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Bars_12

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 17, 2016
40
15
will the upcoming new apple lightning headphones be backward compatible with iphone 5/5c/5s/6/6s/5se?
 

shftoptk

macrumors member
Feb 25, 2016
58
32
USA
We can only guess right now. And I think it's safe to say Apple will stop selling their current earpods and replace them with lightning based ones. So yes, they will work on all devices with a lightning port. It would make absolutely no sense for apple to limit their own product to the 7 only. And on the technical side of it, lightning headphones are already purchasable, so there is no reason for apple's or any others to not to work on older devices.
 

C DM

macrumors Sandy Bridge
Oct 17, 2011
51,392
19,461
will the upcoming new apple lightning headphones be backward compatible with iphone 5/5c/5s/6/6s/5se?
It doesn't seem like anyone would know what a supposed product might potentially support or not support.
 
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T'hain Esh Kelch

macrumors 603
Aug 5, 2001
6,485
7,461
Denmark
1. No one would know until they are announced.
2. We don't even know if there will be lightning-only headphones from now on.
3. Highly likely, since you can already buy lightning headphones that have worked since iOS8 on all lightning capable iPhones.
 

Cwolk

macrumors regular
Jun 3, 2015
147
92
NJ, USA
Lightning headphones work with lightning ports, so there is no good reason they wouldn't work with the 5-6s. The only plausible possibility is if Apple makes them incompatible on purpose to promote the 7.
 

Aditya_S

macrumors 6502a
Jan 25, 2016
500
111
Lightning headphones work with lightning ports, so there is no good reason they wouldn't work with the 5-6s. The only plausible possibility is if Apple makes them incompatible on purpose to promote the 7.
I think they will make it work with the 5-6s, but there may be a really small chance that they include a feature on the headphones that only works with the 7.
 

blackboxxx

macrumors regular
Sep 10, 2008
154
118
I think they will make it work with the 5-6s, but there may be a really small chance that they include a feature on the headphones that only works with the 7.
Heart rate sensor built into lightning headphones would be a good addition to HealthKit ecosystem.
 

kyykesko

macrumors 6502
Nov 11, 2015
452
291
I just wish they would come up with a Lightning II port that's not downwards compatible with the current lightning port and use that for all communication in the iPhone 7. The optimal version would look very much like some existing connector but would fry the phone if you plugged in the wrong cable. Of course you'd be able to buy a dongle to convert Lightning II to the current lightning for a measly $79.

Whether lightning headphones work or not - who cares? Who's actually buying headphones with a proprietary connector that can't be used with any other device? People who only own an iPhone?
 
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