Belkin intros Lightning to headphone jack cable for iPhone 7 and newer

Posted:
in iPhone edited May 2018
Accessory maker Belkin on Tuesday launched a straightforward 3.5mm-to-Lightning audio cable, offering a way for owners of recent iPhones to connect to 3.5-millimeter headphones and speakers.

Belkin iPhone Lightning


The MFi-certified cable converts digital signals to analog, and is available in 3- and 6-foot versions. It's intended for the iPhone 7, 8, and X, which would otherwise require adapter dongles. Apple began stripping out headphone jacks with the iPhone 7, preferring Lightning and Bluetooth instead.

Online orders are now open. The 3-foot cable is $29.99, and the 6-foot version is $34.99.

It's uncertain whether or not Apple will include a Lightning-to-3.5mm adapter with this year's iPhones. Removal has so far been speculative, but might also make sense, since it costs the company extra and iPhone buyers will have had two years to go wireless or get needed adapters and cables.

At the same time, 3.5-millimeter jacks remain an audio industry standard, even still on many Apple products with lesser space and waterproofing constraints like Macs, iPads, and Beats headphones.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 20
    mavemufcmavemufc Posts: 326member
    Maybe just me but I’d imagine people who now have one of these phones without the jack have already went wireless.
    lkruppracerhomie3watto_cobra
  • Reply 2 of 20
    aylkaylk Posts: 54member
    mavemufc said:
    Maybe just me but I’d imagine people who now have one of these phones without the jack have already went wireless.
    Easier said than done.
    dysamoria
  • Reply 3 of 20
    lukeilukei Posts: 379member
    aylk said:
    mavemufc said:
    Maybe just me but I’d imagine people who now have one of these phones without the jack have already went wireless.
    Easier said than done.
    It’s very easily said

    and even easier to do
    roadkill1953watto_cobra
  • Reply 4 of 20
    applejeffapplejeff Posts: 13member
    “… offering a way for owners of recent iPhones to connect to 3.5-millimeter headphones and speakers”

    The photo shows a cable with a lightning connector on one end and a male 3.5mm jack on the other end. Wouldn’t you need a female 3.5mm jack to plug your headphones into?

    macxpressdysamoriaracerhomie3Alex1Naylk
  • Reply 5 of 20
    jdiamondjdiamond Posts: 122member
    If we could get even remotely acceptable audio quality from bluetooth, then this wouldn't have been such a big deal.  But no one has yet supplied a high quality wireless audio solution, despite the fact that I can get 250 megabits/second WiFi across my house...  Who will stand up and make a real wireless audio standard?  One with lossless audio, effortless sharing of channels across multiple headphones, and none of this "pairing" stuff?

    In any case, thank you Belkin.  It's appreciated.  But for me, I need the adapter that includes charging, 'cause I don't have a wireless charging pad in my car yet.  Nonetheless, for short uses, it's a life saver.  You can finally change a pair of quality headphones into lightning headphones.   


    dysamoriaAlex1Naylk
  • Reply 6 of 20
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member
    aylk said:
    mavemufc said:
    Maybe just me but I’d imagine people who now have one of these phones without the jack have already went wireless.
    Easier said than done.
    I have a pair Beats Solo Wireless and have yet to use the analog cable supplied with them. No need to.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 7 of 20
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member

    applejeff said:
    “… offering a way for owners of recent iPhones to connect to 3.5-millimeter headphones and speakers”

    The photo shows a cable with a lightning connector on one end and a male 3.5mm jack on the other end. Wouldn’t you need a female 3.5mm jack to plug your headphones into?

    Higher end headphones have female analog jacks and no permanent cord attached. For the cheaper ear bud stuff with a permanent cord then yes.
    elijahgwatto_cobra
  • Reply 8 of 20
    dysamoriadysamoria Posts: 3,430member
    lkrupp said:

    applejeff said:
    “… offering a way for owners of recent iPhones to connect to 3.5-millimeter headphones and speakers”

    The photo shows a cable with a lightning connector on one end and a male 3.5mm jack on the other end. Wouldn’t you need a female 3.5mm jack to plug your headphones into?

    Higher end headphones have female analog jacks and no permanent cord attached. For the cheaper ear bud stuff with a permanent cord then yes.
    I've never seen such a setup on "higher end" headphones. What do you consider "higher end"? I imagine such a design must produce noise when one turns their head and the cable & socket connection twists & flexes.
    aylk
  • Reply 9 of 20
    mac_128mac_128 Posts: 3,454member
    applejeff said:
    “… offering a way for owners of recent iPhones to connect to 3.5-millimeter headphones and speakers”

    The photo shows a cable with a lightning connector on one end and a male 3.5mm jack on the other end. Wouldn’t you need a female 3.5mm jack to plug your headphones into?

    Some wired headphones do have 3.5mm jack with removable cords, and most cordless headphones do. Beats even has headphones with two 3.5mm jacks to daisy chain with a friend so you can both listen at the same time -- something for which there's no easy bluetooth solution at the moment. It's just too bad that Beats uses micro-USB to charge the headphones rather than Lightning, so you could theoretically just go Lightning for everything.

    However, I think the main purpose of this cable is for jacking into a car stereo or any portable speaker, or audio input AUX jack. 

    While this is one less adapter to carry around for a dedicated function, I'd rather just buy a much less expensive 3.5mm male to male cord to use with the free adapter Apple gives you in the box, and be ready for any situation one might find oneself in.

