Not too big a fan of this, personally. If every manufacturer adopted wireless-only charging, new smartphones’ overall power consumption would see an increase of half. Plus, due to the heat, the...
Not too big a fan of this, personally. If every manufacturer adopted wireless-only charging, new smartphones’ overall power consumption would see an increase of half. Plus, due to the heat, the batteries would probably degrade more quickly – also not ideal.
Yeah, I’d put charging ports (on phones specifically, there’s no way I’m wireless charging my laptop) in a similar bucket to headphone jacks - I can live without them, I primarily use the wireless...
Yeah, I’d put charging ports (on phones specifically, there’s no way I’m wireless charging my laptop) in a similar bucket to headphone jacks - I can live without them, I primarily use the wireless option already, but removing the choice seems like a step backwards for very little benefit.
And now that I’ve typed that and thought a bit more about it I realise that there’s no good option to use the phone while it’s charging if it’s wireless only, so maybe a bigger step backwards than I was thinking too…
Yeah that's a big one, especially when traveling, I usually have my phone cabled to a powerbank or built-in USB port or power outlet in a car/plane/train. I do have a travel wireless stand thing....
there’s no good option to use the phone while it’s charging if it’s wireless only
Yeah that's a big one, especially when traveling, I usually have my phone cabled to a powerbank or built-in USB port or power outlet in a car/plane/train. I do have a travel wireless stand thing. Am I gonna have to connect the stand to the bank/outlet via cable, then "attach" the phone to the wireless stand?
At least the iPhone, which is what I use, has Magsafe charging, so it all "sticks" together. Do Androids have something like Magsafe? If not, yeah Android users are SOL. But even as an iPhone Magsafe user, that'll just be annoying have to have this extra accessory attached to my phone to cable charge.
Android users can buy Magsafe compatible cases that use magnets in the case to place chargers in the correct position to work. I have one, it's pretty great. But I'd be quite annoyed to lose...
Android users can buy Magsafe compatible cases that use magnets in the case to place chargers in the correct position to work. I have one, it's pretty great. But I'd be quite annoyed to lose wired, efficient, faster charging in exchange for wireless only. Especially if using the most convenient chargers requires purchasing these cases. It'd be dongles all over again.
Also, I can currently plug in USB drives into my USB C port for data transfer purposes, which was a step down already from the previous paradigm of microSD slots which worked great for years. I do not want to have to rely on anyone's cloud service to transfer files to or from my phone. If you can't use it without a man in the middle, you can't trust it to be there for the useful life of the device.
Honestly, if microSD was still a feature on Android phones and they weren’t put through as many restrictions as later versions put on using them, I might have not switched to iPhone. Taking them...
Honestly, if microSD was still a feature on Android phones and they weren’t put through as many restrictions as later versions put on using them, I might have not switched to iPhone. Taking them out was a frankly very stupid thing to do, but I guess the industry was desperate to copy Apple at all costs.
It’s probably also usage trends driving some of these changes, not just manufacturers chasing Apple. Usage of removable storage has likely been on the decline for quite some time now, since the...
It’s probably also usage trends driving some of these changes, not just manufacturers chasing Apple. Usage of removable storage has likely been on the decline for quite some time now, since the most common usage for it has mostly been supplanted by streaming services.
The remaining uses for it fall into the power user/niche category, which is why these days SD cards slot are only found on less mainstream phones like Sony Xperias.
OEMs kinda had their hands tied though. Google pulled support back, which you're already aware of, but they did so becauae [the vast majority of] consumers start and end their uSD card comparisons...
OEMs kinda had their hands tied though. Google pulled support back, which you're already aware of, but they did so becauae [the vast majority of] consumers start and end their uSD card comparisons at price. So, most users have the bottom of the barrel, stepped-on, trash-tier storage. Meaning Google, OEMs, and devs have to contend with storage being dramatically slower than internal NAND, being prone to losing data, and the possibility that it could be removed at any time.
Google and OEMs saw that users don't give a care about finding a nice uSD card, and blamed the poor performance on Android and the OEM - neither of which want (or deserve) the black eye; worse, dropping the uSD card means they look more performant, while dropping additional hardware testing and integration requirements, and save on customer support that no longer has to politely tell users that the storage they bought is garbage.
You want someone to blame for lack of uSD cards? Look no further than the consumers around you.
We found that customers don't use their cars exactly as we intend, so it's the customers who are wrong. As such, we've removed Android Auto and Apple Carplay functionality. -GM and it's rightly...
We found that customers don't use their cars exactly as we intend, so it's the customers who are wrong. As such, we've removed Android Auto and Apple Carplay functionality. -GM
Sounds like the problem any platform faces with third party accessories, which is usually solved by offering selected products a certification declaring their products compatible, which the...
Sounds like the problem any platform faces with third party accessories, which is usually solved by offering selected products a certification declaring their products compatible, which the manufacturer then uses for advertising.
They do make wireless charging pucks that snap onto the magsafe mounts to give you a 'wireless charging you can use away from the desk' so if it did come to that, you'd be spending more money to...
They do make wireless charging pucks that snap onto the magsafe mounts to give you a 'wireless charging you can use away from the desk' so if it did come to that, you'd be spending more money to replicate something you could already do!
Ended up doing exactly that once when I was travelling, got my phone wet (still working fine but the charging port was disabled), and needed a boost from the power bank I had. Even as a welcome...
Ended up doing exactly that once when I was travelling, got my phone wet (still working fine but the charging port was disabled), and needed a boost from the power bank I had. Even as a welcome fallback in that very convoluted set of circumstances it was a bit irritating to use!
