New AirPods Pro Charging Case's Lanyard Loop Potentially Doubles as Antenna

[NT1440]

Hi everyone,

Yes, I also guess it is a grounding system for a metal part that may be in contact with a person when the case is on charge by AC adapter. In electricity and electronics is common and mandatory grounding all metal parts for people electrical safety. It would be also interesting in order to confirm this theory, to know if the hinge is also electrically connected to the lightning port metal chassis, if the hinge is made from metal. In case of being plastic, obviously no grounding is needed.

Maybe my sense of scale is a bit off as I don’t have one in front of me, but wouldn’t grounding be accomplished with much less material?

 

[munpip214]

They completely blew this design. Should have been usb-c 😁

 

[Halikaarn]

Does anyone besides me wish that iPhones had a lanyard loop? I'm nostalgic for the old days of flip and bar phones with a lanyard.

 

[bmustaf]

I have just measured continuity, with a Fluke multimeter, between chassis of lightning port inlet and lanyard hole ant it marks roughly 25 Ohm, so it may not be grounding, since if it were, the continuity should be full, I mean 0.0 Ohm. Only Tim knows!!!

I was going to do exactly the same thing when I got home, in Lightning pin 1 is also the ground, try touching that pin and measuring against pin 1? I would think the metal flashing around the port would also be grounded, but the real test is the GND pin in the Lightning connector pins.

I have a sacrificed lightning cable that I use as breakout since those pins are in there and are small...

 

[magicMac]

Just a thought but apple used to sell a lanyard for the appleTV remote , which connects to its lightning port. Would that also work with normal AirPods ? Maybe it’s a bit unreliable and can fall out the lightning port … not sure but seems like an opportunity for a 3rd party and certainly puts the old lightning port to good use !

 

[xpxp2002]

Does anyone besides me wish that iPhones had a lanyard loop? I'm nostalgic for the old days of flip and bar phones with a lanyard.

Maybe the mini could have. Tying a lanyard to a Pro Max would pull your pants down. 😂

 

[svish]

Very interesting to see this!

 

[bobtem]

Is there some reason Apple wouldn’t just say the lanyard is an attena?

 

[_Spinn_]

This is a very interesting find.

 

[szw-mapple fan]

Form meets function? You can tell Jony isnt there anymore.

Seems like you forgot Apple’s most famous/infamous first example of using part of the casing band as the antenna — the iPhone 4. This kind of approach was pioneered/patented during the Ive era and continues to be used to this day as you can see from the antenna lines on each subsequent iPhone.

 

[szw-mapple fan]

Just a thought but apple used to sell a lanyard for the appleTV remote , which connects to its lightning port. Would that also work with normal AirPods ? Maybe it’s a bit unreliable and can fall out the lightning port … not sure but seems like an opportunity for a 3rd party and certainly puts the old lightning port to good use !

I would imagine it would work quite well, especially if you use wireless charging instead of lightning. It worked on the TV remote partly because it was very light and doesn’t suffer as much from the port loosening from daily plugging in and out.

 

[Pentium]

Why they did the CT scan again? lol

Smart design though!