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Phil Schiller, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing at Apple Inc, discusses the audio features of the iPhone 7 during a media event in San Francisco, California, U.S. September 7, 2016. (REUTERS/Beck Diefenbach)
A quirky problem is reportedly affecting some people who are using Apple’s new Lightning-connected EarPods: the controls on the EarPods themselves stop working after a brief amount of time.
With the iPhone 7, Apple famously removed the traditional audio jack. Instead, the new device comes with EarPods that plug into the Lightning port— the same port used to charge the device. It also includes an adapter that connects older headphones with the 3.5mm jack to the more modern digital connection system.
The problem was first reported by Business Insider, who explained that the controls on the Lightning headphones stop working sometimes; those controls make it easy to change the volume of the audio, answer calls, talk to Siri, or pause your music. Business Insider said that the problem seems to be “intermittent and random.”
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The website 9to5mac also mentioned that the issue seems to be happening to the controls on older headphones that utilize the analog-to-digital adapter.
The problem reportedly happens after the screen has turned off.
PSA: Lightning headphone adapter shuts off after 5 minutes of inactivity if screen is off. Pause/volume don’t work until replugging. @atpfm
— Scott O'Reilly (@scttor) September 18, 2016
Apple is working on software update to fix the glitch, according to Business Insider. (The company didn’t reply to a request from FoxNews.com for comment.) Meanwhile, there’s also another reported way to deal with the issue: unplug the headphones, then plug them back in.
Follow Rob Verger on Twitter: @robverger