Q: iPhone 5s 'This cable or accessory is not certified and may not work reliably...' help?

Wrong angle: this is not about "protection", this is not about "cheap".

This is about licensing and market control, plain and simple

Not even Heaven-alike-Apple and its devoted believers should be empowered to decide if I buy cheap or not.

I had same issue...just started after security update. The cable is supposed to be genuine, and worked fine up until yesterday.

what I think happeed is Apple switched to different code previously stored in the iphone. The genuine cables have the secondary code...counterfit ones...ones that they cracked the code and were sellign...didnt have the new code

its a way of weeding out counterfiters.  Like changing your wifi password to dump all leechers

so now My genuine cable I purchased tow months ago...is show as a fake. (SO I AM STUCK AT WORK WITH NO MEANS TO RECHARGE)  IF I BREAK DOWN...THANKS APPLE...I WONT BE ABLE TO CALL FOR HELP

Since you would be the first in line to sue Apple because your phone melted down "for no good reason", or because your iPad started on fire just sitting there on the desk, then you are right - it IS all about licensing and Market Control.

That is the only way that Apple can make sure that the ressult that occue have nothing to do with some crappy cord that was built by a 6-year old child laborer. Do you really think that when one of these sweat fatories completes a cable at a super-human pace, some responsible person comes along and and inspects the product and then gives it a stamp of approval?

No one is stopping you from trying to offset the expense of your phone by purchsing and useing charging cords of unknown origina and stadards. Go ahead. User them at will. Expect the worse, and you won't be comning here for help, since whatevr you run into,you would have brought upon yourself.

And while you are at it, why don't you go out and purchae a Mercedez Benz, and start putting the the cheapest unleaded gasoline into it. See how that works out for you....

Cheers,

GB

"Since you would be the first in line to sue Apple because " -->  baseless assumption

"..crappy cord that was built by a 6-year old child laborer" -->

Apple has been using cheap labour for decades. But again it misses the point.

Apple is not a Worldwide Human Right Policy Enforcer!.

Now, The licensing program is not exclusive of ill behaved countries, where did you read about it? It is a licensing program that has an Apple bureaucrat deciding which Company has the right$ to sell Apple cables. That kills Small Business ingenuity. That reason alone is enough to disagree with this Apple policy

"No one is stopping you from trying to offset the " -->

That is my problem!!!, Apple is stopping me to decide. Mercedes Benz does not stop me, but Apple does.

In other technologies I may decide, like for instance if I want to buy an USB certified cable or not. Nobody will sue HP nor Dell for setting the USB port on fire. Why is Apple so special?

I believe you may draw a line about what non licensed companies are. The assumption that all of the them are child labour employeer is far from reality

Apple would have never been approved (or certified) to manufacture Personal Computers built out of a garage and we would not be having this conversation

regards!

Nicely put!

My response has been removed so will leave you with the last word.

Regards

Sean

Here is an article that may enlighten you on the absolute crap that is out there just waiting for a sucker to purchase it, thinking they are going to save some money. This is not limited to Apple, and the destructiveness of them is also not limited to Apple.

You should be thankful to Apple that they are up front, stopping you from using devices that will destroy your device. Why would you complain that it is your right to buy a crappy charger, and then claim that it would be just fine with you if your device burned up. Or just stopped working the way it should. Would you think it was the charger that did that? Did the charger start making your Wifi stop working (becuase it had fried internal parts)? Would you make that leap? Not likely.

And back to that Mercedes, friend. After you started putting in the cheapest gas you could find for 6 months or a year, and your engine (that was designed to run on a much richer fuel) started acting up, do you think you would just go along and say, oh well, it's my fault? Or do you think you would march down to the Mercedes dealer and demand to know why your very expensive vehicle isn't running the way it should any more....

You want the best, you are going to have to treat it like the best - in every way. And stop complaining when doing that means you are going to have to keep up with your investment:

http://www.righto.com/2012/10/a-dozen-usb-chargers-in-lab-apple-is.html

GB

Hi,

Do you realize this about cables and not chargers? Chargers are not validated! I use my Apple cable in plenty of "crap" chargers I have in my home or in my cars, or in my travel set.

btw, there is nothing fancy about a cable.

The chip introduced by Apple has no intention to prevent crappy cable from hurting you blessed iphone (you keep pushing the theory that Apple validate quality of cables, fyi, THEY DO NOT, moreover, THEY CANNOT)

Its only intent is to validate Apple license, obtained after paying Apple enormous amount of money (even if it will be built by a 6 year old kid)

cheers

I don't think she does!

Anyway, we are straying away from the issue - even if Apple do this to 'help' and 'safeguard' its customers, when it goes wrong (like it has done) and you are using Apple products (like we all are) they should recognize this and assist. In my case, the phone refused power from Apple cables thinking they too were inferior (in their minds) and stopped charging the phone. The phone then runs flat and Apple said it was not their fault and I should buy a new one (it was 13 months old) - which after several weeks of arguing and getting nowhere I did!

