iPhone 7 May Feature Thinner, Waterproof Body With No Headphone Jack and Wireless Charging

[JimmyHook]

Some people aren't forward thinking. The same people who shed tears over floppy drives being removed from Macs back in the day will cry over an antiquated headphone jack.

 

[friedmud]

Everyone wants a bigger battery and they can tolerate that thickness to use iPhone a little bit longer.

I do wish people could realize that "everyone" is not YOU.

I don't want a bigger battery and would enjoy a thinner/lighter phone. My 6+ lasts more than all day (still had 60% left at the end of the day today).

 

[s1m]

Everyone wants a bigger battery and they can tolerate that thickness to use iPhone a little bit longer. Apple is going crazier than before. I guess, they have not received any punishment on changing trend forcefully yet.

Who is everyone? I don't want more battery life at the expense of a bigger phone and components I do not need.

 

[dumastudetto]

Personally if Apple wants to kill the 3.5mm headphone jack on their phones, just give out Bluetooth headphones with every iPhone. Move the industry forward by going with wireless technology.

Apple may well use the ending of support for the 3.5mm headphone jack as an excuse to stop bundling free headphones with new iPhones entirely.

 

[Bonsai1214]

to the people saying "my headphones are bluetooth! get with the program!": congrats. you have ****** sounding headphones.

 

[jdclifford]

Removing the 3.5mm potentially interferes with a number of the basic needs of their users. *But* Apple may have good solutions to address those needs in another way. We shall see how they handle it, I suppose... And whether what we gain is worth what we lose.

Probable Apple "solutions":" No longer possible", "No longer possible" and "No longer included" respectively.

 

[quagski]

Sign me up. I can't wait.

 

[Shirasaki]

I hate bluetooth; it drains the battery, is flaky and doesn't support the European volume limit that prevents damage to hearing.

And the bluetooth needs pairing, always, otherwise it would not work.
I have seen such bluetooth EarPods. They are hard to pair with other devices, and the quality is not acceptable for music listening. Battery now becomes second important factor in my view.

As to wireless charging: this might be good if you can use your iPhone whilst charging, but I doubt it will be as powerful as with a cable. If it's just when placed on a mat, then it's pointless and worse than a cable.

Cable is often more stable and more reliable than wireless technology, although satellites can only communicate with command centre with some sort of wireless technology. Attempting to remove cable in current stage, I think, is way too ambiguous. This is not a good move.

I would be extremely disappointed if the new phone did not have the headphone jack. I use it every day and have multiple pairs of headphones for different uses. Sure I have Bluetooth headphones, but the audio quality suffers. Plus any RCA, aux cord, and 3.5 mm to 1/4" cord would require an adapter to be used, and it couldn't charge at the same time.

I would not buy this iPhone and all upcoming products if they have no 3.5 mm jack. There are a lot of android devices thinner than iPhone 6s Plus with 3.5 mm jack, showing that thickness and 3.5 mm jack is not a matter you need to abandon one to achieve the other.
I use wired earphone all the time when listening to music, plus receiving phone call when possible. This is a must for me, for my life.

Ive's should be way more obsessed with making himself thinner than the iPhone. Honestly, he could easily lose several pounds.

Losing weight? Maybe much easier than removing headphone jack.

You clearly do not understand Apple nor their history.

Apple has always moved the industry with respect to change and getting rid of old interfaces/features for much better options. Getting rid of the 100 year old analog headphone jack sounds good to me.

5 1/2" floppy disks, floppy disks in general, SCSI interfaces, corded mice/keyboards, CD drives, DVi, ADB, etc are just a few examples.

There are plenty of other smartphone choices if you want to stay with old and traditional technology. Unhappy? Be brave, make the switch to another phone.

You know Firewire right? Who invents this port? I don't know. But I know Apple uses this port MOST, on almost all of their Macs, and some iPods. Then? They abandon this port and replace them with USB port, and thunderbolt port.

We all know world will eventually change, but I don't think now it is the right time to change, no matter how powerful and wealthy current Apple is.

By the way, if they do remove 3.5 mm jack, I may really consider making switch to android ecosystem. Or, at least, buy an android phone, plus iPod touch.

 

[zhenya]

Right, because all of that is better than something like this, which will likely cost around $19-$29:

Where's the DAC in that wire?

 

[Cosmoknot]

Apple killed the CD, point and shoot cameras, Flash, Netbooks, etc. Next up, the 3.5mm headphone jack.