Magsafe charging is basically just Qi charging which most Android devices also support. Align the Magsafe ring and you should be good, if technically unsupported.
Magsafe charging is basically just Qi charging which most Android devices also support. Align the Magsafe ring and you should be good, if technically unsupported.
Apple donated the MagSafe system to the Qi Consortium. "Qi2" compatible phones are the same as MagSafe. Not sure how many Android phones have it yet, but it's available.
Apple donated the MagSafe system to the Qi Consortium. "Qi2" compatible phones are the same as MagSafe.
Not sure how many Android phones have it yet, but it's available.
Ok I don’t like the idea of a wireless only phone any more than the rest of the people in this thread. Carrying around a cable is easier than carrying around a wireless charging puck. You don’t...
Ok I don’t like the idea of a wireless only phone any more than the rest of the people in this thread. Carrying around a cable is easier than carrying around a wireless charging puck. You don’t need to convince me that cables are good. I don’t plan on buying a phone that doesn’t have USB C. But this:
there’s no good option to use the phone while it’s charging if it’s wireless only
Is ridiculous hyperbole. If all you have ever used is a wireless charging stand, I can get how you would come to this conclusion. But that is far from the reality. I am currently typing this on an iPhone that is charging with MagSafe. Not only is it perfectly usable, it’s actually better than a cable because there isn’t a cable sticking out of the bottom.
Emphasis on good option, I didn’t mean it as a major brick wall - I’ve used the wireless puck option, I just found it annoying. Plus bulkier, like you said, and depends on the phone having magnets...
Emphasis on good option, I didn’t mean it as a major brick wall - I’ve used the wireless puck option, I just found it annoying. Plus bulkier, like you said, and depends on the phone having magnets in the first place (my understanding is that there are some patent issues around that meaning it’s not quite as simple as “obviously all new phones will have a MagSafe equivalent”, but I could be wrong there).
Doubt there's any patent issues around adding magnets to phones given that Qi2 standard has a compatible magnet option. They wouldn't add a standard that only Apple could implement. Most Android...
Doubt there's any patent issues around adding magnets to phones given that Qi2 standard has a compatible magnet option. They wouldn't add a standard that only Apple could implement. Most Android manufacturers just don't care. There's at least one Android phone that has it: HMD Skyline
Oh that’s cool, I hadn’t done much digging since I tried to hunt down an Android with magnetic wireless a few years ago. Good to know it’s getting on track! Interestingly, searching around Qi2...
Oh that’s cool, I hadn’t done much digging since I tried to hunt down an Android with magnetic wireless a few years ago. Good to know it’s getting on track!
Interestingly, searching around Qi2 does bring up a few articles about Apple’s involvement in defining that standard and some musing on why they’ve chosen not to fight it to “protect” MagSafe for themselves, so it sounds like a change of position from them might have been what got it across the line.
Apple has for years now been relatively open with their connector standards. Lightning is the only recent connector they have, and they do license it to allow third party manufactured accessories....
Apple has for years now been relatively open with their connector standards. Lightning is the only recent connector they have, and they do license it to allow third party manufactured accessories.
Magsafe (2020) for wireless charging was given to the Qi standards body and is Qi2, /u/gary mentioned.
Lightning (2012) is proprietary, but there is a licensing system for third party manufacturers.
Thunderbolt (technically a protocol not a connector) was codeveloped by Apple and Intel.
Mini DisplayPort (2008) is technically proprietary, but can be licensed for free, so is functionally open.
Magsafe (2006) for laptops is proprietary.
30 pin dock connector (2003) is proprietary, but third parties did use it (I don't know if it was official, but there were a ton of third party devices).
Mini DVI (I can't find when it was introduced) has very little information about it. Apple was almost definitely the only company to use it.
Mini VGA was proprietary. Not sure when it was introduced.
Apple display connector (1998) was proprietary.
Apple developed Firewire (1994), working with Sony and Panasonic. It is an open standard defined by the IEEE (hence the name IEEE 1394).
Apple desktop bus (1986) was proprietary.
The Macintosh keyboard and mouse connectors were proprietary, but I don't think they had a name.
Since 1990, 4/10 connectors are open or functionally open. An additional 2/10 are usable for third parties, but only for accessories. It isn't the greatest track record, but it isn't bad.
There's also the obvious factor of connection. We're getting much faster transfers over USB-C. I wouldn't want that thrown away for shaving 2mm off my phone (which I throw in a case anyway). Not...
There's also the obvious factor of connection. We're getting much faster transfers over USB-C. I wouldn't want that thrown away for shaving 2mm off my phone (which I throw in a case anyway).
Not to mention that wireless charging has its own standards war to begin with.
tl;dr Assuming MagSafe for wireless charging, the increase is a drop in the bucket versus home appliances. Going to do some napkin math using ifixit's numbers on iPhone electricity usage. On my...
tl;dr Assuming MagSafe for wireless charging, the increase is a drop in the bucket versus home appliances.
Going to do some napkin math using ifixit's numbers on iPhone electricity usage. On my last iPhone, I averaged 80% of battery usage per day. On my current iPhone, I'm averaging 72%. I will use the higher 80% in calculations.
Taking their energy usage for 23.33Wh to charge from 0-100, I multiply that against the 80%. It's a rough estimate, but should be overcounting against my favor since the last bit of charge is harder. 18.67Wh/day for active charging. ifixit adds in another 7.4Wh for idle charging while I'm sleeping and another 3.4Wh for phantom power draw. This 3.4Wh phantom power draw is unfairly compared to wired charging which is not 0W like ifixit claims, but whatever, I'll let them have this. 18.67 + 7.4 + 3.4 and I'm at 29.47Wh per day now, or 10.75kWh per year.
ifixit claims 36.48% inefficiency to MagSafe charging, which I still think is an overestimate, but with that number, I would be contributing an extra 3.92kWh per year wasted by using MagSafe charging every time I go to charge. Assuming a midrange gaming PC uses 300W while gaming (not including monitor and peripherals), that's an extra 13 hours of gaming per year.
