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So who purchased a longer charging cord!?

himynameiscody

himynameiscody

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 9, 2011
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Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

I know I'm not the only one annoye by this. Will A cheap one off eBay be fine ?
 
I only have gotten extensions and they've been working fine most of the time, i've had one problem and that is when i connected it to an aftermarket dock, they just wouldn't go togheter, but separate, no problem.



Though always inspect the hardware inside the 3rd party dock or cable you're buying (if you can) before you plug it in, some examples are so badly soldered i wouldn't even wanna plug it because of the risk of shorting the usb or the dock on the iPhone..

That's the advice i got!
 
It's just a wire. There's no reason to pay Apples outrageous price for a short cord. I buy longer ones for under $4.00 each. They last longer than the original too.
 
I hate hate hate how small they made the included charging cord... I'll have to pick up a few too
 
so there's ebay... what about some of the ones on amazon?

I was looking at belking and griffin products on amazon (charging products) Are these any good?/worth the price?
 
i havent gotten any of the long ones to work for syncing, just charging... might be the source on ebay....
 
I guess I'm one of the lucky ones. I've owned iPhones since the 2G and the charger cord was different then. You were able to interchange the plug with a longer cord. I had owned two MBP and they always came with those longer cord. First MBP was sent it for AC warranty repair (entire MBP) and was sent back with all the plug, longer cord including. I sold that that MBP. So now, I have 2 of those cords, one for my MBP and the other my 4S.
 
I bought a home charger from AT&T and one thing i did notice is I had 1% remaining on my battery and when i plugged the AT&T branded charger after 20 mins it went to 3%. than I plugged the apple charger and in the same 15-20 mins it went to like 15%. Seems like apples charger either charges super fast or the att one is maybe bad?
 
I haven't since I don't really need them. I've just been unplugging the phone if I need to use it away from my charger momentarily and then I'll just put it back on.
 
vitzr said:
It's just a wire. There's no reason to pay Apples outrageous price for a short cord. I buy longer ones for under $4.00 each. They last longer than the original too.
Click to expand...



No it's not "just a wire".

As i said in the post before you, open them up and look inside and you'll know exactly why they are not "just a wire". I mean, i do all kinds of fixing with iPhone repairs, but some of the cords from ebay are really horrible and i wouldn't wanna touch them with anything.

You can clearly see in some of the cables that they have been manually soldered, sometimes not so good...

While i agree that the apple cords are WAY overpriced, i would at least choose a branded cable like belkin or something similar that is a good known brand otherwise and not just any cheap ebay cable, $4 can cost you your whole phone if the solders are shorted out.. which is easily happening on such small contact paths when doing them manually as most people from hong kong/china do.
 
I just use Apple's USB extension cable that came with one of the Apple keyboards I bought a while ago.

WOV4K.jpg
 
Honestly, the Apple cables are way better quality than the ones on EBay and i do not like paying silly amounts for cables. Every time I have bought one of eBay they have frayed or come lose and stopped working. Not only that but I've never found one that was as thin as the Apple cable around the plastic casing which causes issues when you want to charge with a bumper on.
 
I just use the Extender from my MacBook Pro, it works identical to the one Apple sells online for $29 (the extender adds 6ft for a total of 9ft, thats plenty).

MC359
 
Let me start with saying I like the current length cables shipped with the iDevices. They work well when travelling for work, I wouldn't want additional bulk to haul around.

For static setups where you leave a dock or charging cable on your desk / nightstand / whatever, common USB extension cables work great. Easily available and inexpensive. Plus it's easier to make a cable longer than it is to make it shorter! :D
 
M Quick said:
No it's not "just a wire".

As i said in the post before you, open them up and look inside and you'll know exactly why they are not "just a wire". I mean, i do all kinds of fixing with iPhone repairs, but some of the cords from ebay are really horrible and i wouldn't wanna touch them with anything.

You can clearly see in some of the cables that they have been manually soldered, sometimes not so good...

While i agree that the apple cords are WAY overpriced, i would at least choose a branded cable like belkin or something similar that is a good known brand otherwise and not just any cheap ebay cable, $4 can cost you your whole phone if the solders are shorted out.. which is easily happening on such small contact paths when doing them manually as most people from hong kong/china do.
Click to expand...

^^^This.

That's why I got a 3' (1.5 metre) Belkin cable from the Apple store which works very well for me.
 
I got some 6ft (maybe they're 4ft?) USB extension cables years ago (like 5) off Newegg. They work just fine :cool:

EDIT - I would also recommend Monoprice for your cable/wiring needs. I've always ordered from them ever since I found out about their existence.
 
vitzr said:
It's just a wire. There's no reason to pay Apples outrageous price for a short cord. I buy longer ones for under $4.00 each. They last longer than the original too.
Click to expand...

You mean the outrageous price of "free" that's included with the phone? clearly you're not going to buy the same cord from them if you want something longer.
 
I've had very inconsistent results from 3rd party cords. Most charge fine, but for sync don't work as reliably as Apple's. Not a big deal, I use an Apple cord for sync and 3rd party cords for charging only.

Actually one of my favorites is a SHORTER charge cord - this one from Griffin - I have one in each car, with a Pro-Clip charging cradle.

31FB0a%2BDTZL._SL500_AA300_.jpg
 
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vitzr said:
It's just a wire. There's no reason to pay Apples outrageous price for a short cord. I buy longer ones for under $4.00 each. They last longer than the original too.
Click to expand...

+1
We order half of dozen at a time and a wall adapter.
Reason? We have to iPhone users and one likes to lost them and forget where they are :p
Honestly they are still under warranty and a family member who is an electrical and computer engineer says they are fine and he uses them :)
Sorry :apple: i am not paying that much!
 
I bought some off eBay and they work well for syncing but if the battery on my iPhone 4 has drained to the point where the iPhone 4 shuts off I can't charge with the cables. I have to use my Apple cable.

I haven't compared the charging rate between the two cables.
 
On my nighttable at home, i just bought one of those desk organizers with dock.

At the office, I use an iHome so luckily I dont have the cord problem.
 
I would buy a third-party one, probably Monoprice, but I have so many laying around from various iPods that I don't need to. I got a car charger from Monoprice for like $5.50. Not the best made thing in the world, but it does work. I think it's extremely inefficient, but I don't really care, since it's in the car.
 
wrinkster22 said:
+1
We order half of dozen at a time and a wall adapter.
Reason? We have to iPhone users and one likes to lost them and forget where they are :p
Honestly they are still under warranty and a family member who is an electrical and computer engineer says they are fine and he uses them :)
Sorry :apple: i am not paying that much!
Click to expand...



I will bet you that your "computer engineer" never even cracked them open and actually looked at them internally, but if he did he actually found good cords or bought a branded cable at least like belkin or something similar.

Because ebay cables = open them up and i swear by anything, will not recommend you that because how they are actually so badly made. But if he did, he can't really be a computer engineer, i am not a computer engineer or anything like that, but i am used to open up electronics everyday and fix them.
Comparing ebay cables to branded cables are exactly what the price will give you, it's crap.

The warranty isn't valid if you stick a 3rd party charger/sync cable into your device that apple hasn't approved if it gets broken after that. I can guarantee you that, you would need to lie to the apple store and tell them that you didn't do anything like that before, so i guess you're one of them, right?
 
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