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> That's clearly false, and feeling the need to include "if you're careful" in your statement exposes its falseness. No other major manufacturer makes power cables that chronically disintegrate like this so much that it has become a meme specifically about Apple's cables

That’s quite a strong and definitive conclusion from your part. Apple is a company that sold hundreds of millions of these cables, probably more than any other company out there, of course there are a lot of people with issues. But just like that, also based on anecdotes, I have lightning cables from the first time they released the port and they are perfectly usable. I never had an issue with an Apple cable in more than 10 years. In the same time, a friend of mine goes over one cable a year, so yes, I would say it’s also people, it’s scale, it’s manufacturing, it’s everything. But to call this an Apple issue is quite a stretch.

> Apple is a company that sold hundreds of millions of these cables, probably more than any other company out there

I'm not sure how one can honestly argue that Apple has sold more laptops than every other laptop manufacturer. I they've sold more cables (I doubt it, but let's pretend), well...that would be because people keep having to replace them.

This problem is common enough with Apple's laptop power cables that it has been a meme for more than a decade now. That's not the case for _any_ other vendor, and those other vendors have sold more laptops than Apple has by several orders of magnitude.

I don't know what you're talking about, but there are zero memes about Apple's phone chargers other than the ones you're sitting here making up.

> there are zero memes

I vouched your dead comment so I could reply. (Am I allowed to do this? I don't know!)

Maybe you don't know that the word meme predates image macros and even the internet, but it does. The phrases "it became a meme" and "people make memes" are not talking about the same manifestation. Memes are ideas that take root, not funny pictures with words on them.

My assumption is that anyone who reads "became a meme" as "people made memes about" must be very young, but that's my own bias showing. A person who has no memories of a world before philosoraptors and shy penguins or whatever image macros kids are making these days might not realize the difference, but there it is.

Also...

> phone chargers

I actually did say laptops, and the reason I said laptops is because people have been complaining about Apple's power cables tearing/fraying for longer than Apple has been making phones. The problem applies equally well to their phone charging cables, of course, but standard micro USB cables are also usually complete shit whereas standard laptop power cables are not except for Apple's.

If you google image search for "Apple charging cable break", you'll find thousands of pictures of broken cables.

Do the same for Dell, and one picture out of the first page features a broken cable.

The idea that apple charging cables break is something lots of people discuss, there are dozens of news stories about it too.

I wonder if there's some weird cultural selection bias; like the kind of person who purchases an Apple product is more likely to make a meme about it vs someone who purchases a Dell?

> like the kind of person who purchases an Apple product is more likely to make a meme about it

I addressed this misunderstanding of the word "meme" in a parallel comment.

Could be a lack of clarity on my part. Make it into a meme might be more accurate?

I'm not just imagining people making image macros, but more likely to talk about or gossip about it, more likely to ask other people for help or opinions, more likely to pick up on the trend and write about it in some blog or article or go on YouTube about it?

I just imagine a Dell laptop to be majority provided/owned by a company and so such complaints end up going to IT support who ends up swapping it out or something. Whereas a Mac is more likely to be owned by creative professionals, or journalists, or people more generally inclined towards sharing memes in a contagious way or otherwise striking a chord in the cultural zeitgeist?

Most of the reports that stick in my mind (and including my own personal experience) are from people who haven't only ever used just one or the other but have experience with both and are able to do in-kind comparisons between the two experiences. My Toshiba Tecra, Dell XPS 15 and Thinkpad T41, T43, X201, and X1 Carbon power cables could be used to haul trailers (figuratively) without fraying. Apple is the only laptop vendor I know of that uses an extremely fragile soft rubber sheath on their cables and no real strain relief.

So, no, I don't think that's it. Plenty of other laptops have problems, but only Apple has this particular problem.

Going to suggest UV exposure might be a variable.

The bulge is where the cable has been repeatedly knocked or compressed into an extreme angle. Of course that will happen at the strain relief. It happens on Amazon Basics lightning cables, Lenovo laptop power supplies, anything if you exceed the min bend radius of the cable.

Regarding dangling it over the edge of the table, you're pulling it down. That's one of the problems. It should lay flat on the table for a few inches at least and then drop.

I'm sitting here with my M1 MBA on charge at the moment. Is it strained? Hell no:

https://imgur.com/a/lXGpj4E

> Regarding dangling it over the edge of the table, you're pulling it down. That's one of the problems. It should lay flat on the table for a few inches at least and then drop.

And if you suspend it in zero gravity and never touch it then it will last forever. Being able to baby something into lasting doesn't make the product durable. The fact remains that Apple's cables are demonstrably and notably more prone to fraying than every other manufacturer's cables even when the same people use them in the same way.

The old mantra holds: treat it nice or pay twice.

> The old mantra holds: treat it nice or pay twice.

I mean, sure, ok, but there's another mantra that goes "nobody likes someone who blames users for product quality that is significantly worse than from every other manufacturer so that when users use the product normally without aggression toward the product this product fails while the others do not."

I mean it really seems like you've come down on the side that it's totally ok that even simple gravity on just the cable itself puts too much unrelieved strain on a cable that for decades cost $100 or more to replace because it was integrated into the charging brick. And you argue that that's a problem with the user instead of grossly inadequate strain relief.

We've staked out our sides. Let's agree to disagree.

I'm going to leave it at that I used to treat my stuff like shit and blamed the manufacturer, mostly IBM and Lenovo back then, when it broke. Then I grew up. Life got easier and cheaper.

I don't know how you can defend these crappy products. I don't want to baby a cable, and yet I have to act like a crazy person when ever someone touches my "precious" cable. Any other usb cable on my desk I can twist and bend at my heart's content, and I know they'll outlast the spec they were designed for.

The only reason I use wireless charging now is because it's cheaper and easier than using broken cables. Sadly the one in my car looks like the terminator's arm when he cuts off his arm skin.

No it doesn't, you can buy any random cheap cable in ebay any they are mostly indestructible and last years while apple cables require extreme care to last and even then they seem to turn in to a gummy substance that basically falls apart.

Surely the whole point of a strain relief is to prevent those kind of angles. Which other cables seem to do more effectively.

Pretty common to hear the "you're using it wrong" W.R.T Apple products breaking...

I have a new MBP and a ThinkPad. You'd be hard pressed to say the MBP charger cable has half the strain relief of the ThinkPad.

This is an irrelevant side note, but I found it amusing that your second Imgur link warned me that it might be adult content (spoiler: it’s not).

Weird and hilarious. Is it because of my fingers? Hah, I wonder.