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iPhone 7 May Ship With Lightning-Connected EarPods, New Wireless Earphones Also Under Development
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No those are the ones that lay on top of the ears. The battery life per charge is really good.
Well, the best one is Sennheiser Momentum, 2 other Sennheisers, JVC and AKG. Well, it aint Fidelio.
- I use my headphones with my phone (calls, music, audiobooks), iPad (movies/TV shows) and my laptop (Lync conferences, music) when traveling. This means I have to constantly take this thing on and off, and it's bound to get lost or forgotten in some hotel room or airplane sooner or later. And if that happens or I forget to pack it in the first place, I'm SOL, since this is not an item that you will be able to buy at every airport kiosk like normal headphones.Adaptor lightning -3.5 mm
whats the fuss about?
you don't want it, you get wireless headphones. Whats the fuss?
You already own wireless? Then its OK.
you already own wired headphones? Just get an adaptor, put it on cable and forget it. Whats the fuss about?
- The connector in your picture is actually not an audio connector. A female 3.5mm connector is significantly bigger and will not fit into such a tiny adapter. If Apple doesn't add analog out to Lightning, they'll also have to put a DAC and headphone amp somewhere, which again will make it significantly bigger.
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Meaning it will not only be incompatible with all existing wired headphones, but wireless ones as well?
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This is an actual laptop USB to 3.5mm adapter, which has been hacked for use on a Galaxy using a micr-USB connector. That's actually pretty darn small, and considering its age and purpose, will likely be much smaller as designed by Apple and others, since now it serves a completely different purpose.
This is an actual laptop USB to 3.5mm adapter, which has been hacked for use on a Galaxy using a micr-USB connector.
Holy ****, that's ridiculous. I certainly wouldn't complain if I had headphones with some obscure and/or obsolete connection, but I am not willing to accept to use such a dongle on my iPhone when being on the road just to plug in my 3,5 mm in-ears like in EVERY other smartphone / portable audio player...
So, now getting rid of the 3.5mm adapter is OK, as long as it's a standard Android will be using? Good to know.
You are forgetting though, until Apple 'invents' it then it simply doesn't exist, including waterproof phones and tablets.
I've designed DACs at the circuit level and have been granted patents on audio system hardware. How 'bout you?
Internal audio hardware (connected to an 3.5 mm jack) has subtle (and sometimes no-so-subtle) problems. Professional audio engineers know this well.
Nope. Lighting port specification allows dynamic re-assignment of pins for any purpose. Headphone adapter just needs to specify that it's a headphone adapter and wants tip ring ring sleeve on pins 4,5,11, and 12. Lighting cables already have a chip in them, so that's not more space. DAC is internal to iPhone already, it's exactly the same as headphone jack quality. Different wire path, same DAC, same signal. Done. Still probably $20 from Apple though.
An adapter should probably be a 6" cable for strain relief purposes, but could otherwise be as small as the normal lighting connector and headphone jack physically allow. Bumps in a headphone cable. ... I'd rather not get rid of the headphone jack, but this makes more sense than moving to the silly 2.5 mm jack some phone have used.
Which is exactly what I was referring to with the first part of the sentence that you decided to remove from your quote for some reason. But even if Apple decides to do that, it still has to be specified, implemented and documented so 3rd party manufacturers can build compatible headphones too. And it would of course remove the excuse that they do this to somehow improve the audio quality that has been thrown around in this thread.
Which is exactly what I was referring to with the first part of the sentence that you decided to remove from your quote for some reason. ....
Sorry, you're right, 28 pages of comments made my eyes blurry. I happened to grab that quote from you when I was generically responding to the repeated claim that all headphone adapters would be gigantic. Apple'll absolutely make an analog path adapter, it's by far the cheapest and the sound quality would be great. The ability to power a DAC and make high quality headphones is available already. So both will certainly be options. The reason to drop the port is size. Considering all else on the iPhone, the 3.5 mm jack is gigantic.
Apple won't need to specify pinouts to anybody if they don't want to, just supply an adapter. But I suspect they will provide specs along with the MFI program. Anything with a lightning connector goes through the MFI program. Of course nothing would be released publicly before an actual phone is released, so nobody can officially make these products ahead of launch.
No, I admit I'm not that well qualified. But I don't see how talking about a DAC outputting "x bits of audio levels" makes any sense. The output of a DAC is analogue, and by definition therefore has no "levels", whether 16 or 24 bit. It's a waveform, surely.
