There was an interesting post on Reddit that claims that the recently released iPadOS 26.5 may be breaking unauthorized third party accessories that use the Smart Connector. By ‘unauthorized’ I mean accessories not made by Apple or official licensees like Logitech.

Since I have an iPad on 26.5 and another on 26.4.2, I decided to test this myself. I used the Kuxiu Magnetic Smart Connector charger since I have one for both of my iPad Pros.

With the iPad that’s on 26.4.2, the charger works as expected when I connect it.

On the 26.5 iPad, however, the charger seems to be working intermittently, but mostly not. I can sometimes get the charger to work after a restart, but it generally won’t resume charging when reconnected.

This is a sample size of just a few people, so I can’t say for sure this is a widespread thing, but I figured I’d call this out in case you’re someone with one of these accessories as part of your setup. I know Kuxiu specifically makes a desk stand that uses the Smart Connector.

We Need a Real Third Party Smart Connector Program

When I reviewed the Kuxiu charger, I noted that it looked like it was working via a hack (pretending to be a keyboard) and that I was afraid an iPadOS update might prevent this type of accessory from working in the future. It appears this concern was warranted.

What this does is highlight how Apple needs to have a program for other companies (that aren’t Logitech) to make use of the Smart Connector in a cost-effective way. Or at the very least, make it part of the MFI accessory certification program. Companies shouldn’t need to resort to reverse-engineering and hacks to use the Smart Connector.