Apple Introduces Lightning Cable MFi Specifications for Headphones

[sshambles]

How thin do you really what your phone to be? Try this exercise. Take your debit card out your wallet and try talking into it. How does it feel?

Perfection!

 

[iSayuSay]

Except competition always pushes prices down. Apple is offering the lighting audio option to all it's partners. Prices may be high at first (personally doubt they'll be more expensive than the same model audio jack headphones) but eventually they'll get more reasonably priced. Just look at the price of lighting cables themselves. $20 when they first came out & now 3rd parties can be had for $8-10.

This will be a slow transition & betting their will be 3.5mm to lightning adapters too.

Yeah well I'd like to use my headphones for general use. Not just for iPhone, iPad or iPods. I also use it for the laptop, some portable consoles and many more. So 3.5mm standard is important to me. Oh and I don't want another tiny, easy-to-lose frickin' adapter to carry.

But soon Apple devices will come with proprietary audio port just like what Nokia, SonyEricsson, Siemens did with their phones back in the 90s. Different headset for different brands, make sure you don't mismatch those.. Ughh

 

[newdeal]

I'd assume. . . hope that they would make adapters for other headphones. I use my Bose headset for my MacBook Air all the time, which doesn't have a lightning port. It would be a royal mistake to make people buy more than one set of headphones that are only compatible with one device, especially other Apple devices.

The headphones would just come with an adaptor in the box. It would be dumb also for headphone makers to make headphones that can only be used on lightning. More likely they will be 3.5 as they are now and you will need to buy an adaptor for 3.5 to lightning from apple which will also be expensive because it will need to do some sort of audio decoding lol

 

[iSayuSay]

How thin do you really what your phone to be? Try this exercise. Take your debit card out your wallet and try talking into it. How does it feel?

Great actually. But it has to has awesome battery life, full HD screen, cannot be cracked and water resistant.

But it would be technologically impossible at this time. Now this is what I call "magical"

 

[diazj3]

I disagree in that its not about the streaming service, its about offering 'HD audio' in iTunes for sale.

I agree that the electronics hardware does not appear to be an essential driver for music sales. It probably is more about showing consumers this is how 'HD Audio'' works and they already know the Beats brand. Throw in a few celebs and artists wearing their Beats and you have something to heavily market.

Same page... I meant, strategically speaking it was more about the streaming service than the HW, IMO. Not to say that the HW doesn't provide a nice market share in the headphone business along with a nice cash flow to sweeten the deal.

And yes, you are probably right in that regard - for a segment of the consumer (vs prosumer) market, it's not really about audio quality, but about new gadgets, shallow style and heavy advertising. It's worked for Beats so far.

Cheers!

 

[OmegaRed1723]

How was the 3.5mm jack keeping us from enjoying higher bitrate audio? Last time I checked, my Beyerdynamic T90's play 24bit-192kHz material just fine with a standard plug. We do not need another proprietary connection for something as ubiquitous as headphones.

 

[D.T.]

Dual lightning connectors?

A simple charging passthrough like the Apple AV adapter would work. Maybe they’ll release a nice charging dock with an additional port. Lots of ways to solve this, +but+ I think it’s highly unlikely we’ll see the 3.5mm port leave in the near future.

No thanks lighting cables are way to fragile. I have went through 4 official lighting cables this year just with it being used as charger at my bedside.

Holy smokes. Maybe you’re chewing on them in your sleep

 

[rotax]

There is already an optical audio combo port on the macbook pros. I wonder why they just don't use that standard already in place.

I think a big part of the idea is that the headphones can use power from the device for an external amplifier. This has always been a drawback for headphones, a lack of power. I have used in ear Shure headphones for this reason instead of headphones. All of that having been said, I think people wearing these large headphones out and about is kind of silly looking, so I will likely stay to the high quality in ear products, but for use at home, I enjoy a good set of sennheisers. Never tried Beats... yet.

 

[chaosbunny]

That would be cool and original. And also please add 16gig storage for more music.

Headphone with battery pack and storage.

Wouldn't that get a little bit heavy?

How thin do you really what your phone to be? Try this exercise. Take your debit card out your wallet and try talking into it. How does it feel?

