If this case had a jack that worked reliably, I'd totally buy it. It's just that every other adapter I've used has somehow had occasional hiccups where the phone plays via speakers instead.
The best Lightning audio adapter is Apple's Lightning-to-30-pin-iPod adapter. It provides line-level audio out, as the 30-pin port always did. So you don't have to dick around with two volume levels; it's fixed coming out of the phone, and you only adjust your amp.
I built one into a dock in my car that charged the phone and delivered audio to my car radio.
There used to be cases that added USB-C to iPhones (prior to Apple doing it themselves), and there used to be cases that added the headphone jack to iPhones (not updated since the iPhone X), but for some reason never both which has held me back from getting one
So this comment made me go looking, and there _is_ a case that adds headphone jacks back to iphones, but literally not a single one for any model of android phone. I guess they figure that the people who care enough to buy such a case will go out and buy one of the dwindling number of android phones that still have such a jack.
The divide generally is that android phones with headphone jacks as of 2025 generally dont have 5G ultrawideband support* . And there are some split-out dangles which offer a jack and usb-c, but they've sorta had annoying quirks in my experience (the CableCreation one is less terrible in my experience). One could design a case around one of these dangles, though it's add some bulk and the dangle quirks mean you sometimes need to disconnect it from the phone.
* - supposedly the Sony xperia pro (2020) might be the rare exception to this rule.
I mean, I thought I would. I really did. I was VERY salty about their loss. But then I tried the OG Airpods, and then the Pros with ANC, and they were honestly better than any "casual" buds I'd used before that depended on wires.
Still, I harrumphed, wireless can't possibly compete with Real Proper Headphones, or so I thought.
Then I tried the AirPods Max a friend had. I was honestly stunned. I bought a pair, and then compared them directly to a similarly priced set of Sennheisers that I have that require a headphone amp to really shine.
The fancy wired rig probably does sound a LITTLE bit better than the Maxes do, but the logistical cost of the cabling is such that I call it a win for wireless, absolutely. In fact, we recently moved house, and as part of the pre-move purge I gave away the Sennheisers and the little amp. I just wasn't using them.
There's definitely contexts where a wire probably still makes sense. I'm given to believe that latency can be a problem for musical recording, for example, and so those folks still use wired phones. But for me? Yeah, it's wireless all the way now.
(When I say the move is recent, I mean REALLY recent -- like, we're still working around boxes. It sure would be nice to figure out which of the remaining boxes has those Airpods in it.)
> I don't miss headphone jacks AT ALL ... But then I tried the OG Airpods, and then the Pros with ANC ... Then I tried the AirPods Max ... I bought a pair
Now, what you miss is around $1000, for hardware that will likely fail faster than any wired alternative.
That's the part that pissed off so many people. Apple obsoleted good quality headphones to sell their high margin products. Airpods are decent, but it is a cash grab.
My phone (Galaxy XCover 7) has a headphone jack by the way, and I use it. Not very often, but I sometimes plug my gaming headset to it, or sometimes an AUX jack. And by the way, it also has a removable battery and it is IP68, for those who think that it makes waterproofing impossible.
Same story here. I was very much in the "take my headphone jack over my dead body" camp. But then I got used to wireless earbuds/air pods and now I never ever want to go back to cabled earphones, ever. Just the thought of the cable getting snagged on something and pulling out one or both earphones makes me rage.
I was disappointed to find out that my girlfriend's iphone (albeit a few years old) is not able to charge my wireless earbuds. A feature I've enjoyed on my Samsung phones for as long as I can remember.
For those not going for this one, should get a bunch of USB-C to Lightning adapter. I bought a few packs and they are all over the house, the car, tech pouch, etc. I stopped caring about Lightning cables. Lighting pins are going to be needed for a pretty long time. The TV Remote is going to be there for quite a while, the mice, the keyboard.
The USB‑C connector sticking out feels a bit odd. We can explore to move the port at the bottom, make it horizontal and add a cut‑out in the case for the cable to fit in. That would make the cover more natural and clean.
