It was courageous to make a leap of faith and all that but not so courageous when it is at 160$. It's just ridiculous.
Waiting for Xiaomi to show their courage at 20$
Everyone keeps making this point but I don't get it? It's not like the AirPods are required. They are including Lightning EarPods and an adapter in the box for $0.
Aren't they just bluetooth headphones? Given the airpods are backwards compatible, I just assumed they were vanilla bluetooth. Can't the hundreds (thousands?) of ones that already exist just pair with the iPhone?
Apple has made their own Wireless implementation on top of bluetooth using their W1 chip. They said they will be putting it into the airpods and three new Beats headsets. I wonder what is it actually doing though. It is not impossible that the bluetooth is used as a fallback mechanism for backwards compatibility.
Gruber makes it clear, http://daringfireball.net/linked/2016/09/08/airpods-hands-on, the only thing proprietary is the pairing between the iPhone and Airpods with the case. Other than that, these are just plain bluetooth headphones. They will work fine with other devices, and other devices will work fine with the iPhone 7. The W1 chips is just a bluetooth chip designed by Apple.
It's not actually 0, you pay for everything, including a paper instructions are printed at. It just so happens everything's consolidated under a single position in the receipt reading "iPhone". And I would think 3.5mm EarPods are somewhat cheaper than lightning ones.
Considering that the phone runs seven hundred bucks, it might as well be zero. The phrase "penny wise, pound foolish" fairly somersaults to the tip of one's tongue, doesn't it?
Will those $20 headphones switch seamlessly between devices, stop playing when not in the ear, have beam forming microphones, charging container, charge for 3hours in 15 minutes?
The seamless switching is going to be handled by the devices (thus the comments about pairing being shared via iCloud), not the headphones alone.
Beamforming with two microphones creates a plane of enhanced sound, so anything directly in front (or behind) of you will be as enhanced as your voice is.
15 minutes of not having access to your headphones is not a trivially short amount of time, nor is 3 hours a reasonably long amount of time. I've had conference calls and remote coding sessions last longer than that, not to mention music listening periods.
They will not do. That's okay though. I can switch off music by myself. Audio quality and ease of use are the only things that matter in head phones for me.
And correction: charge was said to be 5 hours in the keynote.
Is Bluetooth less open to innovate on than the 3.5mm jack? I agree that it's important to be able to create hardware add-ons "without Apple's permission", but wouldn't most of those use cases just use Bluetooth today?
There's orders of magnitude of difference in complexity between Bluetooth and 3.5mm jack. Also, last time I heard, you couldn't even use Bluetooth to transfer files from an iPhone to a non-Apple device, so there's that.
EDIT changed "data" to "files", because that's what I meant.
I don't have an iPhone, but my cow-orker whose friend has one tells me that it's still the case that you can't transfer files between an iPhone and a non-Apple device over a Bluetooth connection.
I can confirm this, I've never tried before but my wife has an iPhone and I wanted to transfer something from her phone to mine in an area where neither of us had good service. Apple has some "AirDrop" nonsense that uses bluetooth to set up a direct wifi file transfer between iPhones, but to transfer directly to a non-iPhone, you need a third-party app, generally installed on both phones.
I doubt my wife will get another iPhone, especially without a 3.5mm headphone jack.
Also you can't really screw up the 3.5mm plug, while on the other hand a low-quality Bluetooth chip will ensure you constant sources of irritation when you try to use cheap wireless headsets. Source: bought a few different kinds in Shenzhen, and was universally disappointed by the BT issues (mostly pairing problems and random audio lags on the BT stack, though one particular headset managed to consistently hang up my S4).
I'll agree the courage statement was a bit silly and me laugh when I watched it go down. I for one am totally ok with the headphone jack going away. I have wireless headphones and I have wired headphones I'll make it work. More often than not the wired headphones become the hassle, whether it's tangled cords or just keeping them out of the way. I'm sure there are plenty of people who use wired headphones every day but there are also plenty of people who just have this unused hole in their phone. The earpods look great but are a bit steep for me. The way they pair looks great. It's definitely an Apple product, looks nice and is convenient (and perhaps a bit pricey but not ludicrously so). Also the battery life is great (when compared to similar independent wireless earbuds) and that case is an awesome way to charge/not lose them.
Apple it obviously trying to go to wireless everything and removing cables. Now they need to make wireless charging happen. If I could set my phone down on my desk and charge it and never again have to plug something in again, that would be great.
Well, you can always choose another phone. Except you can't really, because you want Apple. For any other manufacturer there wouldn't be any discussion about the missing plug, people would just laugh it off and choose another phone model.
I plug something into my phone's headphone jack in my house, my girlfriend's house, her car, at friend's houses, and at work. That means I'd need to carry the adapter with me or have one in each place. Not the end of the world, but certainly more of a pain than before.
Not for most people. I just use the headphones that come in the box. My girlfriend doesn't use any headphones. Neither of us will need the adapter, unless we want to use one of our old iphone headphones.
It takes up space. Is rather see that extra space be used for more battery than to make the phone thinner, but I'd rather have a thinner phone than one with a headphone jack.
