Soli said: I'd argue that Belkin's are better quality insofar as they don't need to fray at the Lightning end as quickly, but you also have to consider materials used and we know Apple removed PVC from their cable casings less than a decade ago which has reduced their longevity, which other vendors don't have to contend with since they don't have the same mindshare that Apple does.
I noticed that Apple significantly beefed up the charger cable restraints for the Apple Watch.
Soli said: I'd argue that Belkin's are better quality insofar as they don't need to fray at the Lightning end as quickly, but you also have to consider materials used and we know Apple removed PVC from their cable casings less than a decade ago which has reduced their longevity, which other vendors don't have to contend with since they don't have the same mindshare that Apple does.
I noticed that Apple significantly beefed up the charger cable restraints for the Apple Watch.
The cable seems thicker, but I wonder if that's because of the gauge needed for the 6' cable. I also rarely ever move my cable from its dock so I have no opinion regarding its beefiness.
after factoring in packaging, shelf space, ect. And Apple always uses top of the line components.
If Apple was making so much profit from cables, then other brands would build the same quality cables and sell at a much cheaper price. But we don't see that. The cheaper cables have horrible quality.
Apple cables are not known for their longevity. The cable restraints near the plugs tend to come apart more often than they should.
@soli ; I wonder if having both a USB-A and a USB-C female port on the charger would satisfy people during the transition. Personally, I would probably opt for the USB-A because right now it is ubiquitous for 99% of computers, cars, airplanes, airport terminals, many charging stations, aux power packs, and even furnishings.
Go show me some cables that are SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper then Apple cables and have the same quality?
If you can't then it means Apple isn't overcharging.
Are you really that dence?
On Apple site it's $29 for 2m long crappy cord. Which suck and break easily. It's even rated below 1 and a half stars on the Apple site.
You can get a 3f Anker cord double braided reinforced ends for $15.
So for half the price I can get a way better longer lasting cord.
The royalties Apple collects through its Made for iPhone program are but a tiny drop in the bucket in comparison to other revenue streams. I don't believe Apple would keep Lightning just because of that. For Apple to move from Lightning to USB-C, there'd have to be major advantages regarding usability, etc.
The major disadvantage is that cheap, dangerous cables will be even more prolific with USB-C.
The transfer speed isn't much of an issue since most users don't plug in their iPhone to transfer data.
The next port change for the iPhone will be no port at all.
But it is not Apple's job to stop people using cheap cables. They can educate us, but that's about it imo. I'm all for standardization when it comes to connectivity and cables. I agree that the next, or at least the best, port will be no port. For access when wireless charging and connectivity fails or for higher speed connectivity all phones should include the 'smart connectors', of course.
The real problem is that non-Apple chargers can overcharge the battery, causing the phone to catch on fire or explode. Use the Apple charger.
No - a charger is just a power supply that supplies a steady voltage/current. The charging circuitry is within the phone. Assuming the power supply has a decent voltage regulator there won't be any issues. If the power supply voltage goes high enough to overload the iPhone circuitry, thats another issue.
This is wrong. There is quite a bit of safety engineering in Apple's chargers which have been torn down and analyzed:
...in that article and others he stresses the importance of these components and even compares to cheaper knockoffs. Crapper chargers are responsible for electrical malfunctions and electrocutions. Fact.
Fast charging should have been designed into the iPhone 7. It seems it will be available in the autumn with the new phones. It's one of the little big features that make mobile life better. Definitely a plus of the best kind.
Fast charging has an impact on battery life and heat dissipatiion, considering how absurdly packed the current Iphone already is, it's not something that easy to do correctly (if you don't want to mess up your battery or cook your circuitry, whichever comes first.
Sorry. I'm not buying that. I have two year old, cheap Chinese phones at home with fast charging. The only time they hot is when I leave them in the sun. There are premium phones that are packed too and they also have fast charging. I think the latest have ultra fast charging. If Apple wanted to include it they could, even if it meant designing for it.
They were late to the party and that's all. Maybe a marketing thing but I'm not buying the 'difficulty' line.
Interesting. So that I may appropriately weight your engineering input, where did you study electrical engineering? How many products have you engineered?
Also, do you cheap Chinese phones have water seals? OIS? One of the best rated image processors and output? How thick are they? Would really love to compare apples to apples, so do tell.
Fast charging should have been designed into the iPhone 7. It seems it will be available in the autumn with the new phones. It's one of the little big features that make mobile life better. Definitely a plus of the best kind.
fast charging? worked really well for the Note7
But for the rest?
We have no idea. They are sold in such small volumes, even if they blew up no one would know
LOL.
