3.5mm headphones, earbuds, and IEMs are not obsolete. They are still used in professional industries, including the ones that the iPad Pro is trying to erode at (music production, etc). I don't like this move right now in 2018; I think it's a little too early for comfort (can we agree that removing the headphone jack from the iPhone 7 was premature for consumers)? My iPad Pro 9.7 still works really well and I have an android phone with a headphone jack.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Said to Be Removing Headphone Jack From Upcoming 2018 iPad Pro Models
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Wireless isn’t sufficient for audio/video work, and won’t be for the foreseeable future. If the iPad is meant for work, it should keep the audio port until a suitable technology can replace it.
Vertical Face ID I don't believe is true. If so, I think it's not good. Headphone jack? I could care less as I use AirPods. And there's always the dongle thing. I don't understand people's hang up about dongles. It's a bit inconvenient, but it's not the end of the world.
I don’t remember people being furious at all. The reality is that most people had already moved on from Floppy disks to CD roms. It just hung around as a legacy device “just in case”.
Moving to USB was a positive move for the Mac. It replaced Mac specific ports and gave users a much greater choice in peripherals.
Getting rid of the headphone jack is the opposite of these moves. It’s going away from a standard to something more apple specific. It’d be slightly less of an issue if these had usb c ports but still.
Removing the headphone jack makes no sense, since I have top notch wired headphones, which I use with my iMac, my current iPad Pro, and my iPhone 6s+ that still has a headphone jack. You are welcome to use your bluetooth headphones with any Apple products that also sport the headphone jack. Removing the jack does not inconvenience you; it does for many people. After dropping the jack from the phones, I sort of guessed the iPad was the next to be neutered, so bought the current iPad Pro. Likely won't buy another. BTW, I never use bluetooth, and if they ever removed bluetooth I wouldn't be affected; however, I don't begrudge those who do use it, and wouldn't cheer the company if they removed bluetooth. Apple is basically pushing quite a few long time customers away through bogus premature removal of jacks and ports, by neutering the MBP line, by failing to update the Mac Pro, and by lowering the quality of customer support. It's what they apparently want; it's working.
I’m sure you’re right that more peope irritated with a device may review it than those who are delighted with it. However, if all of the 104 reviews average at 1 star out of 5, one should assume that it’s not the greatest of products! And yes, I didn’t make it explicit that I needed HDMI and/or VGA out as well as audio: that was implied in my use as someone giving presentations, but not explicit. And no, I’ve never found a hotel conference room that accepts airplay.
The point ultimately that I was trying to make is that this is a misnomer - I can see that for most people a smaller bezel is desirable of course, and if it means that you remove the audio out port then that’s how you do it. I get that. But a smaller bezel does not make it a machnice more suited to certain professional/niche uses. The audio out port does. As has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread, back in the days of the four-quadrant product line, there was a clear distinction between the home and pro machines: the iBook and iMac had minimal ports other than USB, and for many that was great, and was all they needed. And Apple sold them in droves. My G3 Wallstreet on the other hand had ADB, VGA out, CD-ROM, SCSI, Ethernet, dial-up modem, and all sorts of other things including firewire and usb on pc-cards and a floppy drive, Zip drive, Superdrive and spare battery in hot-swappable bays. It was an awesome machine, and was clearly designed for a pro user. Sorry, I’ve gone off on a mostly unrelated rant now, but hopefully you get my point. Bottom line, I would like Apple to be producing some machines that actually gave us options that didn’t require us to carry 4 or 5 dongles with us, and which were clearly designed for the professionals they purport them to be designed for.
This is because Apple is nowadays really a TOY COMPANY. They are aiming for the 80% in the 20:80 division of maker:comsumer equation. It seems they gave up on making serious work machines when they failed in the server space vs. Windows and Linux, and only make professional use machines as a second thought. Otherwise we'd be having iPad Pro's with UI and hardware interfaces designed specifically for creative artists like musicians, illustrators and graphic designers, and other iPads made tough and waterproof for rugged, dirty environments like restaurants and warehouses and schoolrooms (no buttons, no ports).
Instead we have flimsy toys, aiming for the sweet spot of new sales, sales to replace damaged products, and planned obsolescence. It's really disgraceful, but of course we'll hear how this is not so, and how-dare-you-be-so-cynical type comments.
CDs and DVDs weren’t obsolete either and still aren’t, yet here we are...
Like I get it that people don’t like change, but it’s not like they’re removing the charging port.
The arguments for getting rid of the SuperDrive were exactly the same as the ones against getting rid of the headphone jack.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.im...latest-macbook-pro-refresh?amp#ampf=undefined
There’s an article about getting rid of the SuperDrive from 2013. Here’s an example of the comments:
Sound familiar? You’re free to peruse the others to see similar arguments being made.
Yes, and because they removed the CD drive I know a lot of schools in the UK who have ditched Garageband and Logic and have moved to Windows running Cubase because the staff, who are issued with laptops, couldn’t get ones with built-in CD-drives.
The exam board I examine for require all submissions from centres to the board to be on audio CDs, and the listening tests administered to candidates are also all on audio CD. Again, no problem at all with removing the CD drive from most of the laptops, but leave on model (pro) with a CD-drive. Not having done so was very short-sighted, at least for the music industry, which has (ever since the demise of the Atari ST in the late 80s) been traditionally mac-centred.
...and they were just as valid.
