Re: You don't have to stretch to Apple iPhone screens
(Disclaimer: I work for a company that is involved in Apple repair (in an independent, unofficial capacity), but I'm not involved with that personally. My apologies if this comes across as pro-Apple, because I'm really not a fan at all, but...)
As far as I'm aware, there *is* a major difference between official Lightning cables (original Apple or officially-certified MFi-certified third-party) and unofficial ones, and it's not DRM alone.
The original/MFi cables include two chips. One is a "load switch" IC that filters out several potentially damaging power discrepancies (including current/voltage ripples and surges, excess current, overvoltage, reverse polarity etc.) coming from the USB charger.
The other is a "handshake" IC that essentially says "yes, I'm genuine and it's safe to drop your defenses for charging".
The non-MFi cables include an imitation handshake IC that says the same thing... but they *don't* include the load switch IC at all. Instead, the unfiltered current is passed direct to the phone. To cut a long story short, you might get away with this in the short term, but having spoke with my colleagues, I know that phones can be- and frequently *have* been- damaged by this unfiltered current, particularly if you're charging via a car battery adaptor.
Yes, I know that Apple always have their own self-interest at heart to some extent. But that doesn't mean the cheap, non-MFi cables are just as good. Especially as genuine MFi-certified third party cables can end up costing not much more than completely unofficial generics. (##)
Also, while I'm here, the Apple quote in the article says:-
"Non-genuine replacement displays may have compromised visual quality and may fail to work correctly."
Some self-serving in there? Certainly, but it's true that a lot of compatible replacement screens are of *significantly* inferior visual quality to the Apple originals. (#)
Worse, because they aren't of the same spec as the original, some of the crappier compatible displays can overload the driver circuit and damage it over time. (Yes, we've seen this happen).
Although we offer cheaper "copy" screen repairs at a cheaper price- because our local competitors all use crappy copy screens and we need to compete on price with them- we always advise our customers to have a refurb/original display fitted. (And we fit the original anyway if they want the inferior "copy" because we're in a position to do so, and don't want someone coming back with a fried iPhone from a lousy display).
"Apple-certified screen repairs are performed by trusted experts who use genuine Apple parts"
Again, self-serving on Apple's part, sure, but this says nothing about unofficial repairs, only the ones that they're happy to certify.
(#) Some people don't seem to care about this... despite the fact that the few quid's difference between a genuine and compatible screen replacement is minor compared to the cost of a several-hundred quid iPhone sold on the basis of its pretty display in the first place! Seems odd to spoil the ship for a ha'porth of tar like that- but my boss noted that most people get them as part of a contract, so they probably forget how much they paid.)
(##) We've disassembled ours to confirm that they're genuine MFi (as labelled on the box) and those sold by one of our rivals to confirm they're definitely *not*!