New Power Adapter Extension Cable does not connect to New 140W USB-C Power Adapter

Actually, yes, go ahead and buy it. And then proceed to the nearest Apple Store, with your full piece of kit (MacBook Pro, Model A3607 and new extension cable or Apple World Travel Adapter Kit, SKU #MD837ZM/A – if you don't have one, buy one beforehand), and ask them to set it up for you. And when they fail to do so, demand an exchange of the actual power brick for the earlier Model A2452, free of charge.

These chargers should have NEVER left the design stage, let alone the actual factory, with non-IEC60320-compliant female connectors and mains adapters, PERIOD. They are incompatible with all of those Apple-branded extension cables and travel adapter plugs, despite the former still being sold all around the world and the latter having been sold until six months ago (well, now we may finally have an answer as to why they were discontinued, ugh).

SmokeyBBQ wrote:

The one on the right is the one that was packaged in my NEW 16 MacBook Pro with the M5Pro chip. It is a duckhead wall adapter. Apple has now removed the compatibility drop down menu from the adapter extension cable. it use to show all the compatible model and it had the new 16 inch listed in the menu.

Well, they don't have compatibility listed in a drop-down menu per se, but they do have in a collapsible section, Product Information > Overview, on the actual product page:

The 1.8-metre Power Adapter Extension Cable is an AC extension cord that provides extra length for your Apple power adapter. Use it with MagSafe and MagSafe 2 power adapters; 10W and 12W USB-A power adapters; and 29W, 30W, 61W, 67W, 87W, 96W and 140W USB-C power adapters. [emphasis mine]

That's still misleading and false advertising, if you ask me. The model or release date is not specified, not even as an exception (say, “pre-March 2026”), hence, any consumer might reasonably assume ANY Apple-branded 140W USB-C adapter is compatible with this product, period. That's very reasonable grounds for a swap of the pack-in Model A3607 power brick with a compatible Model A2452 one, free-of-charge. Or a refund of the actual cable, but seeing how Apple is not selling Model A3607-compatible cables yet (or ever? Who knows, really! Maybe that ground pin is there exclusively for Type G/BS1363 plug adapters, or something) and how bog-standard IEC60320 C8 cables aren't compatible with it, either (something which any long-term Mac user would reasonably expect!)… swapping the brick itself would be the right, fair and environmentally-responsible thing to do (yes, I know that Apple being somehow forced to recall all of those or repurposing a couple of them as refurb units would also be wasteful in its own right, but this insanity should definitely be nipped in the bud, STAT).

The one on the right appears to be a very old style since it doesn't have the divot between the two contacts.

I forget when Apple changed over from the divot-less version to the one with the divot, but it was over a decade ago. I would imagine it was during the early Intel Mac years when that change occurred.

SmokeyBBQ wrote:

With the attention to detail that Apple prides itself on, this is an unfortunate oversight. How could they not have tested this in the production phase?

for “Apple website” product feedback

https://www.apple.com/contact/feedback/ this includes:

Zurarczurx wrote:

I don't think the OP would have to demand. I was working abroad when my just out of warranty Mac died. I went to the nearest Apple store and they found that an internal fuse had blown in the Mac. They replaced the fuse, took my PSU off me cos they were concerned that it might have caused the problem and gave me a new PSU including the box of foreign plugs. All free of charge.

I wouldn't be too sure of that, though… I've just found that said ”box of foreign plugs”, the more aptly named “Apple World Travel Adapter Kit”, SKU #MD837ZM/A, to which I alluded before in another post, was discontinued around six months ago. I assumed it was still a thing, but just realised that I bought mine from the Portuguese online Apple Store almost a year and a half ago and that the packaging is still typeset in Myriad Pro and bears a copyright notice of 2023 (it's a bit anachronistic, but I'm guessing Apple couldn't even be bothered to change it all to SF Pro when they were planning on discontinuing it anyway and only had to update some regulatory information or something). The sticky label itself with the barcode is dated November 2024 and is, indeed, set in SF Pro, and it was bought in December, so maybe this came from the very last or at least one of the last few batches ever produced/packaged.

As for the cables, they are also niche but are likely much more useful across the board. As much as I despise Apple's move – and I fully intend to boycott their chargers from now on, as I wholeheartedly disagree with it and very much value interoperability; unless I have a massive brain fart and go back to the iMac life after becoming a staunch Mac Studio convert, it's only third-party IEC60320 C6-to-USB-C chargers for any of my new portable Macs going forward, I guess –, I'm sure many new users will still buy their wares, and it would be an absolute bummer – and, again, MORE waste, or utterly inelegant solutions if they go the standard plug-and-socket 120/240V AC extension cable/power strip route – if they couldn't ever buy Apple-branded, brick-attached extension cables.

Or v2 World Travel Adapter Kits or individual plug adapters, for that matter (yeah, I've always felt – and inevitably considered, as I did indeed buy, as I said, two of those out of necessity and in the nick of time – that the full kit itself was a bit forced upon users and potentially wasteful, as you had to buy the entire set even if you couldn't ever envision travelling to certain places, so maybe selling individual plugs should be the way to go). If this becomes just a global SKU-management thing for Apple instead of a consumer-facing bonus feature, it's utterly shameful, considering how premium their products are and how likely many of their users are to travel abroad. Removing IEC60320 compatibility is already bad enough; not even selling extension cables, spares or adapters for other global plug-and-socket standards and forcing users to trawl the second-hand market or buy from potentially less reputable or even outright reckless manufacturers is just rubbing salt on the wound.

Ha, it seems the iMacs use IEC60320 C6 sockets on their pack-in external power supplies, my bad. Which is interesting, that's exactly the same standard plug-and-socket standard on my Mac Studio (and on my very first Mac, the iMac G4 still depicted on my user profile picture).

Why do I have this uneasy feeling that these decisions are only related to regulatory compliance, and that once Apple standardised their portable wares around USB-C and omitted their chargers from those products' boxes in the EU, as mandated by the EC, they decided to go full proprietary on the chargers themselves where they could? It seems the prongs on these are slightly thicker, which may be an improvement over the IEC60320 C7-C8 standard but, other than that… it does feel like it was done out of spite and/or just because they could. It really doesn't sit well with me.

And I highly doubt that said standard is that bad as-is; we've been using it without issue since 1966 in its standard incarnation and for more than two decades with Apple's minor external modifications. Yes, the earlier batches, with the internal glued-on ridge, of the Type N/IEC 60906-1/Europlug adapter variant were badly designed and, if handled too roughly or too much, had a tendency to break inside electrical outlets along said ridge and leave the internal ends of the live and neutral prongs exposed, but Apple conducted a proper and extensive recall (I personally got a full bag of “unibody” replacements!), and most of those older ones were made at a time when Apple had a really tiny marketshare, comparatively speaking, and likely ended up in drawers (yes, I also have one or two laying around, and no, I don't frequently use those anymore, if at all, because I am fully aware that they're a serious electrical hazard waiting to happen).

I don't think the OP would have to demand. I was working abroad when my just out of warranty Mac died. I went to the nearest Apple store and they found that an internal fuse had blown in the Mac. They replaced the fuse, took my PSU off me cos they were concerned that it might have caused the problem and gave me a new PSU including the box of foreign plugs. All free of charge.