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iPhone 7 May Ship With Lightning-Connected EarPods, New Wireless Earphones Also Under Development
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When did Apple say they were getting rid of the headphone jack to make the phone thinner? Besides the iPod touch is already thinner than the iPhone and still has a headphone jack.
So when is it OK to replace the headphone jack? Never?
Where would the world be if we lived by that saying though...
Seriously if I could have a newer iPhone designed just like the 4/4S I would be really happy.
It can have a bigger screen but i haven't liked an iPhone design since then.
Right and Apple continues to use an ages old aluminum chassis while others have moved on to space age plastics.
Maybe it will come with a new AC charger requiring you to change the outlets in your house. All this old technology waiting for Apple to show the way.
will that be possible? the adapter? in a tiny form factor that will fit at the end of one's normal head phone cable?
Come again? If you want to be able to hear any sound the digital to analog conversion has to happen at some point. Apple has historically done an excellent job with DAC and amp design in their phones. Pushing that outboard is likely to reduce quality as the market is flooded with cheap headphones that now also need to include a DAC and amp. And the phone still has to have those parts inside as well if you want to be able to hear anything through its speakers.
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.
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.
A good compromise for me would be a 1" puck you carry on a lanyard or strapped to your arm, with a 3.5mm jack, 24 bit audio and enough battery to last all day even with "Hey Siri" on.
You could even buy additional AirPucks for your other dumb audio devices.
You could even buy additional AirPucks for your other dumb audio devices.
I never heard anything like that and measurements and subjective tests of flagship Android phones show that they are on par if not better than the iPhone when it comes to playback quality. That the iPhone evolved from iPods doesn't mean a thing really, they don't use the DACs of the same quality as they used to. Sound processing options are virtually non existent.
Why should the phone be 100% digital? If it were 100% digital there would be no way to interact with it.
I don't understand your other point. You are clearly not limited to the internal DAC. There are many external DACs available for iPhone as the lightning port supports digital output anyway. Also, the iPhone needs a DAC anyway, as it has speakers so you can make phone calls.
And didn't you say before that the iPhone's audio quality was excellent? Now you are claiming that the iPhone is using a 5 ct component (which is probably true anyway).
Again, wasn't the iPhone's DAC "superlative"? Now it's cheap again for the sake of argument I guess. Wireless solutions are not very well known for good audio quality.
I don't know why anyone would be defending this by the way. They are stripping off a very useful feature that almost everybody uses. There is no good reason whatsoever to do this except to save a tiny bit of space. If this is indeed true, then Apple made a horrible mistake.
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sad about this, i was in the market for a 7, as the wheels are coming off my 5... but the more i think about it, the more of a deal breaker it is for me
you dont know how audio works, and you believe in a made up quote.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Every time we sling these old Henry Ford quotes: the above and the the one that goes "if I asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse"... we're basically calling our grandparents stupid... in support of a concept that only Henry Ford could know what consumers wanted.
When we do it in support of apparent Apple "innovations"(?) in 2016 as you're apparently doing relative to this topic, you're basically calling all of us consumers stupid such that only Apple can know what we want.
When Ford's competitors started rolling out cars in colors other than black, Ford is also famously quoted for saying, "they <buyers> can have any color of car they want... as long as it is black." Genius. He stuck with that right up until the masses started buying cars in other colors from those competitors, at which time he compromised on knowing what customers want better than customers and started making Ford cars in colors other than black.
What color car do you drive? And is it a Ford?
Apple pooh-poohed bigger-screen Phones for years and years... right up until too many customers were voting with their wallets to buy "inferior" "abominations" running Android because they wanted bigger screens. So then Apple actually gave the market what it wanted and sold more phones than ever before.
Even if we can view- and spin- our grandparents as too stupid to know what they wanted, I argue that we're more educated now than they could be... that consumers now are exposed to enough information about topics like this to be able to recognize better or not better... or see through spin for the underlying profit motive.
