rashbre central: the opposite of lightning

Friday 10 July 2015

the opposite of lightning


Here in rashbre central we've a fair collection of iPhones, iPads and similar. There's some of the old kind with the long connector and also the newer type with the small connector.

What is annoying is that even the small connector type doesn't always work to recharge or communicate.

We get those 'accessory won't charge' messages sometimes or the device just sits on a connector without showing the lightning flash symbol.

There's various reasons - a few of the cables are probably emergency purchases from 'non Apple' suppliers and so they don't have the right microchip built into them.

Then there's the charging from a USB strip, which won't provide as much power as one of those little power blocks provided with a new device.

I'm sure Apple would say its all because they have made the cable intelligent, with digital signalling multiplexed via a micro controller in the cable. I'd have thought that the two basic functions of charge and sync (the basic four wire connection) would have been made persistent, but apparently not. Default connection is 'Fail Dumb'.

It's plain annoying though, having to retry various cables and power chargers to find a combination that works.

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