Friday, October 7, 2016

Apple’s Lightning to Headphone Adapter

There’s actually a lot going on in there. As expected, one end is a simple female 3.5 mm headphone jack, and the other end is a male Lightning connector. But what’s all that silicon around the Lightning connector end? Most of the retail space near the connector is taken up by a single mystery IC.

[…]

In past iPhones like the 6s, both DAC and ADC functions were handled internally. The analog inputs and outputs from the headphone jack (and other components) were wrangled by a single chip on the logic board, a custom Apple/Cirrus Logic IC labeled 338S00105. (In the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, that same exact chip still exists—because even without a headphone jack, the phone still has to shake hands with the built-in loudspeakers and microphones, all of which use analog signals.)

Martin Steiger:

Various issues with the new Apple headphone adapter: (increased noise, less quality, not compatible with all headphones etc.)

Previously: Lightning to 3.5 mm Headphone Jack Adapter.

Update (2018-06-02): Jeremy Larson:

After one year, this was my third dongle that has needed to be returned, not counting the two I have lost. Two of them started having problems with distorting the audio; one just stopped working altogether.

Audio iOS iPhone 7 Lightning