iPhone 7 May Ship With Lightning-Connected EarPods, New Wireless Earphones Also Under Development

[Alenore]

So how does that happen if everybody says what you just said. How will the world move away from common use of that jack if nobody ever gets rid of it? It's got to start somewhere.

I don't know, by inventing something that can replace it AND improve it at the same time, while making it more convenient?

See, I'm not a fan of Apple dropping support for CD in recent iMac but I can understand it : people barely use it anymore.
Floppy, there was much better alternatives (cd for instance) released and in widespread use.
Ethernet, most places offer wifi : it doesn't impact you directly, as if there's a connection nowadays, there's wifi in most case. though, it's still a pain when your wifi has a problem and you must troubleshot it.

Now what I *don't* get is why they ditch technologies that everyone uses, for something that will require stupid things : no jack, DAC and stuff in the lightning earphones.
Do they intend to go wireless? Fine, but : yet something else to charge (after the phone, the tablet, the watch, the laptop...), audio quality much lower, bulkier and heavier than their wired counterparts.
And yet the apparent reason we have for this is "it'll be waterproof!".
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It's going to be fun when everyone else - Sony, Samsung, HTC, etc. - takes a similar approach going forward. Whether it's Lightning or USB-C, change (new accessories and/or adapters) is coming on this front.

And yet people would be much less butthurt if that was USB-C as it's going to be the future port used in most if not all devices.
Like, you'd buy something you could use everywhere or so for a bunch of years, not something with a proprietary connector only working on your Apple devices (and yet, not all of them!) unless you get an adapter that you'll have to carry everywhere.

 

[Lictor]

Like most people? Sorry, I have a hard time believing most people use 3rd party headphones only because every time I'm at the gym I mostly see white earbuds everywhere.

I have a hard time believing that. Apple earbuds are $10 crap, they sound bad and they fit bad. Even walking with them is a pain. Apple puts earbuds in the box only because it has to if it wants to sell the iPhone in Europe, it's required by the law.
But the fashion is currently to use big retro headphones, like the ones Dr. Dre makes (though they sound very bad). I see bunch of them everytime I take the subway, much more than I see white earbuds. White earbuds quickly dropped in fashion in big cities, because they screamed "I have an iPhone, steal me"... Maybe people keep their white earbuds just to go to the gym... I know mine are still brand new with the plastic still on, never used them even once.

 

[Jimmy James]

Feel free to look, but don't be surprised if Samsung et al. follow suit. Wired headphones will become a niche product for audiophiles soon enough.

It's not just headphones. I have a 3.5 line in on both of my cars.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

It's going to be fun when everyone else - Sony, Samsung, HTC, etc. - takes a similar approach going forward. Whether it's Lightning or USB-C, change (new accessories and/or adapters) is coming on this front.

And that will be good? For us consumers? For their consumers?

 

[citysnaps]

What the heck are you talking about? All headphones are analog. It is not physically possible (*) to build a set of headphones or speakers that are not analog, because sound reproduction is an inherently analog process. It involves moving a physical object (the speaker cone) a variable distance in or out based on the numerical value of the digital signal, and the only way to do that is to convert the digital signal into an analog voltage.

Digitally connected headphones, whether wireless or wired, still convert the digital data into an analog signal. So the only difference between one and the other is whether the data is transmitted in digital or analog form over that three feet of wire between the phone and the headphones and in whether you have to pay for a digital-to-analog converter in every pair of headphones or just pay for a single one that's built into your phone.

This isn't like microphones, where moving the converter closer to the diaphragm can improve sound quality by avoiding having to amplify a weak analog signal so that it can travel over the long wire. Headphones require the signal to be amplified, because it has to move the speaker cone or equivalent. And the power/voltage levels involved are high enough to make losses and induced noise mostly irrelevant. So there is exactly zero audible sound benefit to moving the conversion closer to the transducer.

There is, however, a potential for quality reduction; there's a much better chance of Apple including a usable DAC in an $800 phone than of some random headphone vendor including one in a pair of $20 earbuds.


