It’s a lesson many of us learn throughout life: first they laugh at you, then they copy you. That’s exactly what Xiaomi did when it fooled Apple into deciding stop shipping wall chargers with its iPhones earlier this year. In its biggest twists and turns, just two months later, Xiaomi now thinks removing wall chargers from its phone booths is a great idea. I bet there are tons of people at Apple who say: mm-hmm.
As noted by the edge, on Saturday Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun announced that the company’s upcoming Mi 11 phone will not include a charger. Lei, who made the comments on the Chinese social media network Weibo, said the company had made the decision not to include chargers to protect the environment, adding that everyone has many inactive chargers. Xiaomi will launch Mii in China Monday.
slateThe announcement comes more than two months after the company ridiculed Apple on social media by showing off the charger in the box for its Mi 10T Pro.
“Don’t worry, we haven’t left anything out of the box with the # Mi10TPro,” Xiaomi continued Twitter shortly after Apple debuted the iPhone 12 and announced its new charger policy.
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But Xiaomi was not alone in smiling. Samsung also gleefully poked fun at its rival, posting one photo of his Galaxy charger on social media with the caption, “Included with your Galaxy.” Nonetheless, Samsung was recently caught deleting its charger messages because … it is Reportedly also the chargers in the box with its Galaxy S21 series, which looks like that will Launch over January.
When Apple announced it didn’t include a charger or headphones for environmental reasons back in October, it reasoned that customers already owned more than 700 million Lightning headphones, and many were using wireless headphones anyway. It stated that there were two billion Apple power adapters in circulation, as well as billions of other third-party adapters, and that it was environmentally friendly to get both items out of the box.
The move was initially heralded as a win for the environment until people realized that Apple was changing the cable in the box from the iPhone 12 to a USB-C to Lightning. Since almost every previous iPhone came with a USB-A wall charger, it’s hard to make the “everyone already has a charger” argument.
Doing things to minimize environmental waste is a good thing, and it’s a thing we all have to think about it. If Apple’s move succeeds Xiaomi, Samsung and others for reducing their charger waste, hats off to them. But if you say you want to reduce waste, focus on reducing waste, rather than selling chargers separately. The planet cannot afford empty promises.