Here's What a Headphone Jack to Lightning Adapter Looks Like

[skitidetdu]

It will open the floodgates for 3rd party DAC ranging from really cheap to really expensive. I think the problem is that many op people having expensive headphone won't care about the quality of the D/A conversion and will have a $300+ with a 29$ converter making them sound worse then using them without an adapter

 

[EricTheHalfBee]

Poor decision on Apple's part. Perhaps not for the majority of users, but this certainly alienates users such as myself who care deeply about audio. This to me does not improve audio quality, but rather degrade it for those who already have a good (expensive) setup. Furthermore, I have no intention of using (or purchasing) more useless extraneous adapters just because Apple decided so.

As it has been stated before, there are many of us who have already invested $1000's in headphones and external DACs. Forcing me to use an inferior headphone with a cheap built-in DAC would simply be a deal breaker. Wireless audio quality (for music) has been, and still is, unacceptably poor compared to a wire connection.

I have already switched away from the iPhone for other reasons and this move ensures that I will not be coming back.

What a ridiculous comment. If you already have a DAC and expensive headphones then what difference does it make to you if Apple removes the headphone jack? You're not using it anyway. Why do you need an adaptor is you're ALREADY using an external DAC? Did you even read your comment before you posted?

And who says you need to use an inferior headphone with a built-in DAC (that you assume will be cheap)? There will be plenty of cables/adaptors out there from basic no-frills versions to higher-end ones. Companies like Audeze are separating out the Lightning cable from the headphones, so you only need to buy what you plan to use.

And you're flat out wrong about audio quality. A Lightning to 3.5mm adaptor will be an external DAC with a higher quality AMP than what is in your iPhone. It will actually improve audio quality for many people, especially those with more difficult to drive headphones.,

 

[lordofthereef]

If you sprnt hundreds and truly care that much about sound quality then you won't mind an adapter.

The other 99.999% of the world that uses crappy earbuds anyway won't care... they will just carry on with the bluetooth earbuds Apple provides in the box with the new iPhone.

All of you guys screaming "Quality!" have to remember what an incredible minority you represent. There are hundreds of millions of iPhone users... and only a fraction of a percent of those have "quality" wired headphones. You are simply not a large enough set of customers to worry about when making long term design decisions...

I would be pleasantly surprised if Apple supplied Bluetooth earbuds with their next phone.

I'll go as far as to say I may even pick up the next phone, even despite saying I had no interest (not only because of the 3.5mm removal). This is all subject to the pricing of the device not changing, and I don't see major price hikes happening either.

I can't see them selling stand alone buds for under $200, but if they give us a freebie with the next device that may be enough of a value added for me. Hell, I may even buy the new phone, keep the buds, and sell the device itself barring no other exciting changes; very happy with my 6s plus.

 

[chrup]

I only listen to audiobooks on my iPhone. I usually have 40 of them in a playlist, great for long travels. As of iOS 8.3, there are no more audiobook playlists. So my iPhone 5s and 6+ became useless as audiobook players, once I updated.
So I dug out my old iPhone 4, that maxed out at iOS 7.1.2 where playlists work just fine. iPhone 7?? What do I care? all my current devices look and work like new. The next time I need to upgrade is when LTE networks are no longer supported by mobile carriers, around iPhone 23 or audiobooks are no longer available.

 

[friedmud]

Messed up

 

[robeddie]

In what way could it be "short-sight"? I could entertain too "long-sighted"... i.e. making a change before it's time to make that change.

It's actually YOU (And many others) that are shortsighted. The 3.5mm jack WILL NOT survive forever. It will eventually be retired just like every other port that's ever been on a computing decice. "When" that should happen is up for debate... but the plug will be pulled at some point in the future (see what I did there? ;-)

The problem with you're 'long sighted' vs. 'short sighted' answer is that it's VERY reasonable to assume that in the not very distant future, the lighting port will become the bastard child (with usb C taking over). So one could argue Apple isn't being 'long sighted' whatsoever.