Thanks for crunching some actual numbers on this. My point/concern is moreso that the 13-odd hours of gaming gets you something in return, whereas this would be a mostly unnecessary increase with...
Thanks for crunching some actual numbers on this. My point/concern is moreso that the 13-odd hours of gaming gets you something in return, whereas this would be a mostly unnecessary increase with little tangible benefit (as others have mentioned, perhaps even with downsides, e.g. ease-of-usage problems while trying to charge wirelessly on the go).
Also, a lot fewer people have a PC than do have phones, so it's a few kWh times number of smartphone holders that are needlessly taken on top. But I guess then again this probably pales in comparison to something like a dishwasher/oven/washing machine… so maybe the lesson learned for me is that if this increase would bother me, I should convince more people to use other appliances sparingly first?
You're quite right about that. Wireless charging doesn't add the same kind of impact on life that having a tangible features does. I personally like wireless charging, but would my life be...
You're quite right about that. Wireless charging doesn't add the same kind of impact on life that having a tangible features does. I personally like wireless charging, but would my life be meaningfully worse if I couldn't have it?
The other side tugging at me though is that I don't have a gaming PC at the moment. I use a Mac Mini that sips energy. So I don't feel bad if I'm a little more wasteful in electricity with my phone compared to gamers who get a pass from society. It's a weird conflict of emotions for me, you know? Not trying to logic myself out of being wasteful here, but just explaining the turmoil inside, what little there is.
And to be totally honest, after figuring out my personal consumption with smartphones and wireless charging, I didn't feel great about it. The amount wasted is roughly the same as running a fridge for 2.5 days. In that light, it feels quite wrong!
A bit of a tangent, but if it was up to me, we’d get rid of “wireless” accessories entirely. I am so tired that keyboards, mice, headphones, and so many other accessories are going the wireless...
A bit of a tangent, but if it was up to me, we’d get rid of “wireless” accessories entirely. I am so tired that keyboards, mice, headphones, and so many other accessories are going the wireless (and more expensive) route. Everything requires batteries, imposes latency on us, and pollutes the airwaves for no discernible benefit other than not having to deal with cables, which was something we all used to be OK with until just a couple decades ago. But alas, at age 35, maybe I’m just becoming an old man who doesn’t want things to change.
There are plenty of wireless mice/keyboards that use 2.4GHz and essentially have the same or better latency than wired. I don’t really care about the wireless keyboard option but I don’t know if I...
imposes latency on us
There are plenty of wireless mice/keyboards that use 2.4GHz and essentially have the same or better latency than wired.
I don’t really care about the wireless keyboard option but I don’t know if I could go back to a wired mouse
Everyone always talks about the lack of cable drag which definitely is nice, but imo the real pro is the free real estate that opens up behind the mousepad. So much more room to store useless stuff.
Everyone always talks about the lack of cable drag which definitely is nice, but imo the real pro is the free real estate that opens up behind the mousepad. So much more room to store useless stuff.
I have never owned a wireless mouse, but every wireless mouse owned by someone else that I have tried out, has always had very noticeable input lag. I can feel myself “dragging” the cursor across...
I have never owned a wireless mouse, but every wireless mouse owned by someone else that I have tried out, has always had very noticeable input lag. I can feel myself “dragging” the cursor across the screen. I can hardly hit anything accurately.
Then again, I have no idea if the wireless mice that I’ve tried were lower or higher end devices.
I can relate to the desire to have more space to store useless stuff though.
It’s more likely to be Bluetooth that you’re noticing the latency from, rather than a high end/low end difference specifically. It’s a general purpose protocol (and a relatively old one nowadays...
It’s more likely to be Bluetooth that you’re noticing the latency from, rather than a high end/low end difference specifically. It’s a general purpose protocol (and a relatively old one nowadays too) and that comes with overhead regardless of how good the mouse itself is - a bazillion megahertz sensor powered by unobtanium will still be bottlenecked by Bluetooth itself.
Custom 2.4GHz dongles (I wish they’d gone with a better naming convention, it’s the same frequency band Bluetooth uses anyway…) just slam the data through the air with very little added complexity and use the dongle to translate it back to standard USB protocol. Measurable latency differences are in the tenths of a millisecond range compared to wired, so very unlikely to be perceptible. Even fairly cheap mice can do that no problem as long as they’re competently engineered, although as with most things you’ve got a better chance of finding something competently engineered if there’s more money to do the engineering.
Yeah, while I can feel a touch of latency on my Bluetooth Magic Trackpad, the Logitech G604 Lightspeed I use with my Windows box has practically none when used with its dongle.
Yeah, while I can feel a touch of latency on my Bluetooth Magic Trackpad, the Logitech G604 Lightspeed I use with my Windows box has practically none when used with its dongle.
I had the same issue with wireless mice for a long time. Finally broke down and got a newer 2.4GHz one with the option for it to be wired/charge. I can't tell a difference in latency between wired...
I had the same issue with wireless mice for a long time. Finally broke down and got a newer 2.4GHz one with the option for it to be wired/charge. I can't tell a difference in latency between wired and wireless with it. It was on the higher end of mouse prices, but my wife's cheaper wireless mouse doesn't seem to have any noticeable latency either in the few instances I've used it. I think they've finally just fixed the latency issue.
