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After a User Dies, Apple Warns Against Counterfeit Chargers
After a Chinese woman was earlier this month evidently electrocuted while talking on her iPhone while it was plugged in to charge, Apple is warning users to avoid counterfeit chargers. From CNet:
"Last week, reports surfaced in China that suggested the woman, Ma Ailun, might have been using a third-party charger designed to look like the real thing. Although third-party chargers are not uncommon, they vary widely in terms of safety and quality.
Earlier this year, safety consulting and certification company UL issued a warning that counterfeit Apple USB chargers were making the rounds and that consumers should be on the lookout for them due to their lower quality and possibly dangerous defects. The company posted the guidance on its site after a woman was allegedly electrocuted while answering a call on her iPhone."
There are lots of "third-party" Android chargers out there -- ordinary MicroUSB things. If "counterfeit" (i.e. non-Samsung, or whatever) chargers were a problem, wouldn't this happen all the time with Androids?
Sounds like Apple is just taking advantage of the opportunity to scare people into paying the Apple Tax.
I never understood why iPhone's adapter is a completely retarded pile of junk. What's wrong with the standard USB adapter like everyone else? Oh aside from them making a cock load of money from cables.
Not that I particularly like the cable, but some reasons are: It predates USB being a standard for charging devices. It used to need to support FireWire in addition to USB. It still supports running audio and video over the wire in a "raw" form (rather than as some USB data device), which is actually a fairly useful feature.
Only the last of these is really useful any more. If that feature happens to be useful, the iPhone implementation is actually fairly good. Using Android phones as video sources tends to suck. A few phones have mini HDMI connections (note that the iPhone connector predates HDMI, too), but not many. A few have stupid proprietary HDMI + USB ports that at least are compatible with conventional USB-only cables. Some phones support screencasting or video sourcing through DLNA or proprietary solutions, but those require a network.
Didn't apple recently change their proprietary connector design around the release of the iPhone 5? and doesn't that new design remove support for raw audio/video through their proprietary port?
The old iPhone connector was excusable for the reasons you've stated... the new one has no excuse to not conform to the new standard aside from Apple wanting to further bleed their customers of money.
Collector's Edition
The new "lighting" connector is very solid and handy, contrary to micro USB.
Its designed that way for obvious reasons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#Mini_and_Micro_connectors
"The Micro plug design is rated for at least 10,000 connect-disconnect cycles—significantly more than the Mini plug design.[38] It is also designed to reduce the mechanical wear on the device; instead the easier-to-replace cable is designed to bear the mechanical wear of connection and disconnection"
Stinks of BS PR to me. "Might" have been using a 3rd party charger? Please... Get the facts first and then release the article. What if it turns out the charger was an official apple one? Huh? Then what?
It is also irrelevant. If the iPhone allows high current to pass through from the charging port to the user, the iPhone has a defective design.