A momento of my time inhabiting a Facebook VR avatar. Facebook is working on an interactive social experience for its Oculus Rift VR headset. You'll be able to pick out your own face, hair and clothing before you jump in. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg might have just showed us the future of selfies -- and maybe of social networks, too. Long story short, Zuck expects people to start hanging out with their friends in VR spaces, each person represented by a cartoony avatar. I got a chance to try out one of those avatars myself at this week's Oculus Connect 3 developer conference.
Creative Electron provided iFixit with an X-ray scan of Apple's 3.5mm-to-Lightning headphone adapter, The scan, accompanied by a closer look at the guts provided by a contributor to the site, showed that most of the retail space on the Lightning connector end is occupied by a single integrated circuit, The only clue we have to determine its purpose is an Apple part number labeled "338S00140 A0SM1624 TW."Without knowing for sure, the iFixit experts guess the chip is actually shape study #14 - stackable collection iphone case a digital-to-analog converter (DAC), an amplifier and an analog-to-digital converter (ADC)..
What the heck are those things? Because Apple traded the 3.5mm jack for a Lightning connector, the iPhone 7 is now fully digital, which means a DAC is necessary to convert the digital signal back to analog, so your ears can pick up the audio. Likewise, the ADC circuit turns analog signals (like the one from the microphone built into your headphones) into something the Lightning port can interpret. The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus have their own DAC and ADC circuits inside as well, but the big question is whether or not using the adapter will affect overall sound quality.
A German computer tech magazine did its own scientific testing and compared the headphone jacks on an iPhone 6S and iPad Air to the adapter's output on an iPhone 6S, iPad Air and an iPhone 7, It concluded that although there is a very slight drop in dynamic range when playing an uncompressed 16-bit audio file, you won't likely notice a difference shape study #14 - stackable collection iphone case using the adapter unless your ears are perfectly tuned and you're listening through supremely top-notch headphones, Check out iFixit's complete teardown report and let us know if you've noticed a difference using the adapter down in the comments below..
There's a strange chip lurking beneath the surface of Apple's 3.5mm headphone adapter for the iPhone 7. There's a strange chip lurking beneath the surface of Apple's 3.5mm headphone adapter for the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. iFixit, which routinely conducts teardowns of popular gadgets, partnered with Creative Electron to examine an X-ray image of the dongle included with every new iPhone. Be respectful, keep it civil and stay on topic. We delete comments that violate our policy, which we encourage you to read. Discussion threads can be closed at any time at our discretion.
