Apple Starts Blocking Unauthorized Lightning Cables With iOS 7 663
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."
This Just In ... (Score:5, Interesting)
FUD? (Score:1, Interesting)
From the comments: TFA is wrong. You can still charge. Postpone your panic.
Re:Load of crock (Score:4, Interesting)
He's not necessarily a moron. He's just a fanboi. To so many deluded people Apple is akin to religion, and like the Church is to a fanatic can do no wrong.
Re:Wow, they managed to break the idea of a cable! (Score:4, Interesting)
As if only Apple could build electrically sound chargers. No, the problem is that in China, no quality level is too low to push it onto the market and people will still buy it even if it is safety-critical equipment.
And what have defective-by-design USB PSUs to do with the cable? Does the "genuine" cable prevent the USB side from being plugged into a defective charger? All the stories seem to indicate that it does not, so your claim would be entirely bogus.
Re:In other news (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, I'm not surprised that there are knockoffs for the Apple chargers. And this thing with 'unauthorized' cables, I was laughing my head off the first time I heard it and I predicted that exactly this situation would occur.
They want ~$29 USD for their chargers and an "ordinary" charger with USB connector is ~$5 USD. Paying more than $20 extra just because it says Apple on it is just plain stupid and there are people out there that will try to cash in on it (besides Apple I mean).
My guess is that we will hear some whining from Apple-product owners now and it's essentially their own fault for 2 reasons:
1. They bought an Apple product.
2. They bought a third party peripheral for their Apple product.
There is no denying that Apple make good products but I would never buy one because of their walled garden and antics like this.
Re:Load of crock (Score:4, Interesting)
Since when do people need 'authorization' to use their products how they see fit?
Since DVDs with CSS encryption and region locking forced you to play your purchased disc on a particular set of devices sold in a particular part of the world - perhaps sooner. Things have been going downhill from there.
Re:In other news (Score:4, Interesting)
"It's not about safety, it's about control."
Unless I am mistaken, exactly this kind of "corporate lock-in", for safety or any other reason, has consistently been ruled by the courts to be "anti-competitive practice" and is outlawed.
I *LIKE* Apple products. But I do not like the lock-in, or Apple's attitude about it. I would be happy to see a class-action lawsuit over this.
Re:God f-ing DAMMIT Slashdot, really? (Score:5, Interesting)
You're adding emphasis wrong. And you completely misquoted the article!
First of all, the first sentence of the article says unambiguously:
Your quote comes from a couple lines down:
OK, inappropriate use of the phrase "the latter" but in context it's pretty clear. TFA says that Apple is currently blocking "unauthorized" cables, but despite this some unauthorized cables with "cracked chips" may still be working. Of course, since iOS 7 is blocking unauthorized cables it stands to reason that Apply will try to disable unauthorized cables that use "cracked chips".
Whether they will be able to do so is kinda irrelevant to the main thrust here which is that Apple used an operating system upgrade to lock out third party cable makers. Wont someone think of the poor airline stewardesses!
IMHO, this news is just piling on considering the fact that your iPhone uses a custom adapter that is incompatible with all other phones, costs 5 times as much as it should, and will be forced into obsolescence after a few generations.
Re:In other news (Score:3, Interesting)
There's a flip side. I brought in an iPhone 5, almost out of warranty, with a broken sleep button, to the Genius Bar on my way to work. The guy said "yep," 5 minutes later I walked away with a fully functioning replacement, no questions asked; got to my office, and it was like having a brand new phone.
Then I was at an AT&T store. I saw a I guy with a Windows Phone; same thing---button issues, still under warranty. He got told to ship his phone somewhere. He needed his phone so he couldn't ship it off. So he got told to haul is ass somewhere thirty minutes away to a depot, and maybe after they looked at it there would get a replacement. The look of confused frustration on his face made me feel like I was taping an apple commercial.
Bottom line is: everyone says Apple is more expensive. Well, first of all, it's not. Same price for the top-tier Apple and Android phones. OK, so the cables are more expensive and proprietary. True that stinks, but maybe that pays for stuff like the Genius bar where they go out of their way to make life easier for you.
Re:In other news (Score:2, Interesting)
To be honest, Apple got a lot of bad publicity for a lady in China electrocuted by a third party charger. So maybe they feel compelled to be "proactive" against unauthorised third party equipment?
Re: In other news (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course if they priced their stuff at reasonable levels, perhaps people wouldn't be buying the cheapo stuff...that is another way they could prevent people from dying. They didn't choose that route though...