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Apple's Lightning Authentication Reportedly Cracked, Unauthorized Third-Party Cables Coming

As of right now, the only Lightning connectors being offered by Apple for developers to integrate into their products are for USB Host, USB Device, UART (serial), and charging-only.

The authentication chip in the connector identifies which one of those four types it is to the phone, and then maps the pins accordingly.
 
mdelvecchio said:
hmm so if im a hardware company and i spend a couple million inventing a brand new way of connecting my products together, instead of selling them at a profit in order to recoup my R&D losses i should just....give it away for free? is that what youre saying?

interesting way to run a hardware business.
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I don't care about your business. Interoperability of the devices I paid hard earned money is much more important. What happens if you go bankrupt and don't publish your interconnect specifications ? My devices become useless ? So basically, I'm renting the devices off of you ?

No. I bought the devices, you shouldn't try to lock me into your proprietary interconnect.

If your new interconnect doesn't make financial sense on its own, maybe you shouldn't have spent all that R&D on it to begin with.
 
mdelvecchio said:
hmm so if im a hardware company and i spend a couple million inventing a brand new way of connecting my products together, instead of selling them at a profit in order to recoup my R&D losses i should just....give it away for free? is that what youre saying?

interesting way to run a hardware business.

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except where it wouldnt, like when the onboard storage is the bottleneck.
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Because this was vitally important :rolleyes:

NO standard should be proprietary..
 
Best news i've heard all day, no need to keep getting gauged by Apple at their ridiculous prices.

Hopefully adapters will be up for cheap too.
 
D.T. said:
The simple (and obvious) solution is for Apple to open the specs/licensing/components out to 3rd parties, not just "premium" partners, but anyone who's willing to pay a _reasonable_ amount.

As long as it's "certified", no worries, and we'll get the same low/moderate/high costs like any other peripheral. People who want to stay OEM can pay $20 for a cable, people who don't can pay $X.
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Basically, this is what's being done right now. It's just none of the 3rd parties have stuff ready because it takes time to engineer and manufacturer. Heck, it's reasonable to assume that's the same reason Apple's taking so long for their lightning adapters.
 
hchung said:
Basically, this is what's being done right now. It's just none of the 3rd parties have stuff ready because it takes time to engineer and manufacturer.
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This.

The Lightning specifications did not appear on the MFi portal until immediately after the iPhone 5 presentation.
 
MrXiro said:
It's called creating a monopoly.
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considering apple has a minority market share in the desktop and mobile markets, how do you mean they have a "monopoly"? android's existence would refute that very notion.

do you know what the word means? monopoly?
 
Good. This will encourage Apple to be more open with the spec and see more third party hardware with a "Made for iPhone, iPad and iPod" blessing by Apple.

Meanwhile something more useful than a dock will emerge. How about a lightning to lightning cable and a lighting charger? Phase out USB on iPhone accessories.
 
KnightWRX said:
Nope, sorry, I only have that link. It doesn't make sense to me that the cable is doing pin remapping.
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...ah, so because it "doesn't make sense" to you, who are presumably NOT an electrical engineer working at Apple, then it's most likely a secret auth chip. because, uh, the explanation given to us by other EEs would just be "insane design", as you put it.


If it is an authentication chip, then that is bad.
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ahhh, ok...so you really dont even know. interesting conclusions you make for not having any data.
 
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I may just buy this dock, that is once someone on MR posts photos and opinions (cause the connector does look quite flimsy).

But no way in hell will I buy that BUTT UGLY cable. The last thing I want is a warehouse rave going on on my bedside table while i'm trying to sleep.:D
 
KnightWRX said:
I don't care about your business.
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...which is why youre not the most profitable hardware company in the history of the earth. but those of us that do run companies, and do want them to be profitable, do care about these sorts of things. we make decisions that make sense for the business and our customers, and try to do so reasonably. if you cant empathize with that perspective then youre just being a brat, ala "BUT I WAAAAANT IT!"

Interoperability of the devices I paid hard earned money is much more important. What happens if you go bankrupt and don't publish your interconnect specifications ? My devices become useless ? So basically, I'm renting the devices off of you ?
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oh boy, that's grasping, man. with that argument you can basically say youre merely "renting" all sorts of devices across hundreds of markets.
 
