← Back to context

Comment by aetherspawn

2 years ago

Note grounding your MacBook is likely to result in you constantly zapping your MacBook with static electricity if you wear rubber sole shoes, which is likely to not be good for the MacBook and may randomly damage the electronics. This may be why they did not put a grounding pin the first place.

I usually discharge my static buildup in the office sink.

The grounding lug exists on the charger body itself because some of Apple's first party plug adapters are grounded.

  • Exactly. The Apple extension cord is grounded. They likely didn't include a grounding pin on the stock adapter because (1) it'd be really hard to make it fold down and (2) you lose the option of which direction to plug it in (potentially blocking a plug). So it's a design call.

Apple supports grounding as a first-party offering by using their extension cables that plug between the wall and the power brick. So this product isn’t doing something untested and unsupported.

  • I had wondered about this, because my 2013 MBP was grounded (it came with this cable) and it used to zap me constantly. But I did not put 2+2 together.