Hacker News Reader

Comment by quasse | Hacker News Reader

The day Apple makes a power cord that doesn't have a cable sheath with the consistency and durability of silly putty is the day I will recognize them as back on track.

It's a small detail, but the power cord is the one part of the computer that users have no choice but to interact with every day and they've been ignoring the problems with them for the better part of half a decade.

Every Mac at work either has detached and frayed around the power connector strain relief, or looks like an extremely precise samurai has made tens of small cuts in the jacket of the cable.

View on HN

Of all the MacBooks, MacBook Pros and idevices I've had over the years (including my still running perfectly Jan 2011 MBP) I've never had a single issue with any power cord tearing / breaking or power supply even fail as far as I can remember. I always assume when I hear of people with this problem that they're disrespecting their hardware by jamming it in doors / desks or perhaps have pets that chew on them.

I'm onto charger 4 now I think? Usually have to replace it every ~12 months due to either cable sheath detatching from the inner cable and then splitting as I wind it up. Atleast two of them have also shorted out or only charged my macbook <1/2 the times it was connected.

tl;dr they're pretty trash, but maybe so are other chargers.

My solution was to get one for work and another for home, and the only time I ever wrapped up the cable is when I am traveling.

Out of interest are you the standard 240V or in the USA with the 110V chargers? Also, again just out of interest - are you in an especially humid or hot climate? I'm just trying to think of any 'extremes' that may cause consistent failures like this if the user isn't mistreating the product.

Why not just patch the cable with some electrical tape? Buying an entire charger just because the cable is fraying seems excessive.

You really expect a mac user to value function over form?

Hello, please try to keep comments constructive. The guidelines for commenting are available here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

So, someone like Linus Torvalds?

I’m have to admit being a bit baffled by how nobody else seems to have done what Apple did with the Macbook Air – even several years after the first release, the other notebook vendors continue to push those ugly and clunky* things. Yes, there are vendors that have tried to emulate it, but usually pretty badly. I don’t think I’m unusual in preferring my laptop to be thin and light. (...) I want my office to be quiet. The loudest thing in the room – by far – should be the occasional purring of the cat. And when I travel, I want to travel light. A notebook that weighs more than a kilo is simply not a good thing (yeah, I’m using the smaller 11″ macbook air, and I think weight could still be improved on, but at least it’s very close to the magical 1kg limit)*

People forget that thin, quiet, light, etc are also "function", and more important to some people than function they'll never exhaust in their use cases, like a bleeding fast GPU.

It's not about function over form. It's more about whether you want to risk damaging a $3000 piece of equipment, because you're too cheap to replace a $100 charger.

I've tried this and not long after doing it, the cable started fraying at the end of the taped section (and this despite the fact that I took some time to make sure the tape was properly placed, and tapered towards the cable). This is besides having a separate charger for home and work, and never coiling the work cable (that goes in the bag) around the power adapter.

There really is something wrong with the stupid cable. It's unthinkable that any of my other non-apple cables would do this.

I've destroyed the adapter by carrying it twice a day in my backpack. Who could have guessed Macbook Pro users are on the go. It's not a door, it's not jamming it between tables, but it's an inevitable place where it ends up being.

I can definitely see if it was jammed into a bag or wound tightly (got to be a pretty fine line there!) how it could happen, similar to how if I jam my IEM earbuds into my bag all the time I'd break one in no time I'm sure. But at least the larger chargers have those neat L shaped hooks that are supposed to encourage the correct diameter twist - I would have thought that'd be the saviour? Usually when I've heard of it or seen it it's at the MagSafe end and it's clear that the cord has been pulled backwards away from the laptop regularly - which to me is still a design flaw if that's how users are using them they should be altered. Having said all that - the amount of HP and co laptops I've seen with bent charger pins or squealing caps in their power packs is unreal and they're often more expensive than an Apple charger depending on the wattage.

At this point, absolutely no one who uses a MBP on a daily basis will believe this propaganda.

Just stop already.

It's not propaganda, it's my experience (and actually the guy sitting next to me at work as well, although he said his girlfriend has gone through a MacBook charger and her current one although working is looking tired but not broken yet).

It moves past being just your experience when you add in the bit about "I always assume when I hear of people with this problem that they're disrespecting their hardware by jamming it in doors / desks or perhaps have pets that chew on them."

It's fine to say you don't have issues, but if six other people are saying they have issues, and know people with issues, it's rude to write them all off like that.

-----

EDIT: replacing the paraphrased quote to try to avoid unfairly representing the original statement and remove my read of its intent. I had paraphrased it down to ""I assume the people having issues are responsible for those issues" which dropped the bit about perhaps having pets or similar and so put everything on the disrespecting the hardware part.

That's not a direct quote of that I said, the sentence I wrote is phrased in the past tense with the intent (and you'll just have to take my word for it) of surprise and / or previous thoughts on the matter up until the time of writing it. When you quoted me there you actually changed the construct of the comment to become an argument or judgement which was not the intent.

Fair edit and comment on my own, thanks for the clarification.

Blaming the user isn't helpful.

