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I'm confused. You mean like on a wired mouse, where the cord is constantly exposed to the strain of the movement and is typically just fine for many many years? I have Microsoft Intellimouse devices which are many years old and work perfectly. The differences between a USB plugged in cable and a permenantly attached cable don't seem relevant in this instance.

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It's not the cord itself that would be exposed to the strain of the movement.

It's the Lightning connector which was never designed to be moved within the socket tens of thousands of times a day.

It's not like it HAD to have the Lightning connector. It's not like it uses it for any of its other capabilities except charging.

You just design in a sinuous strain relief channel. Then any craptastic connector will survive.

To be fair, Apple's industrial design team seem no more likely to come up with a remotely adequate sinuous strain relief channel than to put a telescopic antenna or physical keypad on the iPhone. The MacBook Air and iPhone are literally the only consumer electronics gadgets whose cables I've needed to replace due to fraying at the join, and that's with adapters released after Apple lost class action lawsuits over strain relief issues with the previous generation Macbooks.

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