Make mine mini-USB!
By Simon Bisson & Mary Branscombe in Editorial
Posted in USB on
We travel a fair bit. It’s something you can’t escape in this business, where companies are scattered around the country and the world. And when you travel you’re going to need to take stuff with you, especially your technology. GPS, MP3 players, PDAs, phones, cameras, they’re all in your bags and pockets.
And too often they all have different power connectors. So you need to carry different power supplies for each one (or at the very least one of those little multi-voltage suppies with the changeable tips that you always lose, and even if you didn’t you’d never remember which way round they plug into the cable anyway…). As airline baggage weight limits carry on getting stricter and stricter, I’m finding myself looking at power connectors in a very different way.
It started with mobile phones. More and more them have switched to using the same connector for syncronisation and power. The same with MP3 players. Suddenly the number of power supplies I had to carry was dropping. I actually found myself looking for kit that used USB for charging and power - I even bought a USB power adapter for the car. You can even get rechargable batteries with built in USB chargers…
So I think it’s time to put a line in the sand, and to tell proprietary power connectors that their days are numbered. There is a better way, and it’s USB. If manufacturers want to be proprietary, provide a USB cable adapter (preferably for a mini-USB plug so we don’t have to load up with USB cables!). We’re a mobile society, and digital nomads don’t want to invest in an extra camel for their power adaptor collection. Just one will do, thank you very much.
HP, Nokia, Palm and Apple - you’re all on notice. Make things easier for your users - and airline baggage handlers and bell hops around the world will thank you for!
I’ve even got a slogan: “Make mine mini-USB!”
What do you think?
–S.
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