
Canada Wants a Standard Charging Port for Electronics, Just Like the EU
Canada's 2023 budget promises to establish a common charging standard for smartphones, tablets, laptops, cameras, and other devices
People keep asking why Apple didn’t opt for the micro-USB connector. The answer is simple: that connector isn’t smart enough. It has only 5 pins: +5V, Ground, 2 digital data pins, and a sense pin, so most of the dock connector functions wouldn’t work – only charging and syncing would. Also, the pins are so small that no current plug/connector manufacturer allows the 2A needed for iPad charging. Note that this refers to individual pins; I’ve been told that several devices manage to get around this by some trick or other, but I couldn’t find any standard for doing so.
There’s also an explanation about the Lightning to 30-pin adapter’s size and cost too–find out here.
[via The Loop].