> More often than not the wired headphones become the hassle, whether it's tangled cords or just keeping them out of the way. I'm sure there are plenty of people who use wired headphones every day but there are also plenty of people who just have this unused hole in their phone
Nothing wrong with that - chances are you'll use it at one point or another. Most cars and stereo systems still use 3.5mm. Even for people who have Bluetooth in their cars they often prefer the stereo cable as it gives better quality, has no weird pairing issues and doesn't drain their battery.
I've ran both wireless and wired headphones and have settled on wired. It's just better, better audio quality, better headphones for a lower price, no waiting for the headphones to initialize, no forgetting to turn them off and finding your battery half dead, no having to charge them every few days. Just plug it in and go.
Hopefully this move will put pressure on manufacturers to get costs down on these wireless headphones and get the more off-brand audio manufacturers who often make the best products (quality/dollar wise) interested.
Also no weird BT stack issues which make sound desync with video when you're watching a movie, which is what ultimately made me stop using Bluetooth headphones with a home PC.
Yeah this really sucks for people in cars (plenty of people still drive cards w/o bluetooth). I just spent hours driving last week using my phone as a source of music (via aux cord) and GPS. If I couldn't have been charging it while doing this it would have died sooooo quickly
well I can find more than a few seniors who would not mind seeing everyone wearing something akin to hearing aids. Yet to be honest, part of the appeal of the current corded headphones is that they simply don't fall out and if they do, well they are attached!
plus cordless head phones are no where in the same league as using the phone in the car without a head set. finally, why yet another thing I have to charge. I do have a SENA 20s setup for my motorcycle helmet, but even then mic and headphones cannot get lost or dropped.
I would love market pressure to force them to revert for the next iphone, I doubt it will, but I think I am keeping the 6 for a long time. worse than having to charge them is the pricing, obscene
Regular wireless headphones are fine, but cordless earphones are a braindead idea because they will get lost.
There are some general disadvantages to wireless: most bluetooth headphones, even high-end ones, have lag. It's imperceptible when listening to music, but obvious when playing an instrument in a music app like Garageband or better.
Attaching a keyboard or drum pads while listening on headphones is quite a typical use case for iOS musicians.
I'm quite surprised that this issue is not stressed enough. We still don't have(avb is still under development) a solution for stereo/multichannel audio via wifi, let alone bluetooth. I understand the jack is old but why do we replace it with an inferior technology? I expected more from Apple not just to trash quality for convenience.
That moment was absolutely the ultimate in Apple Reality Distortion Field in recent years, but this article is also over the top hyperbole.
The reality is the audio jack did take a significant amount of internal volume on the phone, and there are advantages to using wireless headphones. In a few years I won't be surprised if most Android phones also forego the audio jack.
If you really think it was a huge mistake for Apple to do this, short Apple stock. The market will reflect it. Otherwise, it may be annoying but it was probably the right thing to do in the long term and you're just repeating the same silliness of the people who cried about the lack of floppy drive on the iMac or the lack of ethernet port on the MacBook Air.
Of course, among several other criteria, some surely more important.
But my thoughts on the audio connector are independent of my thoughts on Apple's stock value, and everyyone else's. Imagining that you can constructively send a message of displeasure to Apple about changes to their audio jack by shorting their stock... this is what's nuts.
Owning Apple stock is quite rational even if you think Apple products are bad value-for-money. As a shareholder, the huge profit margins of selling proprietary earbuds for $170 all accrues to you!
8% earnings yield with massive user lock-in - wouldn't you want to be on the side that gets the money rather than on the side that hands it over?
Shorting technology stocks based on technologists and engineers understanding of the consumer electronics market has historically proven to be poor financial advice.
As for who owns Apple stock - the usual suspects for any stock with that good of a recent track record.
Apple products are slowly becoming a pain in the ass to use with "unapproved" hardware.
Removing the network plug from the MBP line was stupid. At the office everyone now uses USB adapters to connect to the LAN.
I also have to use a stupid docking station that locks around the USB and display port as Kensington lock. But that also blocks the power cable, so now I need two power bricks!
And guess what, I also have an external CD-drive, because the world didn't stop using CDs and DVDs when Apple courageously removed the internal drive.
USB is not always better than CD, especially with the security problems hitting it these days.
And now this headphone jack thing. I wonder what they'll do about iPads and Macs, as they've split their user base into two now.
It makes more sense to use regular headphones and the adapter if you already have another Apple device!
I don't see the problem with having external adapters for disc readers, or even a wired network on a device as thin as modern MacBooks. Most people don't use them, so they're just taking up space for the majority of people.
I don't see a problem with needing an external adapter for those that still want to use them. Especially if that adapter comes with the device.
I'm not even an Apple consumer, I just really don't understand why so many people are mad about antiquated connectors being removed.
People are upset because they still use those antiquated connectors and adapters are a huge pain in the ass.
The first Android phone had no headphone jack, and it was a pain in the ass. Bluetooth hasn't progressed very much since then either. It still sucks. I've had 20+ different bluetooth ear pieces and headphones at various price points, and none have been as easy to use and hassle free as a cheap set of earbuds. Nor did they sound as good.
I use a rMBP with no ethernet port every day at work. I use WiFi. I also don't use any annoying dock. My Wife uses a dock with her rMBP and she likes hers.
