (or USB C as it is now after probably 10 years or so of life) being the standard for phones drags everything else along with it: headphones, Garmins, laptops, speakers, etc
The one downside is that Apple lobbied hard to get out of it and managed to get a loophole inserted where you could use your own charging port if you provided a dongle to enable use of the standard port. I guess Apple had to spend all that money they have somewhere.
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They used to charge very hefty licensing fees ($10 per connector at one point!). I think (but I'm not sure) that this has now stopped but they still restrict what 3rd party manufacturers can make, for instance USB-C to lightning could only officially be made by Apple.
Given that Apple are adopting USB C on their ipads I imagine it will flow through to the phones at some point.
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Actually, just remembered that my most recent MacBook was USB C. Perhaps they are changing things.
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Is the argument for charging standardisation not pretty strong? It slows obsolescence?
Consumers are split between those who switch phones every two years and those who switch every five. Obviously Apple, Samsung and Huawei would rather discourage people keeping handsets for five years and will design products to lose their convenience. When settling standards having a voice at the table to counter that (and push for environmental responsibility) seems sensible to me.
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I was reading earlier that the Lib Dems think they might have beaten Labour in Islington in the European elections. That would be quite funny (and perhaps Corbyn might even understand its significance).
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Regulation passed at a supranational level that to the causal observer seems kinda weird / bonkers to at least this casual observer seems kinda relevant to the predicament we are in.
At least everyone got their convenient phone chargers though - this couldn’t possibly have happened without supranational government intervention and the opportunity cost of doing so was net negative, right?
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It's OK, oxygen is getting less and less and all that CO2 is helping you in your quest.
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On the subject of the real 'led by donkeys' (I don't think much of that advertising campaign):
But its early readers have not been persuaded that the project was time well spent. The historian AN Wilson, whose book The Victorians was published in 2002, wrote in the Times that Rees-Mogg’s effort was “anathema to anyone with an ounce of historical, or simply common, sense”. Describing the work as “a dozen clumsily written pompous schoolboy compositions”, he said it claimed to be a work of history, but was in fact “yet another bit of self-promotion by a highly motivated modern politician”.
On the chapter about Gen Charles Napier’s conquest of Sindh, Wilson wrote: “At this point in the book you start to think that the author is worse than a twit. By all means let us celebrate what was great about the Victorians, but there is something morally repellent about a book that can gloss over massacres and pillage on the scale perpetrated by Napier.”
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Yes. No. Maybe?
Three different standards of answer. Won't somebody unify them?
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But should we do it at the level of primary legislation or multilateral agreements?
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EU referendum, brexit and the aftermath
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London absence currently from those figures. I would think these figures would concern the Brexit party.