Oh but we do know. The S7 had no such issues and they sold millions of the things. As did Huawei and numerous other brands.
The royalties Apple collects through its Made for iPhone program are but a tiny drop in the bucket in comparison to other revenue streams. I don't believe Apple would keep Lightning just because of that. For Apple to move from Lightning to USB-C, there'd have to be major advantages regarding usability, etc.
The major disadvantage is that cheap, dangerous cables will be even more prolific with USB-C.
The transfer speed isn't much of an issue since most users don't plug in their iPhone to transfer data.
The next port change for the iPhone will be no port at all.
But it is not Apple's job to stop people using cheap cables. They can educate us, but that's about it imo. I'm all for standardization when it comes to connectivity and cables. I agree that the next, or at least the best, port will be no port. For access when wireless charging and connectivity fails or for higher speed connectivity all phones should include the 'smart connectors', of course.
The real problem is that non-Apple chargers can overcharge the battery, causing the phone to catch on fire or explode. Use the Apple charger.
No - a charger is just a power supply that supplies a steady voltage/current. The charging circuitry is within the phone. Assuming the power supply has a decent voltage regulator there won't be any issues. If the power supply voltage goes high enough to overload the iPhone circuitry, thats another issue.
This is wrong. There is quite a bit of safety engineering in Apple's chargers which have been torn down and analyzed:
...in that article and others he stresses the importance of these components and even compares to cheaper knockoffs. Crapper chargers are responsible for electrical malfunctions and electrocutions. Fact.
TL;DR: 3rd-party PSUs and cables are fine, but don't get ones whose prices are too good to be true, try to look exactly like an Apple PSU (which is easily noticeable by a green dot, which Apple only applied once they had a recall and replacement to make it easy to see which of their PSUs were potentially dangerous), and are from companies you've never heard of before or can't find any sound information about when you do a basic search.
Fast charging should have been designed into the iPhone 7. It seems it will be available in the autumn with the new phones. It's one of the little big features that make mobile life better. Definitely a plus of the best kind.
Fast charging has an impact on battery life and heat dissipatiion, considering how absurdly packed the current Iphone already is, it's not something that easy to do correctly (if you don't want to mess up your battery or cook your circuitry, whichever comes first.
Sorry. I'm not buying that. I have two year old, cheap Chinese phones at home with fast charging. The only time they hot is when I leave them in the sun. There are premium phones that are packed too and they also have fast charging. I think the latest have ultra fast charging. If Apple wanted to include it they could, even if it meant designing for it.
They were late to the party and that's all. Maybe a marketing thing but I'm not buying the 'difficulty' line.
Interesting. So that I may appropriately weight your engineering input, where did you study electrical engineering? How many products have you engineered?
Also, do you cheap Chinese phones have water seals? OIS? One of the best rated image processors and output? How thick are they? Would really love to compare apples to apples, so do tell.
With the "water seals" they can say they're waterproof knowing the likelihood of people using in water and then trying to get their money back or a replacement for a faulty device is extremely low. It's a common spec sheet tactic by companies with no mindshare and easy path for customers to make a fuss.
Fast charging should have been designed into the iPhone 7. It seems it will be available in the autumn with the new phones. It's one of the little big features that make mobile life better. Definitely a plus of the best kind.
Fast charging has an impact on battery life and heat dissipatiion, considering how absurdly packed the current Iphone already is, it's not something that easy to do correctly (if you don't want to mess up your battery or cook your circuitry, whichever comes first.
Sorry. I'm not buying that. I have two year old, cheap Chinese phones at home with fast charging. The only time they hot is when I leave them in the sun. There are premium phones that are packed too and they also have fast charging. I think the latest have ultra fast charging. If Apple wanted to include it they could, even if it meant designing for it.
They were late to the party and that's all. Maybe a marketing thing but I'm not buying the 'difficulty' line.
Interesting. So that I may appropriately weight your engineering input, where did you study electrical engineering? How many products have you engineered?
Also, do you cheap Chinese phones have water seals? OIS? One of the best rated image processors and output? How thick are they? Would really love to compare apples to apples, so do tell.
From my post which you quoted:
If Apple wanted to include it they could, even if it meant designing for it."
As I said. I'm not buying the "difficulty" line.
On another note. Your link, although somewhat old now, included this:
"Apple's huge profit margins
I was surprised to realize how enormous Apple's profit margins must be on these chargers. These chargers sell for about $30 (if not counterfeit), but that must be almost all profit. Samsung sells a very similar cube charger for about $6-$10, which I also disassembled (and will write up details later). The Apple charger is higher quality and I estimate has about a dollar's worth of additional components inside.[14] But it sells for $20 more."