I know some of us believe that Apple knows best in all things and some of us want to believe that but I believe Apple would be much more successful if it did listen more to what customers want. If we're too stupid so that we can still only ask for buggy whips or faster horses, fine. But I give us more credit than that. And I take offense to the implication my fellow consumers & I are too stupid such that any corporation can possibly know better as to what we want than we know ourselves... AND that our grandparents were too stupid to know what they wanted such that only 1 man could actually know what they wanted.
Personally, if this rumor is true, I think it's stupid. Why? Either way we go, it requires an adapter:
- To make existing headphones with a 3.5mm plug work with this rumored iPhone requires an adapter. OR
- Buy new headphones that terminate with Lightning and we need an adapter to make them work with everything else... including Apple's own Macs.
- If we want true waterproof so badly, get rid of ALL of the holes, not just one. Jettisoning this one hole is not crucial to making this device waterproof. That's just rationalization spin.
- If we want higher fidelity audio, can we HEAR the difference when we mostly listen to AAC Plus anyway? And if we think we can, we ALREADY have the option of Lightning-terminated headphones. Why make it the ONLY option for everyone?
- If we want to jettison an "antiquated" standard, can it not be replaced by a more modern standard not completely owned by a single company? For example, why not dump Lightning too and go USB here... even USB3C?
- If we want to spin "the future", I doubt Lightning will be Apple's future for more than another 3 or 4 years. Look at the pace of "thinner" and then think about what happens to Lightning on iPhone 13.
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Does you car have bluetooth? If so, turn on bluetooth for audio, then plug in the lighting cable to your car USB port or use a USB adapter for the cigarette port.
That adapter isn't "all" you need. There's a chip inside the phone currently called a Digital to Analog Converter - or DAC. That DAC is responsible for turning 0s and 1s into sound. That chip exists in Bluetooth headphones, and combined with their BT protocol and max data ability, that's why you get inferior sound.
I'm not saying it can't be done, but it's not as simple as resorting the wire route. It's going to create the exact same bulk Apple has already rid itself of on EVERY model prior.
Considering music is a huge reason for their success, those of us with ear buds that cost as much as the phone are not going to be all that happy with the trade-off. I imagine it's going to look a whole lot like:
Bring on the change!
Don't worry, Samsung, will make sure their 2017 devices have no headphone jack.
I think people on this forum obsess over Samsung more than Apple must do...
Give a good reason why it should be replaced and an actually viable alternative. The 3.5mm jacks are widespread, cheap, robust, convenient to use, really small enough and do everything they need to do. I see no upside to this upcoming change whatsoever. If you do, please explain.
This is starting to sound like a ploy for Apple to look really good in the end. I bet they don't remove the audio jack, and tout it as "look, we did it right by keeping the jack AND adding new wireless capabilities too!" Which I'd be very happy if they did that.
All the excuses to go without the jack too! Seriously. Waterproof? It can still be waterproof with the jack, just seal the area around the jack inside. Like all other "waterproof" phones do. And thin? There are already thinner devices that still have an audio jack.
At the end of the day, audio is after all analog. And the audio jack is a standard that cannot die. Bluetooth is not good enough to replace a jack 100% either. And, we're not about to pay out the nose for ANOTHER "standard" that we'd have to pay for in order to use.
All the excuses to go without the jack too! Seriously. Waterproof? It can still be waterproof with the jack, just seal the area around the jack inside. Like all other "waterproof" phones do. And thin? There are already thinner devices that still have an audio jack.
At the end of the day, audio is after all analog. And the audio jack is a standard that cannot die. Bluetooth is not good enough to replace a jack 100% either. And, we're not about to pay out the nose for ANOTHER "standard" that we'd have to pay for in order to use.
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!!!
If vinyl is better than CD (and not a waste of oil), then what you say is also the better solution.
Bizarre, I haven't had an issue with a headphone jack in a long time, but every single lighting cable I have is currently frayed.
It's also PASSIVE analog, receiving power from source. There are no wireless devices that don't also need a power source. That alone is a very big deal.
More batteries and disposable trash for the items that will have a sealed battery.
Most people don't go under water, ever or regularly enough, so why not make things water resistant and not waterproof?
It's all about adding mortar to the walled garden. Wasteful ways.