The iOS 10.3.1 and 10.3.2 updates from Apple shows that Apple is serious when it comes to discouraging people from using cheap, non-Apple certified accessories.
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MFI Now Required for Apple Devices
The recent iOS update came as an unpleasant surprise for ifolks who have been using lightning to headphone connectors with their iPhone 7/7+ devices. Many of these users who were using non-MFi (Made for iPhone) certified cables and splitters found themselves stuck with the “This accessory is not supported by this iPhone” message.
Many Audio Accessories Suddenly Obsolete
This problem is worse for those folks who use connector cables in their car for piping audio. If you have the two-in-one aux cable that also functions as a charging cord, you may run into this issue. Users who use Bluetooth for their audio use or are connecting via the Apple supplied original connector are not experiencing this issue.
This issue did not exist when the iPhone was running the older iOS 10.2.1 update. The problem has surfaced after the iOS 10.3 update was released. The check and error message still exists in the latest iOS 10 updates.
Interestingly, if you put your iPhone into Airplane mode and restart, the problem does not occur. This clearly means that the latest iOS update is checking the accessory against a list of certified accessories that Apple maintains on their database and shows the error if the cable is not compliant or MFi Certified.
Apple Branded 3.5 Lightning Headphone Adapters A Must
If you are facing this issue with your iPhone 7 after the latest iOS upgrade, make sure that you are using the Apple provided Lightning to 3.5mm headphone jack adapter. If the old Apple-supplied adapter doesn’t work, you may need to go to the Apple Store and get a new one.
For those users, who use auxiliary cables to pipe in audio in their cars, the best way to solve this issue is to get a Male-to-Male 3.5mm Aux cable and use that to connect to the Apple supplied Lightning to 3.5mm cable. It appears that as long as the iPhone is connected to an Apple-supplied cable, the problem doesn’t occur.
At the time of writing, many Amazon and eBay retailers that sell cable accessories are clearly indicating that their cables will only work on iPhones running iOS 10.2.1 or below.
Workaround When Faced with the Error Message
Although your best bet is to upgrade to a MFi certified accessory, there are times when you want your current accessory to work. A redditor had this tip when faced with the issue.
“Sometimes this works for me when I get that message:
- leave the cable plugged into your phone as usual
- leave the outlet adapter plugged into the wall socket as usual
- unplug and replug the other end of the cable from the outlet adaptor”
We haven’t tested this but figured it will be helpful to those folks who are trying to get past the error message in the short term before buying a certified cable.
Fakes Are Everywhere! And Dangerous??
In 2016 October, Apple had also sued an Amazon supplier for selling fake Apple accessories. The company declared at the same time that 90% of Apple accessories sold on Amazon are fake, untested and potentially hazardous. Your best bet as an Apple product user is to stick with accessories that are MFi certified and not use cheaper cables from any third-party that are not MFI certified.
Think Again before you buy that cheap accessory for your iPhone!
Obsessed with tech since the early arrival of A/UX on Apple, Sudz (SK) is responsible for the editorial direction of AppleToolBox. He is based out of Los Angeles, CA.
Sudz specializes in covering all things macOS, having reviewed dozens of OS X and macOS developments over the years.
In a former life, Sudz worked helping Fortune 100 companies with their technology and business transformation aspirations.
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Angelina says
February 18, 2018 at 5:27 AMReally, Apple? Seriously? Why would I spend 20-30 dollars on a charger.
No way! Right now, I’m getting bills paid. So screw you! You already have enough money why should we give you more?
I used, to had your Apple cord but then little asshole cat ate it.
So now, I have a 10-13 dollar one. This obviously is a joke.. I have moms apple, charger and it doesn’t even work half the time.
I hope, your happy.
Juan says
February 12, 2018 at 6:15 PMTime for me to switch to droid. My nice aftermarket charger case is no longer supported. Thanks Apple for screwing your customers.
Mookie says
December 28, 2018 at 9:07 AMApple has been screwing their customers for decades.
It is why they have the largest market cap in the world.
As long as the sheep buy into their ecosystem they will continue to rob you every chance they have.
They have good products but I will never buy an overpriced, over-hyped Apple product as long as they continue to blatantly screw over their loyal customer base with costly, needless updates engineered to extract every last nickel from your pocket.
