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Apple Introduces Lightning Cable MFi Specifications for Headphones
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I disagree in that its not about the streaming service, its about offering 'HD audio' in iTunes for sale.
I agree that the electronics hardware does not appear to be an essential driver for music sales. It probably is more about showing consumers this is how 'HD Audio'' works and they already know the Beats brand. Throw in a few celebs and artists wearing their Beats and you have something to heavily market.
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Welcome to the future, where you have to buy new headphones if you switch to Android
Truly awful, as if you weren't punished enough already by switching to Android
Or orientation when plugging in that end of the cable.
Won't happen. They have to maintain the universal USB A charging cable/adapter for EU regulations.
Truly awful, as if you weren't punished enough already by switching to Android
If Android is so horrible why is it the number one mobile operating system in the world? Time to stop with the petty Android bashing. I love my Android phone and my wife loves her iPhone. Im not going to bash my wife for her preferences.
This thread is bizarre.
Why are 50% of the people assuming this means ditching the headphone jack?!? Its just Apple enabling a feature for companies to use if they want on the already existing lightning port. Its ADDING a feature to the phone you already own, not removing the headphone jack, jeez.
It would enable even an iPhone 5 to output 24bit digital audio and receive it, which it currently can't without a 3rd party audio interface. This could give you the option of using the headphone jack, an audio interface like the Apogue Duet or a headphone with the DAC built in, and the headphone could also have a battery built in to charge the phone (weight dependant)
You probably won't get high quality headphones using this, just over priced junk but still its a nice idea and not instead of something else (its like liking the headphone jack was going to be removed when Apple introduce bluetooth audio ffs!)
and on a second note, this thread has taught me just how many people are sat charging their iPhones and listening to music at the same time...a lot apparently!?
Why are 50% of the people assuming this means ditching the headphone jack?!? Its just Apple enabling a feature for companies to use if they want on the already existing lightning port. Its ADDING a feature to the phone you already own, not removing the headphone jack, jeez.
It would enable even an iPhone 5 to output 24bit digital audio and receive it, which it currently can't without a 3rd party audio interface. This could give you the option of using the headphone jack, an audio interface like the Apogue Duet or a headphone with the DAC built in, and the headphone could also have a battery built in to charge the phone (weight dependant)
You probably won't get high quality headphones using this, just over priced junk but still its a nice idea and not instead of something else (its like liking the headphone jack was going to be removed when Apple introduce bluetooth audio ffs!)
and on a second note, this thread has taught me just how many people are sat charging their iPhones and listening to music at the same time...a lot apparently!?
How thin do you really what your phone to be? Try this exercise. Take your debit card out your wallet and try talking into it. How does it feel?
current gen smartphones, all have the ability to use headsets with included mic's on their standard 3.5mm audio jack.
Apple already does this with their bundled headphones with Apple.
this is a bad move by Apple.
It sounds more like Apple want's to have a "USB" style headset instead, but refuses to go standards rout and wants a to lock you in with Proprietary hardware.
"oh, you just spent $300 on a pair of mediocre headset? well, IF YOU LEAVE US YOU CAN NEVER USE THEM AGAIN HAHAHAHAHHA"
I'm all for proprietary standards IF they can justify the inclusion. When lightning came out, it was understandable that they went proprietary. The jack does a lot more than standard USB can.
But what the heck is the point of a proprietary headphone? I cannot fathom it for anyway except an attempt to lock you into their ecosystem.
Step 1: Apple introduces MFI Lightning headphones.
Step 2: Apple deliberately eliminate the good old 3.5mm headphone jack from all newer iPhone and iPad.
Step 3: Apple sells lightning headphones for 2x to 3x off the same stuff on the market, just because it has lightning, and made for iPhone.
And because our iPhone at the time would not have other audio connectivity, you have to suck it up and call it a day.
Meanwhile all USB headphones out there already has the same capabilities for years at decent price. But of course it doesn't have Apple logo, and a fancy lightning connector.
Step 2: Apple deliberately eliminate the good old 3.5mm headphone jack from all newer iPhone and iPad.
Step 3: Apple sells lightning headphones for 2x to 3x off the same stuff on the market, just because it has lightning, and made for iPhone.
And because our iPhone at the time would not have other audio connectivity, you have to suck it up and call it a day.
Meanwhile all USB headphones out there already has the same capabilities for years at decent price. But of course it doesn't have Apple logo, and a fancy lightning connector.
1. iPhones are portable devices. Why do you need your entire collection on your phone? I doubt most people listen to music on their phones for more than two hours a day. If you are that desperate to always have every song available get a classic iPod or store your music in the cloud.
2. Lossless doesn't mean the file isn't compressed. ALAC files are relatively small for being Lossless. Avg song is 8MB. FLAC even smaller but not natively supported by iTunes or iDevices. Perhaps a better beef would be why Apple doesn't license more Codecs for iDevices. There are 3rd party apps though. I just stick w/ ALAC.
