I'll change to another audio player before getting Apple Beats or some third party crap headphone that accommodates Apple's conspicuous grab at people's pocketbooks for yet more specialized hardware.
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iPhone 7 and the Audiophile Case For Lightning Headphones
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Remember when everyone watched TV in 480p, then 720p/1080i, then 1080p, then 4k, then...
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
But look how hard some of our fellow consumers are working to spin that as brilliant, "the future" and so on. Just wait. Once Apple gets away with this, what will be the next bit of traditionally internal utility to go? Camera or Battery? Both technologies are more "antiquated" than 3.5mm and much of the same rationale being spun for this change can just as easily be applied: "just buy an adapter"... "better quality pictures" or "longer battery life"... and even "Apple is genius- now we can all get any amount of battery we want", etc. Eventually, Apple will ship an empty box that still costs about the same... and we'll assemble the traditional functions of iPhones from additional accessories all sold separately. Genius!
I'm certain Apple could make the next iPhone out of rusty razor blades and some of us would spin bloodletting as genius too.
Nice long post, but since you left out one key component your post is basically meaningless.
It's simply not possible to make an amplifier inside an iPhone that would work properly with ALL headphones of varying impedance and technologies. By having an amplifier inside the headphones (or inside the Cipher cable that Audeze uses) the engineers are free to use any type of driver technology they wish and can match the amplifier (and DAC/DSP) accordingly.
No headphone jack equals to purchase for me . I am not willing to buy iPhone only headphone, it is stupid and useless.
Yeah, Apple sucks. The only thing Apple think is how to milking customer even more. Not surprise by that, after all iPhone sale is declining and market share is shrinking. Apple need find other way to get money. Now they think about license fee from lighnting cable. Shameless Apple.
Yeah, Apple sucks. The only thing Apple think is how to milking customer even more. Not surprise by that, after all iPhone sale is declining and market share is shrinking. Apple need find other way to get money. Now they think about license fee from lighnting cable. Shameless Apple.
It's not just about headphones. I run sound at my church. We "bumper" music from lots of different iPhones and iPads for various functions. We use the 1/8" port all the time to plug into the sound board. Digital boards have become pretty common (because of Behringer's awesome price point), but I doubt they're going to start embedding Lightning connectors. Guess I'll have to expect Apple to make a $30 converter to get back to an output that the board can accept, or buy a Bluetooth receiver I can plug in, and stream the music wirelessly.
I understand that is the theory, but in my experience such cables still tangle. Worse, since they are a bit stiffer, they tend to transfer movements up to the ear pieces. On full size headphones that may be less of a problem, but with earbuds and in-ear type earphones in particular it will intensify the sounds of your own steps (i.e. a thump-thump in your head), and it may accidentally dislodging the buds from your ears. I had sports earphones with such cables, and I quickly went back to normal cables.
Yeah, there's going to be a segment that will base their upgrade plans based on the headphone jack, but I don't think it'll be a big % of users.
Audiophiles don't mind spending money to get better sound quality so if they're anything like me, they're probably looking forward to evaluating/buying the latest crop of lightning headphones. The masses use the buds that come with their iPhones so they won't be affected.
As for charging/listening, I'm sure there will be adapters... that's the price of progress, unfortunately... at least until we live in an all wireless world. Removing the 3.5 jack brings us one step closer.
I think you make a good point. mp3s sounds like &%#$. That's why I rip to lossless. Even with decent headphones or earbuds, sound quality is much much better than Apples earpods. So at best, they will package lightning earpods and an adapter with lightning passthrough and a 3.5mm port for those of us who don't like earpods.
I think the thing everyone is missing is Apple has always( Jobs second term forward ) had an interest in music and consider themselves, as a company, audiophiles.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
You are so right. And I know that that bit of spec minutiae is top of mind for all consumers buying headphones everywhere instead of a very narrow niche that worries about such fine details. The average Joe is always beside himself worried about varying impedance when buying a set of headphones. My neglect in keying around that does make my entire post meaningless.
In the real world, anyone with such concerns could still buy the Audeze option- exactly as they ALREADY can now. Apple doesn't have to jettison the 3.5mm jack to make these Audeze and/or Cipher cable possible. Those concerned with that can ALREADY get that. There's just not so many concerned with that... certainly not the masses... else Audeze would already be king of iPhone Headphone sales.
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We go back to watching downsampled Netflix and YouTube videos on our smartphones?
I'll take that bet. We are talking millions of buyers, upgraders and new ones, forced to buy new headphones or go with the earbuds that will come packaged. I have really good headphones that thankfully haven't gotten me mugged, but in the street, bus, train, and planes the quality is so different from the home listening experience; and they are around the ear and do suppress a little bit of the ambient noise. On a plane I actually use an ear canal noise cancelling buds, whether I am listening to music or not.
As for Apple abandoning or rolling back connectors, why would you exclude the Firewire, especially the 800 version. The future of thinness has already removed USB 3.0, firewire, thunderbolt and lightning (ha, sounds like Queen's Bohemian ...) from the MacBook! And, given us a single USB-C connector - at $1300! Not even their MagSafe has survived - all of these read cheap production by Apple. Just one connector for a laptop!
Even the MacBook Pro Retina does not have the FireWire - an AV standard for more than a decade. It does have a headphone jack - and no lightning!
When Apple moved away from the hand-sized, 4 inch iPhone 5s that fits into a normal pocket, after a year of trying the 6, people just stopped buying the 6s series in the numbers that Apple was expecting. Market saturation may explain some loss, but that saturated market keeps renewing their phones every two or three years. The 5 SE came back, and Apple still can't meet the demand.
