Love the company or hate it, Apple is renowned for quality. But there was one Apple product that was terrible.
I’m talking about iPhone charging cables, of course.
I have lost count of how much I have repaired, and how much the rainbow bridge to Silicon Heaven has been crossed. Well, they were much better than the cheap junk you can buy from online retailers like eBay or Amazon, but Apple iPhone cables were not good. They threatened, broke, and left themselves susceptible to corrosion.
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For the past few years, however, I’ve been using Apple’s USB-C-to-Lightning cable for the iPhone, and I have to say I’m impressed with it. It took a long time for official third-party USB-C flash to appear, so some of my cables have been in use since early 2016.
And here’s a strange thing – no one is broken. In fact, I have one that I know has been in almost continuous use since 2017 that looks new, and another that has spent all of its time in the car – baking in the sun, freezing in the winter – that is also like new.
The connectors are good (no signs of corrosion on the Lightning connector), the jacket is still intact and shows no signs of cheating, and it still works.
This is a huge improvement over the old USB-to-Lightning cables that would be happy for a year.
I noticed a similar thing with USB-C charging cables for Macs. These seem to be far superior to the older cables found on MagSafe chargers.
But what about the regular USB flash drive? I will be honest and say that I have not done many tests, but an Apple USB charging cable that I use every day is the one that comes with the Apple Watch, and I have noticed that the charging cable that came with the latest Apple Watch 5 appears to be much more durable than the one that came with the Apple Watch 3. The latest cable seems to have a sturdy coat than the older one, and seems to hold up better to daily use than the older cable. That said, it has not had as much use as my USB-C-to-Lightning, so I hesitated to conclude.
So, there you have it. After years of being on my dumb list, I’m now happy to recommend Apple’s USB-C-to-Lightning cable. It’s as good, if not better, than many of the third party offers.
