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Apple's Lightning Authentication Reportedly Cracked, Unauthorized Third-Party Cables Coming
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Can't they just come out with a charging cable for cheap? Does it need a chip for just charging? Might be a dumb question but I'd just like a "charging cable".
I don't need the functions of audio, data, etc for all my cables. I'd like to have one by my nightstand to charge, one by my work computer for charging one to toss in a bag for traveling, one in my car for charging, and one real one to use with all the bells and whistles for my home computer.
I don't need the functions of audio, data, etc for all my cables. I'd like to have one by my nightstand to charge, one by my work computer for charging one to toss in a bag for traveling, one in my car for charging, and one real one to use with all the bells and whistles for my home computer.
I'll pass. Price still sucks; and frankly, I think I'm safer holding out for something from Monoprice.
if Apple would just sell their accessories at a reasonable price this wouldn't happen. (as much) It's a shame considering the connector change they couldn't see fit to make the adaptors more reasonably priced. (and available at launch) 
$40 for a cable and a bit of plastic to stand your phone in? They'll be knocking these out for 99p before long!..
What does this do differently than Apple's $19 lightning to USB cable? I don't see any difference here. All I see is a stand for $20. Show me a 30 pin adapter that works for the same price and we are in business. Otherwise, I'll stick to Apple's lightning cables.
Not quite. That's the estimate of the *wholesale* cost of *cables* containing the chips. So, the complete assembly probably runs around $3-5 to produce, with the remainder of that $6-8 being the wholesaler's gross profits.
Completely agree with you. Even if a circuit is required to dynamically assign the pins, that should have been implemented inside the phone and leave the cable dumb.
Next stop after market iPhone 5 Black retrofit kit.
Delusional paranoia. This is completely false, the chip is not a circuit breaker.
wow.
Exactly. There is no science to the dock.
Heck, a dock can be made out of wood, sanded and painted white with the current cable simply running up through it.
Basic analysis shows that the Lightning connector has enough pins to *potentially* support USB 3.0. However the devices which currently plug in at that end wouldn't see any benefit from USB 3.0 (because the flash memory on board is still slower than USB 2.0's max rate). Of course, it's the same for any other phones on the market as well.
I'm going to be watching this one closely. The potential exists for a cluster**** to occur. If only I could be a fly on the wall at the Genius bar status post unauthorized 3rd party vendor cable use.
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It's not just a phone though. People sync dozens of gigabytes of apps, music, videos and photos to it. So yeah, USB 3 *would* help.
Part of the 'smarts' involved *has* to be on the connector end. If all the 'smarts' are on the phone, how can the phone tell how it needs to configure it's pins?
In this case, the circuitry involved is pretty basic, setting it up to charge. That won't be the same signaling as for a cable that wants to request digital audio & video, or a serial connection.
No, and as mentioned it isn't even capable of reaching the maximum speeds provided by USB 2.0