Apple Starts Blocking Unauthorized Lightning Cables With iOS 7

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Apple Starts Blocking Unauthorized Lightning Cables With iOS 7

Posted by timothy on Saturday September 21, 2013 @10:57AM from the there-there's-smoke dept.

beltsbear writes "Your formerly working clone Lightning cable could stop working with the latest iOS update. Previously the beta version allowed these cables to charge with a warning message but the final release actually stops many cables from working. Apples Lightning connector system is locked with authentication chips that can verify if a cable is authorized by Apple. Many users with clone cables are now without the ability to charge their iPhones."

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In other news by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-21 10:59 · Score: 5, Insightful

Control freaks like controlling.
1. Re:In other news by lagomorpha2 · 2013-09-21 11:03 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Apple: Not Even Once
2. Re:In other news by Stumbles · 2013-09-21 11:22 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Its called; broken by design.
  
  --
  My karma is not a Chameleon.
3. Re:In other news by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-21 12:00 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Its called; broken by design.
  And, all the fanbois think Microsoft is the definition of evil.
4. Re:In other news by narcc · 2013-09-21 12:12 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Yes, yes I do.
  So does just about everyone else.
  
  --
  Required reading for internet skeptics
5. Re:In other news by arbiter1 · 2013-09-21 12:22 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  i was just thinkin if MS did this crap, how long would it be til DOJ federal investigation kicked off.
6. Re:In other news by bitt3n · 2013-09-21 12:45 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Do you really think they wouldn't still be trying to lock out third-party products if no-one had been electrocuted?
  if no one had been electrocuted, that would mean the guy at Apple whose job it is to make sure the iPhone electrocutes users of knockoff chargers must have been asleep at the wheel
  
  --
  how many pairs of boxer shorts should you own?
7. Re:In other news by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-21 13:02 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Uhh why not just use an established standard like say ooohh micro USB??
8. Re:In other news by PopeRatzo · 2013-09-21 13:17 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  You have stories like these [huffingtonpost.com], where people are getting electrocuted by iphone chargers.
  This has nothing to do with the chargers. It has to do with the cables. It's not about safety, it's about control.
  If they could, they wouldn't let anybody else sell you a screen protector or a stylus without it having "Apple" on it.
  I used to love this company. Their stock helped me put my kid through college. But now they are way up there on the list of companies that suck ass. And their stock price is reflecting that, which is a good thing.
  
  --
  You are welcome on my lawn.
9. Re:In other news by Garridan · 2013-09-21 13:37 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I saw three of these things blow last week at my local hackspace (we were using them for Raspberry Pi's, but whatever). Bottom line: if you're going to make a cubic-inch transformer that steps 120v down to 5v, and put out an amp, you need to use quality materials. This isn't altruism on Apple's part, nor is it greed. This is them covering their asses. They can say "hey, look, we did everything we can -- the user bypassed warnings, and hacked her OS just to use a faulty charger". And they get zero fault.
10. Re:In other news by BronsCon · 2013-09-21 13:45 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  The authentication chip authenticates the cable, not the charger, to the phone. You can still just as easily use an aftermarket charger with an "authentic" Apple cable, so that's not why they do this.
  
  --
  APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
11. Re:In other news by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-21 13:54 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  This, right here, is why I will never carry an Apple phone. Not only to they eschew standards, now they are deliberately working to eliminate interoperability with non-Apple products. Fuck them very much.
12. Re: In other news by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-21 14:31 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Ill never own one either, but keep in mind those chargers are shit and break. Its not that hard off the beaten trail to assume they are trying to protect their brand by eliminating the levels of suck.
13. Re:In other news by 0100010001010011 · 2013-09-21 14:56 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  http://www.righto.com/2012/10/a-dozen-usb-chargers-in-lab-apple-is.html
  That guy tore a part a bunch of USB chargers and rated them based on the materials inside. The 'cheap' ones are indeed VERY cheap and dangerous.
  This counterfeit charger has so much noise in the output that I had to double the scale on the left to get it to fit. Note the very large spikes in the output (yellow). ... This counterfeit charger shows extremely poor regulation, as shown by the very wide yellow line. It's hard to fit a voltage-current curve to this picture. The amount of power supplied by this charger seems almost random.
14. Re:In other news by upuv · 2013-09-21 17:40 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Finally a reader that realized that the electrocution from the charger has nothing do with the cables. The charger and the cable are separate things.
  People the cable is a separate thing from the charger. If you used one of the dodgy chargers with a genuine apple cable you are still as likely to be electrocuted.
  Other readers please stop spreading the FUD that it's about safety. It's not.
  And guess what Lightning is not an international standard. It is a variation on a standard. And Apple can do anything they want with it. It's called a proprietary connector. There is nothing at all illegal about what Apple is doing. It's entirely self defeating.
  Is it greedy? Yes
  Does it have anything to do with safety? No
  Is Apple doing the right thing for it's customers? No
15. Re:In other news by grahammm · 2013-09-21 22:57 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  IBM did try this with the PS/2 range which used the proprietary Micro-channel slots instead of ISA. This was a spectacular flop.
Wow, they managed to break the idea of a cable! by gweihir · 2013-09-21 11:04 · Score: 5, Insightful

The idea of a physical cable is that it is simple, robust and as long as the connectors fit, it should (given sane engineering) do what is expected. It is fascinating how they violate that simple and powerful idea in a complex way, just to make a few bucks more. It is also utterly repulsive to any principled engineer.

