Apple Said to Be Removing Headphone Jack From Upcoming 2018 iPad Pro Models

[BlargKing]

But why?

Seriously. I can at least pretend that the removal of the 3.5 jack from the iPhone was because "space constraints" and "water resistance", but on a 10" tablet? Come on now.

Despite what some would have you believe, 3.5mm is not "outdated" or "legacy". Its an old standard yes, but one thats endured the test of time because, to use Apples own slogan, "It just works". No worrying about how much charge your BT headphones have, no need to pair or sync your headphones, no need for a dongle to use your existing headphones, no potential worry about compatibility. You plug the wire into the jack, and hey you got audio going to your ears. Simplicity wins.

 

[Raist3001]

Seriously? Steve removed the floppy drive and all legacy ports on the first iMac - all it had was a CD/DVD drive and a couple of USB ports. People were furious at first...and then low and behold the entire industry moved in the same direction. The MacBook Air removes the optical drive, and again many were screaming - in particular that Apple was chasing thinness over usability (sound familiar?)...and just as before, the industry has largely moved to removing the optical drive from laptops.

Take off your rose colored glasses. Tim Cook is far from perfect, but neither was Jobs. Apparently the reality distortion field he created lives on even after his death.

Steve removed the the floppy drive because the optical drive was a better storage medium. Steve removed the Optical drive because the cloud and USB were better storage mediums. Cook removed the headphone jack when there is not yet a superior option. Bluetooth is OK but not nearly as good as wired. You remove options when better options become or are already available. Steve knew that.

 

[poorcody]

If those rumors are true, the only good news is that the existing models are going to be getting cheaper in the fall!

 

[mschmalenbach]

Fantastic news - I can replace my first generation 12.9 inch iPad Pro, get a new one and take it in the bath and/or sea/lakes etc - perfect!

Not!

I'm getting just a little bit fed up with Apple's b*ggering about like this for doubtful gains... Once upon a time I would happily do a major Mac OS update via WiFi in London Heathrow airport - did twice in fact - both times the day the updates were released. Nowadays? I wait a few weeks to see if there will be yet another Charlie Foxtrot... to then find out my luck is not quite what it used to be. Animated emojis? Really? How about a more reliable OS, file system, and nothing weird happening with power consumption, discrete graphics processors and so on... if I want that level of b*ggeration, then maybe I'll do a Hackintosh next time... just for fun!

 

[d5aqoëp]

Next up, Apple should remove the screen and rely only on Siri Voice to tell you what is goin on on your device. Can you imagine the amount of space saved and space made for new cutting edge components?

 

[subjonas]

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.

I’d agree.

 

[Zwhaler]

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.

CDs technically aren't obsolete yet since most major streaming is compressed. When the bandwidth and services (Google, Apple, Spotify) accommodate lossless streaming without any compromises, then CDs will be properly replaced.

Studios aren't going to replace wired headphones in tracking rooms (drums, vocals, etc) with wireless equivalents any time soon (which pretty much don't exist on the professional level and especially not in terms of robust options), so we have to use an adapter instead of charging, I guess. It just seems like they could do better. I'm warming up to 3.5mm adapters (luckily I don't have to use them) but they ought to put a second lightning port on there, or USB C for that matter...

 

[subjonas]

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.

I agree, their focus is mainly on the average consumer.
As an artist, the iPad Pro would double its usefulness to me if it had video input, so that it could function natively as a very portable Cintiq on the road.

 

[StoneJack]

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.

If you really work in industry, and you really need iPad for that, just put a lightning adaptor and that's it.

 

[mistasopz]

Seriously? Steve removed the floppy drive and all legacy ports on the first iMac - all it had was a CD/DVD drive and a couple of USB ports. People were furious at first...and then low and behold the entire industry moved in the same direction. The MacBook Air removes the optical drive, and again many were screaming - in particular that Apple was chasing thinness over usability (sound familiar?)...and just as before, the industry has largely moved to removing the optical drive from laptops.

Take off your rose colored glasses. Tim Cook is far from perfect, but neither was Jobs. Apparently the reality distortion field he created lives on even after his death.

Where your argument fails is that there was a clear superior technology replacement. CDs are much better than floppy disks, streaming is much better than optical. BUT, Bluetooth is not better than the headphone jack at the moment. The audio quality is worse, wireless headphone tech is more expensive, it drains the battery, and Bluetooth is a changing standard with all kinds of quirks between different hardware manufacturers. Give me Bluetooth tech that has the same quality of audio and at the same price as the standard headphones that Apple used to hand out. Then we’ll talk.

 

[Bone Ranger]

I miss Steve. He was smart enough to see that people did not like the idea of them removing the 3.5mm jack from the phones. Tim appears to have the attitude of, "Hey if everyone hated it then we should do that on our products as well" None of this would be going on if Steve was still running Apple.

I thought Steve was the one that moved the technology forward by dropping things like, removable battery, ports, floppy disc & CDs.
Steve would have cut that phone jack a long time ago, the products would be thinner and that camera wouldn't be protruding out the back.