It did take 8 hours to do a migration of data from my wife's 256GB iPhone 14 (lightning) to her iPhone 15 Pro this year, so that's at least one "serious" thing. I am so glad to be rid of that cursed Lightning port. Now I just have to come up with a good excuse to replace the younger child's tablet, despite it working fine. It is so frustrating to have to maintain special charging cables just for certain devices especially when you know it was a deliberate and cynical choice by the vendor. Thank goodness for the EU forcing this matter.
IMHO it is a learned habit that will change as limitations are lifted.
Plugging a SD card reader to one's phone instead of pulling out the laptop to push the images to the cloud for instance. You do it once, and will be immediately convince of the advantages.
I have a portable external monitor with two USB C ports. It can get power and video from one USB port.
I can plug it up to my iPhone 16 Pro Max using the same standard USB cord. With a phone, it can only power the display up to 50% brightness by itself. If I plug power into the second USB C port, it will show the display up to 100% and charge my phone.
Having USB C also means I can use a standard USB C to HDMI cord for TVs and use the same cord for my computer. Not to mention all of the other standard USB protocols like audio, mass storage, Ethernet, etc. that just work.
That's a cool idea and I'd probably be on board for it if I weren't married to a different case system for compatibility with the mount on my motorcycle.
If I were 10 years younger I'd probably leap on a new phone to pick up USB-C, but (a) Apple replaced my Lightning-based iPhone 14 Pro at like the last possible moment of warranty, so right now I have essentially a new phone and (b) there's still so many OTHER Lightning or USB-Micro holdouts in our house that USB-C Nirvana is years away.
(E.G., Lightning on 2 sets of regular Airpods plus my Maxes as well as our phones; Micro on both our Kindles, my espresso scale, my camera's battery charger, and a ton of cycling gadgets.)
I just got the iPhone 14 Pro version of it two days ago.
I like the texture very much and all-in-all it seems like a great case. The textured buttons and the wide island are very nice touches :)
The way I hold the phone in my right hand does make the connector-corner dig into my palm, which is not very comfortable. I'll see how well I can adapt.
Also the top piece has veeery slight warping which makes some seams not as seamless but does not impact functionality. I know it's a hand-made product so that's fine to me, just a reality check on what to expect.
The clasp of the top piece also seems a bit flimsy and even with the adjustments mentioned in the video I worry if it will break at some point.
Either he had some money available, or he just financed. It's not that hard to get a small business loan/financing for this kind of equipment.
I don't know how many he sold, what his production capacity is, and what margin he makes, but I recon he could definitely make his investments work from the sales of the cases alone. And even if it does not, then there are also future products that this equipment enables. So a good investment if you ask me.
It is more satisfying to plug in a lightning cable. I know it sounds crazy. I can’t explain it.
I don’t care about charging speeds or data transfer speeds. When it is done, it’s done. Until then I will find something else to do or use it while charging.
The Lightning connector is superior for everyday use. It's exeptionally reliable, tolerant of debris, and difficult to damage. It was designed to last, unlike every single USB device port ever made, which was designed to fail so you'd need to replace the cable and device eventually. MiniUSB, MicroUSB, and USB-C. It's all trash.
Lightning has a perfect mechanical design. The pins phone-side are nearly possible to damage because they're well supported and only poke out in a bump shape that can't hook on anything. The cable side is the same way - no pins to catch on anything. The port is easy to clean out. The cable end is trivial to clean. The retention mechanism doesn't rely on anything that can wear out or break.
Meanwhile the USB-C connector puts a fucking thin wedge of plastic in the middle of the connector and even worse, there are pins around that center thin wedge and they're easily broken/damaged because they have no protection whatsoever and poor mechanical support. Oh, and the retention mechanism sucks just like it has in every
The USB-C port on my airpods is contactly getting fucked up while once in a blue moon I need to tick a toothpick in and rummage around a little to get some lint out of my phone's Lightning plug, and it's good for a couple more months...and that thing lives in my pocket, whereas the Airpod case spends most of its life sitting around on tables.