Your work situation sounds miserable but it's not mandatory.
Precisely.
I wonder in which proportion this decision was made to prevent shop owners from using these small credit card readers connected to the audio port and push Apple Pay down their throat.
That's the first thing I thought about after the initial laugh and I'm surprised it's not talked about more. Not saying it's the main reason but I can't believe it was not mentioned during the decision-making process.
> I wonder in which proportion this decision was made to prevent shop owners from using these small credit card readers connected to the audio port and push Apple Pay down their throat.
As far as the hardware's concerned, a Square reader is a microphone. Microphones work via the Lightning adapter. I see no a priori reason to imagine that a Square reader won't work that way, too.
Wasn't one reason for losing the headphone jack to help further waterproof the iPhone? That said, for even the best current bluetooth headphones, the sound quality isn't that great. Does the bluetooth standard need an update in that department, because there's a large difference in sound between bluetooth mode and being plugged in for these headphones?
Can we just take a moment and be happy about the fact that we're on the edge of an era where every smartphone charger will work with every phone?
Edit: Google is leading me to believe this might not actually be the case? Are they just rebranding USB-C as "Lightning", or is Apple seriously going with another proprietary standard?
That's so incredibly disappointing. Why does Apple have to ruin standards? They already have their Marketplace locked down. If they don't like third party peripherals, they can accomplish it through other means.
I hope they die a harsh and painful death over the next decade. Cheap phones will only get better and better.
Frankly, I don't know how anyone who is tech-savvy can rationalize rewarding behavior like this.
Lightning was Apple’s replacement for their Dock cable, and it was dramatically better than that as it was reversable and far less fragile. USB-C added reversibility to USB, but it came out well after Lightning.
Not that I'm a fan of USB Micro, but there are cables for sale that have a reversible USB Micro plug, as well as a reversible USB plug on the other end, however I have no experience with their durability.
Disregard me, I just get confused with all the different proprietary Apple peripherals. Thunderbolt was the same port as with mini-displayport. Firewire was IEEE 1394. Now I guess I know about Lightning, too.
I look forward to the day when we can all use the same standards.
If anything, this is a sign that they won't be going to USB-C on the iPhone anytime soon. They can't announce something like this, cause the headphone manufacturers to produce lightning headphones, and then remove the lightning port in a year or so.
i think it was more like convenience. there was another article where schiller talks about having to remove the jack so that they could get the components to fit or something, specifically the haptic engine and also maintain water resistance.
i don't want to be making comparisons to steve jobs (okay, i actually am haha), but i feel like he would never let this fly and just tell them to figure out how to get all the components to fit or don't do it at all.
i feel like it was a lazy engineering decision to do it this way. one where the solution is based on convenience of design rather than what is best for the users.
Absolutely. This is lazy work lead by a man that knows manufacturing logistics well but doesn't have the balls to stand up against jony. Besides... how thin of a phone do people really want? I think most people would be excited with more battery life and a 3.5mm jack to sacrifice a bit of thinness.
You may be right but I think it's very unlikely. Firstly, they already fit a jack into the same form factor and this wouldn't have been the first water resistant device with an audio jack i.e. these were solved problems. I don't believe they would go through all this effort because they couldn't be bothered to work out how to fit an audio jack back in.
If I were to guess it's either because they just like the idea of one connector that does everything (I get the impression that's what Thunderbolt was for). Either that or this a step towards a fully wireless strategy. As I quite like the idea of the latter, I'm going to assume it's that until evidence refutes it.
Does anyone know how Lightning headphones work? Is there an analogue line in there (I think I read somewhere that pins can switch modes?) so they're just traditional passive headphones with a different plug?
I've seen some assert that they just use some of the extra pins to pass normal audio. The adaptor is entirely dumb. And that you might get some extra noise because now your headphone jack is also a high-speed digital connection..
Someone might make "active" headphones with their own DAC, but disregarding those noise-cancelling cans that so many people seem enamored with, that's going to venture into audiophile nonsense very quickly.
The problem with the disappearing 3.5mm jack is, as usual, a problem that only a few geeks like us care about.
Taking myself as an example: I can't use the Apple earbuds, they immediately fall out of my ears. Which is why I use either large over-ear headphones (MDR7506), large over-ear noise-cancelling headphones (BOSE) for work in noisy places, or in-ear headphones that stay put even when running (Sol Republic Relays). And I want to have the flexibility of using any of those.
Every wireless option I've ever tried sucked badly. Some really badly. In various interesting ways.
But "most people" (I love that phrase) won't care. It seems the included apple earbuds are good enough for almost everyone.
I'm sure BOSE (and other popular headphone-manufacturing companies) will be producing a line of bluetooth-enabled headphones in response to Apple's decision, if they aren't already.
Headphones aren't a niche geek thing, though. Apple bought a company that sold millions of wired headphones and successfully marketed them as trendy fashion items.
When Apple sees kids walking around with Beats headphones, what device do they think it's plugged into? It's all smartphones.
Ok for most of those who do not use Apple headphones adapter provided will solve their problem. So those who still have the problem are: those who have gazillion headphones and use them all; those whose cars for some reason don't have USB connection; and those who like to charge the phone while listening to the music.
