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Mon, 29 Jun 2009 Apple joins universal mobile phone charger standard

Mobile phone charger harmonisation is a first step, with work under way to find a universal charger

Paul Meller

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Wouldn't it be nice if all our mobile gadgets connected to one universal charger? According to the vice president of the European Commission, Gunter Verheugen, it's not only possible, it's already on the drawing board.

Steps are being taken to standardize mobile-phone chargers, though a universal charger for all mobile devices will take longer. The Commission claims some of the credit for the agreement reached among mobile phone makers, which earlier this year said they would pursue a universal charger for all phones.

Verheugen welcomed the agreement signed by 10 phone makers, including all the biggest names in the industry that account for more than 90 per cent of all Europen mobile phone sales. However, he said that if the industry had failed to reach a voluntary agreement, the Commission would have drafted legislation ordering the standardisation of phone chargers.

The companies that signed the agreement included Apple, LG, Motorola, NEC, Nokia, Qualcomm, Research in Motion (RIM), Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Texas Instruments.

Verheugen said the original plan was to push for a universal charger for all devices.

"It would have taken much longer [to get an agreement on one charger for all mobile devices], so we decided to tackle mobile phones first and at the same time we continue to discuss with the industry the other products," he said on Monday.

Inventing a small charger that powers a cell phone and a laptop is a challenge, the commissioner said.
Laptops require almost 100 times more electricity to charge than a mobile phone, he said.

Energy efficiency and safety issues must be overcome when developing a single charger for all gadgets, Verheugen said. "We are working on that, I hope it is possible," he said.

Bridget Cosgrave, director general of Digital Europe, a trade group representing IT manufacturers of a wide range of mobile devices, said it might be possible to duplicate the harmonised phone charger idea for other devices but added that there are no plans along those lines presently.

Cosgrave shared the podium with Verheugen a press conference in Brussels. She didn't comment on the idea of one charger for laptops as well as smaller mobile divices.

Susan Smith, a spokesperson for Nokia, said the company "is not looking at this as a possibility," and added she isn't sure it would be technically possible given the varying power needs of different devices.

Mobile phones require around 1.5 watts while laptops need close to 100 watts. That's why a mobile phone charger is a tenth the size of a laptop charger.

Universal chargers for various devices already exist but they are the size of laptop chargers, so they waste a lot of energy if they are used just to charge a mobile phone.

There are currently between 350 millon and 400 million active mobile phones in circulation in the European Union, the Commission said. People are replacing their phones at a rate of 180 million per year.

The first generation of universal phone chargers will be distributed from around mid next year, Verheugen said. All phones will run off the universal charger within two to three years, the commissioner said.

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Comments received


ratkat said on Mon, 29 Jun 2009

so does that mean apple are going to add micro-usb then, because that is what Nokia, samsung etc are now standardising on

Danny Kelly said on Mon, 29 Jun 2009

ratkat - it looks that way!

NB said on Mon, 29 Jun 2009

At long last a standard!

droughtquake said on Mon, 29 Jun 2009

I wouldn't be surprised if Apple's implementation consisted of a Dock adapter to micro-USB instead of a micro-USB port directly on the iPhone.

mark said on Mon, 29 Jun 2009

which would be distributed separately from the iPhone, truly Apple way

Kevin said on Tue, 30 Jun 2009

What's wrong with a dock adapter? Are you saying that no mobile phone manufacturer is allowed to created a desktop charger anymore!?

Qwerty said on Tue, 30 Jun 2009

@droughtquake and @mark

And what's wrong with that? Sounds like a pretty sensible solution to me. Otherwise you'd end up paying extra for a custom European version of the phone with a second socket; or paying slightly more to have the extra cable included which you might not use if - like me - you have a dock and European charger.

Or are you labouring under the delusion that you pay for the hardware and all the included accessories are free? Dolts!

@Kevin said on Tue, 30 Jun 2009

I hope it is an end to the dock adator. A unified charger/data connector makes so much sense.

Jaded said on Tue, 30 Jun 2009

Major problem with a unified adaptor is anticipating what data lines might be needed in the future.

This may well turn out to be more about unifying the power output and providing various adaptors (like Gomadic) than a 'sealed' power supply that works with everything.

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