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Comment by mmastrac | Hacker News Reader

It's been entirely my experience. I've got four of them for a house full of MacBooks - three are dangerously frayed at one end or the other and required me to use electrical tape+spring to repair them.

Somewhat amusingly, I bought a cheap knockoff MacBook charger off Amazon and it's been super-reliable other than running about 10ºC hotter than a standard Apple one.

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In my experience, the frayed cords come from pulling or sitting directly on the cord. Don't pull or sit on the cord. Use the connector directly to manipulate the connection.

The insulation on Apple cables is notably fragile in comparison to other cables. It would be OK for a permanent installation, but these are portable machines. Moving around just a bit on a regular basis is enough to cause failure after a few months.

I've gone through multiple power bricks and multiple lightning cables. The experience has made me even more hostile in the face of Apple's long history of proprietary cabling.

>Moving around just a bit on a regular basis is enough to cause failure after a few months.

This is shocking. The only power adapter that every started to have fraying was one that went into a tight backup situation that I biked with every day for three years, plugged in and out of several times a day. There was a ton of wear on that cable, every few months I'd clean it off because of the abuse it took. And it still lasted three years.

Also, which proprietary cables are you talking about? Charging cables are the only proprietary connector on a Mac and this is an industry-wide phenomenon, not an Apple phenomenon. It's an odd juxtaposition of an extremely unusual cord experience along with an unusual opinion on proprietary cords.

In my experience I have a MBP charger sitting in a cable channel under my desk, laid across my desk. There's about as little pressure on the cable as physically possible. The cable is even channeled across the desk with little BlueLounge connectors.

Two have frayed in four years. Genuine Apple, not $20 knock offs.

Same experience, over the course of over decade. iBook, Powerbook, Macbook, whatever, all frayed power cords or other defects at the laptop connector end.

I'm an Apple fanboy most of the time, but damn is this getting old.

Sugru works wonders though, if you catch it early enough.

Not to mention the thieving jerks charge $90 for a replacement. Mine seem to last 18 months at most.

Even if they insist on keeping their incredibly fragile cords, they could make them user swappable -- just like the wall end -- and sell replacements for $10.

You know the replacements would be $29 for a 1 foot option and $49 for a 5 foot option. :)

you mean like usb-c?

Yeah, but I still want the magnetic charger break-away. That saves my laptop at least once every 6 months.

This happens with Dell chargers all the time too but that's just because the terrible design makes it impossible to wrap the cable without putting a lot of stress on the end.

It's a difficult problem to solve, I'd prefer if the cables were simply a cheap replaceable part.

Interesting. In my over decade of MacBook ownership (about 5 or 6 MacBooks in total across my personal, work and wife's devices), I've never had a single problem with fraying cords.

Happened to me in about 4 or 5 months. Ridiculously crappy, quicker than the ones Lenovo and Dell ship even. I expected better build quality from Apple but given the heat and noise issues I have I don't really think I've seen it. First time I've been an Apple customer and probably the last.

How long did you get out of your Dell charger for comparison? I've seen two solid years out of mine literally moved about all the time, every single day. I always fold it well when I put it in my bag though as to not bend near the connector.

The worst thing that happened was one of the dell chargers started making a quiet beeping/buzzing sound - I read it was to do with the components coming lose inside and the sound was caused by the switching supply. I decided out of choice to get another, although there was nothing actually wrong with it as far as performance goes.

Mine fray constantly. I've never owned an apple device that HASN'T had terrible cords. I googled about why their cords are so crappy and found a thread on reddit with tons of people complaining. Apparently it's because the designers at apple thing cord reinforcement is not aesthetically pleasing. Sucks, I love their products, just wish their cords lasted longer.

https://www.thrillist.com/tech/nation/why-apple-hasnt-fixed-...

Try this (or a simpler variation thereof): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6duVvwdd5F0

I usually wrap my Apple charger loosely and throw it in a backpack. You can optionally attach a cheap piece of Velcro to keep it all together.

Edit: Here's another good cable wrapping demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-74OEVUOKOw

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