GermanyChris said:
Because this was vitally important :rolleyes:

NO standard should be proprietary..
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...unless it's YOUR standard. remember: this is apple's invention, not an ISO proposal. inventions cost money. they will recoup their money by selling said invention. then theyll license it to others in order to grow market share and gain critical mass. in order to sell more devices. because thats their job.

thats their job.
 
tbrinkma said:
It's quite simple. There's circuitry in the iPhone to allow it to dynamically remap the pin-out. There's an authentication chip in the cable (and other devices) which tells the phone what type of device it's been plugged into, so that it knows *how* to remap the pin-out.

Without the chip in the cable (or other accessory), the phone has no way to determine what pin-out it should dynamically configure.
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While there might be other ways to figure out required pin configuration what you said makes sense. If that is correct though the authentication chip should only be required for connecting to legacy hardware (charge only or USB). All new hardware developed specifically for Lightning should have this feature in the device itself rather than in the cable.
 
lilo777 said:
...All new hardware developed specifically for Lightning should have this feature in the device itself rather than in the cable.
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The Lightning connectors themselves, as sold by Apple to developers/manufacturers, have the authentication chip in the connector itself.

You can't get the physical connector without the chip from Apple.
 
If I were in charge at Apple I wouldn't have done things any differently.

Apple are simply trying to maintain a high benchmark for design and manufacturing within the sector. If having a proprietary cable system means keeping garbage (both in terms of the design and clearly the material/manufacturing quality) like this off the market, I would happily pay $20 for an official Apple cable.

IMHO Apple should be able to protect and control the manufacture of their products and accessories in the same way that a clothing, car or furniture manufacturing company would.

Futhermore, in my experience, an official Apple iPhone charging cable will outlive the product itself; inferior 3rd party products generally will not.
 
toby00001 said:
Futhermore, in my experience, an official Apple iPhone charging cable will outlive the product itself; inferior 3rd party products generally will not.
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I wish this we're true. My Macbook Pro's, iPhones, and iPads have long outlived their USB and Power Cables (they always break right there at the end).
 
tbrinkma seems to have the general idea worked out.
anonymouslurker seems to actually know what's going on exactly but can't tell us because he's probably under NDA.
I wish I had MFI info cuz it'd be fun, but oh well... at least I can speculate.

But, I'll try to flesh out the most reasonable extension of the info as I can.
Starting out with the picture in this article http://appleinsider.com/articles/12/09/25/apples_lightning_port_dynamically_assigns_pins_to_allow_for_reversible_use.

The idea of an adaptable connector requires intelligence on both the phone and accessory/cable side for the optimal design. KnightWRX's idea of putting all the smarts on the phone side and leaving the accessory/cable side as dumb as possible (by using an identification resistor) can work, but it'll be more prone to errors because oxidation and such affects resistance on contacts. (it's also, incidentally, how microUSB/OTG/MHL works, as well as the earliest of all 30-pin dock connector devices, and why when you get the bottom of your phone moist, it tells you you have an unknown accessory attached.)

I'm expecting the chain to look like this right now (as tbrinkma suggested):
Phone + Switching chip + Connector <-> Connector + ID chip + cable + USB2

If you look at the lower left hand corner of that double helix guy's notes, you'll see the top/bottom pins with lines drawn between them. Notice this: pin 1, 4, 5, and 8 are reversible. But 2/3 and 6/7 are not. As in, if you turn the connector around, it still works fine. I'm guessing these correspond to ground, 5V out, ID input, ID output.

When you plug the accessory into the phone, the ID chip is powered from the phone, and then can tell the phone, "I am a USB2 cable." This means that then the phone knows that pins 2/3 and 6/7 can be configured to be wired to a usb2 controller.

I haven't seen a teardown yet or a test, but I'd also expect the lightning/30pin to do something slightly different.

When you plug the 30pin adapter into the phone, the ID chip is powered from the phone, and then can tell the phone, "I want digital audio and USB2." This means that then the phone knows that pins 2/3 and 6/7 can be configured to be wired to a usb2 controller and to a digital audio out. But, remember it has to be reversible, right? Well, over the ID in/out lines, you can establish a test to see what the orientation is (like, tying 2/3 high and 6/7 low), and then the phone knows you want, say 2/3 to be USB2, and 6/7 to be digital audio. Then the rest of the lightning connector then takes the digital audio and feeds it to a digital-analog converter for line out.