3. As far as the headphones go, Macs have lightning ports too along with the ability to have TBs of music. So the headphones could be used at home too.
1. It's a pretty robust connector, so I'd say yes. The stress is still going to be mostly applied to the cable, not the port anyway.
2. Yes, at least as much as pulling out a regular 1/8" headphone jack if not a bit more (it sort of silently "snaps" in).
And perhaps the camera module. Look what they had to do with the iPod Touch.
The only problem I foresee with lossless audio, etc, is that Apple has not increased the capacity of their phones sufficiently to meet the space needs of that kind of audio collection. Why, for instance, are they selling 8GB iPhone 5c's alongside this kind of announcement?
The proprietary cable thing is a bit of an issue, but perhaps they (or someone else) could make an adapter to standardise it. Who knows...
The battery life on iPhones already sucks especially if you are steaming iTunes Radio. I don't think this is going to help that situation.
Except competition always pushes prices down. Apple is offering the lighting audio option to all it's partners. Prices may be high at first (personally doubt they'll be more expensive than the same model audio jack headphones) but eventually they'll get more reasonably priced. Just look at the price of lighting cables themselves. $20 when they first came out & now 3rd parties can be had for $8-10.
This will be a slow transition & betting their will be 3.5mm to lightning adapters too.
I didn't realise that Macs had lighting ports. Which model are you referring to? To my knowledge, you couldn't plug a pair of headphones with lighting connector directly into a Mac. You would need an adapter of some sort, maybe lighting (female) to USB (male) or lightning (female) to Thunderbolt (male).
Am I the only one thinking about a second source as DJ ?
Headphones Jack = STEREO out
Lightning port for headphone for pre-cueing.
Would be better than the actual splitter in the headphone jack forcing MONO when DJing...
Headphones Jack = STEREO out
Lightning port for headphone for pre-cueing.
Would be better than the actual splitter in the headphone jack forcing MONO when DJing...
Wow. My EarPods must have that microphone for decoration then...
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Actually, the only reason why it's the number one OS is because it's cheap.
Sorry, but you are both grossly oversimplifying what is going on here. Beats’ business is 90-95% hardware. No company in their right mind would spend 3 Billion dollars on the acquisition of another company with the main objective being the 5% that they are interested in. Apple didn’t buy Beats for one single reason. Mergers and Acquisitions are about strategic fit and markets. Of course there is no way to know what these reasons are (unless any of us has access to the boardroom , but from a business strategy aspect these are very likely:
· Image: Apple has suffered in recent times in the younger demographic. Beats is immensely popular in that segment.
· Market: Beats has a very sizeable market share in the over and on-ear headphone market, without the need to develop its own technology AND develop the market (the latter is often forgotten), Apple gains a very strong foothold in the on and over ear market segments.
· Streaming music market: Apple needs to develop the streaming music market as this is the fastest and probably only growing segment in the international digital music market. The resources (people and contracts) and capabilities (experience) contained within Beats are perfectly placed to do this.
· Streaming music technology: Beats is known to have great technology for music streaming.
· Headphone technology: As is said before Beats has a very large market share in the headphones business. For Apple to develop and market a competing headphone would be very costly and would likely cost more than 3 Billion dollars on its own. As Apple has shown in the past few days it is already using the platform to introduce technology of its own into the existing Beats basis.
So again, this is not a single-reason matter. Considering the above criteria this is an acquisition with a very good strategic fit and a sensible increase of Apple’s existing line-up in terms of complementarity of resources and capabilities.
or the only thing stopping Apple from futher reducing battery life
I don't get this fascination with thinness.
Yeah, Beats will be the only headphone that will work on the phone, and I thought the partnership could not get worse
Wrong. Because Apple wants us to buy their newest, shiniest headphone. Like every 2 years. It might even self-destruct in the future
This will never be for me. Not at the cost of Lighting cables. I am death to corroded headphones and will always need either (1) Cheap 3.5 mm headphones for general use (2) Wireless for "better" quality (3) external for best.
What I'd rather see is iOS (and MacOS without 3rd party) be able to handle Audio output through multiple devices with volume control on each. I know you can make aggrogate devices but you lose control over the volume in a nice GUI driven way.
For example I would like to see it be able to output through the internal speaker, the 3.5mm headphone jack, a Bluetooth speaker, and to an AppleTV over Airplay.
That would impress me more.
What I'd rather see is iOS (and MacOS without 3rd party) be able to handle Audio output through multiple devices with volume control on each. I know you can make aggrogate devices but you lose control over the volume in a nice GUI driven way.
For example I would like to see it be able to output through the internal speaker, the 3.5mm headphone jack, a Bluetooth speaker, and to an AppleTV over Airplay.
That would impress me more.