I found a more elegant solution for the car: http://www.scosche.com/iphone-7-car-charger I've purchased Scosche products in the past and signed up to be notified when this becomes available.
Apple are big supporters of music. It is really important to them. They will want to improve the quality of the listening experience. Those who love music and want the best quality sound will be keen to test new lighting cable headphones from Apple and others to find out if they are an improvement over the old analog 3.5 jack headphones. My guess is that a digital headphone connection will bring noticeable improvements, music lovers will want to change and that all the major manufacturers will be bringing out lighting connected headphones within 3 to 6 months. In a short period We will forget about the fuss being made about the loss of the 3.5 headphone jack.
Can two Lightning headphones plug into this and use it to share audio? What happens if someone tries that?
Paragraph 4: "The accessory supports one Lightning audio device and one charger at a time."
I was hoping I'd misunderstood that. Apple has totally bungled this. They take away a universally used jack, and don't provide the same functionality with the replacement?
Many people share an audio feed. Two kids in the backseat watching a movie together on Mom's iPhone for instance. Hopefully there will be an adapter/splitter that supports that, without being dedicated to one function or the other. Ditto for the AirPods. Can two sets of BT headphones join the same audio program at once? If not, then wireless does not replace wires, quality notwithstanding.
As far as the kludgy-looking adapter, Apple already offers something much simpler on it's external battery pack. All they needed to do was take what they already have and reduce it to charging cable, and put it in the box -- like this:
The only issue with two audio feeds from one lightning might be if there is some kind of digital encryption or similar incorporated into the lightning spec. This might preclude using any kind of splitter for anything more than pumping in power over the charging pins at this time. This could be changed if there is some kind of allowance added(maybe already there) for some kind of hub unit. Or potentially it could be disabled in settings(thing HDCP for HDMI) but certain apps might look for that to be turned on before functioning, such as the Music app to prevent 'piracy'.
Er, so is Apple trying to get rid of the 3.5mm jack or not? If they were one would assume new docks wouldn't include it anymore.
They aren't getting rid of the jack because they have an allergy to it or don't want to spend the 1c on the part. It's about saving space on an already cramped device. A dock isn't restricted so they have a jack socket.
Great that they built this for the 7 people in the world who might be charging and listening via headphones at the same time.
I'm glad they got rid the 3.5 jack... progress is essential. 3.5 analogue is so outdated, its embarrassing that modern devices have them.
Not convinced on the air-buds though, will have to try them out first.
Right. 7 People. The next time you look around a plane, take note of how many people are plugging in their phones to the in seat power ports airlines can't add fast enough, and tell me how many people you see also using their wired headphones. I plug in every time I'm on a plane. I stopped using wired headphones a few years ago, so this doesn't immediately affect me, unless my BT headphones have run out of power, and then I need to plug directly into my iPhone to keep listening. My nephews plug into the power port in the back seat on long trips in the family SUV, and plug in an adapter splitter and watch movies and play games on their parents iPhone together. So now they're going to need a bunch of adapters to do that. And so far, I only see an adapter that allows one Lightning headphone and one power port -- how are they going to listen to the movie together now?
I'm glad they got rid of the 3.5mm jack too. And you can look at my posting history over the last year and see how much I support the move. But Apple has botched this, by not having well thought out solutions to replacing the 3.5mm jack. They should have had an answer for all of these common use scenarios ... not seemingly off-the-cuff, deer-in-the-headlights answers like: use a desktop dock.
I'm disappointed. I expected better from Apple for such a major move from a company which built its current fortune on music no less.
By itself I don't have a major issue with the removal. As you stated I think they could have planned for a smoother migration.
I think something like this might have made things smoother:
iPhone 7: Ship the lightning ear pods. Leave the 3.5mm for people who prefer that yet. Introduce the new wireless pods. This would point to the future direction. iPhone 8(7s? Next years model): Remove the 3.5mm. Introduce wireless charging built in. I would much rather spend $60 on the wireless charging pad than on the desktop dock.
The only time I have the charge while listening issue is at work. In my truck I use BT if I want to listen to music, at home I just fire up iTunes on my desktop.