After some upgrades of iOS it has now been resolved but I would like to think if this did happen again Apple would be proactive in helping its customer base and not ignore it!

Regards

Sean

This is ridiculous. I hope fanboys enjoy paying 10 to 15 times the value of a charging cable. I am not a fanboy. I will not buy another apple phone when this one dies or when I decide to switch to a new phone.

I might even be swayed if the iPhone (any of them) didn't need to be constantly charged everywhere I go. I forgave that because it's essentially a computer and does a million wonderful things so it stands to reason that battery tech will take some time to catch up. But holding us hostage to over 200 dollars in cables worth 8 to 10 bucks total is a deal breaker for me.  Hence the screen name I and I suspect many others will choose. I bet even Windows phones don't give a darn what cable is used to charge them. Hey wait a minute! Windows phones! I use a PC, maybe I should look into those as well. 

So much to do that doesn't include another iPhone!

Waving the silly word "fanboy" about is so last century....

I have been using Apple products since the original Mac in 1984.  No cable failure yet.  Not one. Had to clean rubbish out of an iPhone charging port now and again after they came out.  (This appears to be the answer to most claims of non-working iPhone cables.)

Still, off you go. Enjoy your Android/Windows phone. I read on their forums that their users have never had any problems.

Now, normally I read these things, have a little chuckle and move on - but Gail from Maine - you've hit upon a nerve here.

Your Mercedes analogy is sooooo far off the mark as to be laughable - gasoline (or petrol as we like to call it in Europe, where the Mercedes engines are largely designed) is manufactured to an exacting standard and my E-class performs pretty much the same no matter what fuel i put in as long as it is of the standard stated - everyone knows the standard - it's not Mercedes proprietary fuel - Mercedes don't make and profit enormously from their own overpriced fuel - unlike many electronics manufacturers who insist on their toner cartridge, or power cable.

I made a two hour technical presentation to about a dozen or so people from Mercedes and I used some standards is discussions there - now if we deviate from given standards they'll know as they are standards - we can't just say as part of an update we won't accept the umlaut any more we'd expect to have to fix it - why doesn't the same apply here (with the power cable)?  because there is NO published standard - so they can control the market.

I'll just buy some more cables  - but the others will just go to landfill

J

I just started getting this error on my iPhone 5, using all factory cables, and the exact computer that I have used for two years. The messgae began popping up yesterday when unplugged. It would not charge and would not appear in iTunes. I swapped the ports on all my USB cables, rebooted computer and iPhone. I started getting beeps as iPhone would suddenly appear and disapear. Finally it came back and is now charging.

Again, all factory cables, and latest updates to iPhone OS and computer OS.

Yep, this problem has nothing to do with cables and chargers but a lot of posters on this tread keep beating that view to death.  My 5s had the problem for less than 24 hours then in vanished.  That is a tough software bug to find and kill!  My guess, as a software developer, it that the interaction of code and hardware is causing an intermittant problem that is **** hard to debug.

My replacement phone (now 3 months old) has run flat and will not take a charge! Once again all Apple cables and chargers and with the latest iOS. Just about to talk to support again, let's see what it costs me this time to fix their faulty phones!

Well it's been suspected but now it's confirmed, the message "cable or accessory not certified" was something apple implemented from ios7 and on in an attempt  to prevent people from using charges not licensed by Apple. The problem is, it's preventing their Lightning cables from working, while the "un-licensed" cables continue to work flawlessly.

Our district has over 600 employees whom were all given Iphone 5's late last year.  One by one nearly all the lightning cables stopped working, and despite apple replacing the 1st wave of them, the new ones stopped working within weeks as well.  We've since moved onto knock off cables and they have continued to work flawlessly.

Now, not all of our employees have ios7 installed due to the implications that it just isn't as good as ios6.  Their phones were consequently looked at and tested with Apple's lightning cables, and surprise surprise, they all work.  Now, the lightning cables that were used were ones that didn't have the freyed ends or breaks in the line, just to be clear.  These same unbroken lightning cables were now plugged into employees whom did download ios7, and guess what they say "This cable or accessory is not certified and may not work"

What I want to know from an Apple representive is, how do they explain this one?  Especially since I suspect they'll deny that ios7 was an attempt to stop people from using un-licensed cables.

1.  How do you explain all ios6 phones getting charged with lightning cables, but none all the ios7?  The number breakdown is roughly 40 people with ios6 while 550+ have ios 7?  How do they explain that?

2.  How do they explain that the un-licensed cables STILL continue to work while their lightning cables are pretty much DOA with ios7?

One thing is clear though, were in the process of abandoning the Iphone's and apple products by summer time in favour of other data phones which are more reliable.  We also wish to not deal with a company that has no interest in customer satisfaction.

For you Apple exces whom actually give a **** as it effects your bottom line, this equates to just over 600 customers dropping your products for good.  I also suspect, reading some of the comments on here, that there will be far more than 600 abandoning Apple completely.