Hacker News Reader

The "arms" on MagSafe adapters are actually bad for the cable - wrapping it around them puts undue stress on the cable, which causes them to fray faster. And a stiff/inflexible cable should also prevent it from fraying.

Seems like Apple took an proprietary, easily-damaged charging cable and replaced it with a standard, less easy to damage one.

The charging indicator light is a definite loss, though.

View on HN

As someone who took good care of my MacBook charging adaptors and cables, I found them to be perfectly durable. Those arms are only problematic when one wraps the cable 'immediately', instead of giving an extra loop and then beginning the winding.

Mbp chargers fall apart quickly. 'Taking good care' in this context sounds like 'you're holding it wrong'

I'm not sure what you mean

He's referencing Steve Jobs' email response to the iPhone 4's antenna issues.

>Those arms are only problematic when one wraps the cable 'immediately', instead of giving an extra loop and then beginning the winding.

True, but I've literally never seen anyone do that in public. I do (the 2 times I've done so), one coworker does, everyone else grabs and wraps as quickly and tightly as possible.

They can be used "safely", but the affordance isn't there. It practically begs to be misused. Bad design in a nutshell.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com