It’s practically a certainty that the iPhone 7 will ditch the headphone jack for Lightning-powered audio – the big mystery is how Apple’s going to let you use your existing cans.

Whatever it has planned, we’re keeping our fingers crossed it’ll be a bit slicker than the first Lightning-to-headphone adaptors making their way out of China this week.

According to Japanese Apple rumour site Macotakara, accessory maker Tama Electric has three chunky breakout boxes in the works – with two packing microUSB ports for charging your phone while you’re listening.

The handful of Lightning-equipped headphones already on sale draw power from the phone to run internal DACs that turn digital data into analogue sound, and adaptors like these will have to do the same. A pass-through power socket should stop your phone from draining quite so quickly.

Good luck fitting this in your skinny jeans pocket alongside an iPhone, though – especially if you don’t want the screen to end up a scratched and scuffed mess.

The volume and play/pause controls match the standard iPhone in-line remote layout, and there’s a choice of colours – no doubt meant to match the phones you’ll be plugging them into.

There’s almost no chance these accessories will arrive with official “Made for iPhone” certification, and with no price or release date they might not arrive until the iPhone 7 does in September.

If Apple does go ahead and drop the headphone jack, though, you can expect plenty more of these third party plug-ins to make an appearance in the run-up to launch.

Apple’s apparently got a pair of Lightning-equipped earbuds in the pipeline, and will be focusing on Bluetooth wireless headphones in Apple stores, but that’s not exactly great news for anyone with a kick ass pair of cans but no way to use them.