In a move that should have been done years ago, the top mobile phone suppliers of Europe have all signed an agreement that micro-USB will be the standard phone charging port. Soon consumers will not have to fret over charging cables as all the phones from Nokia, Sony Ericsson, LG, NEC, Qualcomm, Motorola, RIM, Samsung, Texas Instruments, and even Apple sold in Europe will all charge via micro-USB. We’re just curious if Apple is going to finally retire the Dock Connector from the iPhone or produce some sort of micro-USB adapter to comply with this agreement.
Chances are that the European market will see a dock connector to micro-USB port dongle before Apple gives up on the aging proprietary connector and goes micro-USB exclusive. After all, there are thousands of Dock Connector-compatible accessories that come from royalty-paying vendors and Apple needs to protect its income sources.
Hopefully all these companies will come together yet again in the name of consumers and sign a similar agreement here in the States. We want a standard charging port too. Right? Right.
It’s a beautiful day when my blackberry charges off the same car charger as my girlfriend’s free samsung phone. Praise be to standardizing!
Apple dropping their dock connector completely for Micro-USB is unlikely… Micro-USB cannot support line-audio, line-video, and whatever else they are supporting on it without considerably increasing the complexity and cost of accessories… plus Micro-USB is less mechanically secure.
I doubt they will want two ugly connectors on the phone so expect a dongle route, and as this isn’t an Apple specific problem, others will do the same.
Why does it have to be Europe only, why not make all their phones as mini-usb?
If I’m not mistaken, micro USB was also decided to be China’s standard charger. Japan also have plans to standarize charger ports by 2010, and I bet they’ll also set on micro. US once again behind times.
Stuart, you are wrong. USB can handle audio, video and data. A simple USB webcam with microphone is an example.