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Couldn't you demonstrate right there that the Lightning port wouldn't charge the iPhone? Seems like a pretty simple way to refute the technician's claim.


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This story would make more sense if you mentioned that he did not have a lightning cable with him. My iPhone X is currently plugged into a USB-C charger, no problem, but it's using a USB-C -> Lightning cable.

It's the cable that's the issue.


>If RF got outside the charger and into the USB cable, it's very badly designed

Wouldn't this then be a problem with whatever car charger he is using and not with the apple device plugged into that charger?


> This never happened to me with micro USB or lightning ports

This happens regularly to the lightning ports among my family&friends. "My iPhone keeps stopping charging" "did you clean out the lint with a toothpick?" "Oh"

> Otherwise you can brick your Switch

The bricking was happening due to a faulty third-party dock that was sending 9V on a 5V line. Nothing to do with the Switch itself. You can use any old USB-C charger with the Switch, as long as it's not faulty.

https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/ckaiiv/an_e...


> This behavior reproduces with new cables and new iDevices.

Considering that this is almost certainly related to your own personal behavior and/or environment, it isn't surprising that you find it reproducible, albeit a bit odd.

It only charging one way indicates corrosion, probably on the cable itself, but possibly on the female port on the device itself. Burn marks probably means there's a grounding issue somewhere. Neither of them have much anything to do with lightning connectors, unless you suppose that the pins being outward facing rather than inward has something to do with the corrosion.


Interestingly, there is no way to get an iPhone to charge off of a computer port (which will try to send data?) without trusting it. It will just refuse the connection entirely instead of accepting just power.

I wonder how reliable this will be. Back in the summer, my mom plugged her iPhone in to charge, and it gave a warning saying that it couldn't charge because there was liquid in the charging port. However, the port was bone-dry, and there was no liquid anywhere near the phone. It turned out that the charger didn't like the extension cord that it was plugged into. I took the extension cord away, and the phone started charging.

one useful advice I heard in this context is to clean your iPhone (Lightning) port regularly with a soft brush. There may be dust etc. inside interfering with the charging.

There's something on the Lightning and iPhone side managing charging too. I wasn't talking about the AC->DC rectifier or USB on the brick. In the end, an iPhone will fail to charge pretty often even if the cable isn't frayed, hence the joke that iPhones are always low on battery.

I have a family member with a similar iPhone charging issue.

I think this is their point given this threads question for a humbling learning moment. Both ports support charging but it took someone from outside to get OPs fixed mind off their habitual notion that only a specific port could charge. They did not even try that other port.

Not surprising that a complex charger is unreliable. And with iPhones using Lightning, it's even worse.

This isn't an iPhone we're talking about, this is the charger which is connected to 220V AC power. The chargers are build very small, and cheap off-brand chargers have insufficient clearance between the LV and the HV side. This is dangerous, and can cause the 220V mains to go through to the USB port. This is also a very well-known property of cheap phone chargers, and you can find many teardowns online that show what I'm talking about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wi-b9k-0KfE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfJ3Ui8IS04

http://www.epanorama.net/newepa/2016/10/25/cheap-usb-charger...

I have also seen a few videos of teardowns of actual faulty chargers. For example, there was one where some of the insulation in the transformer windings were damaged, and you would get a continuous shock just by touching the LV side of any devices that are plugged in.


The other day a coworker's iphone battery was nearly empty. He did not have his charger with me. I offered that he could use mine, an usbc charger that has worked for my past 3 phones and also works with my laptop.

He couldn't use it.

Of course, not being an iphone user, I did not have an adapter. Neither did he, considering he forgot his charger.

The iphone and the usbc charger did not work together.


> the part that wears out is inside the phone in Lightning and inside the cable in USB-C

Can't speak to USB-C, but this is definitely a problem with lighting. I've had two phones usimply stop charging, presumably because the internal connector had worn out. Battery was fine, but there was no way to charge it.


clickbait...

  "...not using an official licensed Apple iPhone charger,
  which [officials] believe contributed to the
  malfunctioning of the device."

Fair point, I meant iPhone charging can happen from third party USB power sources, and should have been clear.

Break the lightning port and charge wirelessly.

“Yeah the charging port doesn’t work anymore sorry.”


This explain why you can't charge iPhone with "cheap cables".

It would be good if he did resistance tests as well. I killed my phone's battery by absentmindedly using a shitty cable that was basically tinsel wire.

(details: I was full-time tethering while plugged in. I assume the charge controller thought the battery was charging but it was actually slowly discharging)

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