An iPhone that won’t charge properly is more
than a little bit frustrating. Before you tear your hair out, take a stroll
down out troubleshooting checklist to rule out common causes of charging
problems—and, fingers crossed, resolve your issue without sending your phone in
for service.
There are a variety of issues that can cause
problems when charging your iPhone or iPad, ranging from the easily-solved to
the requires-Apple-service. Thankfully, in our experience, the problem is
almost always a varying degree of easily-solved. Here are the first things you
should try.
Clean Your Lightning Port
We really love the Lighting connector design:
there’s no wrong way to put the cable in, it’s very difficult to damage the
port itself, and the cable connector is very resistant to damage. The design of
the Lightning port, however, does really make it an irresistible crevice for
lint and debris to accumulate—especially if you carry your phone in your pocket
every day.
Eventually, enough crud can build up in the
port that when you insert the lightning cable you’ll fail to see the phone
switch over to charging mode. After unplugging it and plugging it back in a few
times, you might notice that it starts charging, but all you’ve succeed in
doing—if debris is your problem—is packing that lint in tighter. Eventually the
plug-and-replug technique won’t work, because you’ll have reached maximum
compaction. How do we know? Because, although it took a little over 2 years and
a few painful months of on and off charging issues, we eventually cleaned out
our Lightning port which led to complete resolution of our charging problems.
Check Your Charging Block
If your Lightning port is squeaky clean (or,
filthy or not, cleaning it failed to resolve your charging issue) the next
culprit to investigate is the charger itself. Not all chargers are created
equal and newer iPhones (and iPads, even more so) are both picky about their
power sources and power hungry.
The best bet is to try charging your device
with the official Apple charger that came with it. The second best bet is to
try charging with high quality charger that meets or exceeds the quality and
specifications of the Apple charger. Don’t bother running your test with a weak
USB charger left over from a phone you owned 10 years ago—there’s a good chance
that it’s significantly under powered for the task of charging a modern phone
(and almost definitely underpowered for charging an iPad—remember, iPads
require more power to charge!).
Inspect Your Cable
If your charger seems to up to snuff but
you’re still having problems, your issue may lie with the cable itself. After
hundreds of plugging and unplugging sessions even the best of cables starts to
show a little wear and tear. Further, Lightning cables need to be certified by
Apple.
Contact Apple for Support Options
If your port is now clean, your charger is up
to snuff (and can charge other devices), and the cables you tested can charge
your other Lighting-connector-devices just fine, then you’ve reached the end of
the troubleshooting line, and there’s a very good chance there is a problem
with your iPhone’s hardware.
Although the metal-body construction of the
iPhone and the design of the Lightning port makes it less likely to get a
detached or otherwise damaged port (say, compared to a plastic body phone with
a cheaper connector) it’s not unheard of. It’s possible there is some internal
issue with your iPhone, like the tiny connection points between the contacts in
the port and the circuit board in the phone are damaged, and your only
warranty-preserving option is contacting Apple to get your phone replaced or
repaired by an authorized service provider.
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