Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Here's What a Headphone Jack to Lightning Adapter Looks Like
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
No. Haven't you been reading? Apple hasn't thought any of this through. You're the first person this thought has ever occurred to. It's part of Apples evil plan to inconvenience their customers for no reason other than to sell the expensive dongles, and third party accessories that earn Apple license fees. There is no benefit to the customer whatsoever, and they are doing this at a time when their sales are slumping despite their competition continuing to offer a headphone jack. Apple is supremely out of touch with their customer base, whom they believe are brainwashed enough that they will never leave for the competition no matter what Apple does. /s
Or, that's what others on this forum would have believe if you've been reading. ;-)
Other thing that should be considered, there are several people saying that lightning will bring better audio quality. We get news every month that Apple will kill iTunes music purchase in favour of Apple Music. So, if with regular port you can clearly pay attention to the audio compression, how will it sound with 'better earphones'? It will kill the listening experience. They can (and should) start a ALAC subscription, but this implies in much larger files.
I think you're right. However, after dealing with an iPhone connecting to multiple devices simultaneously, it's a poor solution. Maybe the next iPhone will somehow have miraculously better bluetooth, but I will probably be stuck having to choose to connect to one bluetooth device at a time.
For people that haven't seen this behavior yet, connecting to multiple devices may causes audio to skip and pop. It depends on the equipment being used, but Apple being Apple I'm sure they'll ask us to upgrade our cars before trying to fix the problem on their end.
What everyone overlooks in all of this is that Apple has the telemetry regarding how many customers are plugging 3.5MM headphones into their phones vs. using Bluetooth or nothing at all. Like the floppy drive, optical drive, firewire, and other such technology Apple will remove it when they no longer see the majority requiring it and they can save a few bucks manufacturing the thing.
Sorry, removing the headphone jack is quite different than removing the floppy disk drive. Also, will Apple have the decency to ditch their Lightning port for USB C so that headsets don't have to be proprietary? Somehow I think not.
[doublepost=1466785361][/doublepost]
[doublepost=1466785361][/doublepost]
Compressing compressed audio. Nothing is better than losing even more of an already lossy format.
I think my $40 Monoprice BT earbud sound better than the apple freebies so I don't care. But it is nice to have the 3.5 mm jack for connecting to my 10 yr old car system.
I suppose "lightning headphones" have integrated DA as well, and at that size, probably not for the better...
Who says that a lightning connected headset has to have its own DAC?
Sure, it does today, but Lightning is a proprietary connector. There's nothing at all that says Apple won't rev it to allow for analog pins starting with iPhone 7.
Without the use of an adapter, tell me how that works. Physically, only one thing can be plugged in the phone. So to charge and listen I'll need a Y connector to connect the headphones and charging cable. Either as a seperate accessory or as part of the headphone cable, adding bulk to that cable. And I'm pretty confident that those $20 earbuds will not have a passthough connector. Right now, I charge my phone through the Lighning port and connect my 3.5mm earbuds to listen to music. Not giving up those earbuds. I'll need a Y adapter to charge and listen and a Lightning to 3.5mm adapter.
That's progress???
"Lightning is an 8-pin connector which carries a digital signal."
That would cause a lot of confusion when people are not able to connect their "lightning headphones" to an ipad...
Or they will incorporate a new proprietary adapter just for the iphone, which is very unlikely.
I'm an electrical engineer by trade and education (masters, Stanford). I know the 3.5mm jack in all its variations quite well. Probably better than most on this forum. My company has an entire group that deals with it. I also know the implications for getting rid of it. Ask any engineer who works with this damn thing - they all hate it.
Apple is doing the right thing here, despite what shortsighted reactionaries and trolls on the internet think. You'll see every other major doing the same shortly.
Great, you've made your point, aaaaaand where is the substance? If you had been electrical engineer by trade and education (masters, Stanford), I surely would've expected more.
I'm grandmaster ACDC, hear hear of my approval.
I agree, in fact I posted this same solution several weeks ago in the previous "outrage" thread concerned with the removal of the analog headphone port.
Just because Apple hasn't implemented this in the past doesn't mean that they couldn't in the future, on the next iPhone.
This is another case where the proprietary nature of the lightning jack hurts the industry. Anyone wanting to make one will have to be Apple certified, and certified hardware usually carries an expensive price tag. I wouldn't be surprised to see official Apple adapters cost $70, and probably $30-40 from others, which is a huge money grab IMO. But that's not even the biggest issue. Soon enough there will be plenty of headphones out there with a lightning connector, well enough but what happens when you switch phones, or want to use the same headphones in the other bazillion devices which have a 3.5mm jack? Well I suppose you can buy a lightning to 3.5mm adapter, but it's just seems a bit ironic to do that. So while I completely agree we need to move beyond the 3.5mm jack, it just seems that a standard should be in place and everyone required to use it.
But why are you looking forward to it? What do you think you are getting out of this day one? What does the removal of the jack do? Keep in mind you can still use the lightning port for audio devices.
I've been an Apple fan for a long time, but this really isn't a customer friendly move now (all the analogies being used are quite broken).
Do you mind elaborating? I'd love to know what bugs them about it. I thought the TRRS (might have the wrong term, but the four "band" version that allows for the controller on apples earbuds) configuration was pretty clever, but I'd love to hear from an actual engineer what kind of things they deal with.
Thanks
You've likely got lint in the iPhone's connector. Take a plastic tooth pick (or anything non-conductive) and probe around inside the connector to withdraw any lint or dirt and then use an air blower to finish the job. If that doesn't work then try a small amount of electrical cleaner to swap the contacts on both the cable and the iPhone.
Good to know. But it's certainly not what the people on the plane are saying, sadly. So yeah, bad information on my part.
Well, I know what I'm doing on my next flight.
To the people decrying the end of the world that they may not be able to charge and listen at the same time, how often are you actually doing that? And is it because you don't charge your phone overnight, or is it because you use battery heavy apps (music streaming/video) that require a mid-day charge?
I've literally never done both, but I've got a night-time routine down to plug all my devices in (watch, phone, occasionally iPad) before I go to sleep and my usage doesn't drain the battery past 40% remaining most days.
I've literally never done both, but I've got a night-time routine down to plug all my devices in (watch, phone, occasionally iPad) before I go to sleep and my usage doesn't drain the battery past 40% remaining most days.
The 3.5mm jack is standard, not just for consumer products, so it is fairly hard to drop it, you could, but then it has to be all proprietary.
Nothing! But it takes major step to move on. If they kill it the industry will shift very quickly. These days there aren't that many leaders. Mostly followers
Hold on- do you think that the entire audio industry (beyond phones) is going to dump 3.5mm for Lightning? Why?