Pah, oldschool! I want it implanted into my brain so that everytime I laugh it automatically posts "lol" on facebook!

 

[unplugme71]

I can see the internal space of the headphone jack being useful for other things, but using the lightning connector stops you form being able to charge the phone while using headphones. Of course if things shift to wireless charging that would negate that point, but you'd also have to have MFI headphones, you couldn't bring along your own set of favourite headphones with an old school jack. Unless we start having 3.5mm to lighting converters, but that starts to get messy.

I'm all up for removing the headphone jack. I'd hope Apple makes a pass through adapter. This way if you listen to just music, you plug the headphones right in. If you want to listen and charge, there's a short cable that you connect between the phone and headphones that allows you to charge as well.

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I think a big part of the idea is that the headphones can use power from the device for an external amplifier. This has always been a drawback for headphones, a lack of power. I have used in ear Shure headphones for this reason instead of headphones. All of that having been said, I think people wearing these large headphones out and about is kind of silly looking, so I will likely stay to the high quality in ear products, but for use at home, I enjoy a good set of sennheisers. Never tried Beats... yet.

I enjoy my Sennheiser headphones as well. Best ~$300 spent. However, I would never wear them out as they also include a microphone for voice chat. My Bose in-ear headphones are what I enjoy for outdoors, including the gym, as the earbuds stay comfortable and not fall out either.

 

[powers74]

Haven't used my headphone jack for ages, to the point I covered up my headphone jack. Eliminating the extra hole in the case plus the space inside makes all sorts of sense. Frankly, using wired headphones is so old school in an age where Apple is pushing wireless, it's just a matter of time before wired headsets go away altogether.

That, or:





Wow, let's freak out.

 

[TMay]

Just seems like an iterative use of the lightning port. Proprietary ports are something most consumer tech companies would try to avoid imo. I think Apple will gain some traction with this though. There are enough Apple diehards who will buy just because of this

It wouldn't be hard to imagine that digital audio was always on the roadmap for Lightning, and I also expect that there are working TB to Lightning adaptors in the lab, though we may never see them released, as well as future bandwidth extensions to Lightning. With the numbers of iDevices in the wild, there will be a replacement market large enough to warrant Lightning as a standard interface for a wide range of connected hardware.

The question I would have is whether Lightning morphs to TB for ARM, i.e., low power devices, and when will I be able to connect my iDevice to a 4K monitor?

 

[emjaycee18]

I think an elegant solution would be having both a 3.5mm port and a Lightning port in the headphones themselves. The same ports in the iPhone, located to the headphones. Then you could swap between audio or Lightning cables depending on what you plug into and avoid those stupid limits.

This would obviously require the existence of a Lightning-to-Lightning cable to take advantage of the iPod Lightning port, though. And a Lightning-to-USB adapter to plug into a Mac, unless Apple wants to replace USB with Lightning all of a sudden.

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Same thing happened when they started introducing USB: now we can't imagine computers without those ports.

Let's use Beat Studio headphones as an example. The 3.5mm cable is separate from the headphone even right now. Something like this would just have to ship with 2 different cables and it would support both the Lightning and 3.5mm jack with no adapters necessary.

 

[Kingmoak]

A lot of people here are trumpeting that only Beats would have this.
But its MFi so anyone can be certified, Bose, sennheiser, Sony...

People also fail to realize that Bluetooth headphones/headsets can use this MFi lightning spec also. So no more carrying around a lightning and USB Micro.
The EU did adopt USB Micro as their defacto charging port, but USB Micro will be phased out by USB-c. Apple will want to avoid the USB-c spec.

So if you are a headphone maker and apple is offering charging your BT headphones (at the very least and audio if you want) with lightning (a standard for iPhones) or to adopt the new USB-c (which no one owns, yet) what do you choose?

 

[Menel]

A lot of people here are trumpeting that only Beats would have this.
But its MFi so anyone can be certified, Bose, sennheiser, Sony...

People also fail to realize that Bluetooth headphones/headsets can use this MFi lightning spec also. So no more carrying around a lightning and USB Micro.
The EU did adopt USB Micro as their defacto charging port, but USB Micro will be phased out by USB-c. Apple will want to avoid the USB-c spec.

