Column: Apple whips iPhone users with their own third-party cables

When working in an office, one can nary go a week without hearing the mating call of theiPhone user: "Hey, does anyone have a spare iPhone charger? Uh, no, the other one. The smaller one."

Because of its stubborn refusal to switch to the more universal micro-USB format - the likes of which are standard on Android, Windows, and BlackBerry devices – Apple continues to make the lives of drained iPhone users hellish and costly.

For the privilege of using an Apple-certified cable and power adapter (sold separately, of course), iPhone users will pay an exorbitant and inexcusable $38, plus tax and shipping, just to charge their phones. (Multiple times, in fact, if they were users before and after the change to the Lightning dock connector, which rendered 30-pin dock connectors obsolete.)