16/03/2018
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Unofficial and Fake Cables- How They Can Damage iPhones and iPads
This article is intended to provide a brief overview of a very common cause of Tristar IC (charging chip) problems and failure- specifically the use of unofficial or fake cables, and the reasons they are a problem.
Although your average Apple user isn’t aware of it, the official Lightning cable isn’t just an overpriced USB cable. The connector includes several chips, including one that filters the current from the charger to remove and block various electrical fluctuations that can damage the device, and another chip that sets up the charging process in a safe manner via a password-protected “handshake”.
(Cables and peripherals from other manufacturers that have a genuine official “Made for iPhone/iPad/iPod” (MFi) endorsement from Apple contain the same chips and can be considered as safe as Apple’s own.)
Low-cost, non-certified cables (along with blatant fakes and those with a bogus MFi certificate) don’t contain those proprietary ICs and may well flood the device with current it isn’t prepared for, or fail to protect it from spikes and fluctuations from the charger itself. Now, to be sure, these cables will usually appear to work at first. However, as soon as there’s a voltage or current fluctuation, there’s a good chance the device will end up with serious motherboard damage or- at worst- completely dead.