Jim says
January 26, 2018 at 4:08 PM$35 for an Apple 2 meter lightning cable is HIGHWAY ROBBERY! Apple ought to be ashamed of themselves.
Lisa says
January 8, 2018 at 3:46 AMMy cable failed to work! I lost the original iPhone cable, and now I have to buy a new expensive one from Apple. I hate this! I’ve been using Apple products for many years. I very frustrated about this! One cable is not enough for one iPhone. I mean I need one cable in my car, one cable for my workplace and one cable for home. I think Apple is getting too greedy now. If Apple keeps doing things in this way, I will stop being an Apple product user very soon!
HatingMyIphone7 says
January 6, 2018 at 12:40 PMThis explanation is very helpful to know. Unfortunately Apple’s headphone adaptor is such a poorly made product (1 star reviews) that they have withdrawn it from the market, leaving Apple’s customers with no option at all except to use bluetooth headphones.
I sincerely hope this leads to a gigantic class action lawsuit and ideally painfully close government oversight of such monopolistic practices for a decade or longer.
Soundguy says
January 3, 2018 at 9:22 AMI have the iPhone 10 and just within the last week all my cheaper connections have failed. Even the real one in my car has failed. And I don’t get pop up messages anymore. It just doesn’t work
Jodi says
December 26, 2017 at 11:14 PMI have been an iPhone user for over 8 years and I will NEVER buy another Apple product! For a company to punish their customers who have already paid hundreds of dollars for their product – simply because they can?!!! Despicable! I’ve seen nothing but complaints and infuriated comments on numerous sites…. let’s be sure they feel it if they don’t fixit!
George says
December 23, 2017 at 6:56 AMYes Apple sucks, If I didn’t have a company supplied phone I would not ever consider buying a apple phone Compared to a android this is a pain to use and all of my expensive 3.5 cable earbuds and adapters for my truck are non usable One update duped all my contacts 500 plus and mixed numbers and emails to wrong accounts Thanks for the extra 8 hours work apple
Ondřej Hrdý says
December 22, 2017 at 11:32 AMThis is it. I’m done with Apple. I have MacBook, IPhone 7 plus, it cost me $2,500 and it’s not worth even $1,000. I’ll never buy anything from this greedy company ever. At least there’s a place for another company.
Tray says
December 15, 2017 at 9:50 AMLots of mediocre ideas from Apple. Fix it till it’s broke I guess. Whoever dropped the ball on this should reconsider their place of employment. To think they make the big bucks, now that is hard to fathom.
Tracy Collins says
December 5, 2017 at 6:15 PMI never wanted an Apple product because I always felt like they were super greedy. I finally give in and try them out. I have a 7 plus and all of the 10 chargers I have in my house won’t work. I will not buy Apple again. Not happy at ALL.
Grantlam Farley Chimsneath-Stroughton says
November 27, 2017 at 1:56 AMHazardous? WHAT??? YEAH, SURE: Hazardous to Apple’s bottom-line forcing customers to buy all new overpriced accessories for every new phone
DJ says
November 14, 2017 at 3:28 AMApple, I hate you for doing this!
Steph says
October 24, 2017 at 9:28 PMSure they can include a port to aux adapter; but can’t include a splitter, and disable putting in other splitters that actually work. If I cant listen to music as easily, which is the one reason I didn’t go with an Android – then why the hell am I paying for it. Disappointed and slightly infuriated.
tim says
October 15, 2017 at 8:33 PMForget you Apple. You are definitely not a user-centered design company. Even your official splitter doesn’t work. My goodness, you are the new Microsoft.
Jake cops says
October 13, 2017 at 2:50 PMThis is idiotic because i have dre beats (owned by apple) and i cant even use them with my iphone 7.
Bill says
September 15, 2017 at 5:02 PMSpending $800 on a phone isn’t enough for Apple, simple aftermarket cord won’t work because of a chip in the phone. I am done with Apple, hopefully millions of others will follow suit, bad business….
pavlos says
September 13, 2017 at 10:54 AMIs there anyway to bypass this? It’s *&^$ing irritating. An Mfi aux splitters are $40 which is an obtuse price to have to pay to charge your phone and listen to music in your car at the same time.
