It's loose-change-under-the-couch-cushion revenue by Apple's astonishingly high standards. But I don't think there's serious money in that. And they're glad to have control over all iPhone peripherals. Apple is happy to keep the money it earns from MFi, of course. And Apple takes a cut of every one of those devices, too.' Gartenberg summarizes a commonly-held theory here: that Apple is sticking with its proprietary Lightning port on iPhones because they profit from MFi peripherals. Apple's MFi program means that if you want to plug anything into an iPhone, be it charger or adapter or accessory, you have to go through Apple. It also means that Apple would lose out on the revenue it makes from every Lightning cable and accessory that works with the iPhone, Apple-made or not - along with the control it has over what kinds of hardware does (or doesn't) get to exist for the iPhone and which companies get to make them. An anonymous reader shares a report from Daring Fireball, written by John Gruber: Chaim Gartenberg, writing for The Verge, ' The Lightning Port Isn't About Convenience It's About Control': 'Notably absent from Apple's argument, though, is the fact that cutting out a Lightning port on an iPhone wouldn't just create more e-waste (if you buy Apple's logic) or inconvenience its customers.
