There's no way that the cost of these individual components can be used to justify the price tag. That's pure delusion.
Hmm. Any citations to back this up?
Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter
271–280 of 324 posts
Re: Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter
#272Despite 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 support around 300 Macs for work. In my extensive experience, the deal here is that people are FAR too rough and careless in winding up those charger cables over and over. Apple HAS implemented strain relief here and done their best to make the points of failure less vulnerable. Here's a tip: Instead of yanking the cable at a 90-degree angle and winding as tightly as possible, let the cable come out of the charger…
I've always used the loop method with chargers and adapters, because of my decades as a musician dealing with various kinds of cables. When cables fail, it's invariably at one of the two ends where the cable gets bent and twisted. In fact, a bad cable can almost always be repaired by cutting off a couple inches from each end and re-attaching the plugs. Strain reliefs of various types help prolong the life of a cable, but not really by very much.
Re: Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter
#273Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have a charger I only use at home and it's hopelessly frayed. The users are not the problem here.
An alternative datapoint - I have a charger that's not yet frayed, but it is starting to get intermittent - sometimes I need to wriggle the wires where they go into the mag safe connector. That's the original charger for my 2006 black MacBook. It was in daily use by me for work until I got my mid 2010 MacBook Pro, and was then used as a "home machine" by someone else up until early this year. The charger from the 201…
Yep, I think this is it. I also have 5 years old MBP with the original charger, and it's still fine. I'm not a very careful person, and in general never wrap cables in loops, just cram them in the bag. Sometimes my cables get impressively tangled, but I think I'm still actually saving time by skipping the meticulous wrapping every time I take off (at least twice per day).
So maybe if you stop taking "good care" of your charger, and stop wrapping it in a tight loop, it will actually last longer.
That said, a lot of people seem think you're supposed to wrap the cables. After all, the MBP charger has built-in hooks for exactly that purpose. The charger is badly designed if wrapping the cable around the provided hooks causes it fray very quickly.
Re: Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter
#274Earlier quoted context omitted.
I support around 300 Macs for work. In my extensive experience, the deal here is that people are FAR too rough and careless in winding up those charger cables over and over. Apple HAS implemented strain relief here and done their best to make the points of failure less vulnerable. Here's a tip: Instead of yanking the cable at a 90-degree angle and winding as tightly as possible, let the cable come out of the charger…
I can't agree with that. Someone at Apple fetishizes thin cables to a dangerous degree. These power supplies aren't as obviously defective by design as an iPhone cable, but after looking at the amount of design detail and engineering directed at the power supply and MagSafe, the sacrifices made seem pretty insane.
I have to replace Mac chargers about once a year.
Re: Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter
#275Despite 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…
While it does suck that all of Apple's chargers fray so easily, however I don't see it as a reason to be cynical about their products. In this case, Apple seems to be prioritizing environmental friendliness over function here. The cables are so weak because they have specifically removed PVC from their charging cables. http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/environment/ > The greatest environmental challenge facing the com…
Filling up landfills with tens of thousands of broken chargers probably makes that decision a net negative to the environment...
Re: Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter
#276Despite 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 support around 300 Macs for work. In my extensive experience, the deal here is that people are FAR too rough and careless in winding up those charger cables over and over. Apple HAS implemented strain relief here and done their best to make the points of failure less vulnerable. Here's a tip: Instead of yanking the cable at a 90-degree angle and winding as tightly as possible, let the cable come out of the charger…
You're wrapping it wrong.
Re: Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter
#277Despite 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…
That looks to me as smart way to earn some aftersale money. Notice that it's not MacBook that's breaking so it's not sending wrong message that they break often. Charger is still nothing compared to price of whole set. Third party chargers I'd assume are detected by ton of electronics inside MagSafe plug and motherboard and charge slower or not at all. Bonus points: for cable breaking you can always shift blame to cu…
Third party chargers are aggressively pursued with the MagSafe patent. One company made external Mac batteries by buying up Apple MagSafe chargers and chopping off the cable and STILL got destroyed by Apple's lawyers for "violating" the patent.
Re: Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter
#278Despite 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 support around 300 Macs for work. In my extensive experience, the deal here is that people are FAR too rough and careless in winding up those charger cables over and over. Apple HAS implemented strain relief here and done their best to make the points of failure less vulnerable. Here's a tip: Instead of yanking the cable at a 90-degree angle and winding as tightly as possible, let the cable come out of the charger…
A quality product simply wouldn't have that problem. Quality means it can take some abuse, and you see it all the time in tools for many professions.
Re: Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter
#279Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. It's the MacBook Air-like fanless one [1] with only 2 ports: headphone and USB-C. And half a power cable. And no MagSafe. Did I mention I'm a little bitter? [1] http://www.apple.com/macbook/
That sucks. May I ask why you got the MacBook? The air always liked like a better deal to me.
I have all models of the Air. Love it, but the fan goes on randomly and drives me nuts.
Re: Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter
#280Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've seen that from some models made in ~'08-'09, the cables do not fray. I have 2013 rmbp 13" I have handled my charger with great care avoiding as much twisting ant touching as possible, and after around 20 months, cable isolation just tore up by touching it.. It seems that cable isolation is made of such plastic, that it completely degrades after some time..
Haven't had the issue with computer cables, but had the exact issue with iphone cables. The plastic apple uses for their cables is just weird, with friction or stress (just the stress of looping it around) it seems to gain a slightly rubberised texture, bulk up and ultimately come apart over time. I do have hints on that on a magsafe cable-end, close to the magsafe where the little plastic clip usually sits there's a…
+1 they are weird compared to other cables..
Compared to any other cable in the market Apple's cables feel, look and handle way different. When charger cable is new it feels rather hard and inflexible. But later especially in areas where you touch cable the most, it starts changing colour and starts feeling like old rubber eraser and after some more time cable starts falling apart, just like old dry rubber eraser would do..
Apple want's matt white cables, when usually they are glossy black. I have some super sturdy audio cables (very flexible, resistant to twisting, friction and sharp angles, etc.) which are matt black, wonder how hard it is to make such cable white?