That’s 100% not true. After the iMac came out, the market for USB floppy drives exploded. If you do a search for articles after the iMac was introduced, the vast majority are about the lack of a floppy drive. In addition, at the time, there really wasn’t a viable replacement for the floppy disk. CD-R’s were very much in their infancy (and very expensive), and there was no such thing as a USB flash drive. However, because Apple removed the drive, it forced the industry to move forward - much to the chagrin of many people.
As far as the removal of the headphone jack - you’re missing the point. The point isn’t to move to lightning headphones, it’s to move to wireless/Bluetooth headphones, which is very much an industry standard. Now you may not like that, which is fine, but it is really no different than the removal of the floppy drive.
And, perhaps more importantly, Apple has been very vocal about wanting to be a in a truly wireless world - removing the headphone jack is just one step in that direction.
A short time ago I was against the removal of headphone jacks and having to resort to wireless, but given some time, like all things, its really not an issue any more. You come round to accepting it. It is the way of the future. We just need time to adjust to the immediate "culture shock".
As they say, necessity is the mother of all invention, so if Apple do away with all headphone jacks then manufacturers of wireless headphones are going to have to start working hard on coming up with tech that makes wireless headphones sound superior to wired. It will happen. There will be some amazing break throughs in wireless tech I can only imagine.
Someone had to make the first and bold move and Apple was the one to make that move.
Now I kinda want Apple to go full wireless, therefore true wireless charging, no data/charging port, no headphone jack.
I can only imagine that sometime soon we will find that there are wireless charging zones/pads at airports, at work, at home, in hotels etc etc. There will probably be an additional setting option to switch on Wireless Charging, similar to switching on WiFi or Bluetooth.
As for Face ID, Apple could place secondary cameras on the long edge. Or perhaps they could just have the cameras on the long edge only and then make the software adjustment for people who use the tablet in portrait mode.
I guess we'll find out in a couple of months.
As long as they give me an iPad Mini Pro then I will be happy.
As they say, necessity is the mother of all invention, so if Apple do away with all headphone jacks then manufacturers of wireless headphones are going to have to start working hard on coming up with tech that makes wireless headphones sound superior to wired. It will happen. There will be some amazing break throughs in wireless tech I can only imagine.
Someone had to make the first and bold move and Apple was the one to make that move.
Now I kinda want Apple to go full wireless, therefore true wireless charging, no data/charging port, no headphone jack.
I can only imagine that sometime soon we will find that there are wireless charging zones/pads at airports, at work, at home, in hotels etc etc. There will probably be an additional setting option to switch on Wireless Charging, similar to switching on WiFi or Bluetooth.
As for Face ID, Apple could place secondary cameras on the long edge. Or perhaps they could just have the cameras on the long edge only and then make the software adjustment for people who use the tablet in portrait mode.
I guess we'll find out in a couple of months.
As long as they give me an iPad Mini Pro then I will be happy.
The market may have exploded but few really needed them. They bought them “just in case”. Including me. Mine is still around somewhere. I can count on one hand the number of times I had to use it.
CDs weren’t in their infancy. My family had a Mac Performa in 1995 with a CD. Those weren’t exactly top of the line machines. Back then almost every magazine you’d see came with a CD of something or other. I first played Warcraft 2 from one of those lol.
No, sales numbers suggest that there are many people buying iPhones who don't care about phone jacks. That's where Apple makes their real money these days. And I'll guarantee, whatever their sales numbers, they aren't as high as they would have been if they'd retained ports and jacks on their products. They are losing a lot of customers, mostly those who want useful ports on their devices for the peripherals which are still in common use. I honestly think they're transitioning to being primarily an iOS phone/pad company, apparently aimed at those who never use wired devices. So we move on ...
You don’t know that’s the case though. In general the tech world is going away from the headphone jack. That’s what is happening moving forward. Android included
I’ve had my iPad Pro since first launch and not once have I used it in portrait mode. If Face ID doesn’t work in landscape, they should not implement it in the iPad. But that seems highly implausible, so I’m calling this rumour fake.
Yes, that's the problem.
Fixed it.
The fact that it could be taken seriously is the problem.
Which only proves why there's no reason to remove it. For people who don't use it it's a non-issue to leave in. For people who do use it, removing it is a deal-breaker. There is zero reason to remove it.
Well, except "courage".
[doublepost=1532827017][/doublepost]
The iPad is presently clearly a content consumption device and nothing more. If this rumour turns out to be true, Apple could not possibly be more clear in saying the iPad will only ever be a consumption device and will never become a useful productive tool.
Surely you must be kidding. I can think of nothing more Steve Jobs-like than Apple pushing ports and interfaces off of a cliff to their early demise. That is totally a Steve Jobs thing to do. If Steve had never returned to Apple and someone else led Apple to their current position, we would still have 3.5mm jacks on everything and USB-A ports on all laptops. We might even still have DVD drives in some models of Apple laptops.
[doublepost=1532827670][/doublepost]
Tell that to an interface designer. It's all relative.
That would make a bit of sense for people who use iPads for music and garageband. I love my Airpods but the sound quality is average compared to my dedicated headphones.
I don’t get it either. I’m on my iPad now, in landscape mode. I unlock it in landscape mode all the time. Why Apple??? Going to hope that rumor isn’t true.
I don’t care about the headphone jack either. Never used it, but apparently many have their own use cases.