It's also a substantial plus that Apple tightly controls the cable spec. Just go look at the pages where people document USB-C cables that are so shitty they'll destroy the electronics in one or both devices.
because you still need a cable with a lightning end in your spaghetti of cables in a drawer somewhere. if all of your devices had USBC on both ends, then you don't need the one cable with the special adapter. you just need USBC cables. this isn't rocket science, and it's not a hard position to be sympathetic with either.
Once the SE third gen is available, I could finally have a TouchID iPhone with USB-C! Really wish Apple had done a final fourth gen of the SE with these features...
The data and PD communication are both working (that was the majority challenge on the EE side, shown in his video). So it would depend on the capability of his solution to let the phone work in host mode, thus being able to provide power to the adapter.
Though I'm also not sure how the MFi situation is with those generations of iPhones, and what restrictions Apple has built in to the OS. I haven't worked with MFi for a while, and I don't know for sure if MFi chips are even required anymore for that generation of lightning devices, or whether the author has incorporated one.
EDIT: I just saw this on his website:
> Any other accessory that requires power from the phone is not compatible.
So no, USB-C to headphone adapters won't work, they need power.
What is the point of this? I'm not questioning the engineering part. This guy is amazing. I just don't understand the issue with iPhones' lightning port. Is there a shortage of lightning cables in the world?
It's just _ridiculously_ useful having every single device you own work with the same charger. It's not the end of the world, but not even having to think about chargers has been a gamechanger.
My current lightning cable is breaking apart and I'll need to buy another at some point. I have dozens of USB-C cables at home.
Having to carry one able less while travelling is also nice. Currently I carry a USB-C cable for headphones, would be nice to re-use that for the phone too.
Probably for people like me, where the only Apple hardware I own and use is a iPhone 12 Mini, almost everything else is USB-C or the previous USB iterations. It'd be great if I can use the same cables I use for everything else with my phone too.
The material thing is debatable. 3D printed Polyamide - possibly with a fibre filler - is really nice for phone cases, in my opinion. The surface texture is grippy, it's quite durable (and I like the look).
Ugh, this just needed a headphone jack to be perfect.
(Relatedly, back in 2017 eric migicovsky of pebble tried to make a usb-c iPhone case that also charged airpods: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/581404323/podcase-batte... )
If this case had a jack that worked reliably, I'd totally buy it. It's just that every other adapter I've used has somehow had occasional hiccups where the phone plays via speakers instead.
The best Lightning audio adapter is Apple's Lightning-to-30-pin-iPod adapter. It provides line-level audio out, as the 30-pin port always did. So you don't have to dick around with two volume levels; it's fixed coming out of the phone, and you only adjust your amp.
I built one into a dock in my car that charged the phone and delivered audio to my car radio.
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This is also the case with Apple wired usbc headphones. Probably the phone software and not the adapter.
Reminds me of when Android phones used to do the same with analog audio jacks.
There used to be cases that added USB-C to iPhones (prior to Apple doing it themselves), and there used to be cases that added the headphone jack to iPhones (not updated since the iPhone X), but for some reason never both which has held me back from getting one
So this comment made me go looking, and there _is_ a case that adds headphone jacks back to iphones, but literally not a single one for any model of android phone. I guess they figure that the people who care enough to buy such a case will go out and buy one of the dwindling number of android phones that still have such a jack.
Apple devices have a much smaller variance in shape. It’s a lot easier for case designers to develop for Apple. Android devices have a lot of variety.
That said, I have seen some fairly cool cases for Android devices, so I assume that some case companies support just the big sellers.
The divide generally is that android phones with headphone jacks as of 2025 generally dont have 5G ultrawideband support* . And there are some split-out dangles which offer a jack and usb-c, but they've sorta had annoying quirks in my experience (the CableCreation one is less terrible in my experience). One could design a case around one of these dangles, though it's add some bulk and the dangle quirks mean you sometimes need to disconnect it from the phone.