Curious to see your source on this? I was under the impression that even under the most ideal circumstances, wireless transmission will never be faster than wired, by the nature of electrons...
that use 2.4GHz and essentially have the same or better latency than wired
Curious to see your source on this? I was under the impression that even under the most ideal circumstances, wireless transmission will never be faster than wired, by the nature of electrons moving through a copper wire. If I recall correctly, a typical signal traveling through a copper wire approach about 2/3's of c (the speed of light), roughly 200,000 km/s. While typical 2.4 GHz transmission can travel at approximately c, roughly 300,000 km/s, you have to add time to receive the data, encode the data, transmit it, decode the data, and then transmit the data to the USB receiver. The initial receiving and final transmission both rely on signal over copper, in addition to processing of encoding/decoding the data.
In real life application it may be a difference of 1ms to 2ms, but my interest in physics leads me to wonder/question the veracity of the idea that wireless transmission can be faster than wired.
Not going to lie, I don’t have one. I thought I read it online a while ago or maybe saw it in a YouTube video but I can’t find where that may have been. My thinking was basically just part of your...
Not going to lie, I don’t have one. I thought I read it online a while ago or maybe saw it in a YouTube video but I can’t find where that may have been. My thinking was basically just part of your explanation in that a signal will transmit at light speed wirelessly but slower than that over copper. I didn’t think about converting to wireless then back to wired.
I’m on my phone so I’m not doing too much research right now, but this video that I skimmed through (without sound, lmao) seems to suggest you’re right? https://youtube.com/watch?v=yy0xmcBg_IY . It looks like around 1ms extra latency. I’d argue that’s identical for all real world intents and purposes but you’re right, it’s definitely not better.
No worries, I didn't mean to knit-pick you or anything. I TA'ed for physics while getting my degree, as I found the subject interesting enough that if I weren't already in a healthcare path, I...
No worries, I didn't mean to knit-pick you or anything. I TA'ed for physics while getting my degree, as I found the subject interesting enough that if I weren't already in a healthcare path, I could have definitely enjoyed going down a physics career path. The idea didn't match up with the concepts in my head, so I wanted the opportunity to better educate myself, if my ideas were incorrect/outdated. Thanks for the response!
There’s a possible consideration of cable length too — unless I break out the pliers (nah, that’s way over my head and above my pay grade to ever attempt) I can never reduce the fact that the...
There’s a possible consideration of cable length too — unless I break out the pliers (nah, that’s way over my head and above my pay grade to ever attempt) I can never reduce the fact that the signal has to travel down two-point-four metres of cable before it hits my USB slot, but that’s just me playing devils advocate and not actually being an expert on any of this
This is actually something I've thought about but, depending on how close your desktop is, you totally can just plug the dongle directly into your motherboard. I've tried it and didn't notice any...
I can never reduce the fact that the signal has to travel down two-point-four metres of cable before it hits my USB slot
This is actually something I've thought about but, depending on how close your desktop is, you totally can just plug the dongle directly into your motherboard. I've tried it and didn't notice any issues despite it being a little further than where the cord sits.
Scaling up to larger distances (between cities) it’s worthwhile to go wireless if you’re doing something very latency sensitive, so I can imagine people hearing that snippet and remembering it as...
Scaling up to larger distances (between cities) it’s worthwhile to go wireless if you’re doing something very latency sensitive, so I can imagine people hearing that snippet and remembering it as a broader “wireless = lower latency for the most demanding applications”.
High frequency trading gets a measurable boost from the extra propagation speed and the straight line distance (compared to the cables being installed to follow the actual geography) at the tens to hundreds of km range, and that demonstrably outweighs any encoding/decoding overheads, but for a 3m mouse cable you’re talking nanosecond differences in travel time for a theoretical best case. That maps to tens of GHz in data processing terms - within the capabilities of specialised tech, because we live in the future, but below the noise floor for general computing and way outside human perception. [Edit: come to think of it I wonder if sticking with wires but switching back to good ol' PS/2 to avoid the USB stack would make a difference? I doubt it'd be perceptible, but it might at least be measurable... Anyway, I should be working right now!]
Tom Scott did a video about an exchange that uses a 60km spool of fiber as an intentional speed bump, if you’re interested in a real world example of this kind of thing.
I am not sure if 2.4Ghz is actually as far compared to any wireless mouse. But, I do know there goes more into mouse latency than just the signal from the mouse to the computer. The sensor itself,...
I am not sure if 2.4Ghz is actually as far compared to any wireless mouse. But, I do know there goes more into mouse latency than just the signal from the mouse to the computer. The sensor itself, the processing into a signal, polling rate, etc are all factors that come into play.
Based on that, even if it is technically somewhat slower I can see 2.4Ghz wireless mice being on par with wired variants or in some cases even beating them. Certainly when we are talking about gaming mice.
Disclaime: This is mostly idle speculation from my side based on what I know, so should not be taken as fact.
Even the best wireless mice have more latency than a wired mouse, it isn't going to be faster. That being said, good wireless mice tend to have low enough latency that it is imperceptible to most...
Even the best wireless mice have more latency than a wired mouse, it isn't going to be faster. That being said, good wireless mice tend to have low enough latency that it is imperceptible to most or all people.
Latency used to be a big issue here, even with the higher end mice for people that played twitch FPS games or very fast RTS games, but that has been sorted out for a while. I personally still don't use them except for my HTPC, but not because of latency. I don't like the extra weight, the needing to charge, or the fact that batteries eventually die and you need to replace them (or buy a whole new mouse because you can't source a new battery).
That’s interesting, I’m only a year or two off your age, but I’m completely the opposite. I don’t go out of my way for wireless, but when the standards make them essentially cheap enough that I’m...