If bluetooth or lightning was a better/easier solution than the headphone jack, maybe this would be a good thing.

But the whole point is moot because NO WAY IS THIS HAPPENING.

 

[Blaze4G]

Well, some device makers include them. I guess there must be a purpose.

There is, it is easier / cheaper to make a plug for the ports. So again, the 3.5mm jack don't have to be removed for the iPhone to be waterproof.

 

[Shirasaki]

Where's the DAC in that wire?

They only need to send analog signals through that port, I think.

 

[smoking monkey]

It moves NOTHING forward, nothing, all it will do is make more money for Apple under the reality distortion field of it's 'unapologetically thinner!" that you will love. Apple will attempt to force a change that literally just means more cash flow for them.

Fair enough mate.

But do you really think in 20 years that we will still be using the 3.5mm jack? It's simply not going to be that way. It will be wireless. This is the next step. IF you can't see that then you either don't understand tech, don't want to accept change, are being contrary for the sake of it or have recently invested in headphones that use 3.5mm jack. The last is unfortunate, but not the end of the world.

Why wouldn't you want one less port on the phone? IF they go to wireless charging, what's the problem? I get it makes our old headphones kind of obsolete (I've got a nice pair of noise cancelling and in ear headphones), but I understand that tech moves forward. I have to accept this as part of the price of wanting the latest tech.

 

[Brien]

"in an effort to make the device even thinner than the iPhone 6s"

The question is who is asking for this? Thinner phone means thinner battery and about the same battery life we've been getting lately.

I'm wondering how much longer Apple will push thinness. What's their stopping point? Foldable?

 

[redmac]

Because iPhone 6s reduces battery life to accompany 3D touch, I abandon iPhone 6s. If iPhone 7 removes headphone jack,
I might need to consider using an Android device + iPod touch.

Everyone wants a bigger battery and they can tolerate that thickness to use iPhone a little bit longer. Apple is going crazier than before. I guess, they have not received any punishment on changing trend forcefully yet.

iPhone 6s has better battery life than 6. iPhone 7 will have even better. Smaller battery doesn't always mean better battery life.

 

[zhenya]

I said this in the last thread on this subject, but I fear that Apple is reaching that dreaded stage in the iPhone's life that occurs in most any business, but especially the tech hardware and software business. The product matures, and executives start to panic that they are no longer able to change the product enough year over year to keep sales on the trajectory they want. So they start throwing all sorts of things at the wall - adding features - removing features, generally messing around with a good formula. And in the end they just screw up what was once a great product.

Apple may still surprise me - they often have in the past - but as quick as I am to adopt new technologies these rumors feel like they are adding all sorts of things that nobody is asking for and nobody wants. There are times when that's worked well for Apple in the past. I'm not convinced that jettisoning a port that is so heavily used and nobody is complaining about to make the phone thinner still and waterproof (?) is one of them.

 

[Brien]

No they won't. This is about moving people to wireless, not moving them to Lightning. Regardless, they are not going to encourage people to continue using their 3.5mm audio devices. If people have to buy an adapter, they will be more open to considering just replacing those old headphones with bluetooth, or if they are dead set against that, a Lightning equipped one.

Will this alienate people? Well if this rumor is true, I'm going to side with Apple having enough marketing data to show that a majority of their customers are already moving toward bluetooth, and/or they use Apple's free earbuds almost exclusively. So Apple will give customers a free set of Lightning earbuds. Adapters will be reasonably priced for the remains customers who have a sizable investment in legacy headphones. So the blowback will likely be minimal.

I'm sure when the technology is mature and reliable enough (wifi, BT, inductive charging etcetera) Apple will fully embrace it and remove ALL ports from ALL devices (except maybe the Mac Pro).

 

[Shirasaki]

I do wish people could realize that "everyone" is not YOU.
I don't want a bigger battery and would enjoy a thinner/lighter phone. My 6+ lasts more than all day (still had 60% left at the end of the day today).

Who is everyone? I don't want more battery life at the expense of a bigger phone and components I do not need.

Unfortunately, that "everyone" includes ME. Although I apologies for using that "absolute-like" word.
I need a bigger battery. My iPhone 6 Plus cannot last a full day under moderate use (mainly listen to music, play games briefly, browse the web, read magazines). I thought it could last 12h a day.

 

[zhenya]

They only need to send analog signals through that port, I think.

Since when? Lightning is currently digital output only.

