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

[Greenmeenie]

Vertical only smart keyboards? Face ID not working in landscape mode? No way. LOL. This rumor has to be bogus. That makes absolutely no sense. The ipad is suppose to be a laptop replacement for most people. Not an iphone replacement! Typing & working in landscape mode mimics a laptop. That’s how i use my ipad 99% of the time. I don’t want to have to turn my ipad to portrait mode everytime i wanted to use it or unlock it. That’s ridiculous. And how the heck is a smart keyboard suppose to hold up an ipad in portrait mode?? Calm down people. This can’t be true.

Apple removing the headphone jack on the ipad is something i could live with tho. I am tired of constantly having to buy new headphones because of faulty wires. I am ready to embrace bluetooth headphones on all my iOS devices. However, i hope Apple gives the new ipad pros the same waterproofing they give the iphones. I travel with my ipad a lot and use it outdoors all the time. A waterproofed ipad would be a great feature for me.

 

[jclardy]

I’m having a hard time seeing Apple doing a vertical only Smart Keyboard. I mean, they did already with the first gen iPad (using the dock connector) and it made sense then. But now with slide over/split screen it really doesn’t make any sense to have the “docked” mode be vertical.

Having both would be awesome though. Vertical displays are great for writing text/code.

Also having the smart connector on the bottom means no charging while connected to the keyboard. Just so many odd use cases that I don’t see them doing it.

 

[JohnnyGo]

Yes I get that. But this smart connector is located exactly middle of the side which means if it can connect to newer/slimmer design iPad pros can still attach to it with magnet as long as Apple decided not to change the shape of the curve on the edges. I mean, there will be many possible ways to redesign and yet make the old accessories at least some what useable.

Most likely Macotara is wrong here. Either Apple will ADD the smart connector on the bottom (for optional positioning, it will work in landscape AND portrait mode) or will not move the smart connector. Anything for clicks right?

 

[bladerunner2000]

I would have been dissapointed if they didn’t remove the headphone jack. It’s time to move on and go wireless.

Why does it bother you? Don't use it if you don't like it.

And why is it an issue only when Apple made a fictitious reason against the headphone jack?

 

[Khedron]

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.

Those don't compare at all. Floppy and optical drives were replaced by technologies that were superior in all aspects and so transition was inevitable and only a matter of costs coming down as the newer versions became more widely adopted.

Wireless headphones are great (I use them every day) but they do not replace wired headphones. The convenience of wireless headphones happens to suit my use as an infrequent listener to non-critical audio.

This is like the next Mac mini or Apple TV deciding to drop HDMI and saying that wireless transmission of slightly laggy 1080p is good enough for most people that it should be the only option.

 

[McTaste]

If the iphone x has taught me anything, it is that owners of the new ipad should get used to typing in their passcode.

I probably have to type mine in more often than Face ID works...

 

[oldmacs]

If the iphone x has taught me anything, it is that owners of the new ipad should get used to typing in their passcode.

I probably have to type mine in more often than Face ID works...

I laugh that I see my friends use their passcodes more often than not on their iPhone X's - I rarely ever do on my iPhone SE. I still love Touch ID.

 

[bladerunner2000]

I'd love to know why having a 3.5mm port (THAT NO ONE IS FORCED TO USE) is so offensive and hard to live with.

Nobody made any complaints about the headphone jack until Apple was stupid enough to lie about it being obsolete. Only conclusion I can come to is that people blindly worship Apple as their lord and savior and never question any of their motives. This is of course a known problem in the Apple cult, except nobody is willing to admit it

 

[86939]

I laugh that I see my friends use their passcodes more often than not on their iPhone X's - I rarely ever do on my iPhone SE. I still love Touch ID.

Your friends must be doing something wrong. I very rarely have to enter the passcode on my iPhone X. However, I will agree with previous posters who have said that vertical only FaceID is annoying and unnecessary.

 

[meteoreos]

Not too bothered about the headphone jack, just give me the A12 and bigger battery.

 

[oldmacs]

Your friends must be doing something wrong. I very rarely have to enter the passcode on my iPhone X. However, I will agree with previous posters who have said that vertical only FaceID is annoying and unnecessary.

Whoever they're sitting down with their phone resting on the table is one example. Can't see how three seperate friends could all be doing it wrong....

 

[jonnyb098]

All of this sounds like a load of BS. Smart connector near the lightning port!? Also there’s no way with those dimensions so close to the current 10.5 that it would be edge to edge. None of it makes any sense when you stop and about it. So they say the new one will be about 4mm shorter.....which means there would still be giant top and bottom bezels. They also say the sides will come in about 3mm.....which suggests the same screen size, which is fine but the top vertical would come down at least 10mm to make a nice even slim bezel around. Like I said, doesn’t add up.

And Face ID only working in portrait?!?!?!? HAHA. Yeah that’ll go over well on a device mostly used in landscape orentiation. I’m sure Apple has figured out how to make that work....quite easily if fact. Just store data on faces in all orientations and bake that into the scanning algorithms.

 

[truthertech]

Wow, all the people who have wrapped themselves around the axel based on a rumor. At what point do you reevaluate your unhappy life and stop being so easily manipulated by social media, both rumors and the trollers who are here to drag you down with them? Life is good; Apple products are good, enjoy both

 

[dogslobber]

The iPhone has flopped since this terrible decision with the 7. Hasn’t Apple learned nothing from that?

 

[B.A.T]

How does one charge their pencil if the keyboard is vertical? Sounds like a ******** rumor and or a new pencil with wireless charging.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Never used a jack in iPad, lightning earphones are quite cool if you don’t want BT. Making it partially waterproof would be awesome.