GavinCurtis says
September 10, 2017 at 12:55 PMI can understand issues of quality/safety regarding charging cables and in particular the charger itself. But what has me done with Apple is the lightning to headphone adapter garbage. It is a DAC with a headphone jack and nothing more. After a recent firmware update, my aftermarket headphone dongles no longer work. What’s next? Only Apple certified headphones will work with their products? Stupidest marketing decision ever and it will come back to haunt you tenfold! imagine if Sony walkmans only played Sony brand cassette tapes powered by only Sony brand batteries.
SK says
September 11, 2017 at 3:10 PMGavin, Thanks for your comments. We totally hear you on this one and agree that it is not the best of marketing decisions. When it comes to chargers, we do think that it should be Apple driven since the low cost/ poor quality accessories can end up doing some damage to the hardware. For other accessories, Mifi certification should pretty much be the standard and Apple should allow other manufacturers to produce innovative /less expensive accessories as long as they meet the base standards.
Cogoau says
August 22, 2017 at 9:26 PMFair dinkum. It was one thing taking away the headphone socket and telling us how good the lightning connector is. Then you lock it down to authorised accessories only. Wake up to yourselves Apple and listen to your customers or you won’t have any!
Dave says
July 15, 2017 at 4:18 PMHey. It’s not a “cheap” solution. I upgrade to an iPhone 7. Can’t use my beloved headphones to listen to music anymore and the only solution I find is disabled by apple despite them not having an actual solution themselves for a problem they created. I shouldn’t have had to spend any extra money to be able to listen to my iTunes catalog never mind having that solution disabled after a day. It wasn’t “cheap”, £10 isn’t cheap for something I shouldn’t have had to have bought in the first place. Buying something you should never have had to buy in the first place isn’t being “cheap” it’s annoying and inconvenient and insane.
Tim says
July 13, 2017 at 1:39 AMJust let me have a headphone jack. Wireless headphones are a pain in the ass. To not be able to charge and listen is user hostile. Ok, I’ll try the pixel. Material design is looking better.
Will says
June 27, 2017 at 9:54 PMI am done. I hope another company comes and completely take their business away this is uncalled for it’s just an adapter now I have to go and buy another one? Bullshit I am done buying any Apple products.
Hermes says
June 18, 2017 at 10:08 PMHi.
This complaint checker is just on the cables?
I mean, if I buy an original lightning X usb cable to conect the digital camera it’ll work normally? Or apple ia validating que device connected to the cable too? (Cameras, phones, pendrive…)
Paul says
June 14, 2017 at 6:44 PMThe Airplane mode/restart workaround does not work under iOS 10.3.2. My 3rd party adapter works again for maybe a minute and then I get the error message. So either airplane mode allows some communication through to verify the adapter or if the attempt to verify times out, it gets cut off.
This sucks.
What Haveyou says
June 1, 2017 at 4:39 PMSo now there’s no way to listen to music and charge your phone. That’s a rip-off.
This basically means you can’t listen to music while using navigation in your car, since this will kill the iPhone’s pathetic battery.
Apple = no good
Andras says
May 31, 2017 at 6:10 AMHahaha, Apple just wants my money, not enough that they got 1000 bucks for the iPhone 7 now they want me to buy for 10 more dollars that 5 cm long zero complexity shitty adapter so I can maybe plug in my headphones.
I'm Done says
May 13, 2017 at 6:47 AMWas getting ready to buy a new MacBook. But after Apple killing my auxiliary charger adapter, out of spite, I am done with apple. Use to be user-friendly. Not the case. Or not their goal…
Daniel says
May 1, 2017 at 8:53 PMBelkin car charger and cable do not work in my car bought them at Apple Store.
Carmen Feld says
April 14, 2017 at 4:41 PMI have an ipad air2 and after loading 10.3.1, my Anker 10′ charging cable is prompting an error message. According to Anker they are an authorized Apple
accessory suplier. Apple does not make 10′ cables.
SK says
April 16, 2017 at 9:36 PMHi Carmen,
That sucks! First, try your original charging cable to make sure the problem is the Anker cable and not something else, like your iPad port or the charger itself. If everything works as expected with the original cable, then call Anker and let them know that your cable is defective. As you mentioned, Anker cables are Apple MFi certified and should include an Apple authorization chip to ensure 100% compatibility with any Lightning device including your iPad Air2.
It should work. So hopefully, Anker sends a replacement asap.
Cheers,
SK