
Why Apple Couldn’t Go to Micro USB Charging - caffeinewriter
http://techpinions.com/why-apple-couldnt-go-to-micro-usb-charging/10212
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tiziano88
I believe the nexus 7 had the same issue, and they devised a slightly longer
version of the micro USB plug that is capable of carrying 2.1 amps of current,
which is more than 10 watts of power. The socket can still accept "normal" USB
plugs, and the new longer plugs can be used with "old" sockets too (these
combinations will not be able to achieve the increased current rate, of
course). All in all, it seems a reasonable solution.

~~~
saurik
Wait, so that means that of all of these micro-USB cables I have lying around,
only one of them is actually capable of performantly charing my Nexus 7?

~~~
tiziano88
Precisely. It also means that if you don't have the original cable at hand,
you can use any cable to charge it, albeit more slowly.

As a side note, the nexus 7 charger is also special in itself, as it is
capable of outputting 2.1 amps of currents, so you also need to use that to
achieve the maximum charging speed.

~~~
saurik
Huh. So, honestly: I think that was actually a horrible decision. I just found
the box, and the only thing related to this in the manual is the fairly
overly-typical "use only the USB charging unit that comes with your Nexus 7;
using a different power adapter may damage your tablet" warning. It says
nothing about the cable.

I, like many people I know, end up having multiple cables: even non-technical
people I know often end up buying an extra cable, so they aren't screwed if
they lose one. A lot of people who splurge for Android tablets probably also
like Android enough to have an Android phone, so they will simply already have
a micro-USB cable lying around anyway.

Assuming this is true for a second (and I currently have no reason to
disbelieve you), I have a friend who was actually complaining just a few days
ago that "my nexus 7 is really, really bad at charging". We were all
discussing it, many of us commiserating that the Nexus 7 seems to be the worst
of all of our devices when it comes to charging.

However, now, it could be that we are all just using "the wrong cable",
because no one at Google thought it important to mention "this cable is a
magic voodoo cable; the manual might claim it is micro-USB, but you cannot use
a normal micro-USB cable to replace it". At least with Apple, I can look at
the cable and tell if it will work for me or not.

~~~
crwll
I don't get any of this and I haven't had a bad charging experience with my
Nexus 7.

I've successfully charged it with at least the included charger and its cable,
with an 1A USB charger and its included cable that originally came with an
older HTC Android phone, and with yet another cable that was connected
straight to an USB port in a computer.

tl;dr: to my experience, Nexus 7 charges just fine anywhere like any other
micro USB device does.

~~~
saurik
FWIW, I am perfectly willing to believe that the various complaints that came
up among my friend group were all weirdly-correlated one-offs (like, maybe we
are all likely to have done certain stupid things with our tablets in the same
way), and that tiziano88 is wrong about the cable.

That said, I've found some other people talking about similar issues.

[http://forums.androidcentral.com/google-nexus-7-tablet-
acces...](http://forums.androidcentral.com/google-nexus-7-tablet-
accessories/191842-problems-charging-3rd-party-microusb-cables.html)

Apparently, in their version of the manual (maybe it was changed after Google
I/O) there is even a statement about the cable: "use the charging unit and
micro USB cable that come with your Nexus 7; other charging units and USB
cables may charge more slowly or not at all".

[http://i595.photobucket.com/albums/tt35/StereoMike7/86ee9ea1...](http://i595.photobucket.com/albums/tt35/StereoMike7/86ee9ea1.png)

I then maintain that if this is true, they should have provided a bright blue
cable that said "Nexus" on it, so I'd always be able to know "ok, that's the
cable that came with my Nexus 7 that I should be using when I charge it", as
otherwise you end up with this horrible set of folklore surrounding how the
charging sucks (as, seriously: how many people read or pay heed to the fine
print warnings in the manual? ;P).

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nodata
I don't see why Apple needs Lightning AND the MagSafe adaptor. If they wanted
to introduce a new cable, why didn't they invent a MagSafe version of
Lightning?