Not to say it can't change, but it would have made a lot of sense to offer analog output from the beginning if that was their future intention since it has required a lot of very expensive lightning to 30-pin adapters with an outboard DAC during that transition period.
[doublepost=1452221981][/doublepost]

Fair enough mate.

But do you really think in 20 years that we will still be using the 3.5mm jack? It's simply not going to be that way. It will be wireless. This is the next step. IF you can't see that then you either don't understand tech, don't want to accept change, are being contrary for the sake of it or have recently invested in headphones that use 3.5mm jack. The last is unfortunate, but not the end of the world.

Why wouldn't you want one less port on the phone? IF they go to wireless charging, what's the problem? I get it makes our old headphones kind of obsolete (I've got a nice pair of noise cancelling and in ear headphones), but I understand that tech moves forward. I have to accept this as part of the price of wanting the latest tech.

Wireless charging as it stands today is even worse an idea than wireless audio. At least the latter is reasonably well-developed. Wireless charging is still extremely inefficient and requires a special mat that has to be connected to guess what, a cable. I'd prefer to skip the mat and just plug in the phone, preferably with some sort of fast charging to give me 50% charge or so in 10 minutes or less. Get back to me when wireless charging means 'generally in the area of a wireless charging source which is universally available.'

 

[citysnaps]

Making everything go through a proprietary connector is not innovation. It's a walled garden. Greed.

Probably costs more to get a fancy new wired headset that can't be used anywhere else than it does to use wasteful lithium powered bluetooth devices that won't sound as good and cost a lot already... never mind how frail thinner cables inevitably get. But that means more money, and more jobs in the landfill industry.

Is Apple trying to drive itself out of the market, or hope the rubes will continue to dumb themselves down to keep profit coming in?
[doublepost=1452217731][/doublepost]

Look up articles online that tell how Apple copied Samsung, Apple copied Google, Apple copied Android, Apple copied Xerox... the point is, all these companies copy and rip off one another. Enough media articles have gotten to all of them at one time or another. But please don't try to sell the impression Apple has a blessed angel and everyone is doing evil ripoff stuff. That's old, very old. And that might have worked before the information age made all sorts of real, accurate information available to any news agency to caw over., but even then...

At the moment there are several Lightning connector non-Apple digital headphones on the market. Whether Apple stays with Lightning, or goes with USB C (that's my bet), there will soon be a lot of manufacturers making digital headphones - some with advanced noise canceling and other technology. It's not a walled garden. Ignorance.

 

[alfiefalfie]

Doesn't it seem likely that theres a new theme coming around the "7"? Wireless charging, potential Apple branded BT headphones, waterproofing, super-thin...

https://www.macrumors.com/2015/10/01/airpods-trademark/

If you ask me, i suspect it'll be the iPhone Air.

 

[cclloyd]

Poll

 

[Cosmoknot]

Fair enough mate.

But do you really think in 20 years that we will still be using the 3.5mm jack? It's simply not going to be that way. It will be wireless. This is the next step. IF you can't see that then you either don't understand tech, don't want to accept change, are being contrary for the sake of it or have recently invested in headphones that use 3.5mm jack. The last is unfortunate, but not the end of the world.

Why wouldn't you want one less port on the phone? IF they go to wireless charging, what's the problem? I get it makes our old headphones kind of obsolete (I've got a nice pair of noise cancelling and in ear headphones), but I understand that tech moves forward. I have to accept this as part of the price of wanting the latest tech.

20 years from now wireless alternatives will have comparable sound quality to wired, be easier to pair, and comparable in cost.

We're not there yet. We won't be for some time. Apple isn't ditching the jack yet.

 

[elmaco]

"Further rumors have suggested the new material will also allow Apple to do away with the prominent antenna bands that were included on the iPhone 6s."

Yes, best news so far.

Please remove those ugly bands all together.

 

[unobtainium]

Don't you think that since the adapter will have to have a chip (DAC) anyway, Apple will stick some proprietary (approved by Apple) tech in there so the knockoffs struggle to actually work dependably (like early Lightning cables)?

And don't you think there will be some kind of evaluation process required by Apple for approval so that only Beats headphones will work with this new option for at least a few months (again like Lightning-based accessories)?

I would have to part ways with Apple if they pulled a move like this. And I've been a huge Apple fan since the early 2000s. But I would legit go out and buy an Android phone if they did that.

It would be the beginning of the end of consumer confidence in Apple.