Charging an iPhone with 220 Volts
 

I have a 6 Plus Verizon. I heard that the American charging "cube" can take a 220 volt input. Is this correct? If so, can you just use a plug (not voltage) adapter to plug into a socket in Europe?

Yes, you can.

Do I need a power converter to charge my iPhone in a country with 220 volt power?

All you need is the European style adapter into which you plug in your iPhone charging "cube". If you examine the cube on the two pin side you'll see in very faint letters it's rating for 100-240 volts. You'll probably need a magnifying glass to read the letters if you are anywhere near my age ;)

misread....

Yes, I can confirm this... all my Iphones are US sourced and I charge them down here in EZE where native voltage is 220V.

Yep, this is what people have been saying. :)

OP - here's a photo of my iPhone adapter, the same as yours:

http://i.imgur.com/OFZmOHHl.jpg

I gave my brother my old iPhone and it has been living in Australia on 230v for the last two years 24/7 without a problem.

The real issue is that some items seem to take forever to charge in the USA because it has such low voltage.

Electronic chargers deliver the same current regardless of the input voltage -- provided that voltage is within their operating range. In other words, they charge at the same rate in the US at 120 volts, in Japan at 100 or in the UK at 240.

The Apple iPhone charger is a SMPS (like almost all consumer mains to DC power supplies), so as long as the input voltage is within range it will output and charge exactly the same. The current drawn from the mains supply is very low.

At 100VAC it will draw ~0.05A to deliver 1A at 5VDC.
At 240VAC it will draw ~0.02A to deliver 1A at 5VDC.

Some generic USB chargers will only provide 2.5W (0.5A at 5VDC) and so will charge slower than an Apple 5W (1A at 5VDC) charger.
More recent iPhones will charge faster using an iPad 10W charger.

Again, this is independent of the input voltage.

Thank you all for these great replies.

Today I found out that Apple has put some kind of chip or sensor in the Lightning cables to force you to buy their brand name (and higher priced) versions instead of the cheaper ones at CVS, Walgreens, etc.

Dell laptops (and maybe others, too) used to have circuitry in their chargers that would identify themselves to the computer. If it wasn't a Dell charger, it would often refuse to work properly.

Some of the third-party chargers claimed to be "compatible" (meaning they would identify themselves correctly to the laptop) but often didn't; you then had a worthless brick.

Not sure if many/any other laptops do the same, but it looks like Apple is playing that game, too, with iPhones.

apple has MFI which is some sort of certification/licensing process.

3rd party MFI lightning cables work fine - whether branded monoprice, anker, amazonbasics, amongst many others.

theyre priced at about 1/2 of apple. ive got a bunch and they all work fine

Yep, there's nothing wrong with third party cables, as long as the manufacturers have gone through the licensing process with Apple.