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Apple may finally fix its flimsy iPhone charger cables:
Every iPhone user likely has had one Lighting cable fray [on] them. It's been an annoying issue, and one that's driven third-party sellers to create braided cables that can withstand more abuse.
It seems that Apple is at the very least researching ways to make its cables more resilient. According to a patent filing first noticed by AppleInsider, Apple has been working on a "cable with variable stiffness" that gets thicker toward the ports.
Lightning cables are known for having thick connector points. It's what Apple internally refers to as the strain relief sleeve. While the ends of Apple cables are meant to keep the cable from fraying, often those areas become pressure and kink points. Apple acknowledged as much in its patent filing.
"In addition to making the cable locally stiffer, the strain relief sleeve also makes the cable thicker at the ends. In some instances, the added thickness may not be desired," the patent filing reads.
To get around this, Apple is essentially designing a cable that has denser material toward the ends that tapers off. [...]
(Score: 2, Informative) by crm114 on Friday February 05 2021, @07:23PM (2 children)
Actually, the problem is their existing "strain relief" causes the fraying. The connector to the existing "strain relief" connector holds up just fine.
see an example.: https://photos5.appleinsider.com/gallery/40148-77246-000-lead-frayed-cable-xl.jpg [appleinsider.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by krishnoid on Friday February 05 2021, @09:07PM (1 child)
Why not use this one weird trick [youtu.be] to keep your lightning cable end from fraying? I mean, I presume it works.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 07 2021, @03:36PM
The correct answer is for Apple to just design the cable with stress relief in the first place. They've got an ungodly sum of money in the bank, it's bit like they can't afford stress relief on their overpriced cables.