This is for Charging + Listening. It's not like you're going to be carrying it around with you while it hangs off of your iPhone. It will be stationed on a desk somewhere. I see this as a non-issue. People just love to complain. I wish they would remember that Apple just unleashed the best mobile phone to the market, yet again!
Agreed. This is no more (or less) "clumsy" or "clunky" than simultaneously having headphones plugged into the phone and the phone plugged into the wall using the current separate jacks.
I've been using mostly Bluetooth for quite a while now anyway. Even on my iPhone 4, I rarely used plug ins, i.e. only when both of my BT headsets were dead at the same time. And Apple's included ear pods have never even approached the quality of either of my cheapo RocketFish MAB2 or not so cheapo Nokia BH-905i headsets, the latter of which is one of the absolute best noise-cancelling headsets I've ever owned, Bluetooth or otherwise.
I found a more elegant solution for the car: http://www.scosche.com/iphone-7-car-charger I've purchased Scosche products in the past and signed up to be notified when this becomes available.
Now that is a slick solution! Thanks for linking to it.
[...] Those who love music and want the best quality sound will be keen to test new lighting cable headphones from Apple and others to find out if they are an improvement over the old analog 3.5 jack headphones.
It does not appear that the new, Lightning connected EarPods are digital. I'm pretty sure they're still taking the same analog signal the old ones did, just through the Lightning connector instead of a dedicated 3.5mm jack.
It is possible to access the digital signal via the Lightning port and put the electronics in the earpiece, bypassing the conversion and amplification in the phone -- it always has been, that's not new to this model -- but there's nothing to suggest the Lightning plug EarPods do that.
Apple has said the new iPhones are "twice as loud" as previous versions. It's not yet clear whether they're just referring to the fact that the iP7 has two speakers instead of one or if the internal amplifier is actually improved. If the latter, that could have a positive affect on sound quality. That has nothing to do with the connection method though.
Fantastic! We now have the worlds fastest, thinnest, most beautiful phone and we need a giant ugly block to make it ALMOST as functional as the last generation. Do not want, not buying.
Well, pick up your floppy disks and go home then. In the mean time, the rest of us will enjoy all the extra technology they can pack into the phone without that analog jack taking up space.
Is this the first time a 3rd party vendor has shipped an official product with a female lighting connector? If so, that's the bigger story here.
If it's not, it's one of the very rare instances of Apple granting a license for that.
Has anybody seen the MFi specs since Apple removed the headphone jack? I'm wondering what the new rules are about female Lightning ports, and how they can be used. I'm also curious about analogue signals and whether a 3.5mm source to Lightning headphone adapter would be possible to pass through the analogue signal and bypass the headphones DAC straight to the transducers. Would make a lot more sense than having to convert the signal back to digital just to get it into the headphones, only to convert it back to analogue.
I don't think the Lightning headphones have a DAC. They'd cost more if they did. I'm sure the Lightning port is just passing the analog signal from the DAC and amp in the phone.
I wouldn't be so sure of that. The DAC is a power hog in the phone - part of the reasoning of going to wireless headphones may be to increase the battery life. It would take less power to drive the elements directly in the headphones, and then you would pick up more battery life if you go wireless. After all, they are using DACs in the air pods ... perhaps they are using similar electronics in their lightning headphones.
Please, please please... Buy a Samsung and be done with it. Move to the Android forums where your views will be in good company... And f**k off
Personally I don't find getting rid of the headphone jack a big deal. Some people do however and their points (like mac_128 wrote) are valid. Your response is childish.
And Schiller is telling people to buy a lightening dock if they want to charge while listening. Er, so is Apple trying to get rid of the 3.5mm jack or not? If they were one would assume new docks wouldn't include it anymore.
its there for whiners. you can use it if you really think you need it, and then maybe not whine about it. but its not mandatory.
schiller was very clear on what they think is better and where they're going. you can choose to see it, or choose to keep complaining.
Except that's not what they put in the box. So it's a wireless future except when it comes to margins, then it's still a wired future, a wired future with a proprietary port and an adapter.
nope, that's just the mental gymnastics you need to use on yourself in order to still troll Apple. the future is wireless. the adapter is to quell the complaining during the transition. you have options and nobody's holding a gun to your head to use Apple gear...you just like to complain a lot.
