Belkin's $40 Lightning Adapter Lets You Listen to Music and Charge Your iPhone 7 at the Same Time

[Juicy Box]

That's me too....except I use a Bluetooth headset. Driving with wires coming close to the steering wheel or your hands can turn out bad.

I can picture this happening, it could be dangerous. Although it has never happened with me and my set up.

I think it is worth the risk though, I can quickly turn music off, answer phone calls, talk to siri, without looking off the road.

I wonder how many people have died while driving due to Apple's earbuds. Compared that number to the many, many deaths caused by other distractions.

 

[yngrshr]

This ^^^. Apple is likely doing the right thing. It will cause me some trouble, but I'll survive just fine. But let's not go around hoping that others will suffer, simply because they are different from us.

No one is hoping anyone "suffers". However, if your "suffering" (or the "suffering" of a very small minority of users) means technology is advanced and life moves on, it's worth it.

What a first world problem-level response. "Suffer". "Survive". Dear Lord.

 

[juanm]

More kludge for a crippled phone. Why not just get an Android phone and make your life easy?

Because when I've had an Android phone, it made my life less easy.

 

[2010mini]

Blah, blah, blah....

I'm sitting at my desk right now listening to music on my phone while it charges and using my computer to actually work. A couple of hours of gaming drain my phone, it won't get through the day without charging while I work.

For completeness, I'm not an audiophile but I can easily tell my Bose SoundSports or QC25s from cheap bundled headphones.

You realize the solution to this has been around forever?

Use a dock.

They come with a 3.5 and a lightning port.

It's how I've seen all my coworkers listen to music while at their desks with headphones. And all their phones have headphone jacks. the dock keeps their phone at a better angle to change music whenever their desired.

 

[freepomme]

( •́ .̫ •̀ ) Apple done really messed up with this.

 

[truthertech]

Rearrange their lives?? My god it's an adaptor, literally for students and people at a desk you could get the apple dock that has the audio jack built in, if this is "rearranging your life" I'd hate to see how you handle...you know, actual change. "Omg they are out of oranges! Now I'm gonna have to rearrange my whole life to eat a banana or go to another store or just wait until the oranges come back in stock, or get orange juice, this is too much to handle"

To be fair, some people are full of dread at the smallest things. It is why they are over attached to consumer electronic products and personalize the decisions a corporation makes.

You're probably right but for the sake of a few bucks Apple has risked a heap of bad publicity when they could have shipped the wireless buds with the phone. And everyone would have said "wow"!

"For a few bucks." Priceless

 

[2010mini]

I can picture this happening, it could be dangerous. Although it has never happened with me and my set up.

I think it is worth the risk though, I can quickly turn music off, answer phone calls, talk to siri, without looking off the road.

I wonder how many people have died while driving due to Apple's earbuds. Compared that number to the many, many deaths caused by other distractions.

Use a BT headset. You can find noise cancelling ones very cheap nowadays. And you will have better range of motion to look around. The wires limit how far you can turn your head.

 

[bladerunner2000]

Because when I've had an Android phone, it made my life less easy.

'You were using it wrong' ~Steve Jobs

 

[alexgowers]

People need to calm down about the audio jack removal. I mean, who is really crazy... the one who removed an ancient connector from their modern pocket computer, or the one who bought analog headphones for $350 now screaming and shoking... jeez.

Nah headphones are always analog! Even the lighting ones are just a different connector.

If apple had made it USB C then fair enough, but they stuck with lighting which isn't used on any other device and means any non apple product is going to need an adapter.

If they really wanted to do it they should have removed the lighting jack totally, put in wireless charging and be done with it. This is just a way to extract more money for apple ecosystem products! END OF

 

[blacktape242]

40 bucks! yikes!

 

[CarlJ]

Ah, I see, you're including the s cycle. I was assuming the 2017 device would be called the 8 or something completely different because it's the 10th anniversary phone. Carry on.

The tenth anniversary phone is a perfect time for them to change the nomenclature, if they choose to do so. Call it "iPhone", and note that it's the 2017 model. Sadly, the last time they tried not specially naming an iDevice, it didn't go so well. They said, "here is the new iPad", electing to call it just "iPad", and everyone latched on to "New iPad" like that was the canonical name, rather than the name preceded by an obvious adjective describing it, leading to weeks of debate about how stupid a name "New iPad" was. Oddly enough, it works fine with their computers - they say, "this is the new MacBook Pro", and the attached literature calls it "MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015)" or whatever, down in the details, and folks don't get confused, and don't argue about how "New MacBook Pro is a stupid name".

 

[Nicksd84]

People need to calm down about the audio jack removal. I mean, who is really crazy... the one who removed an ancient connector from their modern pocket computer, or the one who bought analog headphones for $350 now screaming and shoking... jeez.

All headphones are analog

 

[freepomme]

⁽⁽(੭ꐦ •̀Д•́ )੭*⁾⁾ I TOLD Y'ALL! I TRIED TO WARN Y'ALL.

 

[MH01]

Not about the money my ass!!! Waterproofing my ass!!

