Apple Earphones with Remote and Mic (Lightning Edition) Teardown
Background and Identification
As a spin-off of the standard Apple EarPods, the EarPods with Lightning Connector were released in 2016 with the iPhone 7. Instead of the standard 3.5 mm audio jack, they have a Lightning connector attachment. Apple decided to do this in conjunction with its decision to remove the separate audio jack from the iPhone 7, including just one Lightning connector port instead. The good news is your EarPods and phone charger plug into the same port, but the bad news is you can’t charge your phone and listen to music through your EarPods at the same time. This created a greater user demand for Bluetooth earbuds, which became another selling point for Apple AirPods.
The EarPods with Lightning Connector come in the box with recent iPhone models (as of summer 2020). They can also be purchased from Apple for $29.00. A major downside to the EarPods with Lightning Connector is that they can’t plug into other devices, such as Apple MacBooks. To combat this, iPhone users that have only the Lightning connector port on their phones could opt to use standard EarPods (with the 3.5 mm audio jack) in conjunction with an adapter that allows the standard EarPods to plug into the Lightning connector port.
Apple EarPods with Lightning Connector have two earbuds at the end of a split cable and a Lightning connector at the other end. They are white in color.