You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!
When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.
When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.
i'm on probably my sixth lightning adapter, and this one has lasted the shortest amount of time - just two weeks. it's completely shocking how poorly made these are. just a(nother) mad cash cow for Apple. i feel like an idiot still having an iPhone - this sixth breakage might just send me over the edge into a flip phone...
MacBook Air 13″, macOS 13.2
I tried to find any type of verifiable info that these adapters are poorly made. I can find plenty of complaints, but none of them, like yours, explains how or why they failed.
Does the adapter look fine, but simply stop providing sound?
The usual culprit though is the user pulling in a way they shouldn't.
If you're not grabbing the adapter at point 1 when removing it from the phone, then you're doing it wrong. If you're not holding point 3 when unplugging the headphones from the adapter, then you're doing it wrong. Any instance of holding or pulling from point 2 is always doing it wrong. Each of these instances pulls on the wiring rather than the housing.
yes, it looks fine, but when handling the phone, the sound cuts in and out, progressing to eventually cutting out completely. this seems to be due to part number 2 being incredibly flimsy and movable, and so whenever it the position of the phone is slightly altered, part number 2 moves and cuts the connection.
the design is pathetic.
and yes, your point about holding either 1 or 3 when plugging/removing seems pretty obvious... especially given the aforementioned flimsiness of part number 2.
the only time my adapter has not broken was when i duct-taped it in the middle, which reinforced part number 2. yes, i'm not joking.
(i lost that pair of headphones.)
Okay, that's a bit better information. I was trying hard not to sound snotty in my first response, and could only generalize from your initial post.
I also wonder why that short, flexible section is there. A solid, one-piece design would have been a better idea. As it is now, it's too easy to put unwanted strain on the wiring. And it's too small of an item to provide enough stress relief as designed.
We do have one of these ourselves for my wife's iPhone Xr. Bought it at least two years ago and it still works fine. But as a caveat, it also doesn't get used very much. So, two years is not equal to typical use.
I did a quick look on Amazon, and all third party options are also cabled. None have a rating that is any better than Apple's adapter.
Oh, I get it now. The cable is rather necessary. If it were an inflexible piece, about an inch and a half long, then most any accidental smack against a table or such would likely break the Thunderbolt contact off in the socket. The flexible cable is there for at least some give.
Why are apple lightning headphone jack adapters so poorly made?
