A great example of "no engineering applied past appearance":
The strain reliefs on every power adapter they make start out horrible, they fray, they get a lawsuit, then they fix them to look "uglier" but actually work.
Then they release a new power adapter that looks good but sucks again and the cycle continues.
I'm having trouble finding the lawsuit over the old powerbook connectors, so let's start with magsafe 1
Original magsafe 1: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4127
They got sued. This was the settlement. Note that every single magsafe power adapter i have frayed.
Whoops, back to the same issue of cables mostly bent at harsh angles due to T shaped adapters, and a smaller strain relief.
Admittedly, it's bigger than the original magsafe 1 strain relief, but I expect it's only a matter of time before these fray again.
It's not weird. Plenty of people have not had problems with aluminum wiring in their houses, even when screwed to copper fixtures. Others have had house fires.
The lack of a 100% instantaneous failure rate does not mean there was a good engineering design, or even any engineering design past appearance.
In the case of magsafe, the incidence and number of claims of fraying, actual wire melting, etc, was so high that it was very clearly "bad engineering".
(You are talking about at least tens of thousands of adapters that were actually replaced after actual signs of failure)
The case was settled through ADR 6 months after ADR starterd, and included apple agreeing to replace all adapters that showed any signs of strain relief failure for up to three years from the date of the initial settlement.
The strain reliefs on every power adapter they make start out horrible, they fray, they get a lawsuit, then they fix them to look "uglier" but actually work. Then they release a new power adapter that looks good but sucks again and the cycle continues.
I'm having trouble finding the lawsuit over the old powerbook connectors, so let's start with magsafe 1
Original magsafe 1: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4127 They got sued. This was the settlement. Note that every single magsafe power adapter i have frayed.
There is an article in an atlantic that quotes a supposed apple employee saying they knew this was a bad idea. http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2012/07/why-apples...
(Obviously, i don't think this is reliable sourcing, but it's plausible)
Newer magsafe 1: These are the ones that are sideways and have a much larger strain relief, and look like this: http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2012/07/why-apples...
Great, problem solved, less strain.
Let's look at magsafe 2: http://photos.appleinsider.com/12.06.11-MBP-3.jpg
Whoops, back to the same issue of cables mostly bent at harsh angles due to T shaped adapters, and a smaller strain relief. Admittedly, it's bigger than the original magsafe 1 strain relief, but I expect it's only a matter of time before these fray again.