You are not cheap, you are green (and evil)

I am happy owner of iPhone from iPhone 4. I never had any issue with them. All issues were some kind of my fault. But one thing is really annoying me modern iPhones – charge cables. I do not remember what year it started, but at one moment I did realize that plastic that protect lightning cable started to crack. I did not pay attention and thought that I misused it. So, I just used tape to isolate that place. But then it cracked in different place and in another place. I went I bought another cable. And year later perfectly working cable started to crack again. Cable was still working fine, just looks ugly and all wires are stripped. You can see exactly the same problem in this video: Repairing Apple's Notorious iPhone Cables for $8! - Save $$ - YouTube

Then I got new phone. Situation repeated within one year. Then somebody had asked me to borrow cable and I had spare one, that one that got cracked from previous version. When that that person saw broken cable, he said: “This cable has exactly the same problem as mine. I thought I was not careful, but it looks like common problem”.

Another iPhone and the same problem. Then I decided to try cable from different vendor. And guess what? They worked way longer and never crack. Most of them live thru 2-3 iPhones. Usually, I broke them physically and they stopped working, but they still look like new.

I did not really pay attention to details but when I did watch video above it hit me. Apple just make cables intentionally bad and saying it is biodegradable cable. This way they look green and got a lot of money from people who has to buy cable. I alone spent like $50-$60 on cables alone.

Just in case I still have 2 old style cables form iPad 2 and iPhone 4 and they looks like new and works just fine (I am charging iPad 2 using these cables). So, they could make great cables, they just do not want to. That guy from video have even older cables and they still look and works great. I understand idea of biodegradable plastic, but make it degrade after 3-4 years, not after one year. It is not green when I have to buy 2-3 cables in lifespan of single phone.

But it is not all. New iPhones does not have charger. Again, they said that there are a lot of chargers around, so they do not want to introduce waste to the world. But cable they put with phone is USB C to lightning. Even I have a lot of gadgets I do not have spare charger with USB C. I have few of them, but they needed for that device. Only 2 computers have USB C ports and both of them has only one such port. As result most people will have to buy charger from Apple. It is like selling car without fuel.

I personally think that both these moves are quite cheap. And Apple is not company that need to save every penny. Honestly, they do not know what to do with money they have. I understand that they need to show profit to investors, but these kinds of moves are slowly eroding brand value.