magnets - why does it have to be magnets? - demagnetizing my credit cards and hotel room keys and floppy disks - why can’t it be a snap or a dovetail or a press fit?
Try a phone with a removable battery next time! It really is the best system.
What if we don’t have tiny USB?
Batteries? Pah! Mine has a crank! (/picks up earpiece, turns crank…“Operator, get me Klondike 5-3226!”)
Because God forbid Apple should use the Micro-USB that everyone else in the known universe has standardized around for small gadgets like phones, wireless headphones & speakers, and mp3 players. I’m SO happy not to need an arsenal of adapters when traveling, and to be able to charge my stuff in any room I have a micro-USB. Now if only cars would stop having iPod specific USB ports that won’t charge Androids…
I am disappointed that this isn’t a device allowing me to shoot lightning bolts from a USB socket. I’d worked out a super villain costume and everything; Zapman will not terrorize my city after all.
I love Douglas Adams’ essay about cables and adapters: Dongly Things.
I love that all the hardware engineer needs to succeed is the smell of pizza.
To be fair, lightning is a better spec than micro-USB – it’s reversible, bi-directional, carries more power, etc. It looks like companies are moving towards USB-C, so we might all be upgrading or carrying adapters anyway.
I hope this is one of the V2 InCharge cables. I made the mistake of taking part in their initial IndieGogo funding drive and the V1 cables were garbage. They fell apart, the magnets fell-out and were so tiny that they would immediately be lost, etc.
The V2 cables fixed all that, but to get them replaced I had to complain in so many different public forums (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) that they finally had to acknowledge me and sent me replacement V2 units. Trying to contact them directly would either get ignored or you’d be insulted by their customer service folks, and any negative postings on their “customer service” forum were immediately erased.
Overall, not a company I’ll ever do business with again.
Agree: I got both the first generation and the second generation, and the second is miles better.
Although, unfortunately, it is already obsolete, because I have a new phone with USB-C. 
USB-C is chunky compared to either micro-USB or lightning. I do hope someone comes out with tiny-but-still-compatible versions (like the frameless version of micro that this cable uses) before too long.
Uh huh.
My devices use both micro-USB and mini-USB. And since the two sockets are so very much alike, I get to try both cables, inserting them upside down and right side up and then upside down again. Fun Fun Fun.
Two standards are better than one
Just so. My last three phones and two tablets can all charge off the same micro-USB cables.
Even my Apple-only infra-red camera charges off micro-USB, though it needs to connect to the iPad with Apple’s proprietary connector. My Logitech iPad keyboard uses USB-C.
Once you know that the USB symbol on your cable should always face UP, the non-reversible problem disappears.
I won’t be too sad to see the switch to USB-C in the long run though because there are significant improvements. And unlike Lightning cables the conductors aren’t openly exposed to be shorted out.
I wanted to thank you, but I just broke a couple of mainboards using your trick
Yup. I have several USB cables where the symbol is the other way up.
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