(*) Well, that's not strictly true. In theory, somebody could design an insanely fast stepper motor that could do it. We might even have that technology by the year 3000 if we're lucky. But even if they did, you would still be converting the signal to analog; you'd just be doing it with the motor instead.

"What the heck are you talking about?"

That's a nice straw man you created. Ranting on about something that doesn't address what I posted, but rather put up so you could go on and on.

I think most people understand, including myself as an Electrical Engineer who specializes in both analog and digital signal processing, that sound propagates through moving air driven by a transducer and received by a person's eardrum, and that is an analog process.

Perhaps you can point to what I said that merits your response? That said, there are a lot of benefits, of a digital interface, particularly one that is powered (like USB C or Lightning), for creating superior audio products that Apple and other companies might choose to create someday.

If you insist on using a 100+ year old analog interface for listening to your music, that's fine. HTC, Samsung, Microsoft, Sanyo etc have a product for you. At least until they follow Apple.

 

[MaSx]

I am all for wireless products but this is more for Apple's $$$ and a way to push their BEATS product. Get rid of STANDARD and screw them over with mediocre Earpods with limited battery life and force them to buy new adapters and accessories. Good Ol' Apple Pie!


-If it turns out to be USB-C. I'm all the way in..that will be standard soon anyway but not so much lightning.

 

[Enygmatic]

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And yet people would be much less butthurt if that was USB-C as it's going to be the future port used in most if not all devices.
Like, you'd buy something you could use everywhere or so for a bunch of years, not something with a proprietary connector only working on your Apple devices (and yet, not all of them!) unless you get an adapter that you'll have to carry everywhere.

Proprietary plugs have hardly hindered Apple and iOS adoption, or don't you recall the 30-pin connector? Accessory makers want that "Made for iPhone/iPad" certification, and their product lines will reflect such - even if that initially entails simply providing adapters with their current offerings. And how big and unwieldy are you fearing a possibly-required adapter being?

The level off butthurtness is irrelevant - people love to bitch and moan, particularly when it comes to Apple. Proactive whining is particularly asinine in this case.

 

[citysnaps]

I'm not even going to bother with the other stuff, and I notice you did NOT point me to any anti-Apple post you've ever posted (even one just to prove you are not an "Apple is always right in all things" poster)... but the above point???

We've been talking about this topic around here for well over a year now:

• https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/beats-headphones-lightning-connector-for-hd-music.1736181/
• https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...able-equipped-fidelio-m2l-headphones.1774701/
• https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/bye-bye-headphone-jacks.1816143/#post-20317781
• https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/hd-music-and-the-lightning-port-use.1736597/#post-19128902

Do a search, there are plenty more threads full of such discussion that is not just you and one other guy "in the loop." If you think you are among the first 2 to enlighten the rest of us on the topic of Lightning-terminated headphones TODAY(???), I don't even know what to say to that. I'll just assume I am completely misreading what I highlighted in red.

No, I'm not going to engage you on when I cheer and boo Apple. That's high school level stuff. Find someone else if you want to play the Apple cheer/boo game. It's juvenile.

I'm here to to talk about technology, pros and cons, from an engineer's and technologist's perspective.

Judging by the discussion in this thread today, it sure looks like nobody else has learned about Lightning connected headphones.

 

[Enygmatic]

And that will be good? For us consumers? For their consumers?

Yes, if these ENGINEERS working on these things (read: not irrational people complaining over the prospect of EVER having to update accessories to work with forward-driven, $1k pocketable computers) can maximize benefits and minimze/eliminate shortcomings. Would a universal standard be nice? Sure, but there aren't many of those in tech anywhere. Hell, the 3.5mm jack isn't even absolutely universal. I'm for genuine progress (if this turns out to be that) at the expense of comfort and familiarity, every time. It's why I didn't blink switching from BB to iPhone years ago.

 

[npmacuser5]

No, I'm not going to engage you on when I cheer and boo Apple. That's high school level stuff. Find someone else if you want to play the Apple cheer/boo game. It's juvenile.

