Samsung and Xiaomi to eliminate chargers with upcoming smartphones after sharing ads mocking Apple

Just a few months after trolling Apple for no longer including a charger with the iPhone, two competitors are now doing the exact same thing.

Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun confirmed the Mi 11 will come without a charger and Samsung deleted a Facebook post over the weekend that mocked Apple’s move, which may be hinting that the Galaxy S21 won’t have one either when it drops in January. 

When Apple announced the iPhone 12 and all future releases would ship without chargers, Samsung and Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi ran at the opportunity to poke fun at the Cupertino company.  

Samsung posted a picture of a Galaxy charger, with the caption ‘included with your Galaxy.’

One day later, Xiaomi tweeted a video promoting its Mi 10T Pro, showing a charged being unboxed, with the caption, ‘Don’t worry, we didn’t leave anything out of the box.’

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In October, after Apple announced iPhones would no longer come with chargers, Samsung posted this message on Facebook. It’s since deleted it, leading some to speculate a charger won’t be included in the upcoming Galaxy S21

Lei unveiled the M11 over the weekend, declaring its ‘light and thin’ packaging was because the company had decided to stop including a charger.

Like Apple, he said the decision was ‘in response to the call of technology and environmental protection.’

‘Today everyone has a lot of idle chargers, which is both a burden to you and on the environment,’ Lei said.

‘We are well aware that this decision may not be understood or even be complained about. Is there a better solution between industry practice and environmental protection?’ 

Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi roasted Apple a day after the charger announcement. Less than four months later, Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun confirmed the Mi 11 will come without one, too

Apple unveiled the new iPhone 12 during a live event October 13, revealing that the $799 smartphone wouldn’t come with a charger and EarPods, just a Lightning to USB-C charging cable.

Assuming users didn’t have them already, those accessories would cost an additional $90. 

Or they can shell out $39 for a MagSafe Charger and $49.99 for Beats Flex wireless earphones in their place .

Lisa Jackson, Apple’s VP of environment, policy and social initiatives, said during the event: ‘Customers already have over 700 million Lightning headphones, and many customers have moved to a wireless experience.’

Apple announced no longer including a charger and EarPods with iPhones would reduce over 2.2 million tons of carbon emissions a year and limit the mining of rare-earth elements

‘There are also over 2 billion Apple power adapters out there in the world, and that’s not counting the billions of third-party adapters.’

‘We’re removing these items from the iPhone box, which reduces carbon emissions and avoids the mining and use of precious materials.’ 

The tech giant claims the decision to remove the two accessories will cut over 2.2 million tons of carbon emissions a year.

By Apple’s estimates, this works out as the same as almost 450,000 cars being taken off the road annually

But Apple customers were outraged, with many calling the environmental rationale a lame excuse to hide a desire to charge more for less.

One Twitter users brought up the fact that Apple eliminated the charger and EarPods to cut down on packaging, but is now encouraging people to buy two separate devices, in separate packaging.

On Twitter, iPhone users expressed their anger over Apple’s decision to stop shipping chargers and EarPods with new phones 

‘Pretty soon, they’ll take your screen, and you’ll have you attach one with a dongle,’ tweeted another. ‘Anyone on the hype train for any new iPhone is a shill. ‘Oh it’s 5G capable now!’ So are tons of better, cheaper brands. With a charger.’

Ben Wood, Chief of Research at CCS Insight, said at the time of the announcement that while it was easy to be skeptical about Apple’s announcement ‘the environmental benefits can’t be ignored.’

Apple CEO shows off the new iPhone 12 at a launch event in October

He sagely predicted ‘Apple’s decision is likely to mean that in many cases the days of a charger and headphones being included with a new smartphone are over.’

Samsung hasn’t made an official announcement, but it would follow a pattern for the company:  According to MacRumor, Samsung dunked on Apple in 2016 for removing the headphone jack from the ‌‌iPhone‌‌ 7, but then promptly releasing the 2018 Galaxy A8 without a headphone jack.