The removal of wall chargers from smartphone packaging is currently a trend that is being set in motion by various manufacturers. This is mostly influenced by Apple’s decision to exclude the accessory from all of its current and future product releases, with a noble aim of further reducing its carbon footprint to lessen any negative impact towards the environment.
Of course, this decision was initially met with mockery by competitors such as Samsung and Xiaomi, who took the opportunity to remind consumers that their smartphones still come with chargers as part of the package. However, the joke did not age well in the short term, as these same brands ironically followed Apple’s lead and also excluded the item from their recent releases not long after.
The most possible outcome is the smartphone packaging itself, which will likely shrink in size due to the removal of the extra goodies in the long run. Suffice to say, the reduced number of material usage and production costs would greatly benefit brands and of course, provide them with additional PR brownie points.
That last bit is cynical, but at least smartphone makers are contributing to the improvement of the environment. Even though they’ll take every chance to brag about it during launches and such.
But that can’t be all, right? Well, the next one is probably the most drastic yet.
As demonstrated by Xiaomi with its recently revealed concept device, there is a possibility that brands are playing around with the idea of having a fully wireless smartphone. Which basically means no more ports for charging and data transfer, therefore relying more on tech such as wireless charging, Bluetooth, NFC, cloud storage, Airdrop/Nearby Share data transfers, and eSIM.
This is just a speculation for now, but it isn’t something easily ruled out from happening in the future. Plus, a fully wireless smartphone wouldn’t require all of the aforementioned accessories either, so there’s that.
