Use iPhone headphone microphone with a MacBook Pro

Thursday, June 25, 2009 http://atj.me/b/416

I just remembered this interesting tidbit regarding the use of the microphone on my shiny new iPhone headphones with my shiny new MacBook Pro:

Yes, it's true—these new MacBooks work with your iPhone headphones. If you click the button on your iPhone headphones, iTunes pauses. Click again, and the music resumes. A double-click advances one track, and a triple-click moves back a track—just like on the iPhone. What’s more, the headphones’ built-in microphone appears as the input device “Microphone port” in the Sound preference pane.

At the time this was published, I didn't have an iPhone or a compatible Intel Mac so I didn't pay much attention. Now that I do, this is pretty nifty.

Macworld October 2008

Filed under FYI, , , .

5 Comments on Use iPhone headphone microphone with a MacBook Pro

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  1. poiseulle on July 3rd, 2009 at 1:02 pm

    i have a macbook and iphone but i cant use the iphone headset on the macbook, no other option on sound output besides built-in speakers, any idea?

  2. Adam on July 7th, 2009 at 10:51 am

    @poiseulle, another microphone INPUT should appear in the Sound system preference pane. When the headphones are plugged into the MacBook the sound be played through them instead of the speaker automatically. If that's not happening - is it plugged in all the way?

    Adam

  3. Adrian on October 19th, 2009 at 7:37 am

    @Adam, I have the same problem. The buttons work but not the mic, nothing new coming up in the sound menu of the system preference... any ideas?

  4. Adam on October 19th, 2009 at 4:22 pm

    @Adrian, on my MBP running Snow Leopard, plugging the iPhone headphones into the headphone jack (not the microphone jack) causes the "Internal Microphone" item under the "Input" tab of the "Sound" preference pane to change to "External Microphone."

    Are your headphones plugged into the headphone jack (as opposed to the mic jack)? Are you looking at the "Input" tab of the Sound preference pane?

    On my older PowerBook G4, nothing appears in the "Input" section and the button on the headphone cord does not work. I mention this because it is possible that your Mac is too old to support the headphones, but I would be surprised if you could use the button and not the mic.

    Are you using headphones that came with an iPhone? The reason I ask is because I believe the iPod shuffle headphones have a control button but no microphone, which would explain why the Mac cannot find the mic ;)

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