dangers of using fake cables… it’s like playing russian roulette with your phone.

there is a huge difference between apple certified MFi cables and the fakes found at your local gas station or dirt cheap. to avoid a costly repair and the possibility of losing all your data, make sure to choose an MFi certified cable.

from the outside, it’s hard to tell the difference in a fake charging cable and a true apple certified cable. sometimes these fake cables will display “accessory not supported”. but on the inside, there is a huge difference in the circuitry.

side by side comparison:

another point is the quality of the cable. i have had many many of the charging tips break off inside of someones charging port which were not easy to remove. i have special tools and have developed skills to properly remove these broken tips usually without having to replace the port. $$

if you have a broken charging cable tip inside your port or a broken audio jack inside of an audio port (ipad, ipod, computer, etc) please give me a call before attempting any sort of removal. usually an unexperienced effort results in some more serious damage. i usually only charge a minimum visit fee and i do come to you.

the appeal of aftermarket, gas station charging cables is a cheap price. but sometimes, even higher priced cables can still not be MFi certified. these can be found in many box stores such as bestbuy, your local at&t or cspire store. everything looks very good, but you still run the risk of frying your device with these lower quality fakes.

a couple of aftermarket brands that we trust are anker and aukey. anker is now found at walmart stores and have been a high quality apple certified MFi cable trusted by techs for years now.

here is the main difference between a cable that can kill your device and one that won’t.

an MFi apple certified cable has protection circuitry and a voltage stabilizer built into the cable that communicates with the chip inside your device to protect against bad charging currents and voltages that can kill. that’s why if you look inside, you can see that there is a difference between the cables.

the chip inside your device that your cable is supposed to communicate with is known as the tristar chip or hydra. this chip in an integrated circuit used to control USB charging. it is also known as a USB charging controller IC.

this chip detects the connector and decides if a computer is connected, a normal charger, headphones or other accessory. it then communicates with the CPU and decides how to react. either to open a path to charge the battery, redirect audio for headphones, or even direct power out of the device for external storage devices it may be connected to.

if this chip receives too much voltage because there is no protection from the cable that is connected to it, bad things can happen.

• dead device – no response at all!
• stuck on apple logo
• fake charging (battery not receiving full charge)
• accessory not supported
• crazy battery percentage drops after removing from charger
• poor battery life
• fire…

it’s just a really bad idea to use a cable that doesn’t have the things inside that are required for such a sensitive device that holds so much valuable data. so if you are having charging issues, dead phone or other weird issues after getting a “new” cable – please reconsider your choice and throw it away and purchase an apple certified MFi cable. there are some really great options that include different lengths – 1′,3′,6′,10′ and even right angle charging tips (my favorite).

if you have any questions or concerns, please contact me here.