How do I use my new lightning headphones with the new MacBook Pro?

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Here’s a puzzling question, posed in this tweet from Rudy Richter:

@pschiller how do I use my Lightning headphones with the new MacBook Pro?

Think about this for a moment. The headphones that ship with the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus end with a lightning connector. The phones also ship with a lightning to 3.5mm adapter that let you plug 3.5mm traditional headphones into a lightning port.

Still with me?

OK, so how do folks plug their lightning headphones into the new MacBook Pro? Is there any dongle that lets you plug in a lightning end and converts it into 3.5mm mini, or USB-C? What’s needed here is the reverse of the adapter that ships with the phone.

An interesting problem. Not sure there’s a solution. If I hear of one, I will definitely update this post.

UPDATE: Got this suggestion, about using the Apple Pencil adapter to solve the problem. Requires an Apple Pencil, so the idea is not for most, I think. But it did lead me to this adapter. Think it would work? Would also require a USB to USB-C adapter, which I suspect most buyers will buy or have.



48 thoughts on “How do I use my new lightning headphones with the new MacBook Pro?”

  2. I also tweeted similar. Not only do you need a special dongle to charge your iOS device, you can’t use the headphones that come with your iPhone. This shows a clear lack of communication (or shared vision?) within Apple.

    I would have been more impressed had they added a lightning port and ditched the headphone jack.

    While other companies have now caught up with Apple (by copying in many cases), Apple seems to have put their focus elsewhere. Even Microsoft has their own external display. (and what about the iMac? Should we expect these to disappear soon as well?)

    P.S. no longer illuminating the apple logo seems like a small thing but IMHO is also a bad move. Above all else it set Macs apart from the me-too devices.

  3. Lightning to USB-C cable connected to Apple Pencil female-to-female adapter, which is only included with Apple Pencil. Good luck with that.

  5. Sloppy. This is just completely sloppy, and the kind of missing polish from Apple products for the last couple of years. There’s a missing flow of thinking between their products, like these divisions are suddenly silo’d. There used to be thought put into how one product supports this other. This is just dumb.

  6. I love Apple products and use them daily (iPhone 7, iPad Air, Apple TV, MacBook Pro). I also have a work Surface Pro 4 so get to experience Windows daily.

    I plan to buy AirPods when they come out, so that’s the likely solution.

    But this seems sloppy and un-Apple like to me. To ditch 3.5 mm headphone jack on the iPhone (and presumably soon on the iPad) but leave it on new Macs? I just don’t get that thought process at Apple.

    iPhone team – we have the courage to ditch the 3.5 mm headphone jack.

    Mac team – 3.5 mm headphone jack is the industry standard.

    Um, okay.

    “What would Steve do/say” is overused. But I can just picture him at that meeting…the swearing would have been epic.

  7. This is something I realized the day I opened my iPhone 7 and went to listen to something on my MacBook Pro and grabbed the new headphones. I found one adapter for lightning to headphone jack when I looked back then.

  9. My apologies, I’m not finding it now I’ll do some searching at home later. My guess is that the cable companies will respond quickly with an adapter.

  10. Ok, it just sounds like an impossibility, cause the lightning headphones need power to operate, which the 3.5mm jack does not provide.

  11. While this is beyond stupid (and I agree with the commenter saying putting one Lightning port in the MBPs would have solved everything – including the added benefit of being able to use some existing adapters, like Lightning to SD cards), I can’t really claim that I have been putting the terrible iPhone earbuds into my computers ever. They are ok for free accessories, doesn’t mean there is a need to use them. Haven’t even unpacked mine since the iPhone 3G.

    I am curios if Apple will update the iPhone docks though. Apple’s own accessories meant to be connected to a computer not working without a dongle is even more devastating.

  12. To 3.5mm? No, as you say.

    USB, though, should be trivial, since as far as I can tell, the Lightning Headphones present as a USB audio device…

  13. Seems like another valid reason Apple should have migrated the iOS devices to USB-C.

    Face it. The headphone jack is dead.

    But the successor should be USB-C, not lighting.

