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Apple Introduces Lightning Cable MFi Specifications for Headphones

Jeez! People whinging about something that hasn't happened or come out yet.
If you don't think there will be either a lightning to 3.5mm adapter or 2 input options actually on the headphones (3.5mm and lightning inputs), then you are crazy.
 
Very interesting. Who needs a PONO player or whatever it's called when I can slide a big massive lightning dock into my iPhone 6 and get it to sing in 48 kHz glory
 
pgiguere1 said:
I guess that means high-end headphones will be able to use their own DAC in order to produce better sound, since the one in the iPhone, while not bad per se, is of course limited by cost and size constraints.
Click to expand...

No no no. High end headphones will never come with dac build in. If your referring to a Lod they can do that currently, but that means a separate DAC.

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lolkthxbai said:
The article states that the specification allows for the headphones to charge your iPhone and vice versa.
Click to expand...

How does a headphone charge a phone? New Beats power pack solo??
 
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. I couldn't imagine throwing it in a bag or pocket, they would break in like a day. The 30 pins would work even when the damn things were nearly falling apart, the lightings get one little kink in the cable and they are trash.

But who wants headphones with a propriety jack?
 
Here's this possibility: an external portable headphone amplifier that connects directly to the Lightning connector and on the amplifier, includes full controls for volume, track selection and even audible fast forward/rewind on the amplifier. And the amp will work with any decent headphone to drive it to decent volume. Imagine with the external amp, even the difficult-to-drive Etymotics ER-4 in-ear headphones sound great.
good2.gif
 
captain kaos said:
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.
Click to expand...

How about 2 lightning port or make it 3

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MH01 said:
How does a headphone charge a phone? New Beats power pack solo??
Click to expand...

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

Headphone with battery pack and storage.
 
goobot said:
No thanks. I want a standard for something like this. Not for every other company to have their own port. This means no ones headphones work with each other. OG iPhone anyone? Just make a smaller standard. Pretty sure there is already a 2.5mm jack out there actually.
Click to expand...

A bigger problem would be inability to charge the device when it is connected to lightning headphones. Or, perhaps this is a sign that wireless induction based charging is finally coming to iPhone.
 
Chaos123x said:
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. I couldn't imagine throwing it in a bag or pocket, they would break in like a day. The 30 pins would work even when the damn things were nearly falling apart, the lightings get one little
kink in the cable and they are trash.

But who wants headphones with a propriety jack?
Click to expand...

Wow. I've owned lightning devices since their inception and have yet to have one that has broken or Is faulty. That sucks.
 
I'd rather get wireless headphones that transmit over wifi. Would be way more futuristic.

I can see how this connection could be useful for active noise canceling headphones, as they can be powered by the iphone instead of batteries.
 
There is no need to use the frickin lightning cable for HD sound. Just put the converte into the phone and don't offload the cost to the headphone guys. How do you think audiophiles listened to music so far?
It's about establishing a de facto monopoly:
"The beauty about standards is, there are so many to chose from these days..."
 
Chaos123x said:
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. I couldn't imagine throwing it in a bag or pocket, they would break in like a day. The 30 pins would work even when the damn things were nearly falling apart, the lightings get one little kink in the cable and they are trash.

But who wants headphones with a propriety jack?
Click to expand...

Sounds like a personal problem (or a fictitious one). If you're breaking that many cables on a bedside charging set up, I'm going to have to assume it's user error. What do you do, sleep on your plugged in phone?
 
A headphone jack is a headphone jack. There are many variations, lengths, etc., but usually a GOOD manufacturer will include ADAPTERS, such as the mini jack pass-through adapter to a 1/4" jack for receivers, recorders, etc. (i.e., the professional standard).

Lightning jacks will go the way of Thunderbolt..... only Apple will insist their users upgrade to them, while waiting for 3 years for the adapters and the actual headphones to appear. FAIL.

I just may stick with my iPhone 4S for a bit longer. After all, my $300 Bose Comfort 15 over-the-ear headphones are a $100 more expensive than Beat-Me-Silly, and they are made of better quality and have a fantastic trade-in policy (if your Bose headphones fail outside of the warranty period, they will sell you a new pair for $99, instead of having to buy a new pair at $299. Top that, Apple!).

Not only that, but the Bose headset adapters for Apple iPhone include a variety of adapters to fit other smartphones, dumb phones, etc. Apple doesn't do that, either.

Bose: 1. Apple: 0. Beats: -1.
 
Chaos123x said:
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. I couldn't imagine throwing it in a bag or pocket, they would break in like a day. The 30 pins would work even when the damn things were nearly falling apart, the lightings get one little kink in the cable and they are trash.

But who wants headphones with a propriety jack?
Click to expand...

So you've had 4 different cables, made by different people (possibly in different factories?) at different times, but they've all ended up with the same symptoms?

Genuinely no offence meant here, but the only common denominator here is you and however you're using the cables.

I'm still using a spare Lightning cable (that I bought with my iPhone 5 on launch day) as a bedside charger.

It's plugged into a 12w iPad charger and I use it to charge my 5S or my iPad Air every night.

It's in the same condition today (21 months after I got it), as it was when it was delivered with my i5 on launch day.
 
If jacks get removed or DACs made worse, it means phones actually going backwards, like the old ones which only had damned USB or proprietary connectors for headsets
 
If you're going to be able to hear any difference. In sound quality it won't be in headphones. Anyway I thought the future would be going wireless like most Apple products. I would much rather Apple spend the money on developing technology to stream decent audio wirelessly to headphones rather than by fashion accessory beats
 
Headphones with a proprietary port… and they're Beats. I can't think of anything worse.

This whole digital authentication thing on Lightning cables shouldn't even be legal. I've had perfectly legitimate Lightning to USB cables stop charging the phone, stop syncing, or something else. It's like HDCP on HDMI. Glitchy security mechanisms that end up screwing over consumers who play by the rules!

The funny thing is that these new fakes I bought from eBay work better than the "certified" ones from TJMax and such. $8 for 10 of them, indistinguishable from Apple's cables, and working 100% of the time. They even came in the same plastic wrapping that Apple uses. In fact, I was a bit suspicious.
 
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