 

[Sakurambo-kun]

Gruber is a moron. He's a walking apologist. Apple does no wrong in his eyes.

Patel was bang on the money with his take. He took on Grubers 'rebuttal' on the CTRL-WALT-DELETE podcast today. This is the most anti consumer thing Apple have ever done, and it will cost them sales. It also nothing like removing the floppy drive. I've only ever owned iPhones, but I can't see myself buying another one now. The iPhone 6 is a ugly mess but at least it works. The 7, with no ability to just plug in my pair of expensive headphones doesn't work. I'll never carry a stupid dongle around, not in a million years.

 

[jblagden]

I disagree, the 30pin was a Apple only standard where as 3.5mm is universally used. It's more akin to Apple dumping CD ROM drives.

Actually, Sandisk used the 30-pin connector for its Sansa Fuse MP3 players.

Also, I wouldn’t liken the 3.5mm headphone jack to optical drives in terms of usage because even though it’s very nice to have a MacBook with an optical drive, you really don’t need it anymore. On the other hand, the 3.5 headphone jack is still widely used, and it probably will be until something better is devised. And by better, I mean something which is still analog. With a digital audio connection, you need an external DAC and amplifier, which increases the cost of the audio gear and it makes it bulkier, as well as potentially making older wired headphones obsolete(bad environmentally).
[doublepost=1466719640][/doublepost]

This is Apple trying to be trendy. I understand the music quality will be better, but there are some customers who don't want to fork over extra money for an adapter and or wireless headphones. The largest problem with the iphone is the battery, why don't they stop trying to get it like a super model (skinny AF) and try to make the battery larger so people can use the phone for what its intended use NOT aesthetic appeal. I do not see the harm in leaving the jack in the phone, let the customer choose what they want versus apple making the decision for everyone.

They could improve audio quality by putting better DACs and amplifiers in iOS devices.

 

[Sakurambo-kun]

I'm sure Apple will sell Bluetooth earbuds, as these products usually have nice margins for Apple and resellers. Maybe these earbuds can be charged through the lightning cable as-well?

Samsung just released some Bluetooth earbuds and they have a two hour battery life. It's not a technology which is ready yet.

 

[lordofthereef]

Samsung just released some Bluetooth earbuds and they have a two hour battery life. It's not a technology which is ready yet.

Even worse. I think it's 1.5 over Bluetooth but 3 on media stored on the device itself.

 

[friedmud]

The problem with you're 'long sighted' vs. 'short sighted' answer is that it's VERY reasonable to assume that in the not very distant future, the lighting port will become the bastard child (with usb C taking over). So one could argue Apple isn't being 'long sighted' whatsoever.

It depends on what you think Apple is going to champion as the solution... personally, I think it will be Bluetooth.
[doublepost=1466719897][/doublepost]

You practically answered your own question here. Apple removed floppy because you could either use the email, USB stick or CD-ROM to transfer the data. Ethernet port was removed when WiFi was on par with gigabit Ethernet and almost everyone used only WiFi. However, there is no better or equally good replacement for 3.5mm jack available. Regarding BT, it's pure **** if you want high quality audio. When BT standard gets there then it's time to remove the jack.

What is the fundamental difference between cdrom, ethernet, wifi and Lightning? Those other changes had THAT fundamental working for them even BEFORE Apple decided to lead the charge of change.

You guys haven't been around very long and/or have poor memories. The outrage after losing both floppy discs and ethernet ports was INCREDIBLE:

Go read some of the comments on this story: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/cr...ion-macbook-pro-drops-ethernet-optical-drive/

Notice how similar they are to the present whining?

 

[hugo7]

Give me Apple stock earbuds. Wired. Crap quality but fine.
Give me bluetooth headphones. Wireless. Decent quality. That works.
Give me wired pro headphones (3.5m jack). Oh yes.
Give me wired pro headphones (lightning) + new iPhone. Okay I'll bite, maybe.

Give me this adapter? No freaking way. Get that junk outta here!

