I haven't had wear and tear issues, but I rarely use it (have Thunderbolt monitors home and office, with built-in power) and I keep it in a Quirky PowerCurl when I do use it (usually only when traveling)
Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter
61–70 of 324 posts
Re: Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter
#62Despite the visual appeal of their products, Apple normally does a very good job with prioritizing function over form except in this case with the charger wire being so fragile and thin. I know I'm not the most careful and delicate person in the world, but the failure rate here is ridiculous compared to other similar products I own. The end of the cable gets frayed every single time. Otherwise, Apple makes ridiculous…
The low volt cable must also be replaceable. Just like the wall power cable.
It'd add another connector and SKU, which may be why they attach the thin cable permanently. But so what?
I buy Shure ear buds because the cable is replaceable.
Re: Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter
#63Despite the visual appeal of their products, Apple normally does a very good job with prioritizing function over form except in this case with the charger wire being so fragile and thin. I know I'm not the most careful and delicate person in the world, but the failure rate here is ridiculous compared to other similar products I own. The end of the cable gets frayed every single time. Otherwise, Apple makes ridiculous…
I've found it hardly happens at all if you avoid wrapping the cable. I just toss mine in my bag, and it's hardly worn at all.
Yeah. I do wind mine, but I leave a length of loose cable first to avoid applying tension where the cable enters the brick. I believe the fraying happens when people pull laterally on the strain relief. (It's still Apple's fault, of course.)
Re: Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter
#64Despite the visual appeal of their products, Apple normally does a very good job with prioritizing function over form except in this case with the charger wire being so fragile and thin. I know I'm not the most careful and delicate person in the world, but the failure rate here is ridiculous compared to other similar products I own. The end of the cable gets frayed every single time. Otherwise, Apple makes ridiculous…
Honestly, I've never had the frayed problem with my macbook chargers, even with 2 years of use. However, I have had to buy 2 chargers since my original one because they will stop working after a couple of years. That's quite frustrating.
Same here. Never had a frayed end, but have had the magnetic connector get really dirty, which causes it to either get REALLY hot when charging, or just stop charging completely.
One time I just bought a replacement connector/cable, disassembled the power supply, and soldered the new cable in place. That worked for a while.
The second time I just bought a new charger. (Well: two new chargers, actually. The first, which was listed on amazon as made by apple, never worked [I believe it was counterfeit, since some very small details differ from the official charger], so I bought a new one at best buy).
Re: Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow.I never gave much thought to Apple's magnetic connector till.The battery box does look like an ugly hack.But what I dont get is.Its magnets attracting.What and exactly what have they patented?
Using a magnet to connect to the device. You can't just reduce something to its simplest component when discussing patents. It's the specific application that matters.
I guess this would be similar to the Samsung/Apple patent wars which happened?I guess that explains why no-one else tried making anything similar.
Re: Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
So far I've used about 7 cheapo MacBook chargers off eBay - I have two right now, and have, over the years, given the other 5 away. While a couple of them have died, so have my original three MacBook chargers. None of them has killed or damaged mine, or anyone else's MacBooks.
Yes, some people have good experiences, but it's still incredibly reckless. Chargers without proper safety features and which don't conform to electrical isolation standards could render your $1000+ machine worthless in a puff of smoke, or, worse, kill you.
Nobody in the history of personal computers has been killed by a charger.
Re: Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter
#67[deleted]
> I think with the smallest amount of care and consideration the apple chargers last a long time I treated my Apple chargers carefully. They destroyed themselves after about 2 years. Laptops get transported a lot. Their chargers should not be so delicate.
Indeed. I throw my rMBP in a bag all the time. It's odd that Beats headphone cables are actually thicker and presumably more durable than the connecting cable on my $3300 laptop's power supply.
Re: Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Liar" is too strong a word here. It's a misconception at best. Jobs would not have known the history of switching power supplies.
When you make statements that you don't know are true, but smart enough know that you profit in some way from people believing them, and you make no effort to find out the truth, you are a bullshitter. Jobs made a career of this sort of behavior. On the scale of respectability: 1. True statements. 2. Keeping your mouth shut. 3. Speculating. ... N-1. Making self-serving wishful statements as though they are facts. N.…
This whole tangent is because 'comically bald faced lie' is a comically bald faced worse way of describing the situation with words than how the article itself described it -- 'entirely false' -- despite Adam comment's description of the 'bald faced lie' as being somehow 'hidden' instead of being called out explicitly and discussed in detail.
Re: Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, some people have good experiences, but it's still incredibly reckless. Chargers without proper safety features and which don't conform to electrical isolation standards could render your $1000+ machine worthless in a puff of smoke, or, worse, kill you.
The 'Original Apple' item shown at the bottom of the post doesn't look as if it fared much better though. The magic smoke definitely came out on that one and whoever owned it was lucky it ended there and didn't end with an actual fire.
It could also be the Apple charger's design that makes it able to handle shorting of components without posing a hazard to anything other than itself.
Re: Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
It may not quite be true, but it's not necessarily a lie. People often don't realise where an invention came from.
It's more likely a bold overstatement made by a superficial onlooker. Wozniak describes the same power supply here: http://archive.woz.org/letters/general/35.html , in these terms: Other hobby computers of the day used inefficient power supplies. The Apple ][ was the first computer ever to use a plastic case. The heat buildup using even my own power supply design (inefficient type) would have been too great. Steve ta…
I doubt that the Apple II was really the first computer to use a switching-mode power supply, but linear supplies were pretty common among hobby computers back then. The Commodore 64 had one, for instance.
None that I've heard of. And when Acorn wanted to put a switched PSU into the BBC Micro four years after the Apple II debuted, apparently switched PSUs were still novel enough that the BBC engineers didn't trust them (they thought that there might be health and safety issues!) and insisted on linear supplies on early models.