 

[kodos]

I’ve come to learn to pull out the pitchforks after an official product reveal and not before. Don’t get worked up over a rumor like this.

 

[DoctorTech]

I really don't care one way or the other about the headphone jack. However, I really find it hard to believe that Apple would do something as stupid as releasing new iPads where the keyboards only work in portrait orientation. I agree with previous comments, if FaceID can't work in landscape mode then it should not be put on the iPad yet.

With that said, I doubt that I ever buy another Apple iPad keyboard. I bought one for my 9.7" iPad Pro and it worked great for about 6 months, then I occasionally started getting error messages telling me "This accessory is not supported on this device". It only happened once or twice a month at first then it started happening more frequently. Today it happens about once every 5-10 minutes. I've done some checking online and found it is a fairly common problem with Apple iPad keyboards so when I upgrade to the newest iPad (assuming this rumor is not true about only having keyboards in the vertical orientation) I will buy a 3rd party keyboard.

 

[eVolcre]

Then I apologize for that.

Classy. Well done. It’s rare to see an apology on the boards these days.

eV

 

[ValO]

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".
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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.

So a real professional would rather use a 3.5 mm audio jack instead of , for example, a lightning dac with much more possibilities and capabilities and connections, etc?

 

[MikeyMondy]

NOOOOOOO! Apple don’t do it! Please don’t take the headphone jack off of the iPad Pro!
The iPad is a fantastic mobile music creation device, and with Apple adding AU support, inter app audio, it’s just gotten better. Not to mention that Garage Band for iOS is awesome. From idea scratchpad on up, we can import ideas to Logic and keep going from there.

I use my iPad Pro constantly for recording, composing and teaching music. But NONE of that works with wireless because of latency. Yes, I can use a lightning audio interface, but they mostly require a power adapter, taking away the whole mobile aspect of the iPad.

There are alternatives, but poor ones. Some of the the iRig stuff has inputs but no output, the ones with outputs have terrible battery life. Lightning compatible audio devices seem to be developed as toys, but I don’t blame the manufacturers, because they never know if Apple is going to change something the following year, and their product is useless. There are a lot of sad iOS compatible music gadgets sitting on the clearance shelves at guitar center for this reason.

Even non pros still want a headphone jack on phones. How do I know? Remember this post?
https://www.macrumors.com/2018/06/27/apple-headphone-jack-adapter-top-seller-best-buy/
I find it an annoyance to have to use an adapter, but for a phone, I don’t really care. I’m not trying to do pro audio on it.

You may think we could just use a dongle for the iPad too. True, but you know what you can’t do while using the dongle? Charge the iPad, which needs to be done when using it for many hours teaching with apps like Yousician that do polyphonic pitch detection on input and amp simulation on output.

It comes down to the fact that if this is a pro machine, used for pro audio, IT NEEDS A HEADPHONE JACK.
Just hoping this is a fake rumor.

 

[Frank Dalton]

Next up, Apple should remove the screen and rely only on Siri Voice to tell you what is goin on on your device. Can you imagine the amount of space saved and space made for new cutting edge components?

Courage.

 

[FrankieTDouglas]

Cool, I love having to keep two separate sets of headphones. One for the phone, then another pair if I need to use them for ANY OTHER CONTEXT.

 

[PickUrPoison]

You may think we could just use a dongle for the iPad too. True, but you know what you can’t do while using the dongle? Charge the iPad, which needs to be done when using it for many hours teaching with apps like Yousician that do polyphonic pitch detection on input and amp simulation on output.

So a Lightning to 3.5mm headphone adapter would work for you, as long as you had a way to charge at the same time?

 

[FrankieTDouglas]

So a Lightning to 3.5mm headphone adapter would work for you, as long as you had a way to charge at the same time?

Yeah.

Apple needs a second store, just to sell all of the dongles needed at this point just to utilize their various items.

 

[brentsg]

I just don’t get it. U people understand that every company follows apples lead, there will not be any headphone jacks in a couple years, you have been warned.
Maybe a couple **** phone makers will keep the he

it must be the 60+ year olds that are upset,
They can’t explain why they want the headphone jack, they just want it dam it.

I don't care a whole lot about the headphone jack, but won't do face time / no home button.

 

[pmore]

There's no reason to remove the headphone jack other than to sell more AirPods.

 

[Randall2018]

It’s the future, but they really should start including air pods with them to help the transition.

 

[Dave245]

It actually makes zero sense. I guess nobody realizes that the people who make movies, songs and everything you see and hear, still rely on that good ol’ headphone jack. NOBODY creates content with bluetooth headphones. It’s too laggy and quality is inferior. Being able to start a project on a MBP, then take it on the go with a iOS device is very common. Having to use a different pair of headphones and or a dongle to listen and charge at the same time is really an inconvenience.

Yes but the majority of people don’t do that and Apple is aiming for the majority, you can never please everyone. Besides most video editors don’t edit on iPads they do it on a MBP or iMac which still have the headphone jack.

 

[truthertech]

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.

You're reacting to an unsubstantiated rumor from a questionable website! Unwrap yourself from the axle you've got wrapped around, relax and enjoy life.