You're totally right: 3.5mm is the connection out of the PC for audio out and mic in (TRRS I believe). Yes, there can be noticable latency, but I find that the trade-off for convenience of using ...

You need a soldering iron, some wires, a mic, push button, and a TRRS audio jack. Collectively, the materials should only cost around $2 and they're available at any electronics store.

Thankfully, Apple sells TRRS adapters as 3.5mm headphone adapters for Lightning or USB-C for a mere $9 each. They work as mic and headphone adapters because they work with the built-in mic on EarPods.

I even had some success recording an SM7b via an XLR to TRRS adapter. You can add up to 45dB of gain to the 3.5mm inputs, and with about 35dB the output from Shure’s gain-hungry mic was quiet ...