Dan Pražák Although the 3,5mm jack is becoming a thing of the past for iPhones and iPads, the headphone jack remains in place for Macs. The proof is also the latest MacBook Air and Mac mini, which not only kept the mentioned output, but even received an improvement that takes the playback of music from the mentioned computers to a higher level.
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The development studio Rogue Amoeba published an interesting on its blog contribution, in which he explains that the 3,5mm jack and the built-in speaker in the MacBook Air are now understood as two separate devices from the point of view of macOS, while in the case of the Mac mini, accessories connected via HDMI are taken as a second output. This means that you can simultaneously play two different audio sources through the headphones and built-in speakers – one from Spotify, for example, and the other from iTunes. In order to achieve the described settings, you need to use, for example, an application audio hijack.
But it seems even more practical that the music will be played in the headphones, while the notification sounds will be heard through the built-in speakers. Thanks to this, the user will be able to enjoy undisturbed listening to music, while still keeping track of new notifications. Output sound settings for notifications can be changed in System Preferences -> Sound and here at the item Sound effects play through choose Internal speakers. On the tab Output then you need to make sure that the connected speakers or headphones are selected as the main audio output.
Despite the changes, the prioritization of the 3,5 mm jack was preserved, when the sound is automatically switched to the aforementioned output after connecting headphones (or speakers). As soon as you disconnect the headphones, the output sound switches back to the built-in speakers.
According to findings so far, the separation of built-in speakers and connected headphones is ensured by the Apple T2 security chip. However, it is not only found in the new Mac mini and MacBook Air, but also in last year's iMac Pro and this year's MacBook Pro. Therefore, even on the last two Apple computers mentioned, music can be played simultaneously to different outputs.
I would prefer to see if there was also an optical output in that jack. :)
I don't miss it on the Macbook...but thanks to its absence in the new Apple TV, it's not worth buying it :( they killed a good device for me :(
Is it possible to share the sound on 2x airpods on the MacBook like on the iPhone?