Fake Iphones.

Powerless: Fake iPhone charger and cable.                           Martin Rowe -January 06, 2014

In July 2013, I rode the train from Boston to New York City. As soon as I sat down on the train, I reached into my backpack for a charger. Horror struck when I realized that I'd left three chargers at home. The chargers were for an iPad, iPhone, and a Samsung phone. My wife also has a Samsung phone that uses the same micro-USB connector so I knew I could use her charger, but what about the iThings?

"No problem," I thought. I'll be in Midtown Manhattan. There's an electronics store on every block along 7^th Ave." Now, I knew that there was no way that any of these stores would sell genuine Apple chargers and cables. I also knew from experience the problems with fake Apple cables. Still, I just needed a charger and cable to get me through the weekend. How bad could that be?

Real bad.

After going into three stores, I realized that they all sold the same knockoff cables and chargers. So, the only difference was price. One store had an iPhone 4 charger priced at $40, but I had already seen the same knockoff for less in other stores. As I started to leave, the salesman said, "Half price if you pay cash?" This is very common in NYC where stores often give huge discounts and don't charge sales tax for cash purchases. Not only do they save on credit-card fees, but the cash likely goes right in someone's pocket, thus avoiding taxes.

Knowing that the charger and cable were anything but genuine, I insisted on testing them with my iPad. Connecting them to the iPad, I saw it start to charge. So, at least I had a charger, or so I thought.

Upon arriving at the hotel, I connected the knockoff to my iPhone. It refused to charge; same for the iPad. Thinking the outlet might not have power, I tried another. Still, neither charged. Unfortunately, my wife's charger is an integrated unit so I couldn't plug in the cable to a USB port and tell if the problem was the charger or the cable. At that point, I completely powered down both iThings to save battery charge.

The next day, we visited some friends who had a iPad. There, I discovered that the charger had failed, yet I clearly recalled seeing the iPad charging in the store.

Upon inspection, I found some light scratches on the charger unit. It was probably returned and resold -- to me. I looked at the cable and noted that at the USB end, there was essentially no strain relief. The cable sleeve slid in easily. On a real cable, it would be nice and tight. I decided to put some electrical tape around the cable to provide some strain relief later. The 30-pin connect is a tight fit compared to a genuine Apple connector.

So, I charged both the iPhone and iPad with my friend's charger and powered them down that night. That left enough power to use both on the train home the next day.

Back at home, I wanted to see if the knockoff cable would charge and sync my iPad when connected to a computer. Here was something I'd never seen before. Using Windows Explorer, I found my photos. A few seconds later, the thumbnails were replaced by hard-drive icons in one of the photo folders. See the image below.

To avoid accidentally using the failed iPhone charger, I wrote "NYC" in permanent marker on the case. I may try opening it to see what's inside. It might be an easy fix. See the next page for a teardown of the fake charger.