I wouldn't be so sure of that. The DAC is a power hog in the phone - part of the reasoning of going to wireless headphones may be to increase the battery life. It would take less power to drive the elements directly in the headphones, and then you would pick up more battery life if you go wireless. After all, they are using DACs in the air pods ... perhaps they are using similar electronics in their lightning headphones.
There's still a DAC and amp in the phone to drive the internal speakers/earpiece.
Also, simply moving the electronics to the earpiece is not inherently or automatically more power efficient than having them in the phone. Any design changes to make them draw less power could just as as easily be implemented in the phone body as in the headphones.
I'm sure cutting open the new wired EarPods will reveal a straight wire from the drivers to the Lightning plug. The only change is the connector.
Just realized if I needed to give a presentation with audio using my iPhone 7, and the Apple Lightning to VGA adapter, I would need to do this:
... And I'm not even sure it would work.
VGA is a legacy connection. If a projector doesn't have HDMI in 2016, smash it on the ground and walk out. If it has HDMI, you only need one adaptor for video, audio and power:
There are a few things that don't have 3.5mm jacks on them without any problems like TV equipment. They use RCA jacks, optical audio or HDMI. The problem with leaving legacy support is that people get lazy and keep using it. That's why projectors sold today still include VGA. It's why headphones are made with 3.5mm jacks because manufacturers try to get the widest possible support. It's the same reason why Flash has been around for so long. If everyone keeps supporting it, nobody will bother moving on.
Apple's competitors and some consumers criticize Apple for changing things and forcing people to move on but it almost always ends up the same way. We know that digital audio transport is better than analog in exactly the same way that digital video transport is better than analog (HDMI/DVI/DP>VGA/S-Video/Composite/SCART). It has built-in error correction so no noise, interference etc modifying the signal at the connection points until it gets to your analog body and it can transmit power.
This isn't even about the wired connection though, it's about advancing the state of wireless audio. Wireless audio stagnates because people stick to their comfort zone of the wired 3.5mm. If the demand for wireless audio isn't high, the equipment costs are higher and the manufacturers don't have the competition to advance the quality of wireless audio. The new iPhone will sell in the hundreds of millions. Within a year, there will likely be over 200 million people without a headphone jack on their phone. That creates a huge market for headphone manufacturers to compete in and advance the state of wireless audio.
Wireless audio needs low latency, good battery life in the headphones, good bandwidth, be affordable and have good range and all device audio should mute on disconnection and wait for reconnection or to playback through another device. There's an RF adaptor here that says it has latency under 2.3ms:
In order for a movie to not seem out of sync, the latency just needs to be below about 30ms but the video player can actually adjust video playback to delay the frames based on the detected latency of the audio so that it's perfectly in sync. It would send an audio packet and get a response from the headphones, figure out the round-trip time and smoothly adjust the frame display to sync up. Or buffer the audio on the headphones and send the frame number over to the headphones and it can adjust the buffer based on the round-trip time:
Movie starts, sends audio buffer to headphones to start playing. Say delay is 2 frames. Headphones start 2 frames late (audio lags behind video) and sends back frame number it's playing (frame 1). Movie will get this number another 2 frames late and check where it is currently playing (it should be at frame 5 by now) and it will see that there's a 2 frame delay so the next audio buffer sent to the headphones will be 2 frames ahead so that by the time it reaches the headphones, it's in sync with the movie. It only really has to do this adjustment once if the person stays in the same place when watching the movie but it can recheck every few seconds and it would gradually change the sync to avoid audio skipping. This can even be applied to older Bluetooth headphones.
Bluetooth 4 (BLE/Bluetooth Smart) is apparently under 10ms latency. Bluetooth audio equipment made in the last 2 years should be supporting the lower latency Bluetooth 4. Some projectors are using wifi so no cables needed for video and audio.
Just realized if I needed to give a presentation with audio using my iPhone 7, and the Apple Lightning to VGA adapter, I would need to do this:
... And I'm not even sure it would work.
