Almost 1.5 years after Apple removed the headphone port with the iPhone 7, it still doesn’t seem like there’s a good solution for playing audio and charging at the same time.<\/p>\n
The Wofalodata<\/a> adapter that I bought for $15 stopped playing audio after a few months, with the iPhone intermittently complaining that it’s not a certified accessory. The Amazon reviews indicate this is common. I contacted the company, who said they would send a replacement unit, but two months later it hasn’t arrived.<\/p>\n I then tried the $14.50 Zerkar<\/a>, but it also failed after a few months, again confirmed by reviews.<\/p>\n A year after the iPhone 7 was released, Belkin<\/a> shipped its $35 adapter, which is the only one I’ve seen that’s MFi certified. I haven’t tried this one yet, but it, too, has lots of Amazon reviews indicating unreliability.<\/p>\n I don’t understand why this is such a hard problem to solve. And with over 100 million eligible iPhones, and increasing, you’d think there would be a market for a good product.<\/p>\n In a way this is like the situation with Macs and USB-C<\/a>. The problem with removing a port isn’t so much that you have to buy and carry a dongle as that the dongle\/hub is never as reliable<\/a> as having the port built-in.<\/p>\n\n Previously: Removing the iPhone’s Headphone Jack<\/a>, iPhone 7<\/a>, Apple’s Lightning to Headphone Adapter<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n Update (2018-02-19): To be clear, I use AirPods rather than headphones. The reason I have the dongle is to play audio from the iPhone in my car.<\/p>\n\n