I'm here to to talk about technology, pros and cons, from an engineer's and technologist's perspective.

Judging by the discussion in this thread today, it sure looks like nobody else has learned about Lightning connected headphones.

I understand where you are wanting the discussion to go, technology side. However, the human user experience side is just as important and maybe more so. The greatest technology, until it is applied, and user will use it is essentially nothing. Tech Specs make for interesting discussions but what has made Apple where it is today is the user experience. Now with these changes one may question their vision. Time will tell.

 

[Mr. Buzzcut]

Age old? Aluminium didn't come into wide uses until after 1900 (plastics, in the form of Bakelite the first widely used one, from the 1914s on, discovery 1907),
AL 7000 after 1950s (first made in early 1940s by the Japanese) though it was not used in consumer products until the last few decades.

Commercial uses of plastic even came before processes to produce large quantity of AL even existed (like Celluloid 1856, branded by that name in 1870).

How is plastic "more modern". They're about the same era.

Well it was obviously tongue in cheek but I should have said polymers. Do you know of any cell phones made of Bakelite or celluloid, lol. The latter sounds dangerous.

 

[jstorm01]

Apple's upcoming iPhone 7 is rumored to feature a thinner body with no headphone jack, with Apple instead planning to rely on the Lightning port and Bluetooth as ways to connect headphones to the device.

It was not clear if Apple would continue to ship EarPods along with the iPhone 7, and whether those EarPods would use Lightning or Bluetooth, but a new report from 9to5Mac suggests Apple will indeed ship Lightning-connected EarPods with the iPhone 7. Apple is also working on a new set of wireless Bluetooth earphones that would be sold alongside the iPhone 7 as a premium accessory and alternative to the Lightning-connected EarPods.

While traditional Bluetooth headphones, including Apple's own PowerBeats, have a wire that connects the left and right ear pieces to each other, Apple is said to be designing earphones that do not include a connective cord. These earphones would be similar in design to the Bragi Dash, an upcoming set of earphones that features individual ear pieces for each ear. Charging would be done through a battery case.

A recent rumor suggested Apple would use new audio technology in the iPhone 7 to improve noise-cancelation techniques for better sounding music and phone calls, and this appears to be technology that may also extend to Apple's prospective wireless earphones.

In October, trademark filings for an audio accessory by the name of "AirPods" were linked to Apple, so it's possible Apple's rumored wireless earphones will eventually be named "AirPods" and sold alongside the existing EarPods.

According to 9to5Mac, while the earphones are currently under development in preparation for a fall launch, there's a possibility the technology could be delayed due to battery life concerns. The earphones are said to have a battery life under four hours.

Today's report also suggests Apple is finalizing the design for the iPhone 7, testing three designs that range from a thinner model to a device that looks much like the iPhone 6s.

Article Link: iPhone 7 May Ship With Lightning-Connected EarPods, New Wireless Earphones Also Under Development

hopefully we can get Beats Ear Buds this time around?

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Instead of actual innovation, let's continue to make things thinner until they fit in a credit card slot of your wallet.... (sigh)

The only REAL reason to remove the headphone jack is to FORCE sales of non-standard Bluetooth and Lightning cabled headphones, which Apple just happens to sell.... Yes, that sounds like the GREEDY APPLE I've come to know and hate. And that lightning connector of all things. The rest of the world is moving to USB-C and so Apple decides it will be the only one to sell its on proprietary connector. So are we going to see conventional headphones, lightning jack headphones and USB-C headphones for sale? Will we need adapters galore until the end of time because companies can't stick to STANDARDS??? It's 100% BS. Screw Apple.

 

[jstorm01]

I'm not looking forward to buying multiple adapters to use with our 3.5mm inputs. And yet more where I also need pass through charging simultaneously.

Your not supposed to be using your phone while its charging anyway . Why do you think they include a short cable with all Cell phones?

 

[citysnaps]

I understand where you are wanting the discussion to go, technology side. However, the human user experience side is just as important and maybe more so. The greatest technology, until it is applied, and user will use it is essentially nothing. Tech Specs make for interesting discussions but what has made Apple where it is today is the user experience. Now with these changes one may question their vision. Time will tell.