This is what the whole deal was about. Gone from a port that made them zero to solutions that cost $50. Apple getting a cut from each sale.

For the apologists , looks good .... Super compact and convienient. I've gone through this....on a MacBook .... Make sure you show your friends with inferior android devices how awesome your dongles look they will be mega jealous ....

 

[doelcm82]

Is the Lightning-equipped EarPod antiquated tech then?

It's just when you buy an iPhone 7 you have a charging cable and Lightning equipped EarPods in the box.

And we're back at square one.

Good Point. But you can just plug that into the lightning splitter adapter from Belkin, and not be anywhere close to the tangle of wires in your picture. It's when you try to use legacy headphones AND charge at the same time AND use the Belkin adapter that it starts to be dongle to dongle crazy. There's probably going to be a better solution than this Belkin one if that's what you need or want to do.

 

[DevNull0]

Gender changer, most likely, swapping TX and RX and a few of the flow control signals (DTR, DSR, CSR, etc. - been too long).

I was thinking 25-pin serial to 36-pin Centronics parallel coming out of the computer.

 

[Tech198]

Bulky..... but good

 

[nia820]

Holy crap, what a smug and arrogant thing to say. My dream car is a 1993 Porsche 993.... care to enlighten us with more assumptions?

Not only is it smug but it is completely ignorant. I have a 2010 car and it does not have Bluetooth. I rely heavy on the aux port to blast out my tunes.

Many people's cars do not have Bluetooth. Some of the folks on here act like most people have Bluetooth in their car. Very elitist.

 

[themyst]

Wireless audio tech will ALWAYS have latency issues.

For those of us who record vocals or podcast on our iPhones, will the AirPods or Bluetooth headphones have the latency performance of say a conventional headset plugged into a 3.5mm jack for monitoring purposes?

My past experience indicates the answer is no, and Apple's response will be "buy an iPad Pro".

 

[The Game 161]

Problem solved

 

[MH01]

People need to calm down about the audio jack removal. I mean, who is really crazy... the one who removed an ancient connector from their modern pocket computer, or the one who bought analog headphones for $350 now screaming and shoking... jeez.

Given our ears are analogue , and every heaphones in existence , now and future is analogue......even wireless ones...you might want to rethink that statement.

And BT is inferior to wired , so who are the suckers ? Sorry but just some simple research will prove that nothing has changed actually. We got a proprietary connector and the DAC for the heaphones just moved. Still analogue....analogue....analogue

 

[yngrshr]

Not only is it smug but it is completely ignorant. I have a 2010 car and it does not have Bluetooth. I rely heavy on the aux port to blast out my tunes.

Many people's cars do not have Bluetooth. Some of the folks on here act like most people have Bluetooth in their car. Very elitist.

It's elitist to tell someone to get a Bluetooth receiver from Amazon for $15? Anyone can have Bluetooth. Get a Bluetooth receiver, plug it into your AUX port, and boom. Now you have Bluetooth in your 2010 car.

 

[Hunterblake]

Belkin today announced the Lightning Audio + Charge RockStar for the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 7 Plus, an accessory that will allow iPhone 7 users to charge their iPhones and listen to music at the same time.

According to Belkin, the Lightning Audio + Charge RockStar was developed "closely" with Apple, and it does indeed resemble Apple's own iOS adapter accessories. The Lightning connector on the end of the RockStar plugs into the iPhone for passthrough charging (up to 12W), while additional Lightning ports on the device accommodate either the Lightning-based EarPods or headphones with a 3.5mm jack using Apple's 3.5mm to Lightning adapter (included with the iPhone 7).

Belkin's Lightning Audio + Charge RockStar doesn't seem to be a perfect solution to the charging while listening issue. The Lightning end needs to be plugged into the iPhone, while a Lighting cable needs to be plugged into one port for charging and Lightning headphones (or headphones with an adapter) need to be plugged into the other port, resulting in a mess of cables. Adding in the 3.5mm to Lightning adapter makes the situation even worse, with a total of two adapters and a Lightning cord plugged into the iPhone.

The Lightning Audio + Charge Rockstar supports 48 kHz 24-bit audio output and it's able to work with a variety of cases, including the iPhone 7 Smart Battery Case. It is Made for iPhone certified.

Belkin plans to start selling the Lightning Audio + Charge Rockstar on October 10 for $39.95. It will be available from the Belkin website, the Apple online store, and Apple retail stores.

Article Link: Belkin's $40 Lightning Adapter Lets You Listen to Music and Charge Your iPhone 7 at the Same Time

this new listening to music feature with a adaptor is well annoying ;(

 

[skwood]

Wow for a technology forum people sure are adverse to advances in technology. This is iPod connector to lightning, removal of superdrives etc. all over again - my bet is it will become industry standard within 2-3 years and we'll all be amazed we were so attached to an outdated cable type.

 

[MallardDuck]

Wow for a technology forum people sure are adverse to advances in technology. This is iPod connector to lightning, removal of superdrives etc. all over again - my bet is it will become industry standard within 2-3 years and we'll all be amazed we were so attached to an outdated cable type.

Lightning will never be an industry standard. Usb c might. But you still have the one port problem.