I've had more problems with Apple cables than any other brand - and Apple tends to make their cables sleeker looking. Coincidence? I doubt it.

At least they've improved from the Wallstreet-era Powerbook G3 chargers, though. I think I went through 3 of those circa 1998. Of course, those machines, and the early G4 Powerbooks, had bigger issues than just that. Dark times in Macland.

(As an aside, how people talk about their device history is a good litmus test of the length of their experience with Apple hardware, thanks to the Intel switch laptop name change.)

In some circumstances you can certainly blame the user. Any remotely feasible charger cable can easy be broken by repeated abuse. The real question is what percentage of users break their cables. If that percentage is very low, then I think you can blame the user (or, rather than blame, sugggest they just be a little more careful). I have no idea what the percentage is in this case.

>I've had more problems with Apple cables than any other brand - and Apple tends to make their cables sleeker looking. Coincidence? I doubt it.

Perhaps you had more Apple cables (an obvious branding) compared to any other brand? And your apple cables get more use than others (e.g. on your main laptop, compared to some cable left for years connected to a printer at the office, etc).

Except if you had e.g. an equal number of Dell and Apple machines, etc, or buy branded cables from a single brand.

I also have never had this problem. I hypothesise that it has to do with being taught how to coil cables in Music Tech A level. (The method I was taught involves ensuring the cable isn't twisted, and securing it with insultating tape.)

If you leave out the tape, and you put a bunch of them in a box, this is the ritual for summoning an elder god. (the elder god is always gone by the time you re-open the box, but the non-euclidean tangle they've left the cables in is quite apparent.) Unless you're the kind of person who will happily and patiently sit uncluttering the cables without yanking them for a few hours, you'll damage your stuff extracting them from this class of mess.

For reference: I am actually still using the charging cable that came with my 2009 MBP (via a magsafe2 adapter) with my latest work-issued MBP as the spare adapter in the home office. The cable is a bit grubby, but undamaged and entirely functional.

As I write this my MBP is plugged in to a power cord with about two inches of bare wire just below the connector. This cord is only ~4 years old and it has had exposed wires for several years now. I can't see how my use is unusually hard on it. Definitely no doors, desks, or pets. It pretty much just sat in my room and I used it.

Honestly: be really careful with that charger / cord - that could likely easily start a fire or spark and ignight something nearby. If you haven't the funds to replace it - may I suggest at least insulating it with either some non-conductive heatshrink or electrical tape to keep you going?

In any case, perhaps replace it? Or you don't much care for electric shock, fire damage, fried electronics, etc?

Find an excuse to take your MBP to the Apple Store and let them see the power adapter. There's a good chance they'll replace it for you.

Same here, and I used to think people were being careless... until I started working remotely from places like coffee shops where I had to bring my charger every day. Turns out the thinner MagSafe cable will fray after a while if you unpack and pack it on a daily basis. I bet it's due to winding the cord around the brick. I use the little legs you can flip out (they've been removed on the new charger). The last few months the cable has frayed in two places. Easy fixable with electrical tape, although I wish there was a way to pack the thing without straining it.

I have never had an entire Apple charger stop working, though.

Yeah, interesting - that's certainly not and never has been my use case (ultra / daily portable), there must be some sort of rating for number of insertions / connections similar to the varying USB standards over the years - I wonder if that's published somewhere, if so we could probably do the math and come up with a - moves per week rating for a charger?

I can't find the document but Apple's official instructions for their chargers include winding around the pop-up plastic legs. I've never had a frayed cord since the days of the TiBook, but I have managed to break a leg on the adapter and crunch the connector when the laptop fell while connected. MagSafe, while a little pricier, has been more cost-effective for users compared to the truly unacceptable design that existed before.

Apple got rid of both MagSafe and those pop up winding legs on the new MBP.

I guess my wad-up-roughly-and-throw-in-the-bag method is gentler somehow than using the built-in pegs. Laziness wins yet again?

My main computer is a 15 inch retina macbook pro from 2013. I use it a lot (roughly 10-12 hours/day) so it's plugged often. It always gets quite hot next to the magsafe connector so what happens every time I buy a new charger is this: - the part of the cable next to the magsafe connector becomes yellow from the heat - the yellow part of the cable starts to become less resistant and kind of flakes - Eventually the wires are exposed.

This takes about 1 year, 1 year and an half. I never jam it in doors or desks. I do not have pets. I sometimes put it in my bag but I do not wind up the cable to avoid having additional tear on it. I do live part of the year in hot and humid climate (like Japan in summer or South East Asia) which might accelerate the issue.

But honestly, this is a problem, no matter how careful I am, I have to buy new chargers.

I don't have the problem with the chargers - but my 27" Apple Cinema Display is starting to have problems with the mini-displayport cable that is built the same way. It's also built in to the monitor so you can't just replace it when it goes bad...

I think the real issue is the old cable wrap design that comes with no visual instruction on how to use it. Most people with frayed cables I've seen pull the cable tight from out of the adapter and start wrapping, when it should stick out a bit then slightly bend with a relatively loose wrapping. That isn't just apple cables, every audio cable (live performance cables, xlr and quarters) I've used will break if you wrap it too tightly. That said I have also never had fraying issues with my apple PSU's and I've had a MacBook as my primary computer since 2006.

