If I was of cynical persuasion, which I’m not often prone to, but can be when the mood allows, I would guess that our most glorious and exalted leaders at Apple design flimsy cables for their hardware on purpose. We can all mentally picture the broken men and women trudging into the Apple Store, shattered cable in hand, ready to fork out for a horrendously overpriced white strand of rubber and electrics. If deliberate sabotage of their clients sounds too insidious, I’ll temper the accusation by suggesting that Apple don’t put as much effort into ensuring the sturdiness of their cables as they could. Because if they did, they would have surely already come up with the IronWire by Echo, a London-based startup who are sick to death of weak cables and have decided to do something about it.
The IronWire range are a series of unbreakable, untangle-able (not a word, but you get the gist I’m sure, good luck trying to tangle these wires) which were introduced to the unsuspecting world in the form of an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign. That campaign, which wrapped up late last year, was blisteringly successful, earning Echo almost 200% of their original goal, and a cool $151,546 to kick their invention into being.
Originally, Echo produced one cable, which went from USB to iPhone 5 and up ports. Their design has been certified by all the right people, including Apple themselves, which is ironic, as the IronWire makes the maestros’ cables look completely Bush League (adjective 1. (informal) of mediocre quality; second-rate; marked by a lack of professionalism). Since the blazing success of their first campaign, the developers at Echo have kicked off a second crowdfunding initiative, this time on Kickstarter, where they hope to introduce and eight-strong range of their iron cast cable, including variants with Lightning, Micro USB, and USB-C connectivity, for Androids and MacBooks too. This new Kickstarter is currently live and showing great momentum.
Echo also cleverly advertised their cable by showing it towing a car. I know of no other cable that could pull a car all on its lonesome, let alone go toe to toe with a powerlifting champion in a gym full of strenuous equipment, as is depicted in another clever marketing video. If you’re sick to death of Apple overcharging you for shoddy cables, pick yourself up one of these extremely affordable bad boys, and bask in that glorious lifetime warranty, knowing that if you ever needed to tow your car with it, you damn well could.
You can check out the new IronWire Kickstarter here!
