I don&#x27;t know about you, but I think the strain reliefs that <i>just about every other cable has</i> are &quot;sleek and well designed&quot; enough to stop them from failing there. Apple&#x27;s strain relief, which doesn&#x27;t relieve strain particularly well, reminds me of those on <i>very</i> old equipment (pre-1940s): nothing more than a featureless tube surrounding the cable. The reinforced design with a flexible, radius-limiting boot that&#x27;s popular today evolved over many decades and works very well. Apple&#x27;s design provides only a minimal amount of reinforcement and doesn&#x27;t offer much radius-limiting. You can see this when you bend it - the &quot;boot&quot; creases and wrinkles, separating from the cable, instead of smoothly controlling and limiting its bend radius as a good strain relief should.