If you’ve ever gone to plug in your iPhone or iPad and noticed that it’s not charging as it’s supposed to be, you might want to check the devices Lightning port. That’s because the little charger port on the bottom can be a trap for pocket gunk, and even fairly small pieces of lint or sediment can prevent the device from charging as intended. The simplest way to check this is to flip your iPhone or iPad so that you can look at the bottom of the device, if you see anything at all in the Lightning port, that’s probably the culprit preventing the charge. You’ll want to grab something like a wooden or plastic tooth pick to get the object out, but you may have luck with a tiny brush or other object as well – just make sure it’s not metal and that it’s not wet. Once you’ve cleaned out the port, try plugging it back in again. It should work. If you’re still having problems, it could be due to a badly frayed USB cable, which is always quite obvious, or a shoddy third party cable that is unsupported by Apple. ran...

arely, when you plug an iPhone or iPad into a particular Lightning charger cable you’ll see a pop-up or lock screen message on the device that says something to the effect of “This cable is not certified and may not work reliably”. This usually prevents the lightning cable from charging the device as well. Though most users will never see this error, if you do see that message, there’s almost always a reason why. We’ll cover the three most common reasons you’ll see the “not certified” message on an iOS device, and also what you can do about it. Perhaps before anything else, try pulling the cable out of the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, then putting it back in. Also, try plugging the cable into either a different USB port on a computer, or into a different all outlet. On rare occasions where the message is displayed erroneously and for no good cause, this can be a solution, which is probably indicative of a power issue with the source, and not the cable. These situations can also sometimes lead to an...