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Apple May Replace 3.5mm Headphone Jack on iPhone 7 With All-in-One Lightning Connector

StoneJack said:
It is analog signal connector from 19th century. Analog signal, well, has an analog quality, just think of usual S D television.

With lightning, you can have digital signal and better quality, or HD. There is higher density signal or Hi-Res signal which has higher sampling rate than CDs, 24bit/96kHz or even 192kHz.
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Are your ears digital or analogue? Comparing with TV is rather stupid; sound has much lower information density, and the analogue signal is transmitted over a meter or two of copper cable, not over hundreds or thousands of miles of unprotected airspace.
 
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Hah, no that's too far for me thanks. If this really does happen I'll grab an iPhone 6S and stick with that.

Do good bluetooth headphones exist? I bought some mid-range ones to go with my Apple Watch but I found the sound to be really laggy. Connected it to my iPhone and watching videos on them was impossible due to the same lag.
 
If Apple switched to USB-C for their iPhones, I would forgive them for ditching the 3.5mm jack. But if they go down the route of using their own proprietary connector for headphones, they will piss off a lot of customers and lose a lot.
 
Ellmer said:
Can an audiophile tell me if this is good or not?
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It is pointless.

Inside your phone, all music is handled digitally. Your ears are analogue. At some point, the digital signal must be converted to an analogue signal. For best music quality, you want (1) the best digital/analogue converter that you can get, and (2) not a long cable to avoid quality loss. (But the cable only makes a difference if you use a very thin, very long cable. Anything decently thick and not too long is fine).

Normally the digital/analogue converter is inside the phone, which has a decent power supply, and decent quality. You can imagine that if you use digital output on the lightning converter and the digital/analog converter is bought with some cheap earphones, that converter that you get is much less good. Same if you use a cheap adapter that contains a digital/analogue converter. You lose out.

Where you win is if you buy high end headphones, with their own amplifier, for many hundred dollars. For $200 or so you get an amplifier with digital/analog converter that beats the one in your iPhone easily. And for $500 you get something even better. But: That's $200 extra. Or $500 extra.
 
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smulji said:
you keep saying that but you don't provide any reasoning or evidence why
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That's because it should be obvious. The 3.5mm jack gets its analogue signal by converting a digital signal. That digital signal can be in any resolution you want. There's no problem whatsoever converting a 192Khz signal to analogue. If there was a problem, then how would you convert 192KHz signal coming out of a lightning converter into something that my ears can hear?
 
gnasher729 said:
Maybe you need to buy some decent stuff. Get some decent headphones and this isn't going to happen.
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Not sure why you think headphones would solve a failing headphone jack, but ok. The "decent stuff" I buy is Apple stuff. Have had headphone jacks fail on iPods for the last ten years.
 
Chytin said:
Sure, but I let someone else explain it for you: http://www.techradar.com/reviews/au...headphones/philips-fidelio-m2l-1292276/review
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That's when you spend £200 at Black Friday prices for someone providing (that's the claim) a better DAC than the iPhone has. That is indeed when you get an advantage: If you spend a lot more money to use a BETTER DAC. It has nothing to do with the point of the conversion. So digital output doesn't give you better quality. Digital output PLUS SPENDING £200 MORE gives you better quality.
 
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puma1552 said:
Not sure why you think headphones would solve a failing headphone jack, but ok. The "decent stuff" I buy is Apple stuff. Have had headphone jacks fail on iPods for the last ten years.
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So have you been complaining to Apple for the last ten years about failing headphone jacks in their iPods? (it wasn't my experience, but that is all anecdotal). Wouldn't the solution be to build a better headphone jack? And what makes you think a newly developed digital connector would work more reliable than a 50 year old existing connector?
 
smulji said:
nothing that an adaptor can't solve.
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We don't need more adapters. Unless I am buying a cheap junky phone I shouldn't have to carry adapters to use with every single standard accessory that I might want to use.
draugminaion said:
I say good riddance to that enormous 70’s tech waste of space that is the headphone jack (Mostly air! How ridiculous is that?),
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There is nothing wrong with the headphone jack being mostly air, that allows the connector to be think enough to be durable. I don't want to have to worry about a tiny connector breaking off inside my phone and turning it into a useless paperweight.

Eadfrith said:
Oh Noooooooooooo... my £3.99 headphones won't work with my £700 phone.
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The more likely thing that people will complain about is not that $3.99 headphones won't work with their $700 phone, but that their $700 phone won't work with any available headphones when the apple supplied ones go out in the middle of a trip and the can no longer use their phone for music.
 
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gnasher729 said:
So have you been complaining to Apple for the last ten years about failing headphone jacks in their iPods? (it wasn't my experience, but that is all anecdotal). Wouldn't the solution be to build a better headphone jack? And what makes you think a newly developed digital connector would work more reliable than a 50 year old existing connector?
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It wouldn't surprise me if instead of the headphone jack it is the cable itself that is going bad. I've had plenty of Apple's included headphones fail on me as fast or faster than $10 headphones. I've already had one set replaced under warranty with the iPhone I've had since July. Never had a problem with the headphone jack though.
 
