…is something we all know, but do not fight enough.

Yesterday morning, I suffered that little annoying experience already happened to many million smartphone users, and will happen to many more millions: I got distracted, and my smartphone ended up in the kitchen sink, under running water, for a few seconds. I did everything recommended in these cases (open the phone, extract the battery, make everything dry etc..). The day after, the phone is still dead, and it seems very likely that at least the battery should be replaced. And this intrinsically little annoyance made me just remember that little, monumental idiocy we all know, but still love to forget:

No standard smartphone batteries yet. In 2019

Almost ten YEARS ago I was happy because the world had finally started to overcome the galactic embarrassment of non-standard phone CHARGERS:

Ten years later, we have not learned that lesson yet.

Time for REAL innovation

Forget foldable screens. Forget wireless charging. Forget in-screen fingerprint scanners. Forget flash-less night pictures. Forget all that other crap that passes for smartphone innovation these days.

The world is already suffocating under mountains of plastics. Marketers and investors worldwide are selling, with little or no dispute, their wet dreams to cover those mountains with even bigger piles of e-waste. Including incompatible smartphone batteries.

We need smartphones. No question about that. But we need REALLY SMART phones. We need real innovation. Like immediate adoption of ONE standard set of sizes for smartphone batteries. First, because it is not science-fiction: it is just the logical extension of what we already have:

Second, because it is absolutely idiotic to not do it, in a world where both people living paycheck to paycheck and e-waste continue to increase.

Next time someone starts blabbing of foldable screens and similar crap, interrupt them immediately, shout “WHAT WE NEED IS STANDARD BATTERIES” in their face, and then just walk away.