* - supposedly the Sony xperia pro (2020) might be the rare exception to this rule.
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This is probably as much of a reflection of the market size and lack of device fragmentation for the apple ecosystem than demand.
It's similarly easier to buy a wide range of different case designs for apple.
I don't miss headphone jacks AT ALL.
I mean, I thought I would. I really did. I was VERY salty about their loss. But then I tried the OG Airpods, and then the Pros with ANC, and they were honestly better than any "casual" buds I'd used before that depended on wires.
Still, I harrumphed, wireless can't possibly compete with Real Proper Headphones, or so I thought.
Then I tried the AirPods Max a friend had. I was honestly stunned. I bought a pair, and then compared them directly to a similarly priced set of Sennheisers that I have that require a headphone amp to really shine.
The fancy wired rig probably does sound a LITTLE bit better than the Maxes do, but the logistical cost of the cabling is such that I call it a win for wireless, absolutely. In fact, we recently moved house, and as part of the pre-move purge I gave away the Sennheisers and the little amp. I just wasn't using them.
There's definitely contexts where a wire probably still makes sense. I'm given to believe that latency can be a problem for musical recording, for example, and so those folks still use wired phones. But for me? Yeah, it's wireless all the way now.
(When I say the move is recent, I mean REALLY recent -- like, we're still working around boxes. It sure would be nice to figure out which of the remaining boxes has those Airpods in it.)
> I don't miss headphone jacks AT ALL ... But then I tried the OG Airpods, and then the Pros with ANC ... Then I tried the AirPods Max ... I bought a pair
Now, what you miss is around $1000, for hardware that will likely fail faster than any wired alternative.
That's the part that pissed off so many people. Apple obsoleted good quality headphones to sell their high margin products. Airpods are decent, but it is a cash grab.
My phone (Galaxy XCover 7) has a headphone jack by the way, and I use it. Not very often, but I sometimes plug my gaming headset to it, or sometimes an AUX jack. And by the way, it also has a removable battery and it is IP68, for those who think that it makes waterproofing impossible.
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Same story here. I was very much in the "take my headphone jack over my dead body" camp. But then I got used to wireless earbuds/air pods and now I never ever want to go back to cabled earphones, ever. Just the thought of the cable getting snagged on something and pulling out one or both earphones makes me rage.
I was disappointed to find out that my girlfriend's iphone (albeit a few years old) is not able to charge my wireless earbuds. A feature I've enjoyed on my Samsung phones for as long as I can remember.
Reverse charging is still not a feature on iPhone
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His video is great
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUXQzVD1TdI
Thanks for the link - PCBWay recently offered me sponsorship, and this video has provided some good inspiration to make use of it :)
For those not going for this one, should get a bunch of USB-C to Lightning adapter. I bought a few packs and they are all over the house, the car, tech pouch, etc. I stopped caring about Lightning cables. Lighting pins are going to be needed for a pretty long time. The TV Remote is going to be there for quite a while, the mice, the keyboard.
Like he highlights in his video, those adapter are not reversible. They only charge 9V max in one side and limited to 5V if you flip them.
Which should be fine for all the things the comment mentions though (remotes, keyboards, etc).
ALL my devices are now USB-C and it feels great: laptops, phone, headset, mice, game controller...
The USB‑C connector sticking out feels a bit odd. We can explore to move the port at the bottom, make it horizontal and add a cut‑out in the case for the cable to fit in. That would make the cover more natural and clean.
This only gives you USB 2.0 speeds. If that's not a concern, then this is a good upgrade.
Lightning only ever supported USB 2.0. Theoretically, the free serial pins could’ve been used for the SuperSpeed 3.0 pins, but Apple never did.
They supported superspeed for the lightning iPad pros by doubling the number of pins (top and bottom rows)
Only the lightning to usb3 camera adapter used them
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I would assume the vast majority of people aren't doing anything serious with their USB ports on a phone....