Interesting take. I've been correcting people on these threads everytime this comes up that the Lightning adapter is capable of sending whatever signal Apple wants, which is one of its big advantages. My feeling was that outputting analogue audio is not what Apple is trying to do here -- they want to push people to wireless solutions, and digital lightning solutions as a backup. The advantage for Apple is that they only have to worry about the quality of audio required by the low-quality iPhone speaker, earpiece, and mic (ADC). Headphone/speaker manufacturers will be able to match the DAC and amp to the capabilities of the headphone/speakers, and all Apple has to do is stream the sound file on their end. An expensive adapter, helps move people away from 3.5mm to something else. While Apple can do a cheap analogue adapter, they've never chosen to do that before, not in the last 4 Lightning docks which include a 3.5mm jack. I can't help but think if they ever intended to do that, they would have already in those overpriced docks which has gotten them a lot of criticism.
But let's say they've had a change of heart. In order to make an analogue output compatible with previous Lightning devices that only have 9 pins, then they will have to keep the audio signals on the first 9. So that's 1 tip, two rings and 1 sleeve. Also, any adapter that Apple offers for Audio is almost certainly going to have to offer a Lightning passthrough jack, so the device can be charged while listening to audio. Which means it has to maintain compatibility with any pins any legacy device may also need to use. If no device uses more than the same 5 pins, then this would be a viable option. If any device uses anything different, then compatibility problems will start cropping up. Likewise, Apple would have to dedicate at least 3 pins on the new 17 pin connector to avoid future compatibility problems, even in the event they decide to leave older products out (which would seem antithetical to the reason for offering Lightning analogue in the first place). For all these reasons, it just seems unlikely.
As for claims of an external DAC being huge ... here's one from 3 years ago, that's far from huge. The idea that this couldn't be reduced further 3 years later, much less in the future, is just silly.
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Standard Android will be using? No, a standard EVERYONE will be using. With Apple ironically paving the way with their MacBook retina.
If you really think having this thing hanging off of your phone will not be extremely annoying e.g. when you carry it in a pants or shirt pocket, I don't know what to tell you. This dongle is absolutely huge in the context of a mobile phone.As for claims of an external DAC being huge ... here's one from 3 years ago, that's far from huge. The idea that this couldn't be reduced further 3 years later, much less in the future, is just silly.
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Look at the image that was posted above. They *will* be gigantic.
Perhaps, but I'd be surprised. They could have done this earlier if they wanted (and could have done the Lightning-to-30-pin adapter without an inbuilt DAC).
Within the phone it just takes 180 cubic mm or so. The "taptic engine" that they integrated into the iPhone 6S took away a lot more room from the battery ...
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Right. Got it. So as long as it's standard that everyone uses, you're fine with using an adapter and getting rid of the 3.5mm jack. Good to know.
It would be cool to have AirPods that are charged by a breakout cable (kinda like how high end Shures cables detach) to the lightening port. So you could use them as normal lightening EarPods, and when they are charged, or you want to use them wirelessly you can unplug.
I know not the most elegant solution. But just thinking out loud.
I know not the most elegant solution. But just thinking out loud.
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I ultimately won't need an adapter since USB C headphones will eventually be usable on many devices. Perhaps even iPhones, if Apple ever pulls the stick out of their ***.
So you're all for getting rid of the 3.5mm jack if Apple goes to a USB-C standard, and replacing your current headphones with USB-C, and all your 3.5mm equipment with USB-C so you won't need an adapter, regardless of how quickly anyone else in the world adapts. And then when USB-C inevitably becomes USB-D, you'll be happy do it all over again. Interesting philosophy.
I'm confident that that I will have gone through several headsets by the time USB C is supplanted. Certainly it's going to outlive Lightning.
Do you think? I think it's more likely that there'll be USB-C headphones and Lightning headphones.
What are you trying to get at exactly? I was talking about USB C headphones and how they would be supported on many devices, unlike Lightning headphones, which will only ever be supported on certain Apple devices.
My concern here is that 3.5mm jacks and lightning connectors 'click' home. Does USB-C? If USB-C is like Micro USB, I wouldn't like the fact it is quite easy to come out. When running with headphones, for example, I could see a USB version working loose.
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Apologies - I mis-read your post.