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

Bring on the change!

Don't worry, Samsung, will make sure their 2017 devices have no headphone jack. :) I expect a commercial around September/October 2016 saying how the Note 6 and S7 can connect to any headphones, while your new iPhone cannot. Lol.
 
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Stella said:
A wireless only iPhone would render the phone useless on a plane...

Can't listen to the audio...

Hopefully any wireless headset would be better than Apple's first attempt at a bluetooth device - which also had poor battery life.

Apple forget that a consumer device can be a few mm larger to accommodate a bigger battery to ensure good battery life...
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Wait... why? I use my bluetooth earbuds on planes all the time.
 
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lkrupp said:
Isn’t it amazing how much people are bitching about retiring quite literally 100 year old technology. I mean take a look at photographs from the early 1900s showing people wearing headsets with braided cords plugged into their radio sets. Only back then it was 1/4” jacks instead of 3.5mm jacks. Analog baby!

“If Henry Ford had asked customers what they wanted before starting his assembly line they would have said, “A better buggy whip.”” -Steve Jobs
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Retiring a universal technology in favor of a proprietary connector that can only be used with Apple devices, or using the botched Bluetooth technology that provides inferior sound quality and kills battery life? Woo, innovation!
 
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Jimmy James said:
If this turns out to be the case it's the first decision that's made me think I could look at Android phones.
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Why? This is the only thing that sucks on EVERY Android phone, music support. Every Android phone I have used for audio playback has crappy sound and I hear clicks and hiccups because music and audio has never been a #1 feature of most Android devices. At least iPhone evolved from iPod and Apple has delivered superlative audio quality over the years.

Second, I value this development. The phone should be 100% digital, currently any phone that has a 3.5 mm audio jack needs a DAC to convert digital music to analog, and you are then limited to the quality of that DAC outputs and let's face it, most phones are going to implement a $0.05 component to convert digital music to analog to feed your earphones or headphones.

Since most people are going wireless anyways, not having a analog audio port on a phone is not going to be missed a few years from now, and in the least a $5 adapter from Monoprice will most likely be available to plug into the phone's USB C or lightning port if you truly happy with crappy digital to analog conversion from cheap components.
 
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Feeling two ways about this. I'm all for it if it makes the phone truly waterproof, but it'd be ideal if they put in two lightning connectors. There are rarely times when I use the lightning port and headphone jack at the same time, but I can see being supremely annoyed at the times when I need them both.
But if they actually included halfway decent-sounding earbugs with this, I'd be all for it.
 
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Removing the headphone jack makes sense to save space internally that could be used for new technologies or battery. It also simplifies the waterproofing process. However, Apple needs to do a few things to ensure this doesn't blow up in their face.
  1. They need to make clear the benefit of removing this port and hit that over and over. If they say it's about making extra space for battery, and yet make it thinner, there may be backlash. I'm willing to sacrifice that convenience for more battery, because the iPhone (at least the smaller size(s)) actually need that. But I really don't need a thinner device. Maybe slightly lighter, but it's not a big deal whatsoever.
  2. They need to include these Lightning EarPods in the box. Not being able to listen to music out of the box is terrible news for Apple Music and taking them seriously as a music-focused company.
  3. In addition, they either need to include an adapter (unlikely) or make the adapter really cheap. Like $9.99. I know Apple isn't about cheap adapters, however it's just a headphone jack, so maybe? These little things would get lost easily and we might need to buy several. I know I would.
  4. They need to offer BlueTooth Earpods. Something quality that sounds better. Forum members claim the latest Beats sound much better. Can they put that tech into a more subtle, Apple-branded device so I don't look like an attention-grabbing teenager? BT EarPods or smallish headphones would be welcome.
 
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Jimmy James said:
If this turns out to be the case it's the first decision that's made me think I could look at Android phones.
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Same here. If Apple keeps putting form so far ahead of functionality, like they've been increasingly doing over the years, it might also be time for me to ditch Apple and look elsewhere. I'm just glad I'm not so embedded in the Apple ecosystem and that it's easy for me to switch.
 
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RDeckard said:
I'm tired of Apple getting rid of the things I know and love. First it was then command line interface. Then floppy drives. Then DVD drives. Now 3.5mm connectors. I'm going to protest and start listening to music on cassettes (TDK and Maxell, baby!), 8-tracks, and reel-to-reel only. Using 1/4-inch headphone jacks!!! ;)
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You probably would keep the irony a bit lower if you for example had $1000 custom made in-ear monitors (because you care about great sound quality) for which will need a fricking dongle when you want to use them with your next iPhone...
 
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DaveN said:
A lightning to 3.5 mm adapter is all that would be needed. I would gladly give up the 3.5 mm jack for a water resistant phone.
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How will I charge my phone? In the car I don't mind having two outs; one 3.5 and a separate for charging. For all other use I don't want such a cable with a flappy unused charging input. How does one get around having to buy multiple extra cables?
 
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Swampthing said:
Wanna try it now? My iPhone 6+ and 6S+ are both able to transmit sound over a lighting cable plugged into the USB port on my car. Sounds pretty good too. While you are recharging, just try playing a song and switch over to AUX. We already have the feature here.
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Yep, I use the same for my car. Though I won't be purchasing a "7" this year due to many reasons, one being there's not going to be a big enough feature list to get me to jump from the "6s Plus". I'd say I'm more excited about OS updates on the watch, phone and mac then actual new hardware at this point. Seems like Apple is focusing a ton of hardware and not enough on the software that runs it. As I said, hoping this year we get some nice OS updates that take advantage of the last few hardware updates.
 
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Good. I listen to stuff on my phone all day and have gone through a lot of headphones due to the headphone jack crapping out. I know it won't be as thick but the lighting cable I charge my phone with seem like it would have better durability.
 
I don't know. Maybe I just like changes, but I kinda like that that 3.5mm jack is going away, even though I sometimes use it. I've had bluetooth earphones for 5 years now and I love it, I use them 95% of the time, they last around 9 hours, which is great (I think).
The more I hear, the more I am excited about iPhone 7, it'll pack new technologies, new iOS 10 (I hope they have something huge prepared for us).
 
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I haven't really heard anything yet that would get me to upgrade from a 6S. I don't see that happening this year.
 
Eliminating the headphone jack is just the kind of closed-platform move that I have depressingly come to expect from Apple. Forget about whether the phones are already thin enough, too thin, etc. Eliminating probably the single most universal port in all of computing and overloading the lightning connector would be a stupid move for other reasons:
  • There is often a need for travelers to charge while listening to audio
  • Headphone sound and fit are very personal, and anything that drastically reduces the available options is anti-consumer
  • Lightning based connectors are expensive
But, this is the company that refuses to license the female lightning connector just to screw third party battery case makers, so I fully expect these rumors to come to fruition.
 
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