"Partially waterproof" is akin to "only a little pregnant." Waterproof or not waterproof: iPads don't get water damage because only the edge/end with a headphone jack manages to take a dip in the pool.

And the whole "more water resistant" angle makes no sense to me anyway. 1) Competitors don't seem to have a problem here. Is Apple unable to do what Apple competitors can do? 2) Water does not discriminate based on shape or size of holes. Mere millimeters away from the location of a headphone jack is a larger rectangular-shaped hole (Lightning) and a row or two of smaller round (speaker) holes. Water doesn't seek out only a headphone jack hole for entry. Water doesn't care. But this gets spun and spun and spun anyway... as if writing it enough times will lead the herd to take it as fact.

In the bigger picture, here's yet another thread where Apple is apparently innovating by subtraction... but not lowering the price for taking a very useful option away from those who care about it... and the ADF is out in force slinging the same old tired, generally-mismatched rationale trying to sell the rest of us on it because- presumably- Apple is always, always, always right.

As consumers, what do we get for that jack being jettisoned? Nothing. Does it impede those happy with Bluetooth or Lightning connection alternative options if it stays? Not at all. So net:net: a segment of consumers just lose something, and the other segment does not gain anything- their favored way already works in full whether a third option stays or goes.

 

[unobtainium]

The Smart Connector on the iPads has reportedly been relocated from the side to the bottom near the Lightning port, which may require a new vertically oriented Smart Keyboard. It's not clear how a vertical Smart Keyboard would work, as it would likely be unstable in that orientation, especially for the larger iPad Pro.

This would ruin the iPad Pro completely. No way Apple does this. If they do, they truly have jumped the shark.
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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.

Steve would have removed the headphone jack too. It made room for better internals and a thinner/lighter phone, and the AirPods and lightning adapter made it redundant. I hated the change at first but now I forget why I ever wanted to use wired headphones on a regular basis.

 

[FFR]

bluetooth isn't a direct replacement for the 3.5mm headphone port for so so so many reasons.

USB-C would have been a direct replacement.

USB was a direct replacement for ADB.
[doublepost=1532783195][/doublepost]

Remind me exactly what the advantages of the EarPods are?

a) they are expensive
b) they will fall out and get lost
c) they need to be charged
d) they have no advantage for me whatsoever

I think it is quite wasteful to try something with the intention of returning it.

If you have already made up you mind. ..

 

[oldmacs]

The iPhone has flopped since this terrible decision with the 7. Hasn’t Apple learned nothing from that?

People will buy Apple products regardless of what they do now.... People have told me for years in relation to companies who sell more than Apple that sales is not equal to quality, but it apparently is in relation to Apple.
[doublepost=1532785380][/doublepost]

If you have already made up you mind. ..

So what are these great benefits of AirPods and what prevents them from falling out like EarPods do?
[doublepost=1532785434][/doublepost]

Steve would have removed the headphone jack too. It made room for better internals and a thinner/lighter phone, and the AirPods and lightning adapter made it redundant. I hated the change at first but now I forget why I ever wanted to use wired headphones on a regular basis.

Steve would have removed it only if there was a direct standardised replacement (like USB-C). Lightning headphones are the biggest inconsistency and joke. Steve wouldn't have allowed that.

 

[EvilEvil]

Brave. LOL.

 

[phr0z3n]

Removing the headphone jack from their mobile devices at least makes sense.. but removing the headphone jack for Macs sounds like a terrible idea.

I guess we could all buy two HomePods and connect them to our Mac to replace our old computer speakers.

 

[DNichter]

Hmm.. I need good noise cancellation headphones connected to my iPad on flights.

Please give me the option to choose a wired connection to my iPad. Don't need it on my iPhone, but my iPad is is not a phone.

I’m sure you can use the adapter on the end of your wire in those situations.

 

[yegon]

Vertical only smart keyboards? Face ID not working in landscape mode? No way. LOL. This rumor has to be bogus. That makes absolutely no sense. The ipad is suppose to be a laptop replacement for most people. Not an iphone replacement! Typing & working in landscape mode mimics a laptop. That’s how i use my ipad 99% of the time. I don’t want to have to turn my ipad to portrait mode everytime i wanted to use it or unlock it. That’s ridiculous. And how the heck is a smart keyboard suppose to hold up an ipad in portrait mode?? Calm down people. This can’t be true.

Exactly. It’d be an impossible sell on stage bearing in mind how the iPad is constantly and increasingly pushed as a laptop replacement, almost to the point I’d think they were spoofing the triangular tablets in The Office as a big gag.

Apple have had multiple reversals in the past - you don’t wan’t this! You do want this! - that never bothered me much as it did some. Profit is everything, it’s all marketing and spin to promote their latest product. A reversal of this magnitude, rendering a key product cumbersome and borderline unusable, is simply not going to happen.

 

[theluggage]

I guess we could all buy two HomePods and connect them to our Mac to replace our old computer speakers.

<thumbsup emoji> Tim Cook likes this

 

[sracer]

I would have been dissapointed if they didn’t remove the headphone jack. It’s time to move on and go wireless.

What is the logic behind this sentiment? You can move on and go wireless with the current devices that have a headphone jack. No need to wait for this new iPad. Bluetooth is well established and there are countless options for those who want to go that route, so a "forced march" to wireless in order to grow the market is not necessary in this case.
And you say it is about going wireless, not because it limits the thinness, so that isn't your reason for wanting it removed. I just find it puzzling.