Now it doesn't really matter as they just use a standard USB-C cable so you can use whatever brand cable you want.

Apple themselves have a support article specifically addressing how to handle their power cords gingerly... ;)

https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT201600

99% of users won't see this though.

Seriously? You don't think even 2% users are going to lift the brick using its own cord, or (accidentally) pull the cable past its safe bend radius, or wrap it tightly around the Apple-provided cable-wrapping arms?

There's a reason why everyone else uses thicker cables and strain relief.

And it's not because of end-user negligence: it's because of engineering pragmatism.

To be able to ignore the instructions you have to be able to read them first. ;)

Although all this is irrelevant since Apple phased out mag safe, the "ears" that hold the cable, and added a removable cable.

Fair point about the ears and user replacability.

Still, Apple's Lightning cables are also extremely vulnerable to bending and abrasion. What makes you think their USB-C cables will be much better?

Non-technical customers who can't afford to buy new cables, or don't know to use better aftermarket cables, are already known to resort to using springs from pens as ad-hoc strain relief: https://www.google.ca/search?q=iphone+charger+spring

> What makes you think their USB-C cables will be much better?

Nothing, but at least those can be replaced without having to upgrade the whole power brick.

I'm careful with the power brick and cables now since I've had this happen on a few Macbooks.

I'd say half of the Macbook users around me have suffered problems with power brick cables. Specially where the mag safe cable connects to the power brick.

I wouldn't blame it on users though. I've never seen other power bricks so plagued with these problems.

The only cords I've ever had an issue with have been Apple cords. I've literally never had a cord from a different company break or fray unless it was a freak accident e.g. having my foot on a dangling headphone cord and yanking my head up.

I hear this a lot, but I still use a 2009 MacBook Air with the original "magsafe" power cord and it's fine.

Me too, but I had to learn the "right way" to wind up the cable (make a little strain release loop before you start winding the rest around the clips). I shouldn't have had to learn that though, since it should have been designed to be durable enough to work the obvious/intuitive way.

See, I have two cables that I've never wound up, one is on the verge of tearing and the othaerntore years ago. I didn't handle them roughly as far as I know and all of my PCs have never had such an issue.

Even if every user was using it wrong I would still call it an Apple issue as their solution is obviously not meeting the needs of their users.

I have Apple cables that old that still have nothing wrong with them. I think it was maybe about 4-5 years ago that they switched the materials, every cable I have had since then has started to disintegrate after a few months. In my office cupboard we have 5 mighty mice that have all worn through after 6 months use and we have stopped buying official Apple lightning cables.

The day Apple makes a power cord that doesn't have a cable sheath with the consistency and durability of silly putty is the day I will recognize them as back on track.

That's a really strange thing, because it's such a well-understood problem and the solution is known. I don't know why Apple makes such lousy power cables, even if they messed up a decade ago, you'd think they'd have fixed it by now.

I can think of $89 reasons each!

Jony Ive considers standard strain relief cones to be unattractive and prohibits Apple from shipping them.

This seems to be a trend with apple, completely breaking the form follows function principle everywhere anyone can see.

Well figure out a way to make them attractive! That's kind of the job of a designer, you don't get to redesign the appearance of an airplane to remove the wings because you don't like how they look.

I've come to the conclusion that the problems with the power cord are mosty due to its design rather than any abuse or user action.

The second layer of wiring that twists around the core wire is going only in one direction (a simple helix as opposed to a double criss-crossing helix like coax cable). Hence, if you twist the cable in the opposite direction, the helix becomes undone. I suspect that causes pressure on the white plastic insulation, and also leads to some electrical issues that increase resistance, produce heat, and causes the white plastic insulation to become yellow/burnt and to start disintegrating.

The funny thing is that you can abuse the cable in any way or you can be extra careful, but the only thing that will matter is in what direction you coil it. If you don't travel a lot and don't touch it, you're unlikely to notice any problems for years.

I read somewhere that the problem is two-fold: the design department's hesitation to use any sort of strain relief and the softer type of coating that is supposedly more eco-friendly.

It might be simpler than even that. Most cables are black because black ones are more durable for many reasons(UV resist and more choice of composition/processing)

Apple likes their bright colors too much to do that :)

Eco-friendly becomes something of a joke if you need to buy a significant extra number of them...

The power cord -- by which I mean the USB 2.0 cable for using with the power brick -- that comes with the MBP 2016 is actually surprisingly thick and rigid. It also feels weirdly unpleasant; the rigidity is not good for a cable intended to be slung over the edge of a table. But it probably lasts longer than the old MagSafe cables. (I wouldn't know; I returned mine and went back to my old 2015 model.)

There's a rumor that they're working on a wireless charging technology for iPhones where it charges completely wirelessly without using one of those clumsy power mats.

So your dream will likely come true in a different--yet much better--format.

I had the same complaint until this year: I am actually impressed with the new USB-C (and even USB-A<->Lightning) cables coming from Apple this past year.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com