Apple's Lightning Cable for iOS 7 Hacked by Chinese Firm
Apple's "third party manufacturer prevention" security for its Lightning Cables has been circumvented... permanently.
Apple changed its iconic dock cable with the launch of the iPhone 5 to the "Lightning Cable." Apart from the cable now being reversible, Apple added an extra layer of security to their cable, so that for an accessory to work with the iPhone, the company would need a digital certificate or authorization from Apple. Not only is this massive pain for consumers (and a source of profit for Apple), but it prevents budget versions of the cable and accessories from flooding the market, while giving Apple leverage over the manufacturers. This is why the Chinese firm iPhone5Mod set out to hack this digital restriction, and they have finally done it.
The security circumvention comes at the hands of a hardware change, meaning that Apple cannot simply reverse engineer the hack using the software itself. Previously, the iPhone 5 on iOS 7 beta would give an annoying pop-up if the accessory did not have the authorization, but now cheaper cables can start pouring in from China, India and the Middle East. This is not the first time iPhone5Mod has angered Apple, having previously engineered cases that would transform an iPhone 4S to an iPhone 5. Unfortunately for the multinational giant, there is nothing they can do about it at the moment, as copyright and patent laws are treated differently in China. To show how different the cables now work from the native Apple versions, iPhone5Mod has released an instructional video, seen below.
I'm seriously glad that someone has managed to stick it to Apple as their latest attempt at a monopoly looks doomed to failure, and lets face it, that without any product innovation what else can they do? It's pretty low. My next phone will be Windows flavoured.
'm surprised it took you five generations of iphones to finally realize that Apple tries to monopolize every peripheral/accessory/cable for every single product they make.
micro-usb cables are garbage, i cant tell yo how many microusb phone i've had that would no longer charge because if its sh***y design and all would fail under a month of light use (mainly the phones connector). Atleast this design is nice and sturdy and can be plugged in either way.
i cant wait for the new jailbreak to come out since i just got a new 4s, the plain ios is just boring, no customization at all,
micro-usb cables are garbage, i cant tell yo how many microusb phone i've had that would no longer charge because if its shitty design and all would fail under a month of light use (mainly the phones connector). Atleast this design is nice and sturdy and can be plugged in either way.
i cant wait for the new jailbreak to come out since i just got a new 4s, the plain ios is just boring, no customization at all,
I have a galaxy s2 that I've had for almost 3 years, a bb 9700 from 4 years ago, a galaxy ace, a razr hd, and now an s4, I've never had problems with a micro usb port breaking or anything wrong with them, I still have all the phones and they all work. It has to be you not handling it properly. Good thing apple caters to folks like you.
Sorry just had to add this - Apple: "Your holding it wrong!"
Excellent. Apple being unnecessarily greedy. Gotta love those beautiful Chinese women.
Another mistake there, don't go for a windows phone, go for Android, I was going to go for a windows phone, but I got a Android and love it. IMO have a look at both and see what you like most.
Do you really believe the recent news in China that someone was truly electrocuted by using an iphone? Even if the person was electrocuted indeed, the fault can only be the power adapter, not the cable nor the phone. The output of the properly working adapter is only 5V DC, unless someone inserted electrodes directly into the heart.
Everything in China can be fake but fraudster.