That’s interesting, I’m only a year or two off your age, but I’m completely the opposite. I don’t go out of my way for wireless, but when the standards make them essentially cheap enough that I’m not losing out on anything, I’ll usually prefer wireless.
Every time I rummage through my box of miscellaneous cables, I relish how infrequently it happens compared to ~10 years ago.
It was pretty easy for me to switch back to using a USB keyboard and mouse for desktop, which eliminates that hassle. I find Airpod Pro’s to be so good that I don’t miss the headphone jack much....
It was pretty easy for me to switch back to using a USB keyboard and mouse for desktop, which eliminates that hassle.
I find Airpod Pro’s to be so good that I don’t miss the headphone jack much. But I haven’t found any low-latency wireless headphones and I’m doubtful that it’s even possible for bluetooth, so I think wired headphones will continue to have a niche for live performance.
To push back a bit: I think it comes down to frequency. To make something wired means either consuming your phones single (or at best, one of 2) ports, or to make a dedicated port to it. But...
To push back a bit: I think it comes down to frequency. To make something wired means either consuming your phones single (or at best, one of 2) ports, or to make a dedicated port to it. But there's many peripherals to consider these days.
Wireless makes sense for peripherals only occasionally used. A game pad is nifty for me, while it may be a daily necessity for hardcore players (who will buy a dedicated connection) or something used once for many casual users (who will bt connect some controller).
I loathe the idea that all data connections would be mediated by wireless, much less an app. Not only is it buggy and drops the connection regularly, but not having the option to use OTG devices...
I loathe the idea that all data connections would be mediated by wireless, much less an app. Not only is it buggy and drops the connection regularly, but not having the option to use OTG devices and connections is crazy.
I'm pretty sick of the whole idea of technology progress to be honest. I would gain so little from wireless charging, and all for the notion that it just looks cooler to not use a cable.
Total bullshit and an opportunity for phone makers to further surveil and control their users.
I don't think phones will switch to wireless-only any time soon. It's slow, energy expensive and impractical. It also doesn't seem to have any benefit for the manufacturers. I think this update is...
I don't think phones will switch to wireless-only any time soon. It's slow, energy expensive and impractical. It also doesn't seem to have any benefit for the manufacturers. I think this update is more for smart watches, which usually rely on wireless charging.
The one thing I can see it supporting is making it easier/cheaper for devices to strive for higher waterproof ratings. Although I think these days some of the flagship models are already pushing...
The one thing I can see it supporting is making it easier/cheaper for devices to strive for higher waterproof ratings. Although I think these days some of the flagship models are already pushing to IP68? So not sure how much further it needs to be pushed
I mean, yeah, even like 5 years ago you were already able to hold your phone underwater for about an hour or even more, I don't think water protection needs any significant improvement
I mean, yeah, even like 5 years ago you were already able to hold your phone underwater for about an hour or even more, I don't think water protection needs any significant improvement
They're being forced to bring back removable batteries in 2027 due to another regulation, so I wouldn't entirely lose hope yet Personally I do not buy phones without a 3.5mm jack. It's my #1...
They're being forced to bring back removable batteries in 2027 due to another regulation, so I wouldn't entirely lose hope yet
Personally I do not buy phones without a 3.5mm jack. It's my #1 requirement, no matter what...
I finally broke and compromised on a phone without a 3.5mm jack. (mostly because in the last 5 years, only ginormouse phones, largely with a focus on gaming, have included the jack) Feels kind of...
I finally broke and compromised on a phone without a 3.5mm jack. (mostly because in the last 5 years, only ginormouse phones, largely with a focus on gaming, have included the jack) Feels kind of like if Superman lost his strength or something. Sure, I'm fine 90% of the time. But when I encounter a situation where I'd like to use aux it makes me instantly regret my purchase.
I picked up some JCally JM6 Pros to deal with that compromise. Cheap enough to leave in the car (for passing of the AUX) or a bag but also wholly component for driving my headphones. I miss my LG...
I picked up some JCally JM6 Pros to deal with that compromise. Cheap enough to leave in the car (for passing of the AUX) or a bag but also wholly component for driving my headphones.
Not too big a fan of this, personally. If every manufacturer adopted wireless-only charging, new smartphones’ overall power consumption would see an increase of half. Plus, due to the heat, the batteries would probably degrade more quickly – also not ideal.
Edit: typo
Yeah, I’d put charging ports (on phones specifically, there’s no way I’m wireless charging my laptop) in a similar bucket to headphone jacks - I can live without them, I primarily use the wireless option already, but removing the choice seems like a step backwards for very little benefit.
And now that I’ve typed that and thought a bit more about it I realise that there’s no good option to use the phone while it’s charging if it’s wireless only, so maybe a bigger step backwards than I was thinking too…
Yeah that's a big one, especially when traveling, I usually have my phone cabled to a powerbank or built-in USB port or power outlet in a car/plane/train. I do have a travel wireless stand thing. Am I gonna have to connect the stand to the bank/outlet via cable, then "attach" the phone to the wireless stand?
At least the iPhone, which is what I use, has Magsafe charging, so it all "sticks" together. Do Androids have something like Magsafe? If not, yeah Android users are SOL. But even as an iPhone Magsafe user, that'll just be annoying have to have this extra accessory attached to my phone to cable charge.
Android users can buy Magsafe compatible cases that use magnets in the case to place chargers in the correct position to work. I have one, it's pretty great. But I'd be quite annoyed to lose wired, efficient, faster charging in exchange for wireless only. Especially if using the most convenient chargers requires purchasing these cases. It'd be dongles all over again.
