Travis Feisthamel
New member
Thanks to your twist tie tip, I got my iPhone 5S fixed. I was just about to take it to the Apple store!
I have spent some time dealing with a charging issue on my iPhone 5. I researched it and never found a solution that worked for me. I did, however, easily resolve the problem, so I thought I would share.
Problem: When connecting the iPhone 5 to charge or sync via a lightning cable, I would have to push really hard and, only sometimes, would it stay connected. This caused me to deal with the occasional flat battery in the morning as well as issues connecting to my computer.
Solution: Take a paperclip and clean the built-up lint from inside where the cable connects on the iPhone. The lint appears to limit how far the lighting connector is inserted. Once clear, I had no more problems charging / connecting my phone.
Hopefully this helps someone
Thanks for this thread. I have asked Apple people at AT&T and they all seem to deny the fact that this DOES screw up your charger and compressed air only helps so much. Because of this thread I went the extra mile and did use a safety pin which was able to pull up tons of lint that was impacted down extremely far and was NOT going to budge with compressed air. After I did this it worked a little better but I went even further and used pipe cleaner used for kids crafts, dipped it in rubbing alcohol and sent that pipe cleaner down in there. After using both of these techniques my phone charger port works like a charm.
To all of you people saying wash your pants... eh, most lint comes from washing and drying pants, so its not a hygiene issue, its a common issue that has clogged up two phones of mine and an iPad (no pockets to even put that one in) that use this type of port.
The paper clip thing worked 100% !!!!!!!! I had not even thought that lint would be the culprit. My phone was charging intermittently. I did think about cleaning it out, but I was just blowing in it and nothing was coming out. I just tried the paperclip idea and some lint came out. It still wasn't charging. In fact, it wasn't charging at all. I thought I messed something up. But, I tried it again and then all of a sudden, A LOT of lint kept coming out. I think I pushed the lint to the back with the paperclip the first time. I just kept scraping slowing and gently and stuff kept coming out. Sure enough, I plugged the phone in and it's charging 100%. I can move the phone while it's charging and it's not disconnecting at all...awesome!