Exactly. They're already selling wireless ones, and have been for a while; I see them regularly on the train. Now they're making the ones with wires subtly uncool. They will succeed in so doing.
Currently using a pair of Bose QuietComfort 35, which are wireless and connect via bluetooth.
The only issue I have with it is that pairing can occasionally take a minute or two, because I have to pair with a different device sometimes and it remembers the last connection first.
However, other than that, they work fantastically. The noise cancellation is on point, the battery lasts for ~8 hours or so, and I have been a very happy camper since getting it.
Recently compared it to my girlfriend's QC25, and I really enjoy having the convenience of not having to pop in a battery and no wires.
Every Bluetooth headphones I've tried have the same problem: they don't always work and they are fiddly. When they do work, I can even suffer the crappy sound quality (Apple refuses to implement aptX). But overall there is just way too much fiddling around (switch them on, switch them off, hold this button for that amount of time, etc) and too many cases when they suddenly stop working (dead battery, radio interference causing drops, etc).
I still remember the mindboggingly crappy Jabra sports Bluetooth headphones I bought, and the sinking feeling when I opened the box and found a hastily thrown in armband for the phone and an additional piece of paper saying that it is recommended to wear the phone strapped to your arm. Upper arm. Right arm, because that's the side where the receiver is. The effective range of these headphones was something like 30cm.
I don't want to fiddle with stuff in my life, I want to use it. I want to connect my headphones and have them work.
I think there is some truth to the "we needed to make space for the other changes we wanted to make" argument, but I think that applies even more so to the next iPhone (8?). I think Apple made the 7 as good as they could, but in some sense it's the sacrificial lamb for what they want to do next.
I don't have a problem with them removing the headphone jack. I do think some aspects of Apple's messaging is tone deaf. Their "affordable" JBL bluetooth headphones they mentioned during the presentation? $200. That's real money for a huge portion of their customer base.
But I do think they removed it to allow the iPhone 8 to have space for dual cameras, and wireless charging (they said they see the future as wireless) and I'm fine with that.
I've been using bluetooth enabled hearing aids since the beginning of the year and it has been a great experience being able to play music straight into my ears without having to take earphones out my pocket and disentangle them.
The difference is normal people won't keep them on when they're not listening to music, but that's what Apple wants. This is an opportunity to place their hardware in the next step for computer interaction which is going to be conversational assistants (voice and audio). This would give them the opportunity to be always listening and collecting more information about what surrounds you.
Some ten years ago Google quietly dropped a publicly proposed functionality (I forgot what they called it) whereby the search page would listen to your room and provide supplemental info to the TV program you were watching, etc.
Someone must have pointed out it was rather creepy, but it seems to just have been ahead of its time ...
I don't understand why they didn't simply say that it's about better sound quality than analog can provide. They could have chosen a better word to focus on: Fidelity. "Apple customers deserve better than the same analog headphones they've been listening to since the beginning of music".
They could have at least swayed the Apple loyal with that position - the thought would have been that they're getting something better than everyone else has. At the very least there wouldn't be justifiable headlines mocking what they said.
Pretending that $170 gets you better sound would put them in an even worse position. The world hasn't heard what they sound like yet, and I'm sure they sound great. But they won't sound $170 better than the regular wired ones. Apple would get slammed even harder by using that selling point.
Besides, high fidelity is the selling point of their overpriced Beats brand, which they will position as a better version of the Apple ones after everyone's spent their money on it.
It's all analog in the end. That's how you move the drivers. As the article says, it really makes very little difference whether the analog signal is coming from a few centimeters away (built-in DAC) or a few feet away (as normal).
How long, do we suppose, before the government steps in and orders that all phones support the 3.5mm jack? I don't think it'll be long... Well, because government
No the regulation is that all chargers use USB, the other end of the cable doesn't matter. The situation that arose out of that is that you can charge pretty much any phone with any USB charger, which was the intent.
I'd like Apple to have chosen a USB standard for the other end of the cable, however to be honest, the lightning connector and it's counterpart look a lot more robust than USB-C or micro/nano USB. USB-C is also quite a bit bigger than lightning. So perhaps some day we'll see USB adopt lightning as a standard if that is at all possible. iPad Pro lightning supports USB3 speed, so we know lightning can do USB3.
"See, it’s that last part that must bother them. The idea that someone, somewhere, is doing something with an iPhone that they haven’t anticipated, like making a thermometer or payment system or 3D scanner. Someone who hasn’t paid for a license to attach that thing to their phone."
Nonsense. They still include an adapter, so you can just connect those devices to that jack instead. Or use Bluetooth, which doesn't require a license. Or, you know, Wi-Fi.
I'm amazed at the rage around this, a good friend of mine is about as anti Apple as the come and back in July he asked what I, a Mac and iPhone user, thought of them removing the headphone socket in the then rumoured 7. I said I was, and still am, largely indifferent.
He on the other hand was full of praise for Apple, he said he can't remember the last time he or his wife plugged head phones in to their phones and with bluetooth headphones being so cheap now (he as some of the MPow £20 ones) there is no reason to keep a piece of legacy equipment around for nostalgia purposes.
