



Apparently, a new teardown of the Lightning cable by DoubleHelix has found that there is an authentication chip inside, and worse "the chip has to be there, and it is directly in the signal path of the V+ wire." This means that 3rd party cables likely will not work at all, so don't try to save some cash with another option, because it isn't going to do anything for you.





This won't cause problems with cheaper adapters , but it does mean you'll have to stick with Apple's official cable, which is priced at $19, and of course is out of stock right now and isn't shipping for 2-3 weeks. So, the best advice we can give you is: don't lose or break your Lightning cable until Apple can start building up stock.





This isn't the first time Apple has done something like this, and it likely won't be the last, but it seems that Apple will not be allowing any 3rd party Lightning cables to be produced for its new iOS devices. Apple did this before to limit the functionality of various accessories, so for instance unauthorized docks wouldn't be able to play video, etc.