Best iPhone headphone adapters

Donald Bell, Senior Editor April 6, 2009

In a mystery that is sure to confound us for years to come, Apple designed the iPhone with a recessed headphone jack that prevents most headphones from fitting properly. If you already have a favorite pair of headphones or earphones you'd like to use with the iPhone, you'll need to spend some money on an adapter.

Don't be fooled by the uncommon three-ring minijack connection found at the end of the earbuds that Apple included with the iPhone. You don't need to go out and buy new headphones that support the three-ring connection type. In fact, there's a good chance that headphones specially designed for the iPhone won't work with other audio players. That third ring is used by the iPhone to transmit information from the microphone built into the cable of Apple's stock earbuds.

If you're just interested in adapting your headphones to the iPhone for listening to music and movies, and you don't care so much about taking phone calls through them, then any of these first two adapters from Belkin and Griffin will work just fine. If you really want to have a built-in microphone just like the included Apple earbuds, you'll need something like the Shure MPA, which includes a mic and an Answer button. Unfortunately, using the Shure adapter with anything other than its own SE line of earphones will create an obnoxiously long cable.

From what we've seen so far, most users are content to make their calls holding the phone to their head or using a Bluetooth headset. If you're buying a headphone adapter, it's probably so you can use your favorite headphones with the iPhone's iPod. In this scenario, the iPhone will still automatically pause your music to alert you to an incoming call--at which point you can just take off your headphones and answer the call (or if you're music junkies like us, you let the call go to voice mail).

More solutions are sure to come.

More Resources

iPhone resource guide,

Editors' top earbuds,

iPhone accessories and essentials,

Editors' top cell phones