I think pressure should be put on companies like Apple to both lower the price for replacements for the original charger and make them using substantially more robust (thicker) components like cables AND add really good strain relief, both so they last longer and so that imitators will be forced to use thicker cables too.
Apple’s prices for replacement chargers (US$19) doesn’t seem unreasonable to me. The cables are another matter...
Your point about the counterfeiters is a really good one, though. Apple may be able and capable of engineering a top-quality charger in a 1” cube, but the counterfeiters aren’t.
But putting the blame on Apple, because people buy dangerous fakes, of their (presumably) perfectly safe devices, seems to be a bit unfair and harsh.
Maybe create a law, which forces companies to allow third parties, to produce "official" releases of compatible chargers (and stuff), which are then checked to be safe by Apple or other entities.
A bit like the Original IBM PC and the "official" compatibles/clones we had, of it.
I don’t think he was blaming Apple as such, but rather just saying that Apple is in a unique position to be an influencer in this situation.
Apple itself already has a similar program: the MFi (made for iPhone/iPod/iPad and Mac) program. And indeed, buying an MFi-certified accessory ensures it will work properly, since it has been tested by Apple, IIRC. Of course, you will pay more for that than for an uncertified accessory, but the price needn’t be exorbitant. For example, the AmazonBasics Lightning cables I love are still a fraction of the price of Apple’s, and they’re better quality.
Even the official Apple cords are as thin as they can make them. They aren't that robust. I have lots of them and Ive had lots of them fail on me. Ive stopped buying Apple products pretty much now. Thats one of the reasons.
As an Apple fan (though not necessarily fanboi), I agree with you about the cords. Part of the reason is the switch to environmentally friendly PVC-free cables (at least, the switch to PVC-free coincided with the insulation becoming much more brittle; that said, a cable lasting only 1/4 as long is hardly environmentally friendly in the end). For Lightning cables, my current favorite are the aforementioned AmazonBasics ones, which are great. I hear the ones from Anker are excellent, too.
EDIT:
Maybe the solution, is to make a law, so that only items that meet the regulations (certification etc), are allowed to be imported. I.e. they don't electrocute people, catch on fire, contain hazardous substances, pay all taxes (including VAT, import dties etc) and meet other sensible regulations.
Isn’t that what CE certification is already supposed to do?
Did you seroiously ask Apple to lower their prices? That will never happen. Second, Apple's cables are good, but counterfeit products will always be garbage since that's their whole point, to scam you.
Apple has reduced prices on products many times. Heck, they’ve even been known to retroactively refund customers after a price drop (this happened early on with Aperture and then with the original iPhone).
Don’t forget that on this very specific issue of phone chargers, Apple has already had a program where you could turn in a third-party charger and exchange it for a genuine Apple one at a deep discount. I wouldn’t be surprised if this incident triggers another exchange program.
Those squared design connectors aren't great too. We've figured out how to do proper strain relieves years ago, yet for the sake of looks functionality suffers.
Both Apple and Microsoft do this, by the way. Apple leads are renowned for failing and Microsoft had to do a recall on their Surface charger leads.
I couldn’t agree more. I’d rather a functional, durable cable over a crazy-styled one. Third-party accessory makers (including MFi ones) have made many cables that are both stylish and durable. It’s not rocket surgery.
If in Vietnam, a real Apple charger is $89, and the (might be fake) one, but which looks similar, and seems to work ok, is $8.99 . Also, if the country, tends to have limited amounts of money floating about.
I can understand why many people, will buy the $8.99 ones, rather than the official Apple $89.99 ones.
N.B. Prices are made up, as I don't know the prices in Vietnam. But I bet the fake chargers are a fraction of the price of the real ones (or there is some horrible product scamming going on there).
I’m guessing you see a few things happening at once:
1. The Apple charger probably costs the same or a bit more than in USA, where it’s $19. So let’s say it’s $30. This is typical for countries where Apple relies on a local distributor, as opposed to having a local subsidiary. (I’m well familiar with this because Switzerland used to rely on a distributor, and the markup was huge. Later, Apple bought that distributor’s Apple operations and turned it into a local subsidiary, and the prices went down to near parity with USA.)
2. Some resellers will then sell genuine chargers for those $30, and various cheaper ones for $20-25. Because the wholesale price of the cheap ones is
far lower than that of the Apple charger, they will heavily push the cheap ones, since their profit on them is way higher. (You see this in Switzerland, too!!)
3. Discounters like corner shops will only sell the cheap chargers, at whatever price they want, because they’re not authorized resellers for original Apple, and have no desire to become one.
I don’t blame the corner shop folks; they don’t have the knowledge about chargers anyway. But the resellers like #2 there, I really hate that, because they know they’re selling inferior crap. (Here in Switzerland, I see some resellers selling cheap-looking cheapies for CHF19, the same as the Apple! But unless a customer asks for the Apple specifically, they’ll hand a customer the cheapie since it’s more profitable.)
My brother lives in Argentina and he mentioned how impossible it is to find original/official chargers for his iPad and S5 phones. [...]
As someone else pointed out, some countries do not have the good or even average stuff sold in the aftermarket.
Yep, exactly.
The ones he was able to purchase were utter garbage to the point his iPad stayed unusable for a few months until I got some chargers from the US.
Touchscreens are sensitive to power quality, so cheap, noisy chargers often cause trouble. Most people have forgotten that early Apple USB chargers (the ones labeled ‘iPod USB Power Adapter’) were too noisy for the iPhone and caused touchscreen issues. The ones introduced with or after the iPhone are labeled “[wattage] USB Power Adapter” and output cleaner power.
On the iPads, the additional issue is that many cheap chargers are wildly overspecced, so an iPad needing 10W will bog down a charger that claims to be 12W but is actually 5W on a good day.
Expensive and overengineered, not uncommon for Apple. I'll go so far as to say if they used a simpler design with fewer components they might have gotten even better creepage distances and not require such a high density to fit in the same space. Two optocouplers, seriously...
They would have performed this analysis, obviously. If the complexity is there, then it’s needed for some reason.