 

[macs4nw]

I just want people to really think about this.

the 3.5MM headphone jack has been aroudn for decades. Is probably the most used audio accessory port in the world. Is found on virtually every single audio devices, portable and static as the primary personal listening method. There have been hundreds of billions of 3.5mm headphones sold over the years.

The 3.5mm headphone jack has won because of its ridiculous simplicity. the port is ridiculously easy and cheap to make and include in any device. Overall it also takes up very little space, can be waterproofed, and has been used in devices as thin as 5mm! (see the iPods that are super thin, but manage to have the jack as well.

Not to even further showcase that the iPhone would be the only Apple device without it. Their laptops, computers and tablets all still have 3.5mm jack for audio too. And the Computers themselves don't even have lightning ports to be able to also take advantage of lightning headsets

So at the end of the day, users of the new iphone without headphone jack will need to either buy new headsets that are lightning MFI compatible (so apple gets license fees, or direct revenues from selling beats), or they benefit from you buying adapters.

At the end of the day, this is costly for the consumer and unless Apple has a tricke up their sleeve that absolutely requires removal of the 3.5mm just to work. It's purely user hostile and is an attempt to sell more lightning headphones to users who likely already have their own headphones.

The cynic in me could easily agree with you, but I like to think that beyond revenue for Apple, this is also a natural progression towards better sound quality, with headphones designed from hereon out with built-in DACs of varying quality. I suspect the industry will follow, just like they usually do.

 

[hackenbacker]

"No headphone port? This is what you do"

No, what you do is refuse to buy the phone (which you don't really need anyway - the iPhone 6 works fine) and if necessary switch to a manufacturer that doesn't completely screw over it's user base by removing ubiquitous ports for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

 

[jblagden]

You guys haven't been around very long and/or have poor memories. The outrage after losing both floppy discs and ethernet ports was INCREDIBLE:

Go read some of the comments on this story: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/cr...ion-macbook-pro-drops-ethernet-optical-drive/

Notice how similar they are to the present whining?

That article is about optical drives, not floppy drives. Besides, by that point, optical discs were becoming unnecessary. At this point, audio quality is the only reason to buy CDs, there’s no reason to keep buying DVDs and you can copy both to a hard drive. And I have to admit, we don’t use Ethernet nearly as much as we used to because Wi-Fi is becoming ubiquitous.

Losing the 3.5mm headphone jack will be a much bigger loss because everyone still uses it and it’s been in use for decades. As a result, the loss of the 3.5mm headphone jack could result in a lot of 3.5mm-equipped headphones being thrown away and replaced with Lightning-equipped ones (to avoid using an adapter).
[doublepost=1466720089][/doublepost]

The cynic in me could easily agree with you, but I like to think that beyond revenue for Apple, this is also a natural progression towards better sound quality, with headphones designed from hereon out with built-in DACs of varying quality. The industry will follow, just like they usually do.

Why not just put a better DAC in the iPhone so all headphones can benefit from it?

 

[EricTheHalfBee]

Gruber is a moron. He's a walking apologist. Apple does no wrong in his eyes.

Patel was bang on the money with his take. He took on Grubers 'rebuttal' on the CTRL-WALT-DELETE podcast today. This is the most anti consumer thing Apple have ever done, and it will cost them sales. It also nothing like removing the floppy drive. I've only ever owned iPhones, but I can't see myself buying another one now. The iPhone 6 is a ugly mess but at least it works. The 7, with no ability to just plug in my pair of expensive headphones doesn't work. I'll never carry a stupid dongle around, not in a million years.

Patel? You mean the guy who said the Apple Watch was garish looking and someone posted a pic of him wearing a tacky studded leather bracelet on the other wrist? Patel is an Apple hating idiot. Can't take him (or anyone who refers to him) seriously.

 

[friedmud]

Samsung just released some Bluetooth earbuds and they have a two hour battery life. It's not a technology which is ready yet.