VGA is a legacy connection. If a projector doesn't have HDMI in 2016, smash it on the ground and walk out. If it has HDMI, you only need one adaptor for video, audio and power:
There are a few things that don't have 3.5mm jacks on them without any problems like TV equipment. They use RCA jacks, optical audio or HDMI. The problem with leaving legacy support is that people get lazy and keep using it. That's why projectors sold today still include VGA. It's why headphones are made with 3.5mm jacks because manufacturers try to get the widest possible support. It's the same reason why Flash has been around for so long. If everyone keeps supporting it, nobody will bother moving on.
Apple's competitors and some consumers criticize Apple for changing things and forcing people to move on but it almost always ends up the same way. We know that digital audio transport is better than analog in exactly the same way that digital video transport is better than analog (HDMI/DVI/DP>VGA/S-Video/Composite/SCART). It has built-in error correction so no noise, interference etc modifying the signal at the connection points until it gets to your analog body and it can transmit power.
This isn't even about the wired connection though, it's about advancing the state of wireless audio. Wireless audio stagnates because people stick to their comfort zone of the wired 3.5mm. If the demand for wireless audio isn't high, the equipment costs are higher and the manufacturers don't have the competition to advance the quality of wireless audio. The new iPhone will sell in the hundreds of millions. Within a year, there will likely be over 200 million people without a headphone jack on their phone. That creates a huge market for headphone manufacturers to compete in and advance the state of wireless audio.
Wireless audio needs low latency, good battery life in the headphones, good bandwidth, be affordable and have good range and all device audio should mute on disconnection and wait for reconnection or to playback through another device. There's an RF adaptor here that says it has latency under 2.3ms:
In order for a movie to not seem out of sync, the latency just needs to be below about 30ms but the video player can actually adjust video playback to delay the frames based on the detected latency of the audio so that it's perfectly in sync. It would send an audio packet and get a response from the headphones, figure out the round-trip time and smoothly adjust the frame display to sync up. Or buffer the audio on the headphones and send the frame number over to the headphones and it can adjust the buffer based on the round-trip time:
Movie starts, sends audio buffer to headphones to start playing. Say delay is 2 frames. Headphones start 2 frames late (audio lags behind video) and sends back frame number it's playing (frame 1). Movie will get this number another 2 frames late and check where it is currently playing (it should be at frame 5 by now) and it will see that there's a 2 frame delay so the next audio buffer sent to the headphones will be 2 frames ahead so that by the time it reaches the headphones, it's in sync with the movie. It only really has to do this adjustment once if the person stays in the same place when watching the movie but it can recheck every few seconds and it would gradually change the sync to avoid audio skipping. This can even be applied to older Bluetooth headphones.
Bluetooth 4 (BLE/Bluetooth Smart) is apparently under 10ms latency. Bluetooth audio equipment made in the last 2 years should be supporting the lower latency Bluetooth 4. Some projectors are using wifi so no cables needed for video and audio.
Marvin, thanks for the thorough and detailed response to my post, as well as your additional thoughts.
First, as it pertains to my OP, I'd just like to point out I used the VGA adapter example because I thought it would make more immediate sense to the users of this type of tech forum to make my point, but I see it led to just as much confusion as my original thought, which is to use my HDMI adapter. The reality is, there are also situations where an HDMI adapter may need external audio output to plug into a separate sound system. In particular, in my office we have a number of Samsung 60" TVs that do not have any audio output whatsoever. While HDMI will get the video signal into the TV, I have no way to get the audio out of the TV. Instead I have to take the audio output of the phone and run into a sound system. That's not so uncommon. And I'm sure there are HDMI adapters out there which I can add into this mix which split the audio output, just as you posted links to adapters that are more versatile than Apple's own -- whether they are the same quality is another matter. Of course there's the TV, which in a more portable format would be an excellent way to make Apple's point of the wireless future that awaits us. And maybe there is an AirPlay solution already licensed and available.