--
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
1. Re:Wow, they managed to break the idea of a cable! by makomk · 2013-09-21 11:18 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Don't worry - even though the only benefits of Apple's Lightning connector over Micro USB are being able to insert it upside down and a hardware-enforced requirement to pay Apple a cut on any Lightning cables, there were plenty of fanbois in the media ready to portray it as some super-futureproof, all digital miracle. (In fact it's shown exactly the same futureproof, all-digital ability to support new interfaces without hardware changes as bog standard USB. Even the Lightning video out is a hack that compresses the video to the point it could be send over USB, and in fact probably is.)
2. Re:Wow, they managed to break the idea of a cable! by gweihir · 2013-09-21 11:30 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Indeed. Their greed seems to have eradicate all instances of the KISS-principle in their people. If you do not follow KISS, you cannot be taken seriously as an engineer.
  
  --
  Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
3. Re:Wow, they managed to break the idea of a cable! by bmo · 2013-09-21 14:49 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  I have yet to successfully plug a USB cable in upside-down, no matter how hard I try to force it.
  I have yet to successfully plug in a USB cable right-side-up the first time, even though it's supposed to be 50-50.
  >Try to plug in
  >Nope
  >Turn over
  >Nope
  >Turn over again
  >Goes in.
  It's the work of Satan, I tells ya.
  --
  BMO
Re:Load of crock by lagomorpha2 · 2013-09-21 11:04 · Score: 5, Insightful

...unless their cable broke (cables do wear our on occasion)
In which case Apple is just making a money grab by forcing people to buy their overpriced cables.
This Just In ... by ve3oat · 2013-09-21 11:05 · Score: 5, Interesting

The Ford Motor Company has reprogrammed all recent model Ford cars and light trucks to prevent them from being refueled from Texaco gas pumps. Film at eleven.
Re:Load of crock by Vinegar+Joe · 2013-09-21 11:11 · Score: 5, Informative

"cheap doesn't always equal better!!!"
I guess that's why Apple makes their products in China...........

--
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Re:Load of crock by epyT-R · 2013-09-21 11:12 · Score: 5, Insightful

So artificial lockouts are a-ok, and it's the customer's fault for not bowing to the proper altar? Quit apologizing for apple. They don't need your help. Since when do people need 'authorization' to use their products how they see fit? Where is the authorization for apple to modify/reduce functionality post-sale?
Before you scream 'license agreement', the real issue is one of ethics. Well, if it's not ethical for the customer to use 'unauthorized' cables, then it's definitely unethical for apple to modify functionality post sale. This is a big problem that's getting worse as embedded computers spread to more and more devices.
Two ways to be shocked by a Lightning cable by JoeyRox · 2013-09-21 11:16 · Score: 5, Funny

1) Electrically shocked when using a malfunctioning generic cable
2) Financially shocked when you learn what Apple charges for a genuine cable
Minor Sympathy. by jythie · 2013-09-21 11:26 · Score: 5, Insightful

To a degree, I can not blame them. Years ago I worked for a company that produced an embedded device. One of the largest categories of customer service calls came from people swapping out components with stuff they could by 'cheaper' at their local computer store, and it was OUR fault that it started behaving oddly. Then they would go on forums to complain about crappy our product was, leaving out that they were using some 3rd party cheapie instead of the hardware that we spent hundreds of man hours validating in various combinations.

It was extremely frustrating to deal with, but when we tried to lock down some of the more critical (and high call volume) pieces like hard drives they would then run to forums to complain about our money grab by locking out cheap replacement drives and charging high prices for replacement ones.. even though that high price came from (a) manufacturer custom settings/firmware and (b) a supply guarantee from the manufacturer that we would continue to receive the exact validated model well past it's consumer equivalent would be end of lifed.

So while as a consumer I agree it is annoying, as someone who has been on the other side I can sympathize with wanting to stop people from buying cheap unvalidated 3rd party crap.
Re:God f-ing DAMMIT Slashdot, really? by whoever57 · 2013-09-21 13:29 · Score: 5, Informative

Apple are unequivocally NOT "blocking" the use of unauthorized third-party Lightning cables. The summary/title is absolutely 100% bullshit. The article says, and I quote: "Apple will probably shut the door on the usage of [unauthorized third-party Lightning cables] in a future update."

It is you that has the reading/comprehension problem. From the first paragraph of the article:

In a move possibly triggered by stories of deadly electrical shocks coming from Apple iPhone and Apple iPad units, the Cupertino based tech giant is blocking the use of unauthorized third party Lightning cables with iOS 7.
See that: "is blocking"?. Not probably.
Where you quote "probably", you have taken that sentence out of context. Let's put it back in:

There is word going around that some unauthorized cables with cracked chips have been working with iOS 7. Apple will probably shut the door on the usage of the latter in a future update.
"the latter" clearly refers to "some unauthorized cables with cracked chips".

You take the warning "may not work reliably" and extrapolate this to mean: "will probably work". According to this page you cannot actually dismiss the dialog and get the cable to work. Users actually report that cables that used to work with beta releases of IOS7 do not work with the the production release of IOS7. Of course it is possible that with millions of cables in use, some just happened to fail between IOS7 beta and IOS production releases, nevertheless, your claims are not supported by any reports.

So, get off the Apple fanboi train and learn to read.

--
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!