Romy from Wisconsin writes:
I upgraded to iOS 7 on my iPhone 5 and now I’m getting this error when I try to use my lightning cable: “This cable or accessory is not certified and may not work reliably with this iPhone.” What’s going on?
Romy, you aren’t the only one seeing this issue. You are probably using a third-party charging cable not manufactured by Apple. These cables generally cost substantially less than charging cables purchased from Apple or their authorized manufacturers. Apple now requires manufacturers to put a chip in the cable to identify it as an Apple-authorized product.
If you have a cable from a third-party manufacturer or an older Apple cable made before this change, you may see this error. Some people are reporting that their charging cables still work, while others are saying that they do not. You can try simply dismissing the error and see if you cable still works.
Some people have reported success at getting rid of the errors by following these steps:
- Turn on USB power.
- Plug in lightning cable to iPhone.
- Dismiss any warnings.
- Unlock your iPhone.
- Dismiss any remaining warnings.
- Now with the screen turned on, unplug the third- party lightning cable.
- Plug it back in.
- Dismiss warning again.
I used to buy the third party cables to save the money, but then realized that saving $20 on a cable is not worth the chance of ruining my $500 iphone or even more expensive Ipad.