So... what else might it do?

Fast Charger?
Phone + Switching chip + Connector <-> Connector + ID chip + some power connector.

ID chip asks for the data pairs to be changed into power inputs.
Now instead of 2 pins used for power, you can have 6. Triple the power carrying capacity! Plus, the phone knows that it might be able to ask what's the current limit of the power source from the ID chip.

HDMI?
Phone + Switching chip + MHL encoder + Connector <-> Connector + ID chip + MHL decoder + cable + HDMI connector + USB2.

ID chip asks for HDMI over MHL transceivers , detects the orientation of the adapter, and then brings out the HDMI data over the MHL protocol, over one of the pairs just like microUSB.... and leaves the other pair available to get you USB2 at the same time as MHL. And the MHL chip can be powered off the phone too. (you can't do that with microUSB)

DisplayPort?
Phone + Switching chip + Connector <-> Connector + ID chip + cable + DisplayPort connector.

Same idea. ID the accessory, figure out the orientation, and then run displayport over the connector.

USB3?
This one's fun.
USB 3 is typically shown using about 8 wires. But it's not necessary to have all 8 wires at once. You only need 6 once everything's up and running to get USB3 speeds since the other 2 lines are for USB1/2 only.

Phone + USB2 controller + USB3 controller + Lightning switching chip + Connector <-> Connector + ID chip + Lightning switching chip + cable + USB3 connector.

Plug it in. ID the cable as a USB3 cable. Switch pairs 2/3 and 6/7 to USB2. Start up USB2.
Then check to see if the USB3 lines are connected (afterall, you could have plugged this into a USB2 port even though it's a USB3 cable, yeah?)
If the USB3 lines are connected, tell the phone to switch 2/3 to one lane, and 6/7 to the other lane of USB3. The other two wires are power, which were already in use. Now you have USB3 over Lightning.

In the future, is some crazy bus they wanted needs even more differential pairs, I can imagine them removing the hard wired crossover wires on the connector on 1, 4, 5, 8, and then making the phone connector double sided. Now you have 16 total lines, and you wait for a connection on 1, 4, 5, 8 of both sides (to maintain reversibility), and then negotiate switching both sides of 2/3, 6/7, and the other half of 1, 4, 5, 8.
Now you have 6 differential pairs possibly instead of 2.
This is what expandable means. Now you know why they didn't go microUSB.
 
mdelvecchio said:
...which is why youre not the most profitable hardware company in the history of the earth. but those of us that do run companies, and do want them to be profitable, do care about these sorts of things. we make decisions that make sense for the business and our customers, and try to do so reasonably. if you cant empathize with that perspective then youre just being a brat, ala "BUT I WAAAAANT IT!"
Click to expand...

Sorry, but force locking your users into your proprietary interconnects is not good for the industry as a whole, it's not good for your users, it's only good for your short term profits.

If your new interconnect does not make financial sense outside of "locking users in", then it's a bad interconnect to begin with. If the interconnect provides you with benefits such as reduced connector size and added interconnection flexibility, then there's no harm in simply providing the specification for 3rd parties to connect to your device.

In the end, 3rd parties will serve to enhance your device's longevity for your users, not to mention it will create a rich ecosystem which provides added value.

Locking in users is a short term profit measure.
 
KnightWRX said:
Which shouldn't be an issue whether phone side or cable side. You and I both know that the cable is simply an extension of the pins in the phone.
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There are 4 pins on the USB side and 8 pins (or perhaps 9) on the lightning side. With the appropriate adapter there are 8 pins on the lightning side and 30 pins on the legacy dock connector side. This really doesn't seem to be a simple case of pin mapping. We also don't know what modes the 8 pins can be put into, though it seems clear that the lightning to 30 pin dock connector includes a DAC to provide analog audio and video out, and replicate some of the missing pins from the 30 pin connector.

What you say is true in the old school dock connector cable there are 4 pins on the USB side which map directly to 4 of the pins on the 30 pin side. and the other accessories simply extend some of the 30 pins out.

B
 
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