Do female->male USB-USB power-only passthrough adapters exist? If I could buy a few from a trusted source like directly from the Apple store, I could use it to firewall my cables (never thought I'd have to do that).

As an added bonus, my iphone wouldn't automatically crank up itunes on my mac every single friggin time I plug it into the dock.

"USB condom"

https://duckduckgo.com/?q="USB+condom"

You're stuck with 5V at half Amp. Fast charging allows up to several Amps, but needs data pins to negotiate.

Higher power versions of this concept exist that do the data negotiation for your device in response to negotiation from your device. "Plugable USB Universal Fast 1A" is one example, though in my experience, really using it is hit or miss.

I've had better luck using a USB battery to "filter" USB connections in random rental cars.

I have a dollar store "iPad fast charging plug" which is basically a USB condom with a dumb resistor divider to tell Apple devices that they're safe to pull 2.4A.

I have a device that mimics data pins while cutting them off internally. My phone charges quickly, but data lines are not connected. It's a Triplett Usb Bug, a mainstream brand product.

Amazing!

Yes, they simply(?) block the data pins and often go by the name "USB Condom".

If you have an old-fashioned USB 2.1 plug, you can actually remove / cover the data pins, leaving only the power pins exposed!

You need to add some resistors to the data pins to be recognized as a charger.

Depends on the phone. Some need resistors, for some it's enough to just short both data pins, some do protocol level talking over data pins. There are several standards for that with legacy usb.

> Personal opinion: Charging only is what a cigarette adapter is for.

But hardly any new cars have that ….

> Allowing me to use the car's interface to control my phone is a nice tool. It probably adds to the safety of my driving, since I can skip audio tracks using physical controls on my steering wheel instead of a touch screen.

It seemed that paulsutter (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20686844) was suggesting a setting that prevents this automatically for people who never want it, not removing the capability for people like you who do want it.

> But hardly any new cars have that ….

I'm in a 2019 Subaru Outback, and I have two. One for the front seat, one for the back.

WRT a setting - CarPlay must be explicitly enabled, and has a per-vehicle pairing. I imagine Android has a similar requirement.

Android Auto bugs you every time you plug the phone into the car. I had a rental that had it and I was curious to try it since it seemed like something I may want in my next car. It was slow as fuck over bluetooth (a little faster over USB) and offered pretty much nothing more than what a magnetic mount and a bluetooth audio/phone connection would offer. It was 1000x quicker to just bring Waze up on my phone as I'm walking to the car, slap it on the magnet (up high on the dash, adjacent to the screen), and let the bluetooth connect automatically. I deleted the android auto profile and just stuck with regular bluetooth audio/phone.

"But hardly any new cars have that"

Even a Tesla Model 3 still has a 12 Volt cigarette adapter port. New cars still include them because of all the accessories out there like inverters and tire inflaters people want to use.

And my Model S.

It seems extremely rare for me to find any car in the US market that does not have at least 1 12V outlet. On a very recent model car I own it has 4 plus a 110V outlet!

Yeah, they don't seem to include the cigarette lighters themselves anymore (the plug with the nichrome coil or whatever it is that heats up when pushed in), but the outlets are still there on my most recent car, and every rental car I've driven recently.

I think I meant to say what you said—that there's no actual cigarette lighter any more—and just confused that with the adapter outlet itself being gone. Thank you for clarifying!