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How many charging lines do you have at home? When will phone charging interfaces be unified?

Phoneyy

Lurker
With the charger and charging treasure, when you borrow a circle of charging lines with people around you and find that it is not the interface you want, it is very embarrassing.
Maybe you will ask: Why can't all mobile phone charging interfaces be unified?
 
That's probably never going to happen as the situation just continues to get worse as time goes by. Just a few years ago it was primarily just micro USB for Android and that proprietary 30-pin Apple plug for its iDevices, now it's a completely bizarre array of different plug types and protocols involving not just power for charging but a mix of different services involving audio, video, and file transfers that only work with some devices. With Android the trend is moving to USB Type-C, once touted as to be universally compatible with everything. The only part of that is the plug is much more user-friendly now as it can be plugged in either side up, but as far as power charging there are competing standards involving competing fast charging standards, and as for the other aspects it's an even bigger number of different standards and protocols that most manufacturers want to have working only on their products.
https://people.kernel.org/bleung/how-many-kinds-of-usb-c-to-usb-c-cables-are-there
https://lifehacker.com/why-some-usb-c-headphone-dongles-dont-work-1836316524
https://www.androidauthority.com/state-of-usb-c-870996/
The good thing is that there is a base-level of services that most Type-C cables will support so at least any of us can get minimal usage, but it's still a matter where we all need to be selective about the cabling we buy. Read the packaging labels thoroughly.
Having a unified standard would be a benefit to the consumer and it would be really more convenient, but the primary goal for any corporation is to make profit for its shareholders, not to provide any kind of social benefits, nor take care of our wants -- i.e. the removable battery was once a common thing. The battery fails and it was easily replaceable. Now only some, selective models still have them and most are sealed in place with lots of glues and adhesives that also require a complete teardown of the device to replace them. That was a convenience for us but it's more profitable to sell phones that have a more limited life (planned obsolescence). The point being if everyone got together and made a pledge to only buy phone models that include removable batteries the manufacturers would start making that a common feature again, but that's just not going to happen.
 
With the charger and charging treasure, when you borrow a circle of charging lines with people around you and find that it is not the interface you want, it is very embarrassing.
Maybe you will ask: Why can't all mobile phone charging interfaces be unified?

"charging treasure", "circle of charging lines“.

Pardon?

Android phones are mostly unified for charging aren't they. Just about all new phones now are type-C USB, and previously micro-USB was the standard.

Don't know what Apple is doing these days, don't particularly care about iPhones.
 
Thank goodness. I thought I was just totally out of the loop.

As I sat in Beijing Capital Airport, I was thinking of circles of charging lines, and perhaps the OP meant phone charging kiosks? That one sometimes see at airports, railway stations etc.

These have both USB types, plus whatever it is iPhones use, so should be able to charge just about all smartphones no problems.
Screenshot_20190802_165521.jpg
 
As I sat in Beijing Capital Airport, I was thinking of circles of charging lines, and perhaps the OP meant phone charging kiosks? That one sometimes see at airports, railway stations etc.

These have both USB types, plus whatever it is iPhones use, so should be able to charge just about all smartphones no problems.
View attachment 143508
Good guess! :D

But I'm still scratching my head at "charging treasure".... :thinking:
 
I live in hope that USB-C will allow us to have a single socket at least. This is based on the fact that there are some Apple devices that use it too (the iPad Pro models, as well as all of their laptops), so perhaps there's a chance that they'll extend this to the iPhones. Then we'll just have to hope that the remaining Android manufacturers using microUSB will move on.

I've made a personal decision that I won't buy any more microUSB devices. All of the phones in my household are USB-C, my laptop is, so if I replace my tablet and e-reader with USB-C devices I think I can retire my remaining microUSB cables.
 
I use magnetic charging plugs, each phone has it own plug but only one cable can charge them all.

IMG_20190724_131944-1600x1200.jpg
 
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