Keep Away from Chargers Not Approved for iPhone Use

[Michael Johnston]

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I recently got an email from a friend of mine with a tale of iPhone woe. My buddy Ken (not the podcaster) has a car charger which was made for use with iPods and so he assumed an iPhone would work just as well. As it turns out, not every iPod charger will play nicely with an iPhone. Frankly, I've been known to tell people that iPod chargers will work the same. After hearing Ken's story, my tip to you all is to be sure that your car chargers are made to work with the iPhone. Ken's story follows the break.<!--break-->

<blockquote>I attached the car charger cord to my iPhone on Saturday. It rebooted, asked for my password and went black, to never power on again.

Drove to [the Apple Store in] Woodfield yesterday and the Genius took more time trying to power it on, than he did to exchange it for a new one.

Of course, they won't give you a 16 gig for equal or $100 more, but I have a new iPhone with no dog teeth marks on it, now.

I thought when they first came out there was concern for car chargers, but once I asked a salesman at the store and they said no. Just wanted to give you a heads up.</blockquote>

Thankfully Ken's story has a happy ending. After experiencing a similar issue with a defective FM Transmitter from USB Fever, I recommend that everyone takes care to only use chargers specifically made for the iPhone.</div>

[Bernie]

I plugged my iPhone into the iPod car charger one day on the way to work just to top it off. I had recently hacked it and knew I would be showing it off quite a bit.

Good news is I did not have it plugged in long, maybe ten minutes before I needed to play with it again.

WOOOOOOOO !

My battery was in the RED. I just left it in the car till I got home and could charge it properly. All indications are that my battery survived that fiasco. That was months ago. Battery life still seems normal.

[iambored8907]

I used a unofficial charger I bought on eBay for like $1.99 for over a month with zero problems. The charger was for a video ipod I had back in 2005, and when I used it on my iPhone it would charger but the unofficial apple product warning would pop up. I did buy an official car charger with the $100 apple credit I got last october, and never used the cheap one again. So not all chargers are dangerous

[jay]

Yes, be warned. I killed my iPhone using an iPod charger. Read the following post which describes in detail what happened. Since then i am very cautious in using non iPhone certified chargers !

Luckily Apple swapped my iPhone !

http://tinyurl.com/5e7eso

enjoy,

Jay

[EarlyAdopter]

I have used a charger brick for an iPod Photo model with no ill effects on my phone. Also no ill effects from plugging the phone into a Volvo iPod adapter (although the playback control was not reliable). I have not tried my older FireWire iPod car charger with the phone -- maybe I'll let that dog keep sleeping ...

[madscientest]

its seems to me, that apple would only do this to make more money, just like putting the headphone jack so far down in the opening. I used to think very highly of apple. once I owned the iphone and found all the little flaws in it, I lost a lot of respect for them. I would have expected something like this from the other money hungry greedy company.

What mechanical differences can there be that an ipod charger will damage an iphone? or why the hell do i want to buy an adapter to fit normal headphones...... these are only questions that CEO's can answer, who by the way in my opinion have no freaking clue what is going on in the world today. They may have a degree in something but once you get that degree, common sense just gets lost in translation.

Sometimes its better to stick to the basics and treat the customers with respect and loyalty, instead of trying to squeeze and extra dollar out of them.

[Pearldrm7]

I plugged my iPhone into my wife's iHome speaker set and it fried my battery instantly.

The phone couldn't hold a charge for more thatn 30 minutes after that. Apple was good and gave me a new/refurbished phone.

[Sesheron]

its seems to me, that apple would only do this to make more money, just like putting the headphone jack so far down in the opening. I used to think very highly of apple. once I owned the iphone and found all the little flaws in it, I lost a lot of respect for them. I would have expected something like this from the other money hungry greedy company.


Actually the difference is the current draw. The ipods (excluding the touch) all pull about 300 mA from the cable. The touch and Iphone pull about 500 mA. Now this isn't due to charging the battery but running the large screen while charging the battery. batteries charge faster while not having to power things (obviousbly) so instead the iphone and touch both run on the cable fully while the battery charges up.

[Unregistered]

I tried to charge using my old Ipod G2 Firewire charger and was denied with a message on screen that this charger is not compatible with the iphone.

So even older APPLE BRANDED chargers do not all work!

[Curtis]

I have been using a Belkin RoadTrip to Charge my 1st gen iphone and charge it and have had no software or battery problems with the phone. Its actually been great, and fully functional.

[Unregistered]

Actually the difference is the current draw. The ipods (excluding the touch) all pull about 300 mA from the cable. The touch and Iphone pull about 500 mA. Now this isn't due to charging the battery but running the large screen while charging the battery. batteries charge faster while not having to power things (obviousbly) so instead the iphone and touch both run on the cable fully while the battery charges up.

I do not completely agree with this especially because there are people who claim that their iPhones were damaged by the iPod chargers. If you charge a high capacity device with a low capacity charger all that should happen is that the charging time should increase (given the fact that the charging voltage is constant at the standard USB voltage of 5V). Can someone who really knows what is going behind the scenes throw some insights please?

[Bernie]

What can I say. I had a gimmick that my iPhone really really did not like. I also bought this car charger from an Amazon affiliate "eforcity" that works fine. They do post that this charger does not work with the 3G iPhone.:confused: