I believe that most Apple devices have pins only on one side of the Lightning connector socket. A failure in the cable can result in the connector only working one way up.
This can add considerable confusion.
I don't do apple myself however I have marked a few friends' cables with go/no-go sides with a permanent marker. One definite apple advantage, white cables.
I was preparing to upload the connector image and the red/green marked cable appeared before me, so I just uploaded that too.