Poor example... those are truly wireless earbuds (i.e. no wire between them) those are still using very new technology that causes poor battery life.

BT headphones can last for many hours (My Beats Studio Wireless definitely last for 10 hours easily).
[doublepost=1466720292][/doublepost]

That article is about optical drives, not floppy drives. Besides, by that point, optical discs were becoming unnecessary. At this point, audio quality is the only reason to buy CDs, there’s no reason to keep buying DVDs and you can copy both to a hard drive. And I have to admit, we don’t use Ethernet nearly as much as we used to because Wi-Fi is becoming ubiquitous.

Losing the 3.5mm headphone jack will be a much bigger loss because everyone still uses it and it’s been in use for decades. As a result, the loss of the 3.5mm headphone jack could result in a lot of 3.5mm-equipped headphones being thrown away and replaced with Lightning-equipped ones (to avoid using an adapter).
[doublepost=1466720089][/doublepost]
Why not just put a better DAC in the iPhone so all headphones can benefit from it?

It's about both. Read the article/comments again. Either way, it's the same thing... removing ethernet/cdrom/floppy/3.5mm... Apple is always quick to remove old technology and usher in the new.

 

[Tycho24]

Working out is one of those places that most people are willing to sacrifice audio quality for convenience of wireless. especially since in most gym's or workout places, there's a lot of ambient noise anyways.

But what about people who listen at work? or at home? there aren't really any decent affordable wireless headsets that come close to the sound quality of wired. at least not until you start getting into severla hundred dollars in cost. Nevermind the fact that many of us listen to music on other devices besides just our phones. our laptops, our stereo systems, computer system, etc. all using the 3.5mm audio port.

So while like usual, results may vary, when you consider that the 3.5mm oprt is so prolific that most people have multiple headsets using this port, and many people have extremely nice audio quality headsets that would be basically rendered obsolete because of the plug on the other end of the cable (and not an actual technilogical reason) it makes the change a hard pill to swallow by a lot of people.

I'm not against change just to be against it. But Apple needs to be able to showcase to me that dropping the port will have some tangible benefit to us. Apple will need to demonstrate that this is a GOOD thing, and that they had to do it in order to accomplish something.

if they drop the plug, and the only reason they give us is to make it 1mm thinner? than it's change for change sakes, and I dont buy it

You make some good points, but then really veer off to left field, in my opinion.

All of what you said about wireless audio being lower quality is dead on...
It's only when you get to wired headphones that are expensive becoming "obsolete" where you lose me completely.
Why on earth would you think that??
Even this very article we are both commenting on is about an adapter that lets you use a 3.5mm audio jack through the lightning port. It is the general consensus that Apple will include one for free.
I'm gonna happily continue using my studiophile audio equipment for MANY years to come.
It's not obsolete & nobody has brought up a damn thing yet even hinting that in will be in the foreseeable future.

 

[JPLC]

Who are these "common guys" of which you speak and what do they have to do with headphones or Lightning connectors?

Thanks for pointing that out. Sometimes, my iPad gets confused when I type English and my language is set to Dutch. Text correction is a ***.

 

[EricTheHalfBee]

Why not just put a better DAC in the iPhone so all headphones can benefit from it?

It would need to be a better amp. The iPhone DAC is already good. And not all amps can drive all headphones. Especially those that are difficult to drive (odd impedance or capacitance).

And if Apple made a high end amp that could drive any headphone type then people would complain about the added cost for a feature they don't need. You know this is true - it doesn't matter WHAT Apple does- people will complain about it.

 

[jblagden]

It's always funny to come to a TECH forum to find people fighting against technology evolving. If we all opposed everything all the time we would still be using the Apple II.