I was amazed given his usually anti Apple stance, but then I remembered that while he is anti Apple he is very pro progress, any kind of progress and technology change. Try something, see if it works and then move forward or try something else.
The phone market has become relatively stale, this is at least a company attempting (along with Motorola let's not forget) something radical. I didn't think it was radical but based on the online eruption it clearly is, people seem to have forgotten that there's a lot that's not great about 3.5 headphones that, I think, equally balances out the issues with wireless only.
If you don't like it that much then just don't buy the phone, if enough people do that then Apple will respond to market forces and backtrack. No one is forcing you to buy an iPhone.
By contrast, I (and hundreds of millions of other people) use the headphone jack every day.
Aside from having a cord to your ears, I can't think of anything that's not great. If I wanted noise cancelling headphones, I could get some with batteries.
Also what if I want to charge and listen to music simultaneously? I guess that's no longer an option with wired headphones?
At the risk of coming over as flippant and rude, don't buy the phone if it's that much of a problem. There is no reason you have to have an iPhone, there is no right/law that says Apple must maintain an old standard if they don't want to.
Also, I'm sure Belkin/Anker will be making a little splitter that enables you to plug 3.5mm headphones and a lighting cable in at the same time. Many lighting docks already have 3.5mm jack socket in them for this purpose since when the phone is in the dock you can't plug headphones in.
Phones are already so thin, it's getting crazy. Soon we'll be talking about phone-cuts (like a paper cut) and phone-cut-gate will be the story. Seriously, I'd be fine with a phone that is almost 2cm thick for great battery life.
That's the theory , but:The Apple Music App is pretty shitty. Hangups, bluetooth doesn't work well, the App takes 800MB ram , etc. (bw the phone has 2GB ram and snapdragon 615, and most things run well on it) - and it's just a music app .
So their Android strategy isn't clear. Maybe it's just something to convince you that Apple is better, or something to get some leverage in the industry. IDK.
Assuming a company the size of Apple has more than enough resources to develop decent software on any platform, I think it's fair to assume they willingly make subpar versions of their apps on what they consider to be "rival" OS, disingenuously trying to make the point that UX is better on MacOS/iOS.
Even that is not true any more. A few recent examples:
- iPhone 6s/6s+ are heavier & thicker than iPhone 6. They have worse, especially low-light, cameras compared to iPhone 6 and have smaller, therefore worse, batteries. All of this for a gimmicky, screen that pops up a contextual menu that is covered by your finger that brought it up.
- A computer with a single port for everything, even charging, i.e. MacBook.
- Apple TV 4th gen. remote and usability.
- Charging situation with Magic Mouse 2.
- Charging situation with Apple Pencil.
- Removal of the perfectly usable headphone jack on iPhone 7.
- iPhone 7 has stereo speakers in landscape orientation but the Music apps in iOS is portrait only.
Where have you read that iPhone7 bluetooth is proprietary? How can they be backwards compatible if they aren't bluetooth? I can't seriously believe Apple would release a phone that is incompatible with the many excellent bluetooth headphones out there.
Gruber makes it clear, http://daringfireball.net/linked/2016/09/08/airpods-hands-on, the only thing proprietary is the pairing between the iPhone and Airpods with the case. Other than that, these are just plain bluetooth headphones. They will work fine with other devices, and other devices will work fine with the iPhone 7.
It's just that they failed to mitigate the obvious risk factors in their marketing plan.
The justified ridicule about the removal of the audio jack started already months before the release so to many people selecting courage as the leading word portrays Apple's willful ignorance regarding the issues they cause.
If they offered or emphasized their solutions for wired earphones their marketing wouldn't have had to take such a beating.
On the other hand, if they succeed in impressing their fans with the remaining features the audience will find a interpret the topic name in a positive light. For instance, it's the courage to move away towards the more comfortable wireless ear/headphones.
Just scroll down and you'll see various people describing that they support the design since they themselves don't really need those old-style earphones. Psychologically predictable behavior.
This jack-off move by Apple could perhaps be justified as courage by Apple if they were moving to a newer standard - like USB C.
Instead they moved to a proprietary port that they only partially support. It'll be great to be denied the option of using the same non-wireless headphones on my iPhone as on my Macbook (unless they also implement Lightning ports on the Macbooks, which would be horribly confusing).
That's one way to look at it. Another would be that they moved to Bluetooth while also providing a means of backwards compatibility with the lighting to 3.5 adapter as well as a pair of lighting headphones for those who prefer that.
It's right here:
"Data doesn’t need to go to the headphones, nor do the headphones need to send data back. Digital-to-analog conversion has to be done eventually, because speakers don’t produce sound waves with 1s and 0s."
True for speakers, but headphones are often more than dumb speakers at this point. They're active noise cancelling devices. They're a component of immersive video (why do people buy 5.1 surround systems when they could just wear headphones?).
Or even if you have the standard earphones from the box: do you ever pause the sound, skip a track, or answer a call using the buttons on the cable? If so, you're sending data back to the phone. Surprise!
What other forms of interactivity could we open up if we broke the "one-way, stereo audio only" assumption explicitly?
