If you’ve ever had an iPhone Lightning cable in your car, you already know how fragile they are. Apple may now have a solution that can also protect any kind of cable.
Apple will never say Lightning cables have a death wish, but it has come close in a recently unveiled patent filing that is really about solving the problem. “Cable with variable stiffness” does not mention Lightning once, nor does it say anything that comes close to the word “frayed”.
“It is well known that bending the cable near the connection point can cause unwanted stress on the wire connections, which can lead to cable failures,” it admits. “Accordingly, it is common to provide a strain relief sheath made of a rigid material around the end region of the cable.”
Apple’s descriptions apply to many types of cables, as do the criticisms of current solutions.
“The rigid material locally increases the bending resistance of the cable, relieving stress on the wire connections,” he continues. “In addition to locally stiffening the cable, the strain relief sleeve also makes the cable thicker at the ends. In some cases, the extra thickness may not be desired.”
If you’ve used Apple equipment long enough, you may remember how Apple made Lightning cables a little thicker. It presumably meant they were slightly less prone to damage. As a side effect, this meant that sometimes they no longer fit channels edited into iPhone standards by third-party manufacturers.
Apple’s new proposal is a development of both the idea of ”strain relief” and the additional thickening of cables in general. “A cable can contain a cable core surrounded by an outer jacket of uniform thickness,” the patent application said.
“[It further has] a first longitudinal section having a first stiffness (e.g., corresponding to a flexible cable), a second longitudinal section having a second stiffness (e.g., corresponding to a rigid cable), and a third longitudinal section between the first and second longitudinal sections, “says Apple.
Detail of the patent application with a combination of cable layers and protective covering
The first cable has an unspecified degree of stiffness, while the second is stiffer. And “the stiffness of the third longitudinal section varies between the first stiffness and the second stiffness.” What this really does is lengthen the “cable strain relief”.
Most of the patent application describes various possible materials, and also tries to define stiffness. For example, the minimum bend radius, defined as the smallest radius at which the cable can be bent without kinking, is a known measure of cable stiffness, “says Apple,” and a minimum bend radius can be defined relative to the cable diameter. ”
“A larger bend radius equates to increasing stiffness. Depending on the specific cable design, the minimum bend radius can be, for example, 8 to 12 times the cable diameter,” he continues.
The patent application is attributed to seven inventors, including Christopher S. Graham. His previous related work has included issued patents relating to “shielding for multi-coil wireless power transmission systems” and “coiled enclosures for electronic devices.”