It’s not just about technology moving forward. It’s about it moving forward senselessly. There’s nothing wrong with the 3.5mm headphone jack. Lightning isn’t any better because it relies on the DAC and amplifier which is built into the speakers or headphones. This would make a lot of headphones obsolete. Now, if we were talking about USB-C, it wouldn’t be so bad because we might actually see that on devices which don’t run iOS. Besides, Lighting-equipped headphones won’t work with anything except the iPhone 5 and later devices. What if you have an older iOS device or a non-Apple device which you’d like to listen to?
[doublepost=1466720858][/doublepost]

It would need to be a better amp. The iPhone DAC is already good. And not all amps can drive all headphones. Especially those that are difficult to drive (odd impedance or capacitance).

And if Apple made a high end amp that could drive any headphone type then people would complain about the added cost for a feature they don't need. You know this is true - it doesn't matter WHAT Apple does- people will complain about it.

They could just live with a slightly lower profit margin, especially considering how popular iPhones are.

Why is it that Apple waited until they got a large customer base before they started soldering in RAM, using a proprietary NVMe connector and getting rid of the extremely common 3.5mm headphone jack?

 

[duffman9000]

It depends on what you think Apple is going to champion as the solution... personally, I think it will be Bluetooth.
[doublepost=1466719897][/doublepost]



You guys haven't been around very long and/or have poor memories. The outrage after losing both floppy discs and ethernet ports was INCREDIBLE:

Go read some of the comments on this story: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/cr...ion-macbook-pro-drops-ethernet-optical-drive/

Notice how similar they are to the present whining?

The difference is neither the optical drive or Ethernet port were replaced by a proprietary port. If Apple would chose to ditch lightning in favor of USB C I would argue this is a good thing. But to replace it with a proprietary port? This reeks of the garbage Nokia used to do. I'm so happy I will never have to deal with Nokia ever again.

 

[jblagden]

My suspicion, if this indeed doe happen, is that Apple would bundle in bluetooth speakers with better-than-average sound quality and the ability to pair and charge via the lightening port. While charging, it would also allow pass-thru audio playback. I think this solution would ameliorate all of your concerns. (easy pairing, good sound quality, based on wireless standard)

No?

We can only hope.

 

[CarlJ]

... and if necessary switch to a manufacturer that doesn't completely screw over it's user base by removing ubiquitous ports for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

It's impressive how much outrage there is in this thread (not just you, lots of people) for something where: a) it hasn't happened yet, and b) if it does happen, nobody has seen how Apple will handle the situation. Apple has a good track record for doing things where the tech crowd says, "THIS WILL ABSOLUTELY NOT WORK", and then six months on, it turns out that Apple's take on the situation is actually pretty nifty. Will that happen this time? I have no idea. But I remember all the outrage and disbelief when they introduced a phone with NO keyboard. That turned out pretty well. And, again, they have a track record of this, doing things that people are sure will be the downfall of western civilization, and then it turns out their implementation is pretty good and they actually did consider the issues that their detractors were saying, "aha! but you forgot _xyz_" about. "Completely screw over" and "for absolutely no reason whatsoever" are pretty... absolute, like painting Tim Cook into monocle-and-white-Persian-cat territory. I don't think that look really works for him. Me, I'll wait and see what the actual implementation is, rather than getting too worked up now.

 

[melendezest]

You make some good points, but then really veer off to left field, in my opinion.

All of what you said about wireless audio being lower quality is dead on...
It's only when you get to wired headphones that are expensive becoming "obsolete" where you lose me completely.
Why on earth would you think that??
Even this very article we are both commenting on is about an adapter that lets you use a 3.5mm audio jack through the lightning port. It is the general consensus that Apple will include one for free.
I'm gonna happily continue using my studiophile audio equipment for MANY years to come.
It's not obsolete & nobody has brought up a damn thing yet even hinting that in will be in the foreseeable future.

I highly doubt that Apple would offer an adapter for free. It would cost more to re-create the functionality the jack provides.

You'd need one of these:

a lightning-to-lightning cable + the (female) adapter
a lightning-to-female 3.5mm jack cable
a USB-to-female 3.5mm jack adapter

I see too many people here forgetting that the jack in question is a receptacle, i.e. a hole.

Apple removing this from a device meant to transmit sound effectively would be spectacularly stupid.