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Comment by seltzered_ | Hacker News Reader

Ugh, this just needed a headphone jack to be perfect.

(Relatedly, back in 2017 eric migicovsky of pebble tried to make a usb-c iPhone case that also charged airpods: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/581404323/podcase-batte... )

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If this case had a jack that worked reliably, I'd totally buy it. It's just that every other adapter I've used has somehow had occasional hiccups where the phone plays via speakers instead.

This is also the case with Apple wired usbc headphones. Probably the phone software and not the adapter.

Reminds me of when Android phones used to do the same with analog audio jacks.

The best Lightning audio adapter is Apple's Lightning-to-30-pin-iPod adapter. It provides line-level audio out, as the 30-pin port always did. So you don't have to dick around with two volume levels; it's fixed coming out of the phone, and you only adjust your amp.

I built one into a dock in my car that charged the phone and delivered audio to my car radio.

There’s no analogue audio over Lightning, so if the 30-pin adapter is disabling volume level on the phone, it’s just picking a fixed gain for its internal DAC—perhaps because the DAC is only good within a certain gain range. The Apple USB-C to 3.5mm adapters are widely regarded as having excellent DACs irrespective of their size and price. I’m not as familiar with the reputation of the Lightning to 3.5mm adapters, but I would consider the ability to configure the DAC volume an indicator of superior quality DAC compared to the 30-pin adapter.

I'm pretty sure it's the same DAC since the signal is digital whether over Lightning or over USB-C until it hits the DAC.

They earned their reputation when new phones came packaged with the adapter for the first few generations (circa iPhone 7/8?) after the 3.5 mm jack was removed.

The Lightning-3.5mm adapter has a quite good DAC for its size, I remember seeing a teardown article from when it was first launched, quite impressive engineering going on in a such a small piece of electronics.

This is how any generic 5 Euro USB-C-to-TRS 3.5mm jack adapter works on Android. Didn't know this was a big issue in Apple-land.

It's an issue if you don't want to buy AirPods, or whatever the Pixel or Samsung equivalents are. Each realized there's money to be made this way, cause people will just buy.

Or in my case I've got an audio receiver with flaky Bluetooth. Guess it's "my fault" for not replacing it with an Apple TV, better yet Homepods.

There used to be cases that added USB-C to iPhones (prior to Apple doing it themselves), and there used to be cases that added the headphone jack to iPhones (not updated since the iPhone X), but for some reason never both which has held me back from getting one

So this comment made me go looking, and there _is_ a case that adds headphone jacks back to iphones, but literally not a single one for any model of android phone. I guess they figure that the people who care enough to buy such a case will go out and buy one of the dwindling number of android phones that still have such a jack.

The divide generally is that android phones with headphone jacks as of 2025 generally dont have 5G ultrawideband support* . And there are some split-out dangles which offer a jack and usb-c, but they've sorta had annoying quirks in my experience (the CableCreation one is less terrible in my experience). One could design a case around one of these dangles, though it's add some bulk and the dangle quirks mean you sometimes need to disconnect it from the phone.

* - supposedly the Sony xperia pro (2020) might be the rare exception to this rule.

The don't always seem to work either. My wife asked for one of the little USB-C to 3.5mm adapters of which I had a few from various Android phones over the years, and one from an iPhone and she couldn't get them to work on her Samsung Galaxy S21, I ended up buying hear some bluetooth earbuds (yes, she could have done it herself but she trusts my judgement on selecting these sorts of things).

This is probably as much of a reflection of the market size and lack of device fragmentation for the apple ecosystem than demand.

It's similarly easier to buy a wide range of different case designs for apple.

Apple devices have a much smaller variance in shape. It’s a lot easier for case designers to develop for Apple. Android devices have a lot of variety.

That said, I have seen some fairly cool cases for Android devices, so I assume that some case companies support just the big sellers.

I don't miss headphone jacks AT ALL.

I mean, I thought I would. I really did. I was VERY salty about their loss. But then I tried the OG Airpods, and then the Pros with ANC, and they were honestly better than any "casual" buds I'd used before that depended on wires.

Still, I harrumphed, wireless can't possibly compete with Real Proper Headphones, or so I thought.

Then I tried the AirPods Max a friend had. I was honestly stunned. I bought a pair, and then compared them directly to a similarly priced set of Sennheisers that I have that require a headphone amp to really shine.

The fancy wired rig probably does sound a LITTLE bit better than the Maxes do, but the logistical cost of the cabling is such that I call it a win for wireless, absolutely. In fact, we recently moved house, and as part of the pre-move purge I gave away the Sennheisers and the little amp. I just wasn't using them.

There's definitely contexts where a wire probably still makes sense. I'm given to believe that latency can be a problem for musical recording, for example, and so those folks still use wired phones. But for me? Yeah, it's wireless all the way now.

(When I say the move is recent, I mean REALLY recent -- like, we're still working around boxes. It sure would be nice to figure out which of the remaining boxes has those Airpods in it.)

Same story here. I was very much in the "take my headphone jack over my dead body" camp. But then I got used to wireless earbuds/air pods and now I never ever want to go back to cabled earphones, ever. Just the thought of the cable getting snagged on something and pulling out one or both earphones makes me rage.

> I don't miss headphone jacks AT ALL ... But then I tried the OG Airpods, and then the Pros with ANC ... Then I tried the AirPods Max ... I bought a pair

Now, what you miss is around $1000, for hardware that will likely fail faster than any wired alternative.

That's the part that pissed off so many people. Apple obsoleted good quality headphones to sell their high margin products. Airpods are decent, but it is a cash grab.

My phone (Galaxy XCover 7) has a headphone jack by the way, and I use it. Not very often, but I sometimes plug my gaming headset to it, or sometimes an AUX jack. And by the way, it also has a removable battery and it is IP68, for those who think that it makes waterproofing impossible.

My Airpods Maxes are 4 years old and i use them for 8-10 hours a day twice a week.

No issue with battery so far.

Pretty good going, in my experience.

But the killer is the ANC. Bollocks to public transport without it.

I bought Maxes very early, and they've held up MARVELOUSLY well even with some heavy travel periods. Apple kit tends to be quite durable, so I'm not upset about the investment at all.

Aux to USB c converters are cheap and work well btw. I just leave mine permanently attached to my headphones. Not that big of a deal.

I was disappointed to find out that my girlfriend's iphone (albeit a few years old) is not able to charge my wireless earbuds. A feature I've enjoyed on my Samsung phones for as long as I can remember.

Reverse charging is still not a feature on iPhone

"You can use your iPhone 15 and later to charge your AirPods, Apple Watch or another small device that supports USB Power Delivery at up to 4.5 watts." from https://support.apple.com/en-gb/105099

This works with my Beats headphones and is very useful.

Ah, that’s cool! I was thinking reverse wireless charging, but I didn’t know about that anyway.

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