Went to buy one and was shocked to see so many negative reviews of it on Apple's own site!
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Is apple really this blind to their own user feedback? 1.5 star average review?
Why not make a higher quality one that won't break for a few more dollars?
I've never had trouble and I put mine through the ringer. On and off different headphones and IEMs, amps . . . I mean I have to unplug it just to charge the phone, so it gets a lot of handling. If anything. there's less leverage to stress the cable's jacks than regular headphone jacks.
But the complaints are all over the place:
They are cheap and "very fragile" but do they break? "Not compatible with 3-button controls" is more likely a problem with the controls. My Senn Momentum controls work fine as did Phillips. But a cheap 3rd party cable for my Final E4000 died after a week.
I bet a lot of the hate at its root is probably about having to use a lame dongle at all and losing the headphone jack. The dongles suck. You can't charge your phone while listening to your headphones. If you misplace it, you can't listen to your headphones (and it gets lost easily).
There's obviously another DAC and amp in the phone itself that powers the speakers so it is odd that the the dongle is needed at all. No room for a jack, really?