Don't get me wrong - my preferred earphone vendor doesn't even have Bluetooth support yet and I don't really want to buy another pair of custom Etymotics. But despite that, I recognize there are real experience-driven reasons to do this.
177 comments
[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 226 ms ] threadIt's not actually 0, you pay for everything, including a paper instructions are printed at. It just so happens everything's consolidated under a single position in the receipt reading "iPhone". And I would think 3.5mm EarPods are somewhat cheaper than lightning ones.
Beamforming with two microphones creates a plane of enhanced sound, so anything directly in front (or behind) of you will be as enhanced as your voice is.
15 minutes of not having access to your headphones is not a trivially short amount of time, nor is 3 hours a reasonably long amount of time. I've had conference calls and remote coding sessions last longer than that, not to mention music listening periods.
I have wireless headsets that last 20 hours on a charge. 5 measly hours is ridiculous and it makes all those other features "not worth it".
EDIT changed "data" to "files", because that's what I meant.
What? Isn't it just a protocol?
https://www.quora.com/Why-does-iPhone-not-pair-with-other-no...
I don't have an iPhone, but my cow-orker whose friend has one tells me that it's still the case that you can't transfer files between an iPhone and a non-Apple device over a Bluetooth connection.
I doubt my wife will get another iPhone, especially without a 3.5mm headphone jack.
It's certainly better form a usability perspective: plug it in, and you're done. Bluetooth has to be paired, and can be jammed.
It's all about removing connection ports, on the iphone and on the mac to be sure that you will be using just something that they can control.
Apple it obviously trying to go to wireless everything and removing cables. Now they need to make wireless charging happen. If I could set my phone down on my desk and charge it and never again have to plug something in again, that would be great.
Having a useless hole doesn't inconvenience them, but taking it away inconveniences a large swath of people who use it daily.
I guess you could buy two pairs and swap them out...?
Now I need to buy 4 additional adapters from Apple for $40 or carry an adapter with me everywhere I go?
But then again I don't buy apple in the first place.
http://www.androidcentral.com/moto-z-doesnt-have-headphone-j...
The headphone jack is a waste of space, and redundant. Fortunately, it'll be a USB-C standard.
DACs and additional signals processing should be fine tuned for their respective speaker/microphone drivers.
It's not thinner, it's just missing a headphone jack.
Nothing wrong with that - chances are you'll use it at one point or another. Most cars and stereo systems still use 3.5mm. Even for people who have Bluetooth in their cars they often prefer the stereo cable as it gives better quality, has no weird pairing issues and doesn't drain their battery.
I've ran both wireless and wired headphones and have settled on wired. It's just better, better audio quality, better headphones for a lower price, no waiting for the headphones to initialize, no forgetting to turn them off and finding your battery half dead, no having to charge them every few days. Just plug it in and go.
Hopefully this move will put pressure on manufacturers to get costs down on these wireless headphones and get the more off-brand audio manufacturers who often make the best products (quality/dollar wise) interested.
plus cordless head phones are no where in the same league as using the phone in the car without a head set. finally, why yet another thing I have to charge. I do have a SENA 20s setup for my motorcycle helmet, but even then mic and headphones cannot get lost or dropped.
I would love market pressure to force them to revert for the next iphone, I doubt it will, but I think I am keeping the 6 for a long time. worse than having to charge them is the pricing, obscene
Good, sturdy cables with proper amp, microphone and remote control built-in. Headphone producers would provide the analog speaker-part only.
Pros for Apple:
. sell more hardware
. establish their lightning port
. better the good-speaker-but-crappy-cable-situation that plagues the headphone market
. stop wasting a cable on every new pair of iPhone buds
. extend their hardware eco-system centimeter by centimeter
There are some general disadvantages to wireless: most bluetooth headphones, even high-end ones, have lag. It's imperceptible when listening to music, but obvious when playing an instrument in a music app like Garageband or better.
Attaching a keyboard or drum pads while listening on headphones is quite a typical use case for iOS musicians.
So they surely know that this would be the response. And still they choose the word "courage". Why ?
The reality is the audio jack did take a significant amount of internal volume on the phone, and there are advantages to using wireless headphones. In a few years I won't be surprised if most Android phones also forego the audio jack.
If you really think it was a huge mistake for Apple to do this, short Apple stock. The market will reflect it. Otherwise, it may be annoying but it was probably the right thing to do in the long term and you're just repeating the same silliness of the people who cried about the lack of floppy drive on the iMac or the lack of ethernet port on the MacBook Air.
What idiot owns Apple stock?
But my thoughts on the audio connector are independent of my thoughts on Apple's stock value, and everyyone else's. Imagining that you can constructively send a message of displeasure to Apple about changes to their audio jack by shorting their stock... this is what's nuts.
8% earnings yield with massive user lock-in - wouldn't you want to be on the side that gets the money rather than on the side that hands it over?
As for who owns Apple stock - the usual suspects for any stock with that good of a recent track record.
Removing the network plug from the MBP line was stupid. At the office everyone now uses USB adapters to connect to the LAN.
I also have to use a stupid docking station that locks around the USB and display port as Kensington lock. But that also blocks the power cable, so now I need two power bricks!
And guess what, I also have an external CD-drive, because the world didn't stop using CDs and DVDs when Apple courageously removed the internal drive. USB is not always better than CD, especially with the security problems hitting it these days.