Either way, you end up making the same point that I do, which is there are any number of adapters that can be chained together to solve any problem. And yes, giving presentations from an iPhone is not something that affects the majority of Apple's customers, so adapters are just fine, I suppose, if less convenient now than in the past. And the sad part is that it didn't need to be this complicated, certainly not for the average user, as I pointed out above -- since Apple is already building simple pass-through ports they could have just added to the end of the Lightning cable in the box. Unlike your point about Flash, Apple holds all the card in this transition. With Flash, Apple could drop support for it, but they couldn't do anything about the content available that required it. There's nothing stopping them from being able to support every feature of the 3.5mm technology with Lightning and BT -- they even control the content vis-a-vis iTunes! But it's also a higher bar, not only do that have to address the complete functionality of the headphone jack, but also improve the quality of wireless audio, and BT is a standard they contribute to, but don't control.
You do launch into an interesting discussion on latency which is a persistent problem with wireless audio and video. I use an TV at work to screen span my Mac, with the audio pumped through a digital amp. Most of the time it works fantastically, but there are times when the latency is a serious problem, other times when it's a minor nuisance. Usually there's no rhyme or reason. And that's with an entirely Apple solution. Hopefully Apple has licked this problem with the W1 chip, iPhone 7 and iOS 10 and Sierra (hopefully it won't also require new Mac hardware as well), because nothing with quash the wireless audio revolution like technology that doesn't work for watching movies or playing games. That said, overtime I've personally used a set of BT earphones with video, I've not had any issues with lag.
In the end, I think Apple has done exactly the right thing in ditching the headphone jack. But, they're implementation of it on the iPhone 7 was poorly planned out. The Belkin adapter is a case in point. Apple clearly approached Belkin about this prior to the release of the iPhone in order to have a bandage for this problem at launch given a strongly perceived need, and either didn't have the time or resources to work on it themselves, or just didn't want to immediately release a bunch of OEM dongles which would be counter to their narrative for removing the headphone jack. We don't know everything about this adapter yet, but it seems as though it can't be used as a simple headphone splitter so that two people can share the same audio (nor does there appear to be a BT option for this either). The Lightning headphones also can't be used with a Mac, as there are no adapters for it, so for many, it will be more convenient to use an old pair of headphones with the "free" adapter, than to carry around two different sets of headphones. And frankly I wouldn't have given away that adapter. $9 is easily affordable, and isn't going to substantially mitigate the anger somebody who needs one is going to have. Plus it gives the customer a chance to think about the future of the headphones they're going to use with the iPhone 7, instead of a way to plug in their old headphones and keep going -- talk about continuing to support a "comfort zone". Then there's the "magical" AirPods that won't even be available until LATE October -- what kind of sense does that make?
I know any criticism of Apple around here is met with derision, but the removal of the headphone jack as been mishandled. There's far more controversy than there needs to be, and Phil's tone-deaf response only exacerbates the problem. How will potentially 200 million people drive the adoption of wireless and Lightning devices, if they all popped the 3.5mm adapters included in the box onto their old headphones, and continued to live in their comfort zone, mainly because Apple enabled that behavior, and didn't really provide any other viable alternatives during at least the first month of availability?
Just realized if I needed to give a presentation with audio using my iPhone 7, and the Apple Lightning to VGA adapter, I would need to do this:
[stupid image]
... And I'm not even sure it would work.
It's too bad you didn't first realize that using a 2016 device with a 15-pin D-subminiature VGA connector with a 640x480 resolution released in 1987, that the problem isn't the device not yet on the market.
the sad part is that it didn't need to be this complicated, certainly not for the average user, as I pointed out above -- since Apple is already building simple pass-through ports they could have just added to the end of the Lightning cable in the box.
They could have added power to the audio adaptor but then everybody gets a bulkier adaptor to satisfy the few who need charging plus audio at the same time. iPhones last 50 hours while playing audio and for normal usage last over 10 hours. It will be frustrating for people in a situation where they want to charge and listen and haven't prepared for it but I don't think it's going to happen all that often. I expect that iPhone 7 owners likely to be in this situation will look into wireless headphone options or appropriate adapters if they haven't already.
We don't know everything about this adapter yet, but it seems as though it can't be used as a simple headphone splitter so that two people can share the same audio (nor does there appear to be a BT option for this either).
The idea of two people listening to the same audio sounds like it could be something that people do but I can't recall ever seeing anyone doing it. Everybody has their own phone so they can listen to the same track separately. People in groups tend to just play the audio out loud on the speaker because otherwise both of them have to bring their headphones to the same place. This is another area where wireless headphones would be a better solution.
