Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by JoeAltmaier 992 days ago
I heard years ago, Steve Jobs wouldn't allow a choke on a cable because they looked bad. A chronic problem as long as Apple has existed?
2 comments

No company is going to put chokes on every cable if they’re not needed to pass FCC. Why would they? Would you want extra chokes on every cable just in case a ham operator might use the product somewhere?

Note that this author isn’t claiming the device breaks FCC limits, just that it emits enough that his highly sensitive radio could pick it up.

It’s not reasonable to be mad at a company for shipping a product that meets the limits. This guy just wanted something lower than the official limits because he’s tuning a radio to that frequency right next to it.

Can you ELI5 how does this negatively affect the consumer and why should the consumer prefer the 'bad looking' choke option?
Ferrite chokes are large and heavy. They're also not free. So the product costs more, weighs more and gets bigger.
Sounds like I'm with Steve on this one.
Yeah. Who needs a usable RF spectrum when iphone has interwebs?
Not only does the device feed high-frequency signals into your power wiring, it can get noise from it like motors turning on or off and spiking the voltage.

It's only a problem if it's a problem. If they'd done proper filtering inside the device maybe it's ok.