Gotta love the Macbook charger cables that wear down to exposed wires after a few years of normal use. Some will even give you a small sparky lightshow reminding you it’s time to be a consumer again!
Comment on Apple’s new USB-C iPhone cables and dongles are predictably expensive
orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts 1 year ago
I love a lot of Apple’s products, but their wires are easily the worst of the worst. They’re expensive and made to fall apart after like 6 months.
lemann@lemmy.one 1 year ago
CaptainPedantic@lemmy.world 1 year ago
When I had a MacBook Pro with the 1st generation Magsafe, I went through 2 legit Apple chargers and 3 off brand ones in the 9 years I had the laptop. One of the off brand chargers even exploded! Well, a capacitor inside it exploded, but it was designed well enough that it didn’t damage anything else or catch fire.
I’ve only ever had that one laptop, and I was using it in college so I was constantly plugging and unplugging it, so I have no idea how abnormal that cable use is.
Magsafe is super cool, and it definitely saved my computer from certain death several times, but damn it sucked buying those expensive chargers. It would’ve been nice just to buy the cable, not the whole damn charger.
lemann@lemmy.one 1 year ago
I now use a USB-C to magsafe 1 adapter on my Mid 2012 MBP, free to replace the cable and charger at any time. Currently using a 65W PD brick and a nice long 10ft/3m cable 😁
The magsafe connector has saved my ass a bunch of times too LOL, my previous barrel jack laptop was yanked off tables more than a few times. Uni lectures were the worst as multiple people wouldn’t see the charger on the floor and trip on it 🥲
orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts 1 year ago
I currently have an iPhone cable that is frayed at the neck of the iPhone connection end. It’s from repeated bending from completely normal use. I had to stop using it because it was actually making my iPhone hot and was having sluggish connection issues. This is now the 3rd cable to do this and that includes MacBook cables too.
Apple intentionally makes them cheap because they’re such an easy moneymaker for them. I have tons of old cables from other devices that have never had this issue, so I know this isn’t some isolated thing and I’m somehow the stupid one in the scenario. Their cables are terrible.
Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
My 2011 MacBook Pro is on her original charger… I don’t know how you all take such poor care of your stuff.
dpkonofa@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Same. I’m still using my original lightning cable (USB-A and all) and it looks almost new other than some staining from use.
Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
Same! I DO tape and heat-shrink the ends of my lightning cables now, though… after one of my cats decided my extra long one looked absolutely delicious.
Techmaster@lemm.ee 1 year ago
It’s the people who tightly wind their cords up every time they put it in the bag. I always just loosely put the charger in my bag to minimize stress on the ends of the cords.
June@lemm.ee 1 year ago
My 14” MacBook Pro has a braided MagSafe cable. It took way too long but they did finally fix that problem.
coffeebiscuit@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I’m still using the cable that came with the 5s. What are you doing with the cables?
vzq@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year ago
The main predictor of cable wear is whether people are using the phone while the cable is attached.
If you just leave it to charge they will last for u years. If you continue to use them while they are charging, life span of the cable is measured in weeks.
BornVolcano@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Is that specific to the lightning or also the usb-c?
vzq@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year ago
It’s specific to cables. More motion is more strain is more wear.
Astroturfed@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I’ve had several fall apart from usual wear and tear. If you roll them up, pack them, run them on things, pull them in and out of bags/pockets etc they wear down pretty quickly compared to even mid range aftermarket cables. I have some nice baided cables Ive had for 10+ years. I can’t imagine and apple one lasting that. Unless it just sits plugged into an outlet all the time, any cable last forever like that.
orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts 1 year ago
Connecting to my car’s head unit.