UKC

After a brief discussion with some people today, who claimed their cables had lasted 'forever', I'm after some other user experience of these items.

I have before me 6 cables, 2 of which I can just about get to work by wiggling them a bit.

Most of these are Lightning connectors, but it came up again tonight because a 30 pin one had broken and I tried to find a working one.

The 6 above don't include the 4, or more, that I've binned over the last 18 months. A mixture of Apple and 3rd party cables.

Does my family treat them too harshly?

In reply to Kipper:
Apple is utterly notorious for the shockingly poor quality of its cables despite its ultra premium prices. Take a look at the Apple Store customer reviews for its £25 lightening cable. It got an average of 1.5 stars out of 5 and comments like "I've been through about 5 or 6 of these cables over 12 months" and "I have had a phone 10 month and already 2 of these cables have not lasted the pace. VERY VERY poor apple"

I bought a £1 cable in poundland 4 years ago and despite almost daily use it works fine.

My advice is take your cable(s) back to Apple for an exchange point them to the Apple Store reviews. If they refuse to swap it out mention trading Standards..... that always works! I've had 4/5 laptop power cables out of them.

Why do they do it? Coz they get away with it.

In reply to Kipper:

I have been through four Apple ones in the last few years, they don't last with me, my son just gave me his spare one so I suspect I am a tad hard on them by scrunching them in my bag and he tends to keep his just at home. they seem to break at the join of the connector, even the third party iPhone charger in the car has gone in the same place. these are lightning ones but the previous incarnations weren't any better.

In reply to Removed User:


That seems to be exactly what's happened (the kids blamed the cat for the first one, but I'm not convinced )

In reply to Kipper:

just out of interest, I have a practically unused lightning cable that I'm happy to sell to anyone requiring a spare/replacement.

£8 posted?

o7855507475 or email through here.

cheers, Glyn.

In reply to Kipper:

Curious. In my line of work, we need to test our software on all Apple devices, so I've used, every iPad and iPhone, and never had a damaged cable.
I once bought a cheap third-party cable, but that didn't last long.

In reply to Kipper:

I've had a couple (of 30 pin ones) go at the join into the connector, but that's over 5 years or so. Definitely not a strong as the average USB charging cable, but then they're a lot thinner and lighter.

It's not stopped them actually working, though - the only problems I've had with that have been solved by cleaning out dust ans muck from the socket on the phone.

In reply to Kipper:

Plug docks are the way forward

In reply to Kipper:

Wow, you lot need to be nicer to the cables. I have never had a cable problem withs. Now cracked screens, thats a different question!

In reply to mh554:


I've seen the mixed responses, and done further enquiries (with other fanboys) at work.

It seems the differentiation is probably 'having kids'. It looks to me that it's probably using then extensively (on the sofa, in bed etc.) while charging.

In reply to wilkie14c:

I've (tried to) done that - it doesn't meet all 'requirements'

In reply to Kipper:


You may be onto something there, the teenagers seem to treat them as consumable items. Mind you they haven't managed to knacker a USB cable, yet.

In reply to Horse:


ditto - but I don't think their usage is that high these days (similar with Nintendo DS etc.).

In reply to Kipper:

You should see 'em pulling the things out of a PS controller and the like.

In reply to Kipper:

I'm happy to blame the kids. In my case, it's not necessarily directly them - but it was stuff like pulling phone up by charging cable whilst stuck under sleeping baby that seemed to be to blame.

They're a whole lot smaller to stick in your bag than a standard USB, so I'm tempted to let them off on balance....

In reply to Kipper:

6 ipod/phone cables and 2 macbook chargers thus far and never had an issue with any of them.

In reply to Kipper:

The apple leads are generally too short which I think leads to move wear at the join with the connector as you stretch them or create a tight kink when using them. I use a £1 USB extension cable with mine which helps a lot I think.

In reply to Kipper:
this is what the daughter and her mates do, it really does help prevent tight angle fold overs that cause a lot of the problems:
youtube.com/watch?v=cqoeE_AqOQ8&

In reply to wilkie14c:



Ingenious!

In reply to Kipper:

Also works for headphones