Oliver Haslam·

iPhone 7 Tip: How To Charge And Use Wired Headphones At The Same Time

To say Apple doesn’t want anyone to have to deal with wires anymore, you’re sure going to need a lot of dongles to make things work with the newly announced iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. Everyone by now knows that Apple has done away with the 3.5mm headphone jack on the new smartphones, and that brings with it some rather obvious problems. Chief amongst them? How on Earth do you charge your iPhone and listen to music at the same time?

Well, you have two options, depending on the situation.

Apple-Dock

The first option is Apple’s own $49 Lightning dock. Designed for people who want to charge their iPhone on a desk or table, the dock also features, you guessed it, a 3.5mm headphone port on the back of it. That means anyone can charge their iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus and plug the earphones into the dock. It’s not ideal, and it’s certainly not sleek, but it will work.

The dock solution won’t work for those who are out and about, though, which is where Belkin’s new $40 Lightning Audio + Charge RockStar comes into play. Little more than a Lightning cable that has space for two other Lightning cables to plug into it, this dongle will go on sale in October.

If you pick one up, you will be able to plug a charger into one port and your Lightning connector-equipped earphones (included with every iPhone 7 or 7 Plus purchase) into the other. Or, if you only have 3.5mm earphones, then you’ll need to use the 3.5mm-to-Lightning adapter (included with every iPhone 7/7 Plus purchase) and then plug that into the Belkin dongle.

Belkin-Lightning-Audio-Charge-Rockstar

So, there you have it. You can charge your iPhone, you can listen to music with it, you can even do both at the same time, but you’ll need a few cables and a dock or a dongle to do it.

Or you know, you could just ditch this whole cable mess and embrace the wireless (Bluetooth) future. AirPods, anyone?

AirPods

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