Fake

Spotting the signs of a fake Apple Lightning cable

Whenever you buy a new iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, it’ll come with a Lightning to USB cable that you will use to charge and sync your device. On the other hand, you have to be careful when you buy these cables separately, especially online, because you could end up with a counterfeit cable.

A counterfeit is a cable that tries to look just like Apple’s OEM Lightning to USB cable, even though it isn’t. Using these cables could have an adverse effect on your device, so we’ll show you how to spot the differences between a counterfeit and genuine Lightning to USB cable in this piece.

Make sure to stay away from these fake unlock and jailbreak sites

Perhaps one of the biggest problems in the jailbreak community today, apart from piracy, is the growing amount of scammers. These are sites or services that promise to provide users with jailbreak and unlock solutions, in return for money or other malicious intent.

And what’s worse is, often times these services are very misleading, claiming to do things such as “jailbreak iOS 6.1.4” or “downgrade from iOS 6 to iOS 5″—which we all know aren’t possible yet. So we’re highlighting some of these sites in order to warn users to avoid them…

OtterBox wins $2 million court victory against counterfeiters

Counterfeiting is a major problem that all brand-name manufacturers have to deal with—whether they make clothes, jewelry, bags or, as Apple could certainly attest to, electronics. It’s a tough issue to fight, too, and companies rarely get restitution.

But that’s not the case this time. Popular Apple accessory-maker OtterBox has just won a major victory against a New-York-based company. Not only did a US District Court judge issue a permanent injunction, but it awarded $2 million in damages…

Chinese iPhone dealers scam Apple with fake parts

Five iPhone distributors in China are under arrest after Apple told local police it was the victim of an unusual scam. The plot involved sending fake iPhone 4S parts to Apple for replacement and receiving real components worth more than $64,000, according to Monday reports.

The alleged fraudsters went so far as to accompany the fake components with the serial numbers of more than a hundred real iPhone handsets, police said.

As expected, the Dream JB is a fake – updated

Okay, I’ll bite. Again.

Yesterday I called out the developer of “Dream JB” for promising to bring a jailbreak to the iPhone 5 when he knew good and well that he couldn’t fulfill that promise.

Understandably, a lot of readers were miffed that I had the audacity to dash their hopes for a jailbreak. We’ve waited a long time for a jailbreak for iOS 6 and the iPhone 5, so it didn’t really surprise me when I was labeled a pessimist, although I was surprised a bit that my journalistic integrity was questioned. Fair enough, I was pretty positive that in due time this “jailbreak” would be exposed for what it really was.

Due time came today.

As I stated, I too wish for a jailbreak, it’s in my best interest to have one…but I and many others saw through this for what it was — a fake. Now the developer has released a video showcasing his fake work. And although it’s a pretty ambitious job of fakery, at the end of the day it’s still fake.

Reports of an iPhone 5 jailbreak releasing on December 22nd are probably fake – updated

Over the last few weeks there’s been a slight buzz about a so-called iPhone 5 jailbreak from some unknown and unproven entity. So as not to draw attention to the folks behind what is almost assuredly a hoax, we’ll refrain from linking or name dropping.

The bottom line is this, if you don’t see word from a respectable member of the community, a member from proven teams like the Chronic Dev Team or the iPhone Dev Team, then it’s almost always fake. Please don’t get hyped up over something that isn’t real, only to be highly disappointed in a few weeks…

Fake Activator app pops up in the App Store

There appears to be a new trend developing in the App Store: create a crappy application, name it after a popular jailbreak app, and hope folks mistakenly buy it for $0.99.

Last week we saw a fake Cydia app make its way into Apple’s digital download hub. And now we’ve come across a similar Activator impostor…

Cydia makes its way to the App Store, but it’s not what you think

The App Store hasn’t had any shortage of knockoff apps since its creation a few years ago. When popular games such as Angry Birds or Cut the Rope make their way up the charts, you can expect a few unscrupulous developers to rush and try to get their copycat app approved and available in the App Store in order to make a quick buck.

Surfing on the popularity of Cydia, the App Store for jailbreak apps and tweaks, one shady developer thought that releasing an app called Cydia and making it available to over 300 million iDevices (no jailbreak required, mind you) would be a good idea…

As it turns out, Tim Cook didn’t visit Valve’s headquarters

Last week, a report made its way around the blogosphere claiming that Apple’s CEO Tim Cook was spotted at Valve’s headquarters. This sparked all kinds of speculation regarding the nature of Cook’s visit, and the company’s future plans in the gaming space.

But alas, the story has been proven to be false. Valve head Gabe Newell debunked the rumor himself during an interview on the weekly Seven Day Cooldown podcast yesterday. And apparently, tech sites weren’t the only ones fooled by the report…

Service adds ‘sent from my iPhone’ to your messages for $1 a month

I’ve heard the expression, “fake it ’til you make it” but this is a bit ridiculous. The Financial Times is reporting that a new trend is starting to catch among China’s mobile users — fake iPhone signatures.

I know, an Apple-related knock off in China, big surprise. But this might actually be taking things too far. Apparently users are willing to pay money for services to auto-add ‘sent from my iPhone’ to all of their messages…

Apple Pulls Several Misleading Applications From the App Store

Even with Apple’s notoriously strict approval process, misleading applications constantly make their way into the App Store. We’ve covered a number of these titles on iDB — most recently Craft-Build Terrain, a fake MineCraft game.

These fraudulent applications have been making some serious waves in the developer community over the last few weeks. Developers believe these apps give their titles, and the App Store in general, a bad name. And Apple has responded…

iPhone 4S Battery Improvement Tweak Proven Fake

Over the past week or so, there has been a lot talk regarding a recently-released iPhone 4S jailbreak tweak that supposedly fixes the handset’s battery problem. We’ve neglected to mention the utility here on iDB for a couple reasons.

One, the tweak has only been available on the insanelyi repo — a Cydia repository known for hosting pirated applications. And two, it simply sounded too good to be true…