The Charger That Almost Freed Us All
In 2009, the EU made 14 phone makers promise one universal charger. One company found the loophole. The drawer of mismatched cables survived for thirteen more years.
In 2009, fourteen phone manufacturers — including Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, and Motorola — signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the European Commission, promising that by 2011 every new mobile phone would charge via a single standard: micro-USB. The EU held off on making it mandatory. Then one company found a loophole in Annex II, section 4.2.1: you only had to support the standard via an adapter, not build it in. Apple shipped a micro-USB adapter in the box — and kept the 30-pin connector. The MoU quietly expired. The drawer full of incompatible chargers lived on for another thirteen years.
It took a binding directive — EU Regulation 2022/2380 — to finally mandate USB-C for handhelds (December 2024) and laptops (April 2026).
Sources
Almost Famous
A counterfactual-product-history channel, updated every two weeks, investigating one specific creative idea, scrapped proposal, killed standard, or rejected urban-planning project that ALMOST changed North American culture — and didn't.
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