People are not as accepting and definitely less forgiving with Apple's "this is what we want you to use" nonsense. I am one of them - I am still with the 5s, my kid has the 6s. The 6s is great, but awkward to carry around - remember the man-purse days! The 5s still works well as a proper smartphone, and I will re-up when it dies, only to an iPhone that will be comfortable to pocket it, and has the 3.5 headphone jack.
Fixing things that are not broken is not always progress.
I wonder if Apple realizes (or even cares) that there are plenty of people who are fine with regular headphones and will now either junk them or get yet another round of adapters, just because they like the iOS UI (so far, anyway). Probably not considering their ongoing presumption that everyone is fine with shoving tiny little "buds" inside their ears.
Not an audiophile, so I don't really care. It's like me trying to tell everyone on Instagram that they're doing it wrong because they're using a crappy cell phone running awful filters on a flat 8-bit compressed to hell JPG vs. using a good dSLR or mirrorless and meticulously editing each shot in Lightroom (which is what I do with 90% of the photos on my Instagram). Hardly anyone cares because their eyes can't really appreciate the difference and they're used to mediocrity. My ears are the same. I mean, I can tell the difference between crap headphone and decent ones. But everyone is different, and I doubt most people care. That being said, most of my music is played over BT to my UE Mini Boom or car, and I use the headphone jack on my Mac a ton while at work, so I don't really care if they switch. I used my iPhone for music a ton while in college but now? It's rare if I'm ever wearing my headphones in public.
The thing is that my right ear is gone while the left side has some hearing left. And with the residual hearing I have, the hearing aid helps in that sense. I use the open ear headphones that is placed over my HA. I can hear the music and lyrics that way but I only do this at home for privacy.
When I have to use Skype, I switch to a hearing aid adapter that is slim and curved going behind my ear using the telecoil mode blocking off the background sound leaving only the person's voice. It's handy for such phone or video calls much less the music ( I use Spotify for this when at the cafe ).
So in that sense, I can hear the music and can tell if something doesn't sound right with it. Daft Punk, for instance, sounded different in various headphones I've had over the years until the Senns.
I'm clinically deaf when I take off the hearing aid can't hear anything. One reason why I find the headphones in the iPhone package a bit insulting in design. For a company that champions accessibility, their packaged headsets aren't hearing aid compatible at all and only used for the inner ear section which I can't hear out of.
Especially when all ears are built differently, those apple headphones are generic. I should know because ear molds for hearing aids all have variable differences.
Edit: oops. I meant ear buds
99% of the people will use whatever comes in the box... for the rest there are forums where they can b*tch about it ..in a year it won't be a problem anymore... as it was the 30 pin connector to the current one.
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It's like asking why Apple couldn't have both the iOS App Store and allow flash back in 2008. The reality is that nobody would pay for native apps if free flash apps were a thing.
How many people do you think would continue to use Apple maps if Apple allowed you to set Google maps as the default app? Yet it was necessary to give Maps the time to grow and allow Apple to break away from Google's dominance.
Sometimes, a standard takes off only with enough people pushing for it, which very often means removing some degree of choice from the user.
I keep hearing people saying "Taking out the 3.5mm socket will allow them to make the phone thinner!". The socket *isn't* the limiting factor on the thickness of the iPhone. The iPod Touch is already 1mm thinner than the 6S, and 1.2mm thinner than the 6S Plus, and it has a 3.5mm socket in it!
"Ah, but it means they can make the phone waterproof!" Other phones that are "waterproof" (as in can survive being dropped into a full sink without an issue) that are already out still there use 3.5mm sockets, so that removes that argument.
"Think of the sound quality that you will be able to get!" As others have pointed out, the majority of iPhone users, particularly those who ripped all their CDs into iTunes using defaults, or are subscribed to Apple Music or Spotify or whatever will see no benefit. There's nothing to stop audiophiles from using the lightning connector already.
"It moves us to the new digital standard!" Well, no it doesn't. If any connector can be classed as a standard, then that is USB C, not Lightning. Headphone manufacturers hate this idea of having to support multiple formats of connection. It makes te planning and logistics that much more inefficient and eats into their budgets.
"Apple have lead the way before! Remember they removed the floppy disc drive from the iMac". True, but they moved to another industry standard, not a proprietary system (see previous point).
There are already options available for those wanting to have the "audiophile experience". Removing the 3.5mm socket and relying solely on the lightning connector is a step in the wrong direction.
"Ah, but it means they can make the phone waterproof!" Other phones that are "waterproof" (as in can survive being dropped into a full sink without an issue) that are already out still there use 3.5mm sockets, so that removes that argument.
"Think of the sound quality that you will be able to get!" As others have pointed out, the majority of iPhone users, particularly those who ripped all their CDs into iTunes using defaults, or are subscribed to Apple Music or Spotify or whatever will see no benefit. There's nothing to stop audiophiles from using the lightning connector already.
"It moves us to the new digital standard!" Well, no it doesn't. If any connector can be classed as a standard, then that is USB C, not Lightning. Headphone manufacturers hate this idea of having to support multiple formats of connection. It makes te planning and logistics that much more inefficient and eats into their budgets.
"Apple have lead the way before! Remember they removed the floppy disc drive from the iMac". True, but they moved to another industry standard, not a proprietary system (see previous point).
There are already options available for those wanting to have the "audiophile experience". Removing the 3.5mm socket and relying solely on the lightning connector is a step in the wrong direction.