The Lightning headphones also can't be used with a Mac, as there are no adapters for it, so for many, it will be more convenient to use an old pair of headphones with the "free" adapter, than to carry around two different sets of headphones. Plus it gives the customer a chance to think about the future of the headphones they're going to use with the iPhone 7, instead of a way to plug in their old headphones and keep going -- talk about continuing to support a "comfort zone". Then there's the "magical" AirPods that won't even be available until LATE October -- what kind of sense does that make?
I think they'd rather sell people Beats headphones than AirPods and I think people would rather buy Beats headphones.
I know any criticism of Apple around here is met with derision, but the removal of the headphone jack as been mishandled. There's far more controversy than there needs to be, and Phil's tone-deaf response only exacerbates the problem.
I'm not seeing the controversy. There's the occasional article online talking about it but most of the articles say it's not such a big deal. It's mainly a non-issue because of the bundled plug. I think it would have been worse if they hadn't bundled the plug because people would be posting all over social media saying the can't listen to music. It's true that bundling the plug gives people a way to hold onto old headphones but it sends a clear signal that this is an old way of working and they should explore better alternatives. I have a feeling that wireless headphone manufacturers are going to be very grateful to Apple over Christmas.
We don't know everything about this adapter yet, but it seems as though it can't be used as a simple headphone splitter so that two people can share the same audio (nor does there appear to be a BT option for this either).
I'm trying to understand this comment. What is your rationale behind your assertion? Is one port on Belkin's Lightning Audio + Charge RockStar adapter only for audio, which means that for some reason you couldn't have an adapter that had 2x Lighting headphones, or 1x Lighting headphones + 1x analog adapter and headphones plugged into either port? I don't see a single piece of evidence that would support, what I can only imagine as, an artificial limitation.
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I think something like this might have made things smoother:
iPhone 7: Ship the lightning ear pods. Leave the 3.5mm for people who prefer that yet. Introduce the new wireless pods. This would point to the future direction.
iPhone 8(7s? Next years model): Remove the 3.5mm. Introduce wireless charging built in. I would much rather spend $60 on the wireless charging pad than on the desktop dock.
The only time I have the charge while listening issue is at work. In my truck I use BT if I want to listen to music, at home I just fire up iTunes on my desktop.
Agreed. This is no more (or less) "clumsy" or "clunky" than simultaneously having headphones plugged into the phone and the phone plugged into the wall using the current separate jacks.
I've been using mostly Bluetooth for quite a while now anyway. Even on my iPhone 4, I rarely used plug ins, i.e. only when both of my BT headsets were dead at the same time. And Apple's included ear pods have never even approached the quality of either of my cheapo RocketFish MAB2 or not so cheapo Nokia BH-905i headsets, the latter of which is one of the absolute best noise-cancelling headsets I've ever owned, Bluetooth or otherwise.
It does not appear that the new, Lightning connected EarPods are digital. I'm pretty sure they're still taking the same analog signal the old ones did, just through the Lightning connector instead of a dedicated 3.5mm jack.
It is possible to access the digital signal via the Lightning port and put the electronics in the earpiece, bypassing the conversion and amplification in the phone -- it always has been, that's not new to this model -- but there's nothing to suggest the Lightning plug EarPods do that.
Apple has said the new iPhones are "twice as loud" as previous versions. It's not yet clear whether they're just referring to the fact that the iP7 has two speakers instead of one or if the internal amplifier is actually improved. If the latter, that could have a positive affect on sound quality. That has nothing to do with the connection method though.
Also, simply moving the electronics to the earpiece is not inherently or automatically more power efficient than having them in the phone. Any design changes to make them draw less power could just as as easily be implemented in the phone body as in the headphones.