And now this headphone jack thing. I wonder what they'll do about iPads and Macs, as they've split their user base into two now.
It makes more sense to use regular headphones and the adapter if you already have another Apple device!
I don't see a problem with needing an external adapter for those that still want to use them. Especially if that adapter comes with the device.
I'm not even an Apple consumer, I just really don't understand why so many people are mad about antiquated connectors being removed.
2) Neither of these connectors are antiquated. Or do you mean to say that all of Apple's product line up except the iPhone 7 is antiquated?
They are widely used and very good at what they do.
The first Android phone had no headphone jack, and it was a pain in the ass. Bluetooth hasn't progressed very much since then either. It still sucks. I've had 20+ different bluetooth ear pieces and headphones at various price points, and none have been as easy to use and hassle free as a cheap set of earbuds. Nor did they sound as good.
Your work situation sounds miserable but it's not mandatory.
That's the first thing I thought about after the initial laugh and I'm surprised it's not talked about more. Not saying it's the main reason but I can't believe it was not mentioned during the decision-making process.
As far as the hardware's concerned, a Square reader is a microphone. Microphones work via the Lightning adapter. I see no a priori reason to imagine that a Square reader won't work that way, too.
Edit: Google is leading me to believe this might not actually be the case? Are they just rebranding USB-C as "Lightning", or is Apple seriously going with another proprietary standard?
RE your edit - Lightning is not USB-C, it's Apple's propertiary thing.
I hope they die a harsh and painful death over the next decade. Cheap phones will only get better and better.
Frankly, I don't know how anyone who is tech-savvy can rationalize rewarding behavior like this.
Thunderbolt was a good idea (from Intel, not Apple) but most vendors were too (licensing) price sensitive to pick it up.
It has some advantages over USB Micro. Like being reversible.
It's been the standard connector for mobile Apple devices since the iPhone 5. Nothing new about it.
I look forward to the day when we can all use the same standards.
i don't want to be making comparisons to steve jobs (okay, i actually am haha), but i feel like he would never let this fly and just tell them to figure out how to get all the components to fit or don't do it at all.
i feel like it was a lazy engineering decision to do it this way. one where the solution is based on convenience of design rather than what is best for the users.
If I were to guess it's either because they just like the idea of one connector that does everything (I get the impression that's what Thunderbolt was for). Either that or this a step towards a fully wireless strategy. As I quite like the idea of the latter, I'm going to assume it's that until evidence refutes it.
Or is there a DAC in the wired headphones?
Someone might make "active" headphones with their own DAC, but disregarding those noise-cancelling cans that so many people seem enamored with, that's going to venture into audiophile nonsense very quickly.
Taking myself as an example: I can't use the Apple earbuds, they immediately fall out of my ears. Which is why I use either large over-ear headphones (MDR7506), large over-ear noise-cancelling headphones (BOSE) for work in noisy places, or in-ear headphones that stay put even when running (Sol Republic Relays). And I want to have the flexibility of using any of those.
Every wireless option I've ever tried sucked badly. Some really badly. In various interesting ways.
But "most people" (I love that phrase) won't care. It seems the included apple earbuds are good enough for almost everyone.
When Apple sees kids walking around with Beats headphones, what device do they think it's plugged into? It's all smartphones.
Exactly. They're already selling wireless ones, and have been for a while; I see them regularly on the train. Now they're making the ones with wires subtly uncool. They will succeed in so doing.
The only issue I have with it is that pairing can occasionally take a minute or two, because I have to pair with a different device sometimes and it remembers the last connection first.
However, other than that, they work fantastically. The noise cancellation is on point, the battery lasts for ~8 hours or so, and I have been a very happy camper since getting it.
Recently compared it to my girlfriend's QC25, and I really enjoy having the convenience of not having to pop in a battery and no wires.
I still remember the mindboggingly crappy Jabra sports Bluetooth headphones I bought, and the sinking feeling when I opened the box and found a hastily thrown in armband for the phone and an additional piece of paper saying that it is recommended to wear the phone strapped to your arm. Upper arm. Right arm, because that's the side where the receiver is. The effective range of these headphones was something like 30cm.
I don't want to fiddle with stuff in my life, I want to use it. I want to connect my headphones and have them work.
But I do think they removed it to allow the iPhone 8 to have space for dual cameras, and wireless charging (they said they see the future as wireless) and I'm fine with that.
The difference is normal people won't keep them on when they're not listening to music, but that's what Apple wants. This is an opportunity to place their hardware in the next step for computer interaction which is going to be conversational assistants (voice and audio). This would give them the opportunity to be always listening and collecting more information about what surrounds you.
Some ten years ago Google quietly dropped a publicly proposed functionality (I forgot what they called it) whereby the search page would listen to your room and provide supplemental info to the TV program you were watching, etc.
Someone must have pointed out it was rather creepy, but it seems to just have been ahead of its time ...
They could have at least swayed the Apple loyal with that position - the thought would have been that they're getting something better than everyone else has. At the very least there wouldn't be justifiable headlines mocking what they said.
