Standard phone charger

Years ago, I went back home for holidays. In Shanghai International Airport I saw a line of machines as showed in the photo below. That is so called “Mobile Phone Station” where you can find chargers for almost all kinds of mobile phones. For a few yuan you can charge your dying phone for 10 minutes, of course, as you can see, with the annoying advertisements above your head, very loudly.

Starting from 2010 the european consumers will have the standardized micro-USB charge socket on every mobile phone. People will not have to throw away their charger when they buy a new phone and it will be much easier to find the “compatible” charger in the office.

All major players, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, LG, Samsun, NEC have joined to the agreement. Surprised to know that Apple is also on board. Does it mean that the next iPhone will equipped with the micro USB instead of the Apple 30-pin iPod port ? Will Apple redesign iPhone ?