I'm sure cutting open the new wired EarPods will reveal a straight wire from the drivers to the Lightning plug. The only change is the connector.
http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MD826AM/A/lightning-digital-av-adapter
That should also support VGA with audio by using one of these:
https://www.amazon.com/Rankie-Gold-Plated-Active-Adapter-Converter/dp/B00ZMV7RL2
There's another option here that connects via Lightning to USB to give HDMI/VGA and audio and power input is via micro-USB:
https://www.amazon.com/ZAMO-Digital-Adapter-EZCast-Android/dp/B01H1Q5RNA
There are a few things that don't have 3.5mm jacks on them without any problems like TV equipment. They use RCA jacks, optical audio or HDMI. The problem with leaving legacy support is that people get lazy and keep using it. That's why projectors sold today still include VGA. It's why headphones are made with 3.5mm jacks because manufacturers try to get the widest possible support. It's the same reason why Flash has been around for so long. If everyone keeps supporting it, nobody will bother moving on.
Apple's competitors and some consumers criticize Apple for changing things and forcing people to move on but it almost always ends up the same way. We know that digital audio transport is better than analog in exactly the same way that digital video transport is better than analog (HDMI/DVI/DP>VGA/S-Video/Composite/SCART). It has built-in error correction so no noise, interference etc modifying the signal at the connection points until it gets to your analog body and it can transmit power.
This isn't even about the wired connection though, it's about advancing the state of wireless audio. Wireless audio stagnates because people stick to their comfort zone of the wired 3.5mm. If the demand for wireless audio isn't high, the equipment costs are higher and the manufacturers don't have the competition to advance the quality of wireless audio. The new iPhone will sell in the hundreds of millions. Within a year, there will likely be over 200 million people without a headphone jack on their phone. That creates a huge market for headphone manufacturers to compete in and advance the state of wireless audio.
Wireless audio needs low latency, good battery life in the headphones, good bandwidth, be affordable and have good range and all device audio should mute on disconnection and wait for reconnection or to playback through another device. There's an RF adaptor here that says it has latency under 2.3ms:
https://www.nordicsemi.com/eng/News/News-releases/Product-Related-News/World-s-lowest-latency-wirelesss-guitar-jack-is-superior-to-a-wired-link
In order for a movie to not seem out of sync, the latency just needs to be below about 30ms but the video player can actually adjust video playback to delay the frames based on the detected latency of the audio so that it's perfectly in sync. It would send an audio packet and get a response from the headphones, figure out the round-trip time and smoothly adjust the frame display to sync up. Or buffer the audio on the headphones and send the frame number over to the headphones and it can adjust the buffer based on the round-trip time:
Movie starts, sends audio buffer to headphones to start playing. Say delay is 2 frames. Headphones start 2 frames late (audio lags behind video) and sends back frame number it's playing (frame 1). Movie will get this number another 2 frames late and check where it is currently playing (it should be at frame 5 by now) and it will see that there's a 2 frame delay so the next audio buffer sent to the headphones will be 2 frames ahead so that by the time it reaches the headphones, it's in sync with the movie. It only really has to do this adjustment once if the person stays in the same place when watching the movie but it can recheck every few seconds and it would gradually change the sync to avoid audio skipping. This can even be applied to older Bluetooth headphones.
Bluetooth 4 (BLE/Bluetooth Smart) is apparently under 10ms latency. Bluetooth audio equipment made in the last 2 years should be supporting the lower latency Bluetooth 4. Some projectors are using wifi so no cables needed for video and audio.
First, as it pertains to my OP, I'd just like to point out I used the VGA adapter example because I thought it would make more immediate sense to the users of this type of tech forum to make my point, but I see it led to just as much confusion as my original thought, which is to use my HDMI adapter. The reality is, there are also situations where an HDMI adapter may need external audio output to plug into a separate sound system. In particular, in my office we have a number of Samsung 60" TVs that do not have any audio output whatsoever. While HDMI will get the video signal into the TV, I have no way to get the audio out of the TV. Instead I have to take the audio output of the phone and run into a sound system. That's not so uncommon. And I'm sure there are HDMI adapters out there which I can add into this mix which split the audio output, just as you posted links to adapters that are more versatile than Apple's own -- whether they are the same quality is another matter. Of course there's the TV, which in a more portable format would be an excellent way to make Apple's point of the wireless future that awaits us. And maybe there is an AirPlay solution already licensed and available.
