Headphones with iPhone.

[old-wiz]

I don't have an iPhone, but I'm looking into it.

I saw someone in a restaurant yesterday, and he had headphones on and was (I presume) listening to music from his iPhone. The phone rang and he just picked it up and started talking. What I don't understand is that I thought you could only use headphones that also had a microphone on the cord. It appeared to me that he was talking directly to the iPhone microphone while still using the headphones.

The older cheap phones would disable the microphone as soon as you pluged into the headphone jack. When did this change?

Is this feature unique to iPhone or is it now common on newer phones to still be able to use the phone microphone while listening via the headphones?

Would that mean an older style headphone with microphone wouldn't work with an iPhone?

Thanks for any assistance.

 

[Gib]

EDIT -- sorry, I didn't realize you meant the iPhone mic, not the one on the headset.

 

[noekozz]

you didn't know that? I've done it with all my iPhones, doesn't matter if the headphones have a mic or not.

 

[old-wiz]

you didn't know that? I've done it with all my iPhones, doesn't matter if the headphones have a mic or not.

Nope; I'm still using an older phone cause.

What about a headset that has a microphone? I thought the Apple earbuds for the phone also had a microphone? How does the phone tell the difference or is the mic always on when you call, regardless of headphones?