"Instead, it's more likely that Apple might switch to a USB-C connector on the opposite end of the Lightning cable that ships in the box." Holy $hit I must be a genius because out of the tens of thousands of unique fuster cluck connections apple has designed It just came to me that I could us this to cable to charge my track pad with my new MacBook..
Fast charging should have been designed into the iPhone 7. It seems it will be available in the autumn with the new phones. It's one of the little big features that make mobile life better. Definitely a plus of the best kind.
If you have a 2 amp (I think they are 2.4 amp now?) iPad charger, the iPhone 7/+ will draw 2amps and charge roughly twice as fast. The iPhone 6/+ did that as well. I thought that was fast enough, rarely used it but when I needed a quick charge, it worked well given it takes some 3 hours to charge a 6+ or 7+ on a 1 amp charger.
I know the iPhone 6 could. I thought there was some debate on whether the 7 could or couldn't.
Either way, it doesn't officially support fast charging but if it could charge faster with a more capable charger it would have been great if Apple had included it in the box.
I have been using the 12w iPad chargers in my house starting with the 6 plus, then 6s plus and now 7plus and the phone charges noticeably faster using this charger than the supplied 5w small block.
What is the rationale behind Apple skipping the iPhone 7S for the iPhone 8? I understand why Samsung has to jump to a new number after their Galaxy Note 7 debacle, but why Apple?
I don't know what to make of these speculations. Personally, I think that, if a special edition 10th anniversary phone is coming, it would probably be named outside the conventional naming scheme, just like the iPhone SE.
Maybe this will be the year Apple come full circle and drop the numbers on the iPhone, but I think we are too far down the road for a shake-up like that.
What is the rationale behind Apple skipping the iPhone 7S for the iPhone 8? I understand why Samsung has to jump to a new number after their Galaxy Note 7 debacle, but why Apple?
I don't know what to make of these speculations. Personally, I think that, if a special edition 10th anniversary phone is coming, it would probably be named outside the conventional naming scheme, just like the iPhone SE.
Maybe this will be the year Apple come full circle and drop the numbers on the iPhone, but I think we are too far down the road for a shake-up like that.
They tried that on the iPad.(Remember The New iPad? iPad 3, I think.) It didn't stick. People want a number so they know whether it's better than that other number.
Not fitting the anniversary phone into the normal numbering makes more sense than calling it the iPhone 8. If they actually produce an anniversary phone, that is.
Instead of buying your next iPhone, buy 10 shares of APPL instead. They will pay you, at least $5.70 every 3 months from now on. Then, as a part owner, see how you feel about the lightning cable, at that point. Oh, and reinvest your dividends to buy more APPL shares. (Smart young people will see the wisdom.)
Comments
On Apple site it's $29 for 2m long crappy cord. Which suck and break easily. It's even rated below 1 and a half stars on the Apple site.
You can get a 3f Anker cord double braided reinforced ends for $15.
So for half the price I can get a way better longer lasting cord.
http://www.righto.com/2012/05/apple-iphone-charger-teardown-quality.html
...in that article and others he stresses the importance of these components and even compares to cheaper knockoffs. Crapper chargers are responsible for electrical malfunctions and electrocutions. Fact.
Its not all in the phone only.
Also, do you cheap Chinese phones have water seals? OIS? One of the best rated image processors and output? How thick are they? Would really love to compare apples to apples, so do tell.
Oh but we do know. The S7 had no such issues and they sold millions of the things. As did Huawei and numerous other brands.
TL;DR: 3rd-party PSUs and cables are fine, but don't get ones whose prices are too good to be true, try to look exactly like an Apple PSU (which is easily noticeable by a green dot, which Apple only applied once they had a recall and replacement to make it easy to see which of their PSUs were potentially dangerous), and are from companies you've never heard of before or can't find any sound information about when you do a basic search.
If Apple wanted to include it they could, even if it meant designing for it."
As I said. I'm not buying the "difficulty" line.
On another note. Your link, although somewhat old now, included this:
"Apple's huge profit margins
I was surprised to realize how enormous Apple's profit margins must be on these chargers. These chargers sell for about $30I wonder if that has changed.
I don't know what to make of these speculations. Personally, I think that, if a special edition 10th anniversary phone is coming, it would probably be named outside the conventional naming scheme, just like the iPhone SE.
Maybe this will be the year Apple come full circle and drop the numbers on the iPhone, but I think we are too far down the road for a shake-up like that.
Not fitting the anniversary phone into the normal numbering makes more sense than calling it the iPhone 8. If they actually produce an anniversary phone, that is.