It did take 8 hours to do a migration of data from my wife's 256GB iPhone 14 (lightning) to her iPhone 15 Pro this year, so that's at least one "serious" thing. I am so glad to be rid of that cursed Lightning port. Now I just have to come up with a good excuse to replace the younger child's tablet, despite it working fine. It is so frustrating to have to maintain special charging cables just for certain devices especially when you know it was a deliberate and cynical choice by the vendor. Thank goodness for the EU forcing this matter.
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IMHO it is a learned habit that will change as limitations are lifted.
Plugging a SD card reader to one's phone instead of pulling out the laptop to push the images to the cloud for instance. You do it once, and will be immediately convince of the advantages.
I have a portable external monitor with two USB C ports. It can get power and video from one USB port.
I can plug it up to my iPhone 16 Pro Max using the same standard USB cord. With a phone, it can only power the display up to 50% brightness by itself. If I plug power into the second USB C port, it will show the display up to 100% and charge my phone.
https://imgur.com/a/6g1QOkT
Having USB C also means I can use a standard USB C to HDMI cord for TVs and use the same cord for my computer. Not to mention all of the other standard USB protocols like audio, mass storage, Ethernet, etc. that just work.
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I'm not doing anything serious with it, but photo/video transfer takes annoyingly long
That's a cool idea and I'd probably be on board for it if I weren't married to a different case system for compatibility with the mount on my motorcycle.
If I were 10 years younger I'd probably leap on a new phone to pick up USB-C, but (a) Apple replaced my Lightning-based iPhone 14 Pro at like the last possible moment of warranty, so right now I have essentially a new phone and (b) there's still so many OTHER Lightning or USB-Micro holdouts in our house that USB-C Nirvana is years away.
(E.G., Lightning on 2 sets of regular Airpods plus my Maxes as well as our phones; Micro on both our Kindles, my espresso scale, my camera's battery charger, and a ton of cycling gadgets.)
I just got the iPhone 14 Pro version of it two days ago.
I like the texture very much and all-in-all it seems like a great case. The textured buttons and the wide island are very nice touches :)
The way I hold the phone in my right hand does make the connector-corner dig into my palm, which is not very comfortable. I'll see how well I can adapt.
Also the top piece has veeery slight warping which makes some seams not as seamless but does not impact functionality. I know it's a hand-made product so that's fine to me, just a reality check on what to expect.
The clasp of the top piece also seems a bit flimsy and even with the adjustments mentioned in the video I worry if it will break at some point.
How does he have so much equipment? That’s way beyond a hobbyist!
I've worked in a few hardware tech startups (early phases underling) and his pick'n'place is nicer than many multimillion dollar companies'.
Is that an open source opulo? You could get one for 2k
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Either he had some money available, or he just financed. It's not that hard to get a small business loan/financing for this kind of equipment.
I don't know how many he sold, what his production capacity is, and what margin he makes, but I recon he could definitely make his investments work from the sales of the cases alone. And even if it does not, then there are also future products that this equipment enables. So a good investment if you ask me.
There's your answer, it's beyond his hobby.
Where are you seeing that? The link currently takes me to a purchase page that only has product photos.
Probably from his yt channel: https://youtu.be/KUXQzVD1TdI?si=0TBoFhb9BUlPxZZ-&t=744
I actually want lightning for my USB-C phone :/
For what purpose? There are USB-C to Lightning adapters if you were using some specialized Lightning device you couldn't or didn't want to replace.
It is more satisfying to plug in a lightning cable. I know it sounds crazy. I can’t explain it.
I don’t care about charging speeds or data transfer speeds. When it is done, it’s done. Until then I will find something else to do or use it while charging.
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I love my USB-C iPhone but Lightning was smaller and easier to plug in.
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The Lightning connector is superior for everyday use. It's exeptionally reliable, tolerant of debris, and difficult to damage. It was designed to last, unlike every single USB device port ever made, which was designed to fail so you'd need to replace the cable and device eventually. MiniUSB, MicroUSB, and USB-C. It's all trash.
