Apple lightning cable not recognized after 7.1

It means apple blocked the chip in your charger because the software key used to handshake to check that it's a certified apple product failed and it will block you using it.

It was a path apple decided to release with ios7 that caused millions of cables and chargers to fail. They had millions of complaints about it too but they went down the 'nothing's wrong, I've never seen that problem before' path 'if you have a certified product it should work' ... Response. Making it sound like not having a certified product is is some way shape or form 'illegal' but it's not.

We have been phasing out thousands of apple products because of this in favour of standardised usb connection ports such as those on the samsung, htc, sony, and Nokia.

Your options are go buy another cable or charger from apple till you get one that works or switch phones. There is a third method that involved modifying the software to stop it but it's beyond most people and if you have to ask on these forums about it you probably don't have the time or skill to do it. Also they remove and block anyone who talks about it or how to do it so that's all I will say

I took over 40 cables into apple and they wouldn't replace any of them and said I would have to buy new ones for thousands of devices. Not likely. They have had MILLIONS of complaints and they didn't fix it, we are phasing out the use of apply products because of it causing disruption to all the emergency response crews in remote areas losing phone power and not being able to charge. So sad because they had such a good product for such a long time but now this. Unless you have an official cable and you have a warranty on it they won't cover it.

This issue demonstrates to me that Apple is more interested in controlling customers than serving them. The chip in the charging cable makes what should be very simple into a complex and expensive product, for no apparent value to the customer. If Apple wants to spend a few dollars on an expensive cable they give us with the product, and to notify us that a cable is not approved, that's fine. But what they have done is to disable charging, with iOS 7 or 7.1, and that's mission-critical. (My cheap cables still work for USB connection, it just won't charge.)

The original Apple cables broke easily. Every Apple cable I got broke within months. There are people writing who blame people for breaking their cables. I'm an electronics engineer, I know not to pull a connector out by the wire. But I also use my phone a lot while it's plugged in, and so does my daughter. That creates movement of the wire vs the lightning connector, and that's where they break. If someone only uses the cable to charge and doesn't use the phone while charging, the cable will get much less stress. It was a very poor design.

Unless Apple reverses this disabling of unauthorized connectors, which it could easily do, I'm not buying another Apple product. Apple has forgotten who they work for. Fine.