Best place to buy lightning cables?

[TripleT]

Seems like these cables are bad news, whether you buy them from Apple or not. Loads of bad reviews.

To confuse matters, Amazon has the 6 foot cable $10 cheaper than the Apple store, even though it says the manufacturer is Apple.

Where have people bought cables, and what kind of luck did you have?

I need a spare since a certain app keeps draining my battery!

 

[MadScience2006]

I would just stick with the Apple brand cables. Try to purchase at retail like the Apple Store or Best Buy. They're guaranteed for one year and if you see any flakiness or get a defective cable, the Apple Store will replace it on the spot, even if you didn't buy it from an Apple Store. Also, bogus detections can occur due to iOS 7 itself as it's overly sensitive with the detection of the attached cable. Hopefully, this will be addressed in an upcoming iOS update.

That being said, I have ~7 official Apple Lighting cables, some came with my devices and others were purchased at retail (Best Buy) and have never had any issues with any of them. Some of my devices are on iOS 7 while others are on iOS 6...I've also personally not seen any flakiness due to iOS 7 but I do know that the majority of people having cable issue are running iOS 7.

 

[Terminator]

If you're using an iPhone 5s like me, 3rd party lighting cables won't work. But they will work with iPhone 5, I tested this myself. With official & cheap eBay cable.

I guess with iPad air, you will have similar behaviour since both launched around the same time and include the the chip.

 

[tyche]

I bought one from dx.com for $1.50 shipped. Works perfectly fine for my iPad charging and syncing. Lots of choices there just read the reviews to make sure you have a compatible one.

 

[Worf]

I think at $1.50 shipped, you can go and try a bunch to see what works and what doesn't. Then give the ones that don't work as presents to other people.

At least the connector feels more solid than a micro USB one... I've broken USB connectors off circuitboards before (you stress the connection on the board and eventually they give). Though Apple cheats and bolts their connector to the chassis so bending will break the cable end and not the phone.

There's nothing more disappointing than plugging in the cable and having it go just a bit further than you expect.