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   goatsarah (goatsarah@thegoatery.dyndns.org)'s status on Wednesday, 13-Sep-2023 21:13:50 JST goatsarah

   The thing I don’t get in the whole “what happens to all the old lightning cables” discourse is how everyone seems to be ignoring that ever since it was introduced, lightning‘s connector has been so electrically/metallically fragile that for vast number of people, especially those living in humid climates, lightning cables are consumables that only last a few weeks or, at best, months anyway.

   The game changer for us was MagsSafe, not USB C.
   ♲ lemmy.world/post/4982887

   • Embed this notice
     goatsarah (goatsarah@thegoatery.dyndns.org)'s status on Wednesday, 13-Sep-2023 21:36:21 JST goatsarah

     in reply to

     • heluecht
     @heluecht @fne8w2ah This always seems to come up in response, but googling for “burned out lightning connector” or similar always yields a lot of results. It’s a very widespread problem.
   • Embed this notice
     heluecht (heluecht@pirati.ca)'s status on Wednesday, 13-Sep-2023 21:36:23 JST heluecht

     in reply to
     @goatsarah @fne8w2ah interesting! Yesterday I heard someone complaining about the move to USB-C. She said she breaks her USB-C cables very fast, but she never had a failing Apple connector.
   • Embed this notice
     goatsarah (goatsarah@thegoatery.dyndns.org)'s status on Wednesday, 13-Sep-2023 21:38:52 JST goatsarah

     in reply to

     • hankg

     @hankg @fne8w2ah It appears to be due to a combination of spark erosion of the centre pin, as lightning is prone to, ironically, arcing on connection and disconnection, as well as electrolysis over time, with the pin eroding and electroplating the connector inside the phone.

     The first problem can be rectified by never hot plugging, but if you live in a humid climate, there’s nothing you can do about the second.

     Indeed, while the ports last longer than the cables, they eventually fail from being coated with all that crap. Before I switched almost entirely to inductive charging and wireless CarPlay, an iPhone’s lightning port for me rarely made it to two years before dying.

   • Embed this notice
     hankg (hankg@friendica.myportal.social)'s status on Wednesday, 13-Sep-2023 21:38:53 JST hankg

     in reply to
     @goatsarah @fne8w2ah I didn't realize they had that problem. I always liked how robust they were over the old USB connectors and omni-directional. My lightning cables generally failed in the cable somewhere over time from excessive bending etc. I was concerned the insert area of the USB-C would be overly fragile but that seems to not be an issue. I'm glad we can move to just one unifying connector now. I'm also glad MagSafe is coming back. I absolutely love that for the larger devices.
   • Embed this notice
     goatsarah (goatsarah@thegoatery.dyndns.org)'s status on Wednesday, 13-Sep-2023 22:44:50 JST goatsarah

     in reply to

     • FeralRobots
     @FeralRobots @fne8w2ah Talking about the laptop version rather than the inductive charging one? MagSafe 3 seems much more robust.
   • Embed this notice
     FeralRobots (feralrobots@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 13-Sep-2023 22:44:51 JST FeralRobots

     in reply to

     @goatsarah @fne8w2ah
     I loved magsafe for the first couple years I used it; then I started to see them fraying & breaking at the connector. It was almost the rule. (I ordered power bricks for Macs for an ad agency for about 8 years, so I saw this a lot.)

     Mind you *mine* never went out, so I think this was a user behavior thing, but I would say they were poorly designed for the behavior of most of my users.

   • Embed this notice
     goatsarah (goatsarah@thegoatery.dyndns.org)'s status on Thursday, 14-Sep-2023 00:16:57 JST goatsarah

     in reply to

     • hankg
     @hankg @fne8w2ah Quite probably. Do you make a habit of hot plugging them?
   • Embed this notice
     hankg (hankg@friendica.myportal.social)'s status on Thursday, 14-Sep-2023 00:16:58 JST hankg

     in reply to

     • hankg
     @goatsarah @fne8w2ah Based on that description I wonder if I was spared this problem because I use the devices almost exclusively in low humidity environments.
   • Embed this notice
     raroun (raroun@friendica.opensocial.space)'s status on Thursday, 14-Sep-2023 01:11:14 JST raroun

     in reply to

     • heluecht
     @fne8w2ah @heluecht @goatsarah
     I am an Apple user since day 1.
     The Lightning connector is the worst.
     The cables are breaking in around 3-6 months (apple original).
     3rd party cable are far more reliable.
     But the worst is, that lightning ports gets clogged with dust.
     goatsarah likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     goatsarah (goatsarah@thegoatery.dyndns.org)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Sep-2023 05:27:49 JST goatsarah

     in reply to

     • hankg
     @hankg @fne8w2ah Oops!
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     hankg (hankg@friendica.myportal.social)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Sep-2023 05:27:50 JST hankg

     in reply to
     @fne8w2ah @goatsarah Oh the irony! Guess what happened for me for the first time today? I had a lightning cable fail on me! LOL. I went from never having heard of it before last week to having it happen for the first time. I think you jinxed me :).