And I have often weighed in on user experience as that is what ultimately drives Apple and their design choices.

Where I don't want the discussion to go is keeping tally of how often people praise/criticize Apple. That's juvenile.

 

[Mac 128]

That's probably the thinking, but it's wrong in this case. When Apple ditched the floppy drive, it was because something better was available right then. When Apple replaced legacy ports with USB, it was because USB was better than those ports. The list goes on. Here, by contrast, the best headphones are wired. And people also paid lots and lots of money for their favorite headphones -- not the case with floppy discs or legacy cables. I want to be using my wired headphones 20 years from now.

Join me on a trip down memory lane if you were there like I was. When Apple dropped the floppy drive there was NOTHING better available right then. CD-Rs and RWs were expensive, and buggy. The media as ridiculously expensive. Zip drives were a better option, but again, buggy. The Jaz drive was a catastrophe, along with most ofter attempts in the industry to create a mass media re-writable technology. The internet was dial up, slow and buggy! Nobody had heard of USB in 1998, and there was nothing available for it. Drivers were buggy and it took years for the standard to catch up to reality.

And nobody is telling you that you can't use your wireless headphones 20 years from now, but it will either be with a Bluetooth dongle, or an adapter to whatever digital system you want to connect to. Because 20 years from now, the audio standard will be wireless, and it will low the pants off any wired mobile audio you are using today, if not all consumer audio equipment. Pro stuff may take bit longer, just like WiFi is still a long way off from replacing Ethernet, but that didn't stop Apple from removing the Ethernet jacks from the MacBooks and not even offering it as an option on iOS devices.

 

[Elvergun]

Hearing this rumors, Samesung change the design of S7 for this summer.
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Its just Apple... Not the whole World... Well... As usual what Apple do.. Everyone will follows.

That's ridiculous. How is the rest going to follow? Do you think Samsung and Sony and Sennheiser and LG are going to pay Apple so they can release products with lightning connectors? Get real. Or do you think that the next generation of Lenovo and HTC and Toshiba devises are going to ship with their own, proprietary connectors instead of 3.5 jacks? Everyone will follow? You really believe that? More importantly, do you really want us to believe this nonsense?

 

[mantan]

I'll reserve judgement until I actually see what is produced.

But there is nothing about any of these features that makes the iPhone 7 a compelling purchase. The iPhone 4 was a must buy for the retina screen and HD video. The iPhone 5 was a must buy because it had a bigger screen. The iPhone 6/6= was a must for the very large screens that were way overdue.

When these features are greeted with 'what are they doing?' by a large number of the Apple fans on this site, it makes you wonder. And it's not like Apple has earned the blind trust they used to have. From the questionable design elements of the new Macbook, to the abomination of the charging case they released to the issues with Apple watch, I've moved way past the 'Apple knows best' phase.

 

[trekkie604]

Well it was obviously tongue in cheek but I should have said polymers. Do you know of any cell phones made of Bakelite or celluloid, lol. The latter sounds dangerous.

Yeah reels of film are really dangerous.

 

[nordique]

Cool, wait.

If the new wireless earbuds are separate from each ear, does this eliminate the microphone and volume controls?

And, if the 3.5" port is eliminated, does this mean I can't listen to music in my car while charging my phone? Or can't plug my phone into party speakers? Or that I get to carry an adapter around everywhere I go now? That sounds like an improvement on a problem that didn't exist, definitely.

This is pretty much my main concern. All are things I do occasionally, enough to cause issues.

Even carrying an adaptor around is what I am trying to avoid and one of the reasons I gravitate towards Apple products in the first place - simplicity.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Yes, if these ENGINEERS working on these things (read: not irrational people complaining over the prospect of EVER having to update accessories to work with forward-driven, $1k pocketable computers) can maximize benefits and minimze/eliminate shortcomings. Would a universal standard be nice? Sure, but there aren't many of those in tech anywhere. Hell, the 3.5mm jack isn't even absolutely universal. I'm for genuine progress (if this turns out to be that) at the expense of comfort and familiarity, every time. It's why I didn't blink switching from BB to iPhone years ago.

