Apple has always been characterized by creating such a closed ecosystem between all its devices that it does not support the vast majority of cables and accessories and adapters on the market. On many occasions we get the message "incompatible accessory" we show you why this happens and different solutions for your device and adapters.
Apple and its marketing strategy
The worst of Apple's strategy with its products comes to light when its closed ecosystem faces planned obsolescence, resulting in protests from hundreds of thousands of users around the world, who have always protested that iPhone updates are designed to slowly reject chargers and peripherals from unapproved third-party manufacturers that Apple itself has not designated as valid.
This is called a closed system when the hardware and software are integrated and constitute a unit, to such an extent that they cannot work independently: the hardware is not compatible with other software and vice versa.
That closed system was what defined Apple for years (until the arrival of the iPhone and third-party apps) and set the company apart from other tech companies like Microsoft.
The fact that it is such a closed system (for example, the devices have screws so that they cannot be opened) as well as the software that must be specially developed to be able to run on Apple products.
The reason given by Steve Jobs at the time to justify the inability of Apple products to interact fluidly with other products from other software and hardware manufacturers was that creating an integrated system and controlling all aspects of production and design was the only way to create great products.
Is this really true?
When it comes to users, there are different needs and usage objectives. We could group the common characteristics of certain users and create profiles that reduce the requirements, but in mass products there will always be different levels of satisfaction.
For this reason, solutions of the type that Apple advocates as "one fits all" are often compromise solutions that fail to provide great experiences for the full set of end-user profiles. A product with the same features is unlikely to be "a great product" for very different users.
For example, a 13-year-old child with little technological knowledge who only needs a device to help him search for information for school and play at home is not the same as a designer or photographer with low purchasing power, who is knowledgeable about technology and needs a powerful computer that allows him to install free software and use various devices such as cameras, external drives, external 4K or 8K screens from different brands...
For the child in the age of distance learning, an iPad could be the solution. On the other hand, for the designer/photographer, a low-cost computer or laptop should be considered, to which more memory or capacity could be added over time, and which is compatible with a wide variety of free or paid software on the market.
Despite the efforts of Steve Jobs and Tim Cook now, to massify their products, Apple was and remains a niche company. This is demonstrated by the current market for operating systems where it has only 5% of the market share, while Microsoft has almost 90%, not the recent emergence of new manufacturers that are hot on its heels in quality at a very tight market price, these are the cases of South Korean manufacturers Samsung, Huawei Xiaomi among others that offer equal or superior features to Apple at a market price that fits all pockets, companies for their part are rising year after year in innovation in their products and this is demonstrated by their sales that are rising year after year.
This also shows that Apple products are "great products" for a small portion of users but that a closed system is not the only way to create great products. Otherwise, 90% of people would choose products from other brands?
THIRD PARTY APPLE PRODUCTS
This has made that over time the manufacturers have known how to adapt to Apple's quality standards and offer alternative solutions to Apple peripherals, such as charging cables, USB-A or USB-c chargers as well as different wireless chargers or bases. Since Apple devices work under their own quality and charging standard, the devices have internal chips that allow them to detect when a cable, charger or peripheral is from a manufacturer external to the company, Apple has its own approval system for these same third-party accessories, which is why external manufacturers are not allowed to be used in their devices if they do not pass a quality protocol established by the company, which is why it is very important that whenever you buy a charger , cable or converter peripheral for your Apple device, this seal appears
This seal indicates that what you buy has been approved and tested to work properly, and that it will not damage your devices. They also assure you that in future updates of the device this peripheral will continue to work normally and that the message "this accessory is not reliable or compatible with your device" will not appear. It is important to keep this in mind when purchasing a product because many times to save money buying accessories from unreliable sites but at a low price, what it can do is trigger the battery of our iPhone, iPad or Laptop to degrade more quickly or simply not protect it against a possible power surge and we end up taking it to the technical service to repair something that would not have happened if you had used a charger or device approved by Apple or the same company, in the end the remedy costs more than the disease.
The same thing happens with video converters for iPhone and iPad, this is a much talked about topic because even though Apple has allowed certain converters to work - such as HDMI to Lightning - these end up stopping working with future updates to the device, updates that many times we cannot control because sometimes the same system is updated without even installing new versions, and in the end they end up stopping working, not to mention that numerous streaming platforms such as NETFLIX, HBO, AMAZON among others do not allow the use of other converters to view their content on television if it is not the official Apple one because it does not have broadband digital content protection, which prevents pirates from capturing high definition digital content for their own use, as a possible precaution against piracy, which does not happen in the Android ecosystem because there are many possibilities, third-party apps and cables that with a little knowledge you can modify and look for alternatives to be able to fraudulently view content through cables purchased from unreliable sites or unapproved accessories.
That is why for some time now Apple has only allowed its converters and chargers to use the MFI standard to function correctly in its products to ensure proper functioning and preservation of the devices over time. This makes it a closed ecosystem and in the end you have to fall and buy products from the company, or failing that from third-party companies approved by Apple under payment of the corresponding licenses.
At TIENDACABLES we have official converters and chargers as well as those compatible with the Apple MFI standard that are completely reliable as if they were from the company itself, so quality is not always at odds with the Apple company or with price.