Lightning has a perfect mechanical design. The pins phone-side are nearly possible to damage because they're well supported and only poke out in a bump shape that can't hook on anything. The cable side is the same way - no pins to catch on anything. The port is easy to clean out. The cable end is trivial to clean. The retention mechanism doesn't rely on anything that can wear out or break.
Meanwhile the USB-C connector puts a fucking thin wedge of plastic in the middle of the connector and even worse, there are pins around that center thin wedge and they're easily broken/damaged because they have no protection whatsoever and poor mechanical support. Oh, and the retention mechanism sucks just like it has in every
The USB-C port on my airpods is contactly getting fucked up while once in a blue moon I need to tick a toothpick in and rummage around a little to get some lint out of my phone's Lightning plug, and it's good for a couple more months...and that thing lives in my pocket, whereas the Airpod case spends most of its life sitting around on tables.
It's also a substantial plus that Apple tightly controls the cable spec. Just go look at the pages where people document USB-C cables that are so shitty they'll destroy the electronics in one or both devices.
because you still need a cable with a lightning end in your spaghetti of cables in a drawer somewhere. if all of your devices had USBC on both ends, then you don't need the one cable with the special adapter. you just need USBC cables. this isn't rocket science, and it's not a hard position to be sympathetic with either.
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Adapter might not fit, or is annoying even if it does
Once the SE third gen is available, I could finally have a TouchID iPhone with USB-C! Really wish Apple had done a final fourth gen of the SE with these features...
This guy needs to make more of them so he can TAKE MY MONEY!
I would take fast speed like USB 3 in lightning form than USB-C, it’s solid design, just needs some speed boost.
For a moment I thought this would be https://twitter.com/David3141593/status/1548314959943122945
Just to clarify: I can’t use the wired USB-C Apple headphone adapter with this?
The data and PD communication are both working (that was the majority challenge on the EE side, shown in his video). So it would depend on the capability of his solution to let the phone work in host mode, thus being able to provide power to the adapter.
Though I'm also not sure how the MFi situation is with those generations of iPhones, and what restrictions Apple has built in to the OS. I haven't worked with MFi for a while, and I don't know for sure if MFi chips are even required anymore for that generation of lightning devices, or whether the author has incorporated one.
EDIT: I just saw this on his website:
> Any other accessory that requires power from the phone is not compatible.
So no, USB-C to headphone adapters won't work, they need power.
Killer feature would be also a 3.5mm earphone jack.
What is the point of this? I'm not questioning the engineering part. This guy is amazing. I just don't understand the issue with iPhones' lightning port. Is there a shortage of lightning cables in the world?
It's just _ridiculously_ useful having every single device you own work with the same charger. It's not the end of the world, but not even having to think about chargers has been a gamechanger.
My current lightning cable is breaking apart and I'll need to buy another at some point. I have dozens of USB-C cables at home.
Having to carry one able less while travelling is also nice. Currently I carry a USB-C cable for headphones, would be nice to re-use that for the phone too.
I love unplugging the charger from my computer and charging my phone in a swift, 3-seconds motion.
Likewise, I hate that USB-A is still everywhere and I cannot use it without carrying yet one more cable. Sometimes I have it, sometimes I don't.
Saving up on actual cables you carry around - you always have that one extra iphone cable, while everyone else is on USB-C for years now.
> What is the point of this?
Probably for people like me, where the only Apple hardware I own and use is a iPhone 12 Mini, almost everything else is USB-C or the previous USB iterations. It'd be great if I can use the same cables I use for everything else with my phone too.
Haha, 50 Swiss franc for what the Chinese can do for 10CNY. Yeah nah.
What sucks (or is awesome) is that if this gets popular, it will certainly show up on Alibaba in the next few weeks and Amazon a few weeks after that.
It will be a nicer material while much cheaper too.
The material thing is debatable. 3D printed Polyamide - possibly with a fibre filler - is really nice for phone cases, in my opinion. The surface texture is grippy, it's quite durable (and I like the look).
There are already charging cases that is a little thicker, that offers usb c input.