I'm not seeing anybody being so extreme in the counterpoint. If you're referring to me, "EVER" is never said, nor implied. I have said: show us something better than the "as is" or even show us the path to something better even at the expense of having to deal with adapters between now and then.

If these ENGINEERS have something tangibly better to roll out, great! We're just not seeing it here... or yet. Instead, the rumor implies something that "just works" fine and requires no adapters is apparently being replaced by something that comes with proprietary strings attached and- either way- we probably need to buy at least something else if we want to keep something that already "just works" just working for us consumers too.

If the rumor was that Lightning is being replaced by (even) USB3c, that would make the whole rumor more palatable (for me anyway) too. Then at least it would be a "standard" not controlled by just one corporation and adapters for the standard would not have to pay only one company for licensing the required technology. Yes, that would still come with the burden of adapters but it would mitigate the appearance of mostly a corporate greed play.

Furthermore, I said nothing about blocking "genuine progress". I'm simply looking for the progress here. So far the spin of progress is revolving around "waterproof" which can be done without jettisoning a licensing-free, thoroughly ubiquitous port or even sacrificing the strive for "thinner," as Apple makes an iPhone-like product with 3.5mm that IS already thinner.

As is, if the rumor is true, the replacement Lightning buds or headphones won't even be directly usable with the Apple Macs we already own. And it also implies that future Macs will need to come with Lightning connectors when Apple has just taken an apparent stand that USB3c is the port of "the future" on Macs. So which is it?

Putting words in someone else's mouth or puffing up points to extremes doesn't make the case against what I just basically repeated above. If whatever this rumor leads to is really better FOR US CONSUMERS, great! As is, it mostly appears to be better for Apple and maybe AAPL- a licensing and accessories profit play more than anything else. If so, our "expense" is not just "comfort and familiarity" but hard dollars for basically little-to-no tangible gain... and probably some accessory hassle.

 

[lchlch]

That's ridiculous. How is the rest going to follow? Do you think Samsung and Sony and Sennheiser and LG are going to pay Apple so they can release products with lightning connectors? Get real. Or do you think that the next generation of Lenovo and HTC and Toshiba devises are going to ship with their own, proprietary connectors instead of 3.5 jacks? Everyone will follow? You really believe that? More importantly, do you really want us to believe this nonsense?

It'll probably be usb c as usbc supports analog audio pass through.

That aside lightning does have a few advantages over the 3.5mm.

1) better audio quality because lightning can transfer several times more audio data compared to 3.5mm. Which makes it possible to do 24 bit audio. Note: these headphones are already available.

2) enable more interesting headphones. Because lightning power as well as data you can have noise cancelling headphones or headphones with built in dsp without having batteries in the headphone itself. Thereby decreasing the weight and price of said headphones.

3) enables oems to implement different controls on their headphones. I.e. We don't need to stick with only controls for volume, siri etc; for example apple could implement a button on the remote that when press tells you if you have any notifications or not.

4) enable better built in microphones on the headphones (refer to point 1)

So lightning does have its advantages.

 

[MrXiro]

I for one, welcome our wireless overlords.

 

[Rigby]

better audio quality because lightning can transfer several times more audio data compared to 3.5mm. Which makes it possible to do 24 bit audio. Note: these headphones are already available.

I don't understand where people get this nonsense. Moving the DAC and amplifier from the phone into the headphone cable does nothing whatsoever to improve audio quality. And nothing keeps you from using an internal DAC capable of processing 24-bit audio with headphones connected via a 3.5mm headphone jack. There is a reason why this connector has been around since 1978: It's very good at what it does. It's small, robust, and provides an excellent contact surface.

 

[lchlch]

I don't understand where people get this nonsense. Moving the DAC and amplifier from the phone into the headphone cable does nothing whatsoever to improve audio quality.

Quality is improved because lightning can pass several times more data than 3.5mm