The Lightning port in the iPhone 5 has proved a source of much consternation. Adapters are expensive, new cables are hard to come by, and it looks like Apple’s not letting any official accessories down the pipeline for quite some time. However, take hope, it looks like some Chinese manufacturers may already have reverse engineered the cable.
The reason it’s so tricky to get a third party Lightning adapter is the complicated electronics housed in each cable, including what’s rumored to be an authentication chip. However, a Chinese company claims to have cracked the code, using techniques developed to get around authentication chips in printer cartridges.
Since it’s early days with this technology, these workarounds are still expensive, and expected to retail for 120-180 yuan (roughly $20-$30). And since you pick up these from generally pretty disreputable online sellers, it’s hard to know which ones might actually work, and which ones might not. So while we recommend not buying one online just yet, it looks like engineers are hard at work picking apart what makes the Lightning port tick.
[via MIC Gadget]
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