New iPhones don't come with a headphone dongle — but that doesn't mean you won't need one

Fresh from the "you gotta be kidding me!" department: the new iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max and iPhone XR don't have headphone jacks, and they don't even come with a 3.5mm-to-lightning dongle. 

Yes, that goes even for the nearly-$1,500 512GB iPhone XS Max. 

That means if you want to use wired headphones or any other gadget that has a 3.5mm plug with your iPhone, you'll have to buy the dongle separately, for $9. 

I've lived in dongle hell for a year now, with the iPhone X as my main phone and a 2017 MacBook Pro as my main computer, and I can tell you that dongles are still must-have items. And that's even if you primarily use wireless headphones. I literally used the headphone dongle today, to plug my iPhone X into a music player at the gym — just because your iPhone is up to date doesn't mean the rest of the world is. Read more...