I have a Phillips alarm clock with iPod dock and an iPhone 4. When I got the iPhone 4 first, when i docked it with the alaram clock, i got an message on the screen of the iPhone saying that "This accessory is not designed to work with the iPhone and may cause interference", but after the upgrade to iOS5, this message does not occur. I did notice with iOS4 that interference would happen when playing music on the iPhone, but now it does not seem to happen…
And it started to make me think: How did my device "learn" to play nicely with the iPhone 4? Was it the iPhone that was tweaked? and either way, can Apple push down updates to these devices? I know thats a lot of devices, but could it happen?
Best Answer
Apple does not update the firmware of third party devices. But the iOS updates are a mixture of firmware and software updates to your phone. The firmware updates make very low-level changes to how the hardware systems operate, allowing for the possibility that the firmware changes in iOS5 changed the behavior of the iPhone's dock connector to make it better compatible with devices that were previously incompatible or only partially compatible.
The best way to get a definite confirmation of that theory is to consult the device manufacturer's support system or user forum. If that's what happened, you won't be the only one who experienced the change.