Also, I can currently plug in USB drives into my USB C port for data transfer purposes, which was a step down already from the previous paradigm of microSD slots which worked great for years. I do not want to have to rely on anyone's cloud service to transfer files to or from my phone. If you can't use it without a man in the middle, you can't trust it to be there for the useful life of the device.
Honestly, if microSD was still a feature on Android phones and they weren’t put through as many restrictions as later versions put on using them, I might have not switched to iPhone. Taking them out was a frankly very stupid thing to do, but I guess the industry was desperate to copy Apple at all costs.
It’s probably also usage trends driving some of these changes, not just manufacturers chasing Apple. Usage of removable storage has likely been on the decline for quite some time now, since the most common usage for it has mostly been supplanted by streaming services.
The remaining uses for it fall into the power user/niche category, which is why these days SD cards slot are only found on less mainstream phones like Sony Xperias.
OEMs kinda had their hands tied though. Google pulled support back, which you're already aware of, but they did so becauae [the vast majority of] consumers start and end their uSD card comparisons at price. So, most users have the bottom of the barrel, stepped-on, trash-tier storage. Meaning Google, OEMs, and devs have to contend with storage being dramatically slower than internal NAND, being prone to losing data, and the possibility that it could be removed at any time.
Google and OEMs saw that users don't give a care about finding a nice uSD card, and blamed the poor performance on Android and the OEM - neither of which want (or deserve) the black eye; worse, dropping the uSD card means they look more performant, while dropping additional hardware testing and integration requirements, and save on customer support that no longer has to politely tell users that the storage they bought is garbage.
You want someone to blame for lack of uSD cards? Look no further than the consumers around you.
Sounds like the real fault lies with the manufacturers of garbage SD cards, not consumers.
Yeah, it's still shitty regardless of weather people were using junk microSD cards or not.
We found that customers don't use their cars exactly as we intend, so it's the customers who are wrong. As such, we've removed Android Auto and Apple Carplay functionality. -GM
and it's rightly hated over there too.
Sounds like the problem any platform faces with third party accessories, which is usually solved by offering selected products a certification declaring their products compatible, which the manufacturer then uses for advertising.
They do make wireless charging pucks that snap onto the magsafe mounts to give you a 'wireless charging you can use away from the desk' so if it did come to that, you'd be spending more money to replicate something you could already do!
Ended up doing exactly that once when I was travelling, got my phone wet (still working fine but the charging port was disabled), and needed a boost from the power bank I had. Even as a welcome fallback in that very convoluted set of circumstances it was a bit irritating to use!
Magnets are a part of the Qi2 standard for wireless charging, so any Qi2 compliant phone, Apple or Android will have them.
Magsafe charging is basically just Qi charging which most Android devices also support. Align the Magsafe ring and you should be good, if technically unsupported.
Apple donated the MagSafe system to the Qi Consortium. "Qi2" compatible phones are the same as MagSafe.
Not sure how many Android phones have it yet, but it's available.
Also it's slower and uses more power. So if you really need to charge your phone ASAP, you're fucked.
Ok I don’t like the idea of a wireless only phone any more than the rest of the people in this thread. Carrying around a cable is easier than carrying around a wireless charging puck. You don’t need to convince me that cables are good. I don’t plan on buying a phone that doesn’t have USB C. But this:
Is ridiculous hyperbole. If all you have ever used is a wireless charging stand, I can get how you would come to this conclusion. But that is far from the reality. I am currently typing this on an iPhone that is charging with MagSafe. Not only is it perfectly usable, it’s actually better than a cable because there isn’t a cable sticking out of the bottom.
Emphasis on good option, I didn’t mean it as a major brick wall - I’ve used the wireless puck option, I just found it annoying. Plus bulkier, like you said, and depends on the phone having magnets in the first place (my understanding is that there are some patent issues around that meaning it’s not quite as simple as “obviously all new phones will have a MagSafe equivalent”, but I could be wrong there).
Bulkier, heavier, hotter, slower.
Harder, better, faster, stronger.
Doubt there's any patent issues around adding magnets to phones given that Qi2 standard has a compatible magnet option. They wouldn't add a standard that only Apple could implement. Most Android manufacturers just don't care. There's at least one Android phone that has it: HMD Skyline
Oh that’s cool, I hadn’t done much digging since I tried to hunt down an Android with magnetic wireless a few years ago. Good to know it’s getting on track!
Interestingly, searching around Qi2 does bring up a few articles about Apple’s involvement in defining that standard and some musing on why they’ve chosen not to fight it to “protect” MagSafe for themselves, so it sounds like a change of position from them might have been what got it across the line.
Apple has for years now been relatively open with their connector standards. Lightning is the only recent connector they have, and they do license it to allow third party manufactured accessories.
Since 1990, 4/10 connectors are open or functionally open. An additional 2/10 are usable for third parties, but only for accessories. It isn't the greatest track record, but it isn't bad.
There's also the obvious factor of connection. We're getting much faster transfers over USB-C. I wouldn't want that thrown away for shaving 2mm off my phone (which I throw in a case anyway).
Not to mention that wireless charging has its own standards war to begin with.
tl;dr Assuming MagSafe for wireless charging, the increase is a drop in the bucket versus home appliances.
Going to do some napkin math using ifixit's numbers on iPhone electricity usage. On my last iPhone, I averaged 80% of battery usage per day. On my current iPhone, I'm averaging 72%. I will use the higher 80% in calculations.
