Enough is Enough: The Charging Adapters for the iPad, iPod Touch, and iPhone Are Lemons

I've owned lots of Apple products in the past and out of all the products that I've purchased I have one universal pet peeve with all of them; the cheap and easily broken adapters. The charger of the iPad, iPod, and iPhone is a lemon and here's why.

I've purchased numerous replacement adapters for the iPad, iPhone, and several versions of the iPod over the years, but I reached a boiling point when I bought a Targus adapter replacement for my iPad that has gone unbroken in the last 6 months that I've owned it. If a knockoff iPad cable works, it stands to reason that the adapters that Apple shells out with all of its expensive iOS gadgets should work as well, but they simply don't.

While using just about all of the numerous iOS devices that I've owned in the past, I've noticed that the power plug starts to get seriously hot while charging an iOS device and over time, the heat of the power adapter starts to overheat the iOS device's data transfer cable and the rubber melts away; exposing the data cables wires and renders it useless over time. This very problem led me to replace 3 of my iPad first generation's power adapters, but so far, I've had no problems with the Targus USB power adapter that I bought half a year ago.

The problem is that Apple ships out crappy power adapters with all of their devices [along with uncomfortable headphones, but that's another story] and at $30 per replacement, the added cost of replacing these shoddy charging adapters took my first gen 64GB iPad from $699 to $789 once you factor in the added costs of replacing the cables.

I'm fed up and although it's inevitable that the default Apple USB power adapter that came with your iPod, iPad, or iPhone will go "kaput" in the near future, I wrote this article as a cautionary tale and to warn people to opt for an off-brand power cable instead of constantly having to replace the poor chargers that Apple ships out.

For more, read Is the iPad 2's New Slim Design a Good or Bad Thing? , How Apple is Totally Screwing Over iPad 1 Customers Now that the iPad 2 is Set to Launch , and The Worst Features of the IPad 2's New Front and Back Facing Cameras

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