  14. Well … you should be so lucky they included a 3.5mm headphone jack at all. Of course the Lightning changing cable that came with your new iPhone 7 is also useless with the new MacBook Pro. You’ll need a USB-C to Lightning adapter to charge your iPhone 7.

  16. So … mom and dad buy their freshman a new MacBook or MacBook Pro for college along with a new iPhone 7 and … the kid can’t listen to music on his MacBook or charge his iPhone 7 on his MacBook?

  17. I do see the question, but I don’t see it as a problem.

    I’d consider the headphone port as the connection to whatever active loudspeakers one may have on one’s desk, or something like that. Not as the connection to the earpods & microphone headset that happens to ship with another Apple product.

    Remember the announcement of the AirPods? A selling point of these is their easy pairing with the Apple devices found around. Get it now?
    (No, they are not yet available.) 😉

    Apple clearly considers wireless connections the way to go – just not yet for the bandwidth needed for driving 4k or 5k monitors.

    If you (anyone) should insist on using analog earpods with a MacBook Pro, just empty that drawer that collects everything you thought you might once need, and you are bound to find some sets of earpods.
    Or else, I could buy some for a few euros, here in the Netherlands. And I just bought “adequate” Bluetooth earpods for just over ten euros through the Web.

  18. No answer from Schiller, Apple Support or anyone else. That’s some serious oversight.

  19. Yes, big drop of a big ball there. But let’s stop pretending that this sort of thing has only happened in the last couple of years. Apple, like every company, drops the ball once in a while. Pre, duriing or post-Jobs, there have been some intermittent snafus. This is an embarrassing one tho.

  20. I think Apple’s answer to everyone on this would be “We have several wireless choices with the new W1 chip for you to pick from, including the all new Apple AirPods.”

  21. The only half way decent solution I can think for Apple to implement would be to include the female adapter that comes with the Apple Pencil with all new MacBook Pro’s lol. I’m willing to bet this isn’t a mistake on their part, they only packaged in lightning headphones because its still too expensive to package in AirPods and they couldn’t not provide people with a free pair of headphones with the phone. They made it really clear they want to go all wireless eventually.

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  28. all the nerd rage is irrelevant. it’s not a big deal…the MBP doesn’t ship with headphones, and it needn’t be required to utilize the headset/headphones that currently come with the iphone as a freebie. either lightning nor usb is the preferred or future headphone interface — wireless is. which is why both devices support BT and W1. before long i doubt iphones will ship with even lightning headphones.

    one day our kids will laugh at nerd-ragers for getting the proverbial panties in a wad over legacy port variations.

  30. “How do I use my new lightning headphones with the new MacBook Pro?”

    Are you serious???

    Here is your answer: You don’t!
    (You also DON’T use the iPhone charger with the MBP, you DON’T use the MBP charger with the iPhone, and you DON’T use the MBP DisplayPort with the iPhone, etc.)

    Like most people, I use Bluetooth headphones with both my iPhone and Mac, so I don’t need to do anything to switch from one to the other, and I’m not constantly untangling wires or having the headphones ripped out of my ears by the wire (or worse, yanking my devices).

  32. Not just headphones though – I have the Lightning to SD Card Camera Reader and also the Apple Lightning Digital AV Adapter (HDMI) connectors for my iPhone and iPad, and I’ve always wondered why I can’t use those on a MacBook! They should have really made at least one of those USB-C ports a lightning port… Or they should really make a male USB-C to female lightning adapter 🙂

  33. I’m not saying that this drop in polish is due to Jobs passing, I agree it’s happened before, but I feel it’s happening more and on stupid things. Example: iPad Pro with Pencil… shove the pencil into the iPad lighting port to charge it? Sticks out like a sore thumb and could get bent if you bump into it. Pencil doesn’t come with clip to put in your shirt pocket? Yes seems minor, but it is such a convenience problem. I could go on, those are small, but show the lack of polish I’m mentioning.

