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Apple, This is how you make a charge cable....

R

rcflyers

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 22, 2015
4
6
Apple TAKE NOTE!
Despite you claiming to sell "premium" products your iPad lightning charge cables are junk.
My daughter has just had another one fail. In your quest to make everything tiny and minimalist you have also made the cables very weak.
Look at the pictures which also show a genuine Nokia micro usb charge cable (Made in China).
The difference is that they got the design right.
The Nokia cable will last years because it has a strain relief that works and is not made to be as thin as possible.
The Nokia cables are also only £3.99 to buy.
You only have to read the following page to see how many unhappy customers you have.
http://www.apple.com/…/…/MD818ZM/A/lightning-to-usb-cable-1m
 

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100% agree. The lightening cables are a joke.

I've actually gone out and bought a lightning cable to 30pin adapter. So now I'm able to use my 6+ year old cables which don't break after 3months of use like the expensive lightening cables.
 
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Yeah but the trouble is, OP, that strengthening the cable to make it useful will make it look uglier and bulkier. As you well know, with something as important and necessary as a charger, the priority has to be how it looks rather than how it functions.

I can just imagine Jony Ive's fat forehead angrily perspiring at the sheer prospect of making a cable that doesn't aggressively suck donkey balls.
 
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You have hit the nail on the head there, It doesn't matter how badly it is constructed, as long as it looks beautiful!

If charging cables are ugly why haven't they gone to wireless charging like Samsung?
 
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rcflyers said:
Apple TAKE NOTE!
Despite you claiming to sell "premium" products your iPad lightning charge cables are junk.
My daughter has just had another one fail. In your quest to make everything tiny and minimalist you have also made the cables very weak.
Look at the pictures which also show a genuine Nokia micro usb charge cable (Made in China).
The difference is that they got the design right.
The Nokia cable will last years because it has a strain relief that works and is not made to be as thin as possible.
The Nokia cables are also only £3.99 to buy.
You only have to read the following page to see how many unhappy customers you have.
http://www.apple.com/…/…/MD818ZM/A/lightning-to-usb-cable-1m
Click to expand...
in all my years over owning iPods,iPads and iPhones and it's a long time now I have never killed a cable in that way. I've had one lightening cable replaced due to a bad chip but never a cable failure issue. Hell I have a 30pin FireWire cable that still looks like new.
 
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It might also help if the lightning plug body wasn't smooth and made out of the shiniest plastic known to man.
 
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This statement was allegedly made by an Apple employee:
"Now it just so happens that the Industrial Design department hate how a strain relief looks on a power adapter. They would much prefer to have a nice clean transition between the cable and the plug. Aesthetically, this does look nicer, but from an engineering point of view, it's pretty much committing reliability suicide. Because there is no strain relief, the cables fail at a very high rate because they get bent at very harsh angles. I'm sure that the Engineering division gave every reason in the world why a strain relief should be on an adapter cable, and Customer Service said how bad the customer experience would be if tons of adapters failed, but if industrial design doesn't like a strain relief, guess what, it gets removed"
 
Bought a cheap Lightning cable that was constructed of a rope-like material. Construction seemed like it would last very long, but I got a message from my iPhone saying it wasn't supported. It went from working to fine to working only when you hold it up to not working at all in like a week.

It's totally possible to make better and cheaper cables but it would prevent people from paying Apple 20$ for their version.
 
Newtons Apple said:
Never had ANY cable go bad on me. For the OP to have had multiple cables go bad . . . . Well there has to be a reason.
Click to expand...

Same experience for me. Never had a cable fail, but then I realised many years ago not to coil them up tightly and to always grasp the plug rather than the cable when inserting or removing.
 
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I had my first lightning cable ever get damaged in my car just recently. Yes, more strain relief would have helped. I put a piece of white shrink tubing on it and it is better than new and looks virtually stock. Took all of 1 minute to fix...
 
Gav2k said:
Hell I have a 30pin FireWire cable that still looks like new.
Click to expand...
I have some USB's from 2004-2005 that have been used weekly since new and they're just fine. But they do have thicker cable and more conventional (notched) strain relief. Here's a pic I found comparing old and new. The notches on the old cable's strain relief sleeve encourage it to bend along the sleeve's length in a larger radius (i.e., a gentle bend rather than a sharper one which is what damages the conductors).

The lightning sleeve doesn't bend at all - I just tried it. The sleeve might as well not be there.

iPod-nano-9.jpg
 
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It's all in how you use them. In the past, I would use the iPhone while charging and put excessive pressure on the cable, causing it to tear. I'd also pull the cables past their maximum reach to use the phone from a distance. I understand you do have to be careful with these cables, but I feel like you shouldn't have to risk tearing the thing in half if you bend it a little.

And this is why there are other options for people like me who aren't exactly 'gentle' with the cables. Amazon exists for a reason, and I purchased multiple cables on there that can withstand my usage.
 
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I've purchased multiple 3rd party lightening cables. All of them work for the first week but then I get a message saying they are not compatible.
 
I still have my first lightning cable from September of 2012, it still works. Just don't EVER let the cable roughly kink to the side at a harsh angle from either the USB end or the Lightning end, and avoid unplugging the cable by gripping the soft material that surrounds the cable... Grab the hard plastic part where the lightning connector actually resides.

I don't know if people just don't know to do these things, or if I've just been super lucky because I haven't had an issue yet. I can tell you right now that I have a friend who hardly takes care of his stuff at all, he just got into the lightning connector world in March and he has already ruined a couple cables because he doesn't follow the rules I listed above.
 
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Saw my wife pick up her whole phone by grabbing the cable about 3 inches from the lighting port.

Well there's the reason why I guess I have two cracked cables taped up.

I do not have this issue, with any of my own cables, which I handle properly.

But always seem to have to replace hers and my kids.
 
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Yeah, I've also never damaged a lightning cable. However for my iPhone I do use a third party one that's 3 meters because I always I check my phone before bed and the stock cable isn't long enough.
 
metllicamilitia said:
Yeah, I've also never damaged a lightning cable. However for my iPhone I do use a third party one that's 3 meters because I always I check my phone before bed and the stock cable isn't long enough.
Click to expand...
I'm with you - never had a cable break but the stingy length of the stock cables is completely annoying.
 
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