Either way, you end up making the same point that I do, which is there are any number of adapters that can be chained together to solve any problem. And yes, giving presentations from an iPhone is not something that affects the majority of Apple's customers, so adapters are just fine, I suppose, if less convenient now than in the past. And the sad part is that it didn't need to be this complicated, certainly not for the average user, as I pointed out above -- since Apple is already building simple pass-through ports they could have just added to the end of the Lightning cable in the box. Unlike your point about Flash, Apple holds all the card in this transition. With Flash, Apple could drop support for it, but they couldn't do anything about the content available that required it. There's nothing stopping them from being able to support every feature of the 3.5mm technology with Lightning and BT -- they even control the content vis-a-vis iTunes! But it's also a higher bar, not only do that have to address the complete functionality of the headphone jack, but also improve the quality of wireless audio, and BT is a standard they contribute to, but don't control.
You do launch into an interesting discussion on latency which is a persistent problem with wireless audio and video. I use an TV at work to screen span my Mac, with the audio pumped through a digital amp. Most of the time it works fantastically, but there are times when the latency is a serious problem, other times when it's a minor nuisance. Usually there's no rhyme or reason. And that's with an entirely Apple solution. Hopefully Apple has licked this problem with the W1 chip, iPhone 7 and iOS 10 and Sierra (hopefully it won't also require new Mac hardware as well), because nothing with quash the wireless audio revolution like technology that doesn't work for watching movies or playing games. That said, overtime I've personally used a set of BT earphones with video, I've not had any issues with lag.
In the end, I think Apple has done exactly the right thing in ditching the headphone jack. But, they're implementation of it on the iPhone 7 was poorly planned out. The Belkin adapter is a case in point. Apple clearly approached Belkin about this prior to the release of the iPhone in order to have a bandage for this problem at launch given a strongly perceived need, and either didn't have the time or resources to work on it themselves, or just didn't want to immediately release a bunch of OEM dongles which would be counter to their narrative for removing the headphone jack. We don't know everything about this adapter yet, but it seems as though it can't be used as a simple headphone splitter so that two people can share the same audio (nor does there appear to be a BT option for this either). The Lightning headphones also can't be used with a Mac, as there are no adapters for it, so for many, it will be more convenient to use an old pair of headphones with the "free" adapter, than to carry around two different sets of headphones. And frankly I wouldn't have given away that adapter. $9 is easily affordable, and isn't going to substantially mitigate the anger somebody who needs one is going to have. Plus it gives the customer a chance to think about the future of the headphones they're going to use with the iPhone 7, instead of a way to plug in their old headphones and keep going -- talk about continuing to support a "comfort zone". Then there's the "magical" AirPods that won't even be available until LATE October -- what kind of sense does that make?
I know any criticism of Apple around here is met with derision, but the removal of the headphone jack as been mishandled. There's far more controversy than there needs to be, and Phil's tone-deaf response only exacerbates the problem. How will potentially 200 million people drive the adoption of wireless and Lightning devices, if they all popped the 3.5mm adapters included in the box onto their old headphones, and continued to live in their comfort zone, mainly because Apple enabled that behavior, and didn't really provide any other viable alternatives during at least the first month of availability?
The idea of two people listening to the same audio sounds like it could be something that people do but I can't recall ever seeing anyone doing it. Everybody has their own phone so they can listen to the same track separately. People in groups tend to just play the audio out loud on the speaker because otherwise both of them have to bring their headphones to the same place. This is another area where wireless headphones would be a better solution.
They sell wireless Beats headphones just now:
http://www.beatsbydre.com/headphones/
I think they'd rather sell people Beats headphones than AirPods and I think people would rather buy Beats headphones.
I'm not seeing the controversy. There's the occasional article online talking about it but most of the articles say it's not such a big deal. It's mainly a non-issue because of the bundled plug. I think it would have been worse if they hadn't bundled the plug because people would be posting all over social media saying the can't listen to music. It's true that bundling the plug gives people a way to hold onto old headphones but it sends a clear signal that this is an old way of working and they should explore better alternatives. I have a feeling that wireless headphone manufacturers are going to be very grateful to Apple over Christmas.
Why couldn't you have more than 2 headphones, just as you can branch off with analog splitters?