In this video from ITFreeTraining, I will look at the lightning cable. The lightning
cable is a proprietary cable released by Apple. This cable replaces the previous cables that
were used to connect and charge Apple mobile devices.
The lightning cable was introduced in 2012 by Apple. The lightning cable is designed
to be used by Apple devices. The lightning cable is a 16-pin cable that essentially plugs
into an 8-pin plug. This was designed to replace Apple’s existing larger 30 pin cable used
with older devices.
The lightning cable is designed so that it can be plugged in either way. Later in the
video I will have a look at how this is made possible.
Apple has not released the specifications for the lightning cable, so it is difficult
to determine how fast the cable operates at. The lightning cable can be plugged into USB,
when this occurs it runs at a USB 2 speed of 480 Megabits per second. So, this gives
us some idea of how fast it runs. If you need faster speed than this, you should look at
Thunderbolt or USB 3 connections.
To understand how the lightning cable works, let’s have a look inside one.
In this case, I have taken a genuine Apple lightning cable and removed the plastic and
metal casing from around the end of the cable. Inside the cable is a small circuit board
with some microchips on it. On this chip, there is a lot of glue; I attempted to remove
as much glue as I could, but I was not able to remove it all.
When the cable is used to plug into a device, the chips on the cable authenticate the device.
This essentially means that only approved devices can be used with the cable. If you
attempt to use a non-approved device, it will not work. This means two things. First, only
approved Apple devices can be used with the cable. Second, only a cable made by Apple
can be used. Well, at first this was the case.
The chips inside the lightning cable have been reverse engineered, so you can now purchase
a non-Apple lightning cable. The non-Apple cables may be of lesser quality though. You
get what you pay for. In the case of the non-Apple cables, besides having a lot less glue, there
was no metal internal casing to protect the chip. Essentially this means this cable may
get damaged easier than the Apple cable.
You may also notice that a non-Apple lightning cable may charge devices slower than an Apple
lightning cable. Generally, this is because a lower quality cable uses lower quality materials
that don’t push the power through as well. There are kcables that you can purchase through
Apple or approved by Apple and these will come in different types.
Apples sells two types of lightning cables. These are USB to lightning and USB-C to lightning.
There are a lot of non-Apple cables that can be purchased, for example this cable that
supports USB to either lightning, USB-C or micro USB.
If you purchase a non-Apple cable, your results may vary. Some cables may work really well,
others may be unreliable or charge your devices slower than the Apple cable.
In order to determine what has been approved by Apple and what has not, Apple came up with
the MFi program. This stands for Made for iPhone/iPod/iPad. If you see this on the packaging
or the Apple logo then the product is approved by Apple.
There is also a web page, provided by Apple, which you can check to see if the product
you are using has been approved by Apple. This web page will allow you to search for
your device to determine if it has been approved by Apple or not. There are products on the
market that have not been approved but may have packaging that suggests they are. You
get what you pay for in a lot of ways, but you don’t want to pay extra for a product
that has not been approved. Approved products have to meet a certain quality standard in
order to get approved. You don’t want to pay more for a low-quality product.
That concludes this video on the lightning cable. I hope you have found this video informative.
Until the next video, I would like to thank you for watching.