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Why you should probably spend a little extra on these gold Lightning cables

Gold-mfi-iphone-cable

TL;DR: Gold is Best

The folks at iMod have been active contributors to the MFi/Lightning cable debate since the standard debuted a year ago. MFi is Apple’s standard for 3rd party Lighting cables which requires Apple approved chip designs to run. There has been an ongoing debate on whether 3rd parties should need to follow Apple’s rules since third party non-MFi cables in many, but not all, cases have seemed to function properly.

iPhone5Mod, as they were known then, were one of the first ones with a Non-MFI cable. They were able to circumvent Apple’s recent tightening of the standard in iOS7 and recently they’ve put out a non-MFI cable that circumvents Apple’s latest “cat-and-mouse” effort to stem Lighting cable abuse from non-MFi manufacturers. Unfortunately, if you bought one of iMod’s early cables, Apple has ‘cut’ you out of the loop.

iMod, to make things a little blurrier, also sell Apple MFi-certified Lightning cables that have Apple’s blessing and theoretically should withstand future iOS and iDevice hardware upgrades.  But obviously these are sold at a premium, sometimes as high as $10 more than non-MFi cables.

They were nice enough to send me their current MFi and non-MFi cables for testing. Over the past week both MFi and non-MFI cables have worked flawlessly on iPhone 5s (Gold) and wife’s iPhone 5 and I’d easily recommend either. However, caveat emptor: Apple could again release an update that cuts the cord on these non-MFI version.

Sooo… with all of that in mind, iMod has released a Gold Lightning cable that would be approved by Raffi (much better than this!) in both $9 non-MFi and $18 MFi varieties. You know the drill: you get what you pay for.

Update: The gold cable/popularity of this post has brought down the iMod e-commerce servers. We’re told that they should have everything back in order within 20 minutes.  

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Comments

  1. seizmicdesign - 10 years ago

    I went with Juicies+, but that’s just me.

  2. I can’t believe that Apple will license to a company that clearly flouts the intentions it has with using certified parts… But then it is just as bad that you will clearly promote and advertise a product that breaches Apple licensing as well… So that makes YOU just as bad…

    Oh and i have gone Juices+ as well…!!!

    • ctyrider - 10 years ago

      “it is just as bad that you will clearly promote and advertise a product that breaches Apple licensing”

      Seriously, Kevin Hancox? Is Apple paying you to promote their corporate interests on Internet forums? Because I better hope you’re not doing it for free.

      And in case you don’t understand how the Internet & websites like 9to5mac work – the goal here is to promote free flow of information. If you like to spend $10 extra dollars per cable for MFi certification – that is certainly your choice.

  3. Ablert Pavia - 10 years ago

    Part of the Apple requirement is to certify that the people involved in making the cables are treat fairly. The question of whether to buy a certified cable is not just one of function but also of justice. Is iMod willing to provide an audit of the manufacturers who make their non-certifed cables?

  4. Mr. Grey (@mister_grey) - 10 years ago

    Right. Spend *more* for an uncertified cable that will go obsolete *faster* than a regular cable, because it’s gold. That makes perfect sense.

Author

Avatar for Seth Weintraub Seth Weintraub

Publisher and Editorial Director of the 9to5/Electrek sites.


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