So, what now? Are these devices obsolete and useless? Or can they still work with the new iPhones if we get a USB C to Lightning adapter?
Lightning accessories with iPhone 15: do adapters work?
We have good news — there’s a likely chance that you can still use your Lightning accessories with the proper USB-C adapter! However, now all adapters are made the same. To test and illustrate this, we bought two products:
Apple’s official USB-C to Lightning adapter
vs
Amazon-recommended USB-C to Lightning adapters
The dongle life
As for the cheap adapters you can pick up from Amazon — these are incredibly compact and can even be carried around in your wallet. However, be warned that most — if not all — of these will not work with any audio equipment. So, headphones, audio interfaces, and these “portable boom mics” with a Lightning connector on them will not work. Some adapters have this warning in their description, some do not. However, it is our experience that if an adapter is not explicitly marked as MFi, it will not support audio.
Connecting an external camera (like an action cam) via one of these adapters can have varying results — our iPhone started drawing power from the camera instead of getting access to it as it were a storage device. There are different models out there on the market, so some might still work, we just can’t give you a 100% guarantee.
Final result:
| Adapter | Charging | Audio | File transfer (computer) | External storage | Action cameras |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apple USB C to Lightning | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Generic OTG adapter | Yes | No | Yes | Sometimes | Sometimes |
