According to those from Bloomberg Apple sued many manufacturers of accessories for iPhone/iPod/iPad who were not authorized to produce/market these products. It is about those companies whose products did not meet the quality standards imposed by Apple on partners authorized to produce accessories for iDevices. Apple has a program called "Made for iPod" through which it authorizes certain companies to produce accessories for iDevices, but these products must meet all the quality standards imposed by Apple and for its own products. The sued companies were counterfeiting these products at a significantly lower quality, and when one of these products broke down, customers filed complaints with Apple.
"Many are of inferior quality and reliability, raising significant concerns over compatibility with and damage to Apple's products," Apple said in the complaint, citing a user comment that a charger from one of the companies drained his iPod rather than replenishing the battery.
Through the "Made for iPod" program, Apple licenses certain companies to produce accessories for iDevices, but collects between 20-25% of the amount charged for each product sold under this license. This is most likely the reason why some manufacturers choose to sell counterfeit products, and Apple has left them alone until now when it decided to sue them in an attempt to force them to "go legal" or stop counterfeiting products .
Apple accessories are quite expensive and such products, even if they did not work 100% perfectly, are accessible to those who do not want to pay 100 lei for a USB cable/a pair of headphones. My opinion is that Apple should have left these companies because they brought many people the opportunity to replace a defective accessory at an affordable price.
