All Together Now
Anyway, the upshot of all this is that currently in my bag I have no less than five USB-to-something cables, which I need in order to charge, sync, and transfer files to and from my various mobile devices and, to be frank, it's becoming a right pain in the backside. Now I am probably somewhat of an exception as I have two phones, two MP3 players, and two portable hard drives at the moment but certainly it must be reasonably common for someone that's into technology to have one each of these three on them at the same time. And, if you regularly use a laptop or camera, then you may have many more besides. Just imagine how great it would be if all you needed was one cable to do everything.
Now, of course there's an argument to be had that companies use their own connections because they feel the use of a single miniUSB or FireWire port is insufficient for the device's needs or the space constraints of portable devices are not conducive to using these standards, but I for one don't believe a word of it. Sure, the iPhone is very slim but the extra couple of millimetres required to fit a normal size 3.5mm jack plug surely can't be that critical to its operation.
No, the main reason companies like to use proprietary connections (and proprietary anything else for that matter) is that they lock in the consumer to its product line. By making the connection for a PMP or mobile phone different to the rest of the competition, the consumer is forced to buy the matching dock or headset for that device, which the company hopes will be from its line. But, even if it's not and the consumer buys third party accessories, the theory goes that when you look to upgrade your device your first port of call will be the same manufacturer because you already have all the accessories. Not to mention the fact that the original manufacturer gets paid a license fee by any third party making accessories for its devices - yep, that does mean that Apple is raking in the cash from all those third party extras!
Well, that's the theory, however if you've ever sold an old phone on ebay, you'll know that you get much more interest if you have not just the phone but the matching headset, a spare battery, a carry case, a dock, and whatever else you can think of. So for a company to rely on this mentality is doing nothing but annoying the people that buy its products.
Now, I can understand that for a product like the Archos 605 a proprietary connection will be needed for connecting to its range of PVR docks, because no existing standards for these types of connections would fit on a mobile device. However, basic file transfer and charging services could, and should, be performed over a simple mini-USB interface. Likewise, coming back to the product that started this all off, the Sony Walkman NWZ series are a great little PMPs that, on features and sound quality are right up there with the best but by being forced to use the special Sony cable the whole experience becomes just a little inconvenient.
In summary, computers are now incredibly sophisticated and are able to interpret data from hundreds of different sources and use it in seemingly unimaginable ways - just think of what's needed to make modern computer games work. So not being able to just plug my phone into someone else's computer to charge it is no longer acceptable. Just as with ridding the world of DRM - or at least non open-standards thereof, we should demand universality in all our products and in all aspects of them. And, until that day arrives we should not just be happy with what we're force fed.