DevNull0 said:
Thicker is a plus at this point. I've never used a case before, now I need a case just to make the damn thing thick enough to hold comfortably. Uglier -- open your eyes and look around the latest iPhone designs are knockoffs of high end android phones.

User experience, I have to agree with you. When the 5 came out I jumped ship to a galaxy S4 for the bigger screen. Android is beyond awful; the screen on that phone still puts my new iPhone 6s to shame, but android really is horrible, and I'm happy to be back on iOS.

But if the iPhone doesn't have a headphone jack I will keep my 6s as long as possible and suck it up and switch back to android.
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Well I wouldn't judge Android's usability based on the abominations Samsung has done on top of the base Android. I have a Nexus with vanilla Android myself and whenever I have to do some tech support for my brother who has a Samsung phone, I'm all lost with it as Samsung's cruft makes it almost a different OS altogether, and that change isn't for the better. Fortunately they've toned down their crap since the S4 days, but I still wouldn't pick a Samsung over something running pure Android.

What comes to the topic itself, if this turns out to be true, then the iPhone 6 I just gave to my wife after her iPhone 5 broke down might end up being my last iPhone, as I'm currently running a Nexus 6P and happy with it.
 
gnasher729 said:
Are your ears digital or analogue? Comparing with TV is rather stupid; sound has much lower information density, and the analogue signal is transmitted over a meter or two of copper cable, not over hundreds or thousands of miles of unprotected airspace.
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True with one caveat: The approximate analog curve is transmitted over a meter or two of copper cable. The digital sample already degraded the original non-linear analog signal during it's original conversion. We're being boned on both ends just to compress sound and save in transmission time and file size.
 
mdriftmeyer said:
By adding perpendicular arrays of thin fins [convective heat transfer] you create a heat sink that will allow the phone to dissipate heat more evenly and rapidly. It would also add strength to the product.
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Interesting. Why do you think they haven't done this already?
 
dgdosen said:
I don't like the idea of using an intermediary connector between Lightning and USB-C, but that will probably be what you'll need to reduce the number of cables you'll want to hang onto in the future.
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Lightning is not an intermediary connector. USB-C (and further TB3) will replace USB-A, TB2 (DP), HDMI, FW800, Ethernet and MagSafe. But USB-C will not replace Lightning, it is already too big for current mobile devices. And while the new Apple TV has a USB-C port, it doesn't have a battery. The battery is in the Siri Remote and the Remote uses Lightning for charging. So if the Apple TV is a sign for things to come, the energy-delivering device will use USB-C and the energy-receiving device will use Lightning.
 
Michael Goff said:
Interesting. Why do you think they haven't done this already?
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Added materials and they like to keep pockets in the phone for future components on the same frame without having to modify the frame each release in their molds.

Having those fins even around the battery housing and around the edge of the frame would look to the laymen as a waste of material, until a fellow mechanical engineer were to explain their dual purpose. You'd want to have a spine both vertically and horizontally for the most efficient distribution of the heat radially outward. It would strengthen the phone considerably. Doesn't have to be large, but placed in a manner that ironically would help to hold the components in place better while drawing out released heat from their conductive use. Have a means pass the heat mainly to the back would also help with the display concerns about too much heat on the LED.
 
I think the phone thickness is fine. The thinner it gets the more likely it is to slip out of my hands or shirt pockets. If losing the 3.5mm is a way towards waterproofing then I think I'd be ok. I use mostly bluetooth anyway. I just don't think doing away with it is going to make it more desirable.
 
There is only problem I foresee with this article, most of these are speculation not factual.What do you do if you want listen to music & charge the phone at the same time. Also I not knocking Apple but there will be less choice of the style of headset that you can choose, I realise that at some point if this is the case other manufacturers will produce copy's or will you get the usual accessorie not supported if it's not genuine. Kind of hope this is speculation.
 
srminton said:
Also, if they do this, it won't be just so they can make the phone thinner - as someone pointed out, they could make the phone thinner without touching the headphone port (see iPod Touch for details). The main argument for this will be that it leads to improved audio quality, the kind of thing which will make people say "I'm not using those old-fashioned headphones ever again!". And not only that, but they will give you a pair of these new Lightning Bolt (TM) headphones when you buy the phone.

The difference compared to your old headphones will be like comparing a CD to a cassette tape. Just when everyone is speculating that there are no compelling reasons to upgrade your iPhone 6, they will create a stampede of customers upgrading to a new phone in order to get these new Bolts which will come in phone-matching colours of space gray, silver, gold and rose gold.

Then see how long it takes for Samsung to introduce the new "Samsung Firebuds".
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New headphones to listen to low-to-mid quality audio files on itunes.
Got it.
 
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