    And still no way to use a pair of Lightning headphones on a Mac.
    edited May 2018 martinxyzAlex1Nwatto_cobraroundaboutnow
  • Reply 10 of 20
    maciekskontaktmaciekskontakt Posts: 1,169member
    Great. I see two signal terminals (speakers). So how about microphone? Will we see that for headphones for listening and making calls? And how about bypass for charigng as well?
    edited May 2018 tokyojimumartinxyzAlex1Nlikethesky
  • Reply 11 of 20
    mavemufcmavemufc Posts: 326member
    aylk said:
    mavemufc said:
    Maybe just me but I’d imagine people who now have one of these phones without the jack have already went wireless.
    Easier said than done.
    It’s really easy to do as well.
  • Reply 12 of 20
    peterhartpeterhart Posts: 156member
    I can't believe this is still talked about as much as it is. iPhone isn't the only phone without the jack. AirPods and Beats wireless headphones exist and appear to still sell well. Analog is old technology. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 13 of 20
    martinxyzmartinxyz Posts: 98member
    applejeff said:
    “… offering a way for owners of recent iPhones to connect to 3.5-millimeter headphones and speakers”

    The photo shows a cable with a lightning connector on one end and a male 3.5mm jack on the other end. Wouldn’t you need a female 3.5mm jack to plug your headphones into?

    What you need is a female with two holes, then plug a male in each end. Job done.

    Alex1N
  • Reply 14 of 20
    fastasleepfastasleep Posts: 6,408member
    martinxyz said:
    applejeff said:
    “… offering a way for owners of recent iPhones to connect to 3.5-millimeter headphones and speakers”

    The photo shows a cable with a lightning connector on one end and a male 3.5mm jack on the other end. Wouldn’t you need a female 3.5mm jack to plug your headphones into?

    What you need is a female with two holes, then plug a male in each end. Job done.

    No, if you already have a cord you just need the free/$9 Apple adapter. This cord is for like speakers, stereos, car systems etc with an aux input, or headphones with a removable cord. 
    Alex1Nwatto_cobra
  • Reply 15 of 20
    mac_128mac_128 Posts: 3,454member
    Great. I see two signal terminals (speakers). So how about microphone? Will we see that for headphones for listening and making calls? And how about bypass for charigng as well?
    That's a very good point. I was thinking one potential use case was with a wireless pair of headphones like Beats Solo 3, but it clearly doesn't support that.

    Looks like it's solely for use with stereo AUX inputs, or strictly music use with voice capable headphones.
    Alex1N
  • Reply 16 of 20
    bluefire1bluefire1 Posts: 1,301member
    I just bought it. I have headphones that are wired and wireless.
  • Reply 17 of 20
    lorin schultzlorin schultz Posts: 2,771member
    peterhart said:
    [...] Analog is old technology. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
    A phone with no headphone jack is no less analog or any more digital than one with. It simply offloads the digital-to-analog converter and amplifier to the headphones (or, in this case, cable) instead of housing them inside the phone. The end results is still, by necessity, analog.
    retrogustoaylk
  • Reply 18 of 20
    aylkaylk Posts: 54member
    lukei said:
    aylk said:
    mavemufc said:
    Maybe just me but I’d imagine people who now have one of these phones without the jack have already went wireless.
    Easier said than done.
    It’s very easily said

    and even easier to do
    Sure, that's why they have to sell us all of these new cables and adapters... Before we didn't need any of this crap, and were still able to go wireless if we chose to.
    edited May 2018
  • Reply 19 of 20
    shaminoshamino Posts: 527member
    mac_128 said:
    Looks like it's solely for use with stereo AUX inputs, or strictly music use with voice capable headphones.
    That's what it seems like to me too.  The big problem is that there's no way to charge the battery while listening.  If your amplifier doesn't have a USB connection for audio, then your battery will drain all the time its playing.

    It's also an issue for people who listen to podcasts in the car.  It seems that the USB interface used by most cars doesn't give you any way to select and play podcasts.  If you start one playing when you connect the USB cable, it will play fine, but when it gets to the end, you have no way of selecting another.  The car controls all drop you into music playback.  And if I try to manually play a podcast from the device's screen, the car displays an error, forcing me to disconnect it.  (This is almost certainly a bug in Honda's firmware, but it's still very frustrating).

    I work around this problem (with my old iPod Touch), by using the USB cable for power and a headphone jack, but if new devices/cables won't let me charge and play at the same time, it's going to really suck.  I'm actually rather surprised that nobody has yet released a cable for power and audio on a Lightening jack.
  • Reply 20 of 20
    mimacmimac Posts: 872member
    Seriously??!! People actually think that the removal of the 3.5mm audio port was a good idea? Here we have yet another expensive adapter/cable that really wouldn't be necessary if Apple had kept the industry standard audio port. Yes, we've heard all the excuses for the removal of it... not waterproof, too big, blah blah. Well, thats all crap. It was basically a pre-emptive way to persuade you to buy wireless AirPods. Apple are seriously blowing smoke up your ass if you think that having just the lightning port for everything is a great idea. As you know you cannot charge your phone while listening to anything through the lightning headphones *and*, guess what...
    Listening to audio is, has always, and always will be a biologically analog experience! Well.. at least until Apple figure out a way to plug directly into your brain and pump digital signals into an implanted chip in your head! Having a lightning to 3.5 jack or whatever is basically just doing the same thing the old port used to do... change a digital signal to an analog one! It just means another clumsy, expensive and unnecessary additional adapter to carry around.

    There are so many great sounding headphones available to listen to music with and nearly all of them use the TRS standard type jack.  Apples offerings, while adequate, could be much better. Beats are certainly not among these. Workarounds are unacceptable for such expensive devices. Choice would be better.


Sign In or Register to comment.