Besides, high fidelity is the selling point of their overpriced Beats brand, which they will position as a better version of the Apple ones after everyone's spent their money on it.
I'd like Apple to have chosen a USB standard for the other end of the cable, however to be honest, the lightning connector and it's counterpart look a lot more robust than USB-C or micro/nano USB. USB-C is also quite a bit bigger than lightning. So perhaps some day we'll see USB adopt lightning as a standard if that is at all possible. iPad Pro lightning supports USB3 speed, so we know lightning can do USB3.
Nonsense. They still include an adapter, so you can just connect those devices to that jack instead. Or use Bluetooth, which doesn't require a license. Or, you know, Wi-Fi.
He on the other hand was full of praise for Apple, he said he can't remember the last time he or his wife plugged head phones in to their phones and with bluetooth headphones being so cheap now (he as some of the MPow £20 ones) there is no reason to keep a piece of legacy equipment around for nostalgia purposes.
I was amazed given his usually anti Apple stance, but then I remembered that while he is anti Apple he is very pro progress, any kind of progress and technology change. Try something, see if it works and then move forward or try something else.
The phone market has become relatively stale, this is at least a company attempting (along with Motorola let's not forget) something radical. I didn't think it was radical but based on the online eruption it clearly is, people seem to have forgotten that there's a lot that's not great about 3.5 headphones that, I think, equally balances out the issues with wireless only.
If you don't like it that much then just don't buy the phone, if enough people do that then Apple will respond to market forces and backtrack. No one is forcing you to buy an iPhone.
Aside from having a cord to your ears, I can't think of anything that's not great. If I wanted noise cancelling headphones, I could get some with batteries.
Also what if I want to charge and listen to music simultaneously? I guess that's no longer an option with wired headphones?
Also, I'm sure Belkin/Anker will be making a little splitter that enables you to plug 3.5mm headphones and a lighting cable in at the same time. Many lighting docks already have 3.5mm jack socket in them for this purpose since when the phone is in the dock you can't plug headphones in.
"It’s not a conspiracy theory, it’s a business plan."
Apple has a habit of killing tech they can't control.
Headphone jack is eliminated so they can license and control what talks to the phone.
Safari is intentionally the worst browser for HTML5 so that people don't go around the app store.
Flash is banned from browsers because then you have to go thru the app store and give them your 30%.
You have to have a Mac to write apps for iOS or Macs, why because it increases their sales.
So drink the cool aid if you must, but recognize it as great business plan that encourages you to buy only apple licensed products
Though as someone who has business apps on the AppStore and the PlayStore, the AppStore generates a LOT more business for us.
So their Android strategy isn't clear. Maybe it's just something to convince you that Apple is better, or something to get some leverage in the industry. IDK.
So i
- iPhone 6s/6s+ are heavier & thicker than iPhone 6. They have worse, especially low-light, cameras compared to iPhone 6 and have smaller, therefore worse, batteries. All of this for a gimmicky, screen that pops up a contextual menu that is covered by your finger that brought it up.
- A computer with a single port for everything, even charging, i.e. MacBook.
- Apple TV 4th gen. remote and usability.
- Charging situation with Magic Mouse 2.
- Charging situation with Apple Pencil.
- Removal of the perfectly usable headphone jack on iPhone 7.
- iPhone 7 has stereo speakers in landscape orientation but the Music apps in iOS is portrait only.
And don't get me started on their software.
What, you thought Apple used a standard?
The justified ridicule about the removal of the audio jack started already months before the release so to many people selecting courage as the leading word portrays Apple's willful ignorance regarding the issues they cause. If they offered or emphasized their solutions for wired earphones their marketing wouldn't have had to take such a beating.
On the other hand, if they succeed in impressing their fans with the remaining features the audience will find a interpret the topic name in a positive light. For instance, it's the courage to move away towards the more comfortable wireless ear/headphones. Just scroll down and you'll see various people describing that they support the design since they themselves don't really need those old-style earphones. Psychologically predictable behavior.
Possibly. We won't know that for a fact until there's a couple of Q's of sales volumes.
What we can say for certain is that it's received an awful lot of, unpaid for, press coverage. As bad marketing goes it's quite impressive.
Instead they moved to a proprietary port that they only partially support. It'll be great to be denied the option of using the same non-wireless headphones on my iPhone as on my Macbook (unless they also implement Lightning ports on the Macbooks, which would be horribly confusing).
Thanks Apple!
It's right here: "Data doesn’t need to go to the headphones, nor do the headphones need to send data back. Digital-to-analog conversion has to be done eventually, because speakers don’t produce sound waves with 1s and 0s."
True for speakers, but headphones are often more than dumb speakers at this point. They're active noise cancelling devices. They're a component of immersive video (why do people buy 5.1 surround systems when they could just wear headphones?).
Or even if you have the standard earphones from the box: do you ever pause the sound, skip a track, or answer a call using the buttons on the cable? If so, you're sending data back to the phone. Surprise!
What other forms of interactivity could we open up if we broke the "one-way, stereo audio only" assumption explicitly?
Don't get me wrong - my preferred earphone vendor doesn't even have Bluetooth support yet and I don't really want to buy another pair of custom Etymotics. But despite that, I recognize there are real experience-driven reasons to do this.