So if you are a headphone maker and apple is offering charging your BT headphones (at the very least and audio if you want) with lightning (a standard for iPhones) or to adopt the new USB-c (which no one owns, yet) what do you choose?

MicroUSB only if the charger cable is pigtailed from the charger, and not detachable.

Otherwise; USB A connector on charger as Apple does is the spec.

 

[zipa]

Standard pin is analog so quality would improve a lot.

Sound entering your ears is analog, so it wouldn't make any difference what so ever.

 

[jkichline]

Missing the possibility

While charging your noise-cancelling headphones from the Lightning port is a great concept, I think we are missing the real point... The Lightning port has the possibility to send high resolution, digital audio in multiple channels to a set of headphones.

Right now these devices are limited to analog, stereo inputs. But what if you could send five, 24bit, 96k digital audio streams to a set of headphones, and configure them right on the phone. Completely noise free, surround sound with a dedicated bass channel anyone?

 

[6836838]

Very clever Apple!

But seriously, why not just improve the internal DAC? I'd like to use my custom bud IE80's in other devices thanks. Not least my Apogee DAC on the Mac.

As for firmware upgrading HEADPHONES, what a joke! Beats should focus on the sound quality of the drivers.

I can however see this being great for CarPlay, especially when it comes to firmware upgrades etc.

BT4 can already deliver lossless audio to speakers, so this really is just Apple trying to lock everyone into their ecosystem....

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Sound entering your ears is analog, so it wouldn't make any difference what so ever.

And how do you think it gets to be analog in the first place?

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One more thing in reference to charging and using headphones - it wouldn't be difficult to add two lightning ports to an iphone...

 

[spinedoc77]

Welcome to the future, where you have to buy new headphones if you switch to Android

Meh, technology changes. I don't see phones or tablets getting much thinner unless they do away with the traditional headphone jack. Granted the lightning adapter is very proprietary, although personally I HIGHLY prefer it over mini usb which sucks a$$ IMO. Maybe we will see a mini usb power connector with headphones that can be inserted as easily as the lightning connector, is as durable, and can be inserted upside down or right side up. At least Apple is pushing the hardware envelope in this sense, although the downer is it's a push in such a proprietary direction.

 

[Jakexb]

I assume they're doing this to make extremely devices. There just won't be room for 1/8in connectors in future devices (like a wearable).

 

[6836838]

Let's use Beat Studio headphones as an example. The 3.5mm cable is separate from the headphone even right now. Something like this would just have to ship with 2 different cables and it would support both the Lightning and 3.5mm jack with no adapters necessary.

Your first mistake was buying Beats headphones.

 

[Glideslope]

I can see it now... Introducing Lightning Beats.

Nope. "Beats Air."

 

[Glassed Silver]

Be honest, how many of us, on a regular basis, actually use headphones while charging an iDevice? That being said, I hope doesn't charge an arm and a leg for a lightning to 3.5 adapter.

Quite often actually, since Apple makes it so necessary to lug a travel battery around for me.
Thinnification over battery.

Glassed Silver:mac

 

[zipa]

And how do you think it gets to be analog in the first place?

In the first place? Most likely by being played with analog instruments...



Also, Lighting doesn't offer analog output, so you can't have a lighting to 3.5 mm adapter. You would need to get an external (power hungry or heavy due to own battery) DAC or throw away your $700 Sennheisers and get some Dr. Beats instead...



And doesn't Lightning already do digital out?

 

[Preclaro_tipo]

floppy

Welcome to the future, where you have to buy new headphones if you switch to Android

I remember the outcry, the gnashing of teeth, those who claimed to (and I assumed followed through completely) switch to windows when Apple ditched the floppy disk. If true 48k digital was put through to a noise canceling headphones/earbuds...and you wanted to switch to Android to listen to MP3 with whatever DAC hardware was included on the phone you switch to, buh-bye.

I think quality would win more customers than it would cost.

[and I am assuming an iTunes Music Store change to up the quality of the music in conjunction with this supposed lighting headphones]

::I realize you're probably speaking sarcastically in anticipation of 'those' comments and you may not feel that way yourself, either way, I'm speaking to those who I (also) anticipate will react as you described.