[doke01]

So now audio will be controlled by a company or copyrighted/patented protocol. This is really what they are after. If they could charge for the light streaming from your screen, they would. I can see Apple offering a dongle to let you plug in a normal headset and charging $30 for it. More crap to carry, more refuse in the landfills. If Apple really cared about the environment they would keep the audio jack in place. It's allows something with an earphone with 3 wires to plug in that gives awesome sound quality out (usually). How can you get more simple and elegant than that?

[cmiles74]

Practically no one will buy such a dongle out of belief that the audio quality of Lightning port earbuds is so vastly superior. Such is the Apple loyalist (once upon a time I was one of them). ;-)

[mikeash]

Do Apple fans actually believe that Apple earbuds are high quality? I recall even a top Apple exec once admitted at a public event that the best thing they could say about their earbuds was that they were the highest quality ones in the iPhone box.

[cmiles74]

No, you are correct, I think it's accepted in general that earbuds are a compromise. Still, IMHO, customers will assume the audio quality from the lightning port is superior to the old analog jack.

[mikeash]

I see, and I totally agree with that. I'm sure that "better audio quality" will be a selling point if they do this, and most people will believe it. It might even be true, to a small extent, although the connector is clearly not the limiting factor for Apple earbud quality.

[Natanael_L]

Bluetooth headsets?