iPhone 13 Stops Charging With Non-Apple Lightning Cables

[Buadhai]

We have a multitude of charging stations and cables in our home, car, condo and travel kits. All of this stuff continues to work with every device we have including my XR, a couple of AirPod Pros, an iPad mini 5, Magic Keyboard and Mouse, etc. Suddenly, my wife's iPhone 13 stopped working with all the cables we have except for Apple branded cables and one UGreen that I bought years ago. Even Anker MFi certified cables don't work anymore with the 13.

I've checked and cleaned the lightning port on the phone, but that didn't help.

So, has there been some recent nefarious change by Apple that causes the 13 to reject non-Apple cables?

 

[russell_314]

So, has there been some recent nefarious change by Apple that causes the 13 to reject non-Apple cables?

I wouldn’t think so. My 14 Pro Max works fine with Anker cables and even cheap Walmart Onn cables. I know it’s not the 13 but if they were going to do something like that it would be in their newer phones as well.

Does it give you any message saying the device isn’t supported or something like that? Also are you sure it’s the cable or possibly the charging brick or device the cable is plugged into? I would switch the Apple cables with the charging brick on the cables it’s not working on.

Maybe there’s some technical difference between the cables that’s causing this, but I wouldn’t think so. I wouldn’t think an Anker cable would be made any differently than an Apple cable. It’s just a cable.

 

[Buadhai]

There's no message on the 13. I know it's not the charging bricks because every other device works fine with the brick/cable combination. As soon as I plug an Apple cable in the brick or USB A port, it works fine with the 13. I've tried this with an Apple brick, two Anker bricks, the USB A port on my old iMac, the charger in our car, etc. They all work with my iPhone XR, but not with my wife's.

Identical charging cables plugged in to the same charging brick. Swapping the two cables makes no difference. XR charges, 13 doesn't.

 

[Buadhai]

Same brick. Apple cable works fine on the 13.

 

[EugW]

The only cables to trust are Apple cables or Made-for-iPhone third party cables. Other cables may work, or sometimes are inconsistent, or may not work at all, or else may start out working and then stop working after a while, sometimes after an OS update.

BTW, my wife forgot her charging cable and was out for day today. I got a phone call from her from Dollarama asking which cable to buy for her iPhone 14 Pro Max. I told her none of them because none were MFi certified. Well, since she didn't have any cable she bought one anyway, and guess what? It didn't work.

I'm curious about that MFi Anker cable of yours though. Some of the early Anker products were a little sketchy but more recently they've been more reliable.

Just make sure your Lightning port is clean. Periodically it pays to clean it out with a paper clip or something.

 

[Buadhai]

I understand what you're saying. I've always purchased quality cables unless I've been stuck somewhere and have to take what 7Eleven offers.

The cables we have worked fine on her 13 until recently. They all work fine on all our other stuff.

What could cause cables that have always worked fine to suddenly stop working on one device only?

Here's how I discovered this situation: A few days ago my wife came home from work and asked me to check the cable in the car because she couldn't charge her phone on it. I took my phone out and it worked fine. Her's didn't. I took an Apple cable to the car and it worked fine on her phone.

Then I went through the long process of swapping cables and devices on the handful of charging bricks we have in the house. What I discovered was the every single cable we have, including in my box of temporary discards, works fine with my iPhone XR. The only cables the work with her iPhone 13 are the Apple branded cables (including some really ancient ones) and the one UGreen cable.

I have now cleaned her Lightning port twice. It didn't help.

None of this makes any sense to either of us. Plus it means going through our house, condo and travel kits to replace every cable with an Apple branded cable. What a mess.

 

[EugW]

None of this makes any sense to either of us. Plus it means going through our house, condo and travel kits to replace every cable with an Apple branded cable. What a mess.

I wonder if you just got lucky with the XR. I've had tons of problems with 3rd party cables with various iPhones, sometimes only after an iOS update.

Did her iPhone 13 just get updated to 16.1.1? It just came out yesterday.

 

[Buadhai]

Her phone is still on 16.0.

It’s not just the XR. The non-Apple cables work with her iPad Mini 5, her Apple mouse and keyboard, and our two AirPod Pros.

And it’s not just one cable. I tried at least a dozen.