  34. tim cook thought about putting a lightning port to the MacBooks, but then the bloody lighting port will be to cater for the iPhone 7 EarPods, only ONE instance of usage.

    so he went on thinking, if i had to put a lightning port on macs for iPhone 7 earpiece, then WHAT the FUCK sense does it make to remove the 3.5mm headphone jacks after all?

    we should keep the headphone jack! but due to in-fighting in apple’s various political camps, they fucked the customers upside down.

  35. I don’t really use the bundled iPhone headphones, so I’m not worried much about this particular question.

    What I am wondering, is whether or not the new MacBook Pros shipped with Apple’s new W1 streaming audio chip that enables the new Ear Pods?

  36. I don’t know the solution but it feels like Apple has a big disconnect between Mac and iOS device groups. I’m not completely against the dongle idea, but one has to put some thought into buying a Mac and just which ones you would need. Maybe thats easy for most techies, but my nephew going to college or my dad may not be as patient.

    Think it through: how do I charge my iPhone or plug in an old peripheral? USB-C to USB-A. Maybe a couple. Now my aging Apple monitor needs to be plugged in. It would still be nice to connect an SD card for drone or camera use. It looks like I can’t plug the headphone’s I always have with me in, so I need to carry another set or another cable (but one doesn’t exist yet) I’m sure I’m missing something.

    The Mac and iPhone/iPad’s software ecosystem combines the two well. Physically they feel like they have been built by different companies. This is a very Microsoft-like thing. (meanwhile Microsoft is doing very Apple-like things)

  37. One day all our kids will laugh at all the unhappy trolls providing absolutely no value in comment sections while looking like complete jack-asses.

  38. Like most people? I use the iPhone 7 headphones all the time, I don’t use Bluetooth at all. I don’t really like using Bluetooth headphones or adapters, so it would only make sense that the newest Macbooks have the lightning headphones!

  40. i dont think there is any rage here :/
    and its not a big deal agreed, but a MBP is supposed to be mobile, something you can carry around. So unless you spend more on BT earpods or carry two kinds of wired earphones, it is a problem.
    Apple products should be able to work seamlessly with each other especially since we pay so much for it.

  41. Looks like this article attracted the president of the Apple Apologist Zealot Fanboy Society.

    I like apple products and use them for most of my computing needs. I just don’t see the path from that, to thinking that Apple is beyond criticism.

    If they’re going to get rid of ‘the’ industry standard connector and not ensure total compatibility with their other products, it’s perfectly reasonable for people to gripe about that. It’s one avenue to using standard functionality that no longer exists because of a very deliberate design decision on Apple’s part. Just because you won’t find it inconvenient doesn’t mean other people won’t.

    How in the world are you so emotionally involved that you’re actually belittling and insulting people for reacting to it? Were you on the team that made the design decision?

  42. This is a fantastic answer.

    The reason most people are with Apple is because there is a magic associated with it. The seamless crossover between my devices is perfect – I use Siri to set a reminder on my iPhone while I am out, in the evening it pops up on my Mac. I make a shopping list on my mac and can tick the items off on my iPhone as i walk around the shop. I take a photo of something on my iPhone, and I can view or edit it later on my MacBook. When I get home I plug my iPhone into the wall charger, and forget about it, and my MacBook becomes my enhanced, expanded ‘device’.

    This seamless integration is what drew me to migrate everything to Apple from Google/Windows. I am not able to install custom apps and other services which I would be able to do on Android, and I am locked into Apple’s world, which I am fine with, because it is a magical, minimalist world.

    Which begs the question of why on Earth they wouldn’t include at least 1 lightning port to continue that link with their handset, and instead I have 4 USB C ports, only one of which I could use – I hadn’t even heard of it before I went to buy my MacBook Pro! I bought some cheap adapters from China so I could charge my iPhone and use USB flash storage, and I have Bluetooth headphones so I can get around the headphone problem, but this weird and poor design choice has left me confused. It has taken away slightly from the magic that is Apple.

    I still believe in it but I hope this weirdness doesn’t carry over to the next gen of Apple products.

  48. You might need to update the article once again, since the mentioned pencil adapter doesn’t help. Sadly, it’s made for charging only.

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