If consumers are fine then the vast majority of cables I’d see people owning would be Apple cables. That’s rarely the case. Most people are buying 3rd party cables even to use with Apple devices and I doubt any but a small minority even know what MFI is, never mind basing their purchasing decision on it.
Edit: To add to the anecdata, here’s a Reddit thread on the iPhone subreddit where the majority of folks are responding by saying they’re buying non Apple chargers.
But they are fine with it only because those safety mechanisms are not enforced by goverments already, and of course Apple is more than happy to be the one in charge of enforcing it.
For things with actual safety issues like batteries and power bricks, the government should be regulating them more. For things like "does this usb-c cable meet the required specs to provide consistent video and high speed data transfers?", this seems like exactly the kind of thing private companies can validate.
God forbid you buy one of those "cheaper" $20 rubber cables and live in a house with pets. No joke, I have went through more than a half dozen of those cables from regular wear-and-tear.
I wouldn't call that "Apple's own" cable. That's a third-party cable that they sell in their store, and is notably more expensive than their own officially-branded cables.
(That said, I do agree that their branded cables are generally overpriced for their level of durability.)
While their accessories are quite overpriced, it's not just "in the name of". It's in reality, too: there are quite a few teardowns comparing the insides of e.g. Apple chargers vs. generic chargers. Whatever issues you may have with Apple accessories, cheaper ones are often much worse.
>USB cables available online from any arbitrary retailer could be so wildly out of spec they burn out gadgets, or include some phone home thing.
Apple's tristar (or whatever they call it now on new models) should reject anything out of spec, I don't think a cable should be ultimately trusted that it will work due to very real world wear scenarios.
USB cables available online from any arbitrary retailer could be so wildly out of spec they burn out gadgets, or include some phone home thing.
Of course technologists will scoff as of course they’re the only people on the planet.