mike writes:


It's certainly possible for there to be a standard
whereby all the contacts were in the same place and the
battery told the charger what to do. That would make
batteries a commodity. The only people to benefit from
that would be consumers...so it's not likely to happen.

....

I've been thru this with laptop chargers. You buy a UNIVERSAL
laptop power supply. You can get adapters for a mere $9.95
that let you use it with any laptop.
Cool...
So, you buy a new laptop and try to get an adapter.
Sorry, that charger is discontinued, but we have this new
version that works with your laptop. And it's incompatible
with all the adapters you already bought.

After about three cycles of that, you give up on the idea
of anything being compatible.


The EU got tired of having tens of millions of chargers in
the wastestream annually. They mandated all smartphones use
5V microUSB. The phone manufacturers bitched until they realized
that meant they need not give you one with the phone...Profit!

Apple, of course, balked.

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