Taking their energy usage for 23.33Wh to charge from 0-100, I multiply that against the 80%. It's a rough estimate, but should be overcounting against my favor since the last bit of charge is harder. 18.67Wh/day for active charging. ifixit adds in another 7.4Wh for idle charging while I'm sleeping and another 3.4Wh for phantom power draw. This 3.4Wh phantom power draw is unfairly compared to wired charging which is not 0W like ifixit claims, but whatever, I'll let them have this. 18.67 + 7.4 + 3.4 and I'm at 29.47Wh per day now, or 10.75kWh per year.
ifixit claims 36.48% inefficiency to MagSafe charging, which I still think is an overestimate, but with that number, I would be contributing an extra 3.92kWh per year wasted by using MagSafe charging every time I go to charge. Assuming a midrange gaming PC uses 300W while gaming (not including monitor and peripherals), that's an extra 13 hours of gaming per year.
Thanks for crunching some actual numbers on this. My point/concern is moreso that the 13-odd hours of gaming gets you something in return, whereas this would be a mostly unnecessary increase with little tangible benefit (as others have mentioned, perhaps even with downsides, e.g. ease-of-usage problems while trying to charge wirelessly on the go).
Also, a lot fewer people have a PC than do have phones, so it's a few kWh times number of smartphone holders that are needlessly taken on top. But I guess then again this probably pales in comparison to something like a dishwasher/oven/washing machine… so maybe the lesson learned for me is that if this increase would bother me, I should convince more people to use other appliances sparingly first?
You're quite right about that. Wireless charging doesn't add the same kind of impact on life that having a tangible features does. I personally like wireless charging, but would my life be meaningfully worse if I couldn't have it?
The other side tugging at me though is that I don't have a gaming PC at the moment. I use a Mac Mini that sips energy. So I don't feel bad if I'm a little more wasteful in electricity with my phone compared to gamers who get a pass from society. It's a weird conflict of emotions for me, you know? Not trying to logic myself out of being wasteful here, but just explaining the turmoil inside, what little there is.
And to be totally honest, after figuring out my personal consumption with smartphones and wireless charging, I didn't feel great about it. The amount wasted is roughly the same as running a fridge for 2.5 days. In that light, it feels quite wrong!
A bit of a tangent, but if it was up to me, we’d get rid of “wireless” accessories entirely. I am so tired that keyboards, mice, headphones, and so many other accessories are going the wireless (and more expensive) route. Everything requires batteries, imposes latency on us, and pollutes the airwaves for no discernible benefit other than not having to deal with cables, which was something we all used to be OK with until just a couple decades ago. But alas, at age 35, maybe I’m just becoming an old man who doesn’t want things to change.
There are plenty of wireless mice/keyboards that use 2.4GHz and essentially have the same or better latency than wired.
I don’t really care about the wireless keyboard option but I don’t know if I could go back to a wired mouse
Everyone always talks about the lack of cable drag which definitely is nice, but imo the real pro is the free real estate that opens up behind the mousepad. So much more room to store useless stuff.
I have never owned a wireless mouse, but every wireless mouse owned by someone else that I have tried out, has always had very noticeable input lag. I can feel myself “dragging” the cursor across the screen. I can hardly hit anything accurately.
Then again, I have no idea if the wireless mice that I’ve tried were lower or higher end devices.
I can relate to the desire to have more space to store useless stuff though.
It’s more likely to be Bluetooth that you’re noticing the latency from, rather than a high end/low end difference specifically. It’s a general purpose protocol (and a relatively old one nowadays too) and that comes with overhead regardless of how good the mouse itself is - a bazillion megahertz sensor powered by unobtanium will still be bottlenecked by Bluetooth itself.
Custom 2.4GHz dongles (I wish they’d gone with a better naming convention, it’s the same frequency band Bluetooth uses anyway…) just slam the data through the air with very little added complexity and use the dongle to translate it back to standard USB protocol. Measurable latency differences are in the tenths of a millisecond range compared to wired, so very unlikely to be perceptible. Even fairly cheap mice can do that no problem as long as they’re competently engineered, although as with most things you’ve got a better chance of finding something competently engineered if there’s more money to do the engineering.
Yeah, while I can feel a touch of latency on my Bluetooth Magic Trackpad, the Logitech G604 Lightspeed I use with my Windows box has practically none when used with its dongle.
I had the same issue with wireless mice for a long time. Finally broke down and got a newer 2.4GHz one with the option for it to be wired/charge. I can't tell a difference in latency between wired and wireless with it. It was on the higher end of mouse prices, but my wife's cheaper wireless mouse doesn't seem to have any noticeable latency either in the few instances I've used it. I think they've finally just fixed the latency issue.
Curious to see your source on this? I was under the impression that even under the most ideal circumstances, wireless transmission will never be faster than wired, by the nature of electrons moving through a copper wire. If I recall correctly, a typical signal traveling through a copper wire approach about 2/3's of c (the speed of light), roughly 200,000 km/s. While typical 2.4 GHz transmission can travel at approximately c, roughly 300,000 km/s, you have to add time to receive the data, encode the data, transmit it, decode the data, and then transmit the data to the USB receiver. The initial receiving and final transmission both rely on signal over copper, in addition to processing of encoding/decoding the data.
In real life application it may be a difference of 1ms to 2ms, but my interest in physics leads me to wonder/question the veracity of the idea that wireless transmission can be faster than wired.
Not going to lie, I don’t have one. I thought I read it online a while ago or maybe saw it in a YouTube video but I can’t find where that may have been. My thinking was basically just part of your explanation in that a signal will transmit at light speed wirelessly but slower than that over copper. I didn’t think about converting to wireless then back to wired.
I’m on my phone so I’m not doing too much research right now, but this video that I skimmed through (without sound, lmao) seems to suggest you’re right? https://youtube.com/watch?v=yy0xmcBg_IY . It looks like around 1ms extra latency. I’d argue that’s identical for all real world intents and purposes but you’re right, it’s definitely not better.
No worries, I didn't mean to knit-pick you or anything. I TA'ed for physics while getting my degree, as I found the subject interesting enough that if I weren't already in a healthcare path, I could have definitely enjoyed going down a physics career path. The idea didn't match up with the concepts in my head, so I wanted the opportunity to better educate myself, if my ideas were incorrect/outdated. Thanks for the response!
There’s a possible consideration of cable length too — unless I break out the pliers (nah, that’s way over my head and above my pay grade to ever attempt) I can never reduce the fact that the signal has to travel down two-point-four metres of cable before it hits my USB slot, but that’s just me playing devils advocate and not actually being an expert on any of this
This is actually something I've thought about but, depending on how close your desktop is, you totally can just plug the dongle directly into your motherboard. I've tried it and didn't notice any issues despite it being a little further than where the cord sits.
Scaling up to larger distances (between cities) it’s worthwhile to go wireless if you’re doing something very latency sensitive, so I can imagine people hearing that snippet and remembering it as a broader “wireless = lower latency for the most demanding applications”.
High frequency trading gets a measurable boost from the extra propagation speed and the straight line distance (compared to the cables being installed to follow the actual geography) at the tens to hundreds of km range, and that demonstrably outweighs any encoding/decoding overheads, but for a 3m mouse cable you’re talking nanosecond differences in travel time for a theoretical best case. That maps to tens of GHz in data processing terms - within the capabilities of specialised tech, because we live in the future, but below the noise floor for general computing and way outside human perception. [Edit: come to think of it I wonder if sticking with wires but switching back to good ol' PS/2 to avoid the USB stack would make a difference? I doubt it'd be perceptible, but it might at least be measurable... Anyway, I should be working right now!]
Tom Scott did a video about an exchange that uses a 60km spool of fiber as an intentional speed bump, if you’re interested in a real world example of this kind of thing.
I am not sure if 2.4Ghz is actually as far compared to any wireless mouse. But, I do know there goes more into mouse latency than just the signal from the mouse to the computer. The sensor itself, the processing into a signal, polling rate, etc are all factors that come into play.
Based on that, even if it is technically somewhat slower I can see 2.4Ghz wireless mice being on par with wired variants or in some cases even beating them. Certainly when we are talking about gaming mice.
Disclaime: This is mostly idle speculation from my side based on what I know, so should not be taken as fact.
Even the best wireless mice have more latency than a wired mouse, it isn't going to be faster. That being said, good wireless mice tend to have low enough latency that it is imperceptible to most or all people.
Latency used to be a big issue here, even with the higher end mice for people that played twitch FPS games or very fast RTS games, but that has been sorted out for a while. I personally still don't use them except for my HTPC, but not because of latency. I don't like the extra weight, the needing to charge, or the fact that batteries eventually die and you need to replace them (or buy a whole new mouse because you can't source a new battery).
That’s interesting, I’m only a year or two off your age, but I’m completely the opposite. I don’t go out of my way for wireless, but when the standards make them essentially cheap enough that I’m not losing out on anything, I’ll usually prefer wireless.
Every time I rummage through my box of miscellaneous cables, I relish how infrequently it happens compared to ~10 years ago.
It was pretty easy for me to switch back to using a USB keyboard and mouse for desktop, which eliminates that hassle.
I find Airpod Pro’s to be so good that I don’t miss the headphone jack much. But I haven’t found any low-latency wireless headphones and I’m doubtful that it’s even possible for bluetooth, so I think wired headphones will continue to have a niche for live performance.
To push back a bit: I think it comes down to frequency. To make something wired means either consuming your phones single (or at best, one of 2) ports, or to make a dedicated port to it. But there's many peripherals to consider these days.
Wireless makes sense for peripherals only occasionally used. A game pad is nifty for me, while it may be a daily necessity for hardcore players (who will buy a dedicated connection) or something used once for many casual users (who will bt connect some controller).
I loathe the idea that all data connections would be mediated by wireless, much less an app. Not only is it buggy and drops the connection regularly, but not having the option to use OTG devices and connections is crazy.
I'm pretty sick of the whole idea of technology progress to be honest. I would gain so little from wireless charging, and all for the notion that it just looks cooler to not use a cable.
Total bullshit and an opportunity for phone makers to further surveil and control their users.
I don't think phones will switch to wireless-only any time soon. It's slow, energy expensive and impractical. It also doesn't seem to have any benefit for the manufacturers. I think this update is more for smart watches, which usually rely on wireless charging.
The one thing I can see it supporting is making it easier/cheaper for devices to strive for higher waterproof ratings. Although I think these days some of the flagship models are already pushing to IP68? So not sure how much further it needs to be pushed
I mean, yeah, even like 5 years ago you were already able to hold your phone underwater for about an hour or even more, I don't think water protection needs any significant improvement
They're being forced to bring back removable batteries in 2027 due to another regulation, so I wouldn't entirely lose hope yet
Personally I do not buy phones without a 3.5mm jack. It's my #1 requirement, no matter what...
I finally broke and compromised on a phone without a 3.5mm jack. (mostly because in the last 5 years, only ginormouse phones, largely with a focus on gaming, have included the jack) Feels kind of like if Superman lost his strength or something. Sure, I'm fine 90% of the time. But when I encounter a situation where I'd like to use aux it makes me instantly regret my purchase.
I picked up some JCally JM6 Pros to deal with that compromise. Cheap enough to leave in the car (for passing of the AUX) or a bag but also wholly component for driving my headphones.
I miss my LG V series phones.