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

[LauraJean]

The fewer ports you have the easier it is to make a device water resistant. I'm going to guess that Apple has pretty reliable data on how many iPhone users are using the headphones in the box (or wireless) vs a 3rd party wired alternative. My guess is that number is high enough for Apple to get rid of the jack.

 

[ClockWork72]

No surprises if the AirPods last 3 months and then die, like it's Beats brothers and hundreds of other Bluetooth earphones.

Yup just like me and the rest of the poor bastards on this Apple thread who's Beats are being bricked after updating their headphones. Some of them are able to make a work around work but some like me are now stuck with a piece of useless plastic and wire.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7340015?tstart=0

 

[tampageek]

So much for the "seamless"  experience if you need to plug in an adapter to use your headphones on a mac.

 

[mproudfoot]

This is the the first change that would have me looking elsewhere after owning 7 iterations of the iPhone - of course it depends how they handle the 3.5mm port adaptor part, but honestly, there's no need for it - the phone is thin enough - hell i'd happily see a thicker phone to keep the headphone jack and a better battery. I'm sure the earpods are lovely but 4hrs is barely covers a mid-haul flight, never mind a good hike, plus I spent good money on my QC20i earphones and nothing will replace those for me.

 

[bluespark]

When Apple released the iMac without a floppy drive, the floppy disk drive was still a universal standard in use around the world everyday. Apple replaced it with nothing. There was no way to write a file to anything built-into the computer for mobile distribution. But it wasn't about whether or not the days of the floppy drive were numbered, or even about whether there was space inside (though it did affect the design), it was about moving people to the internet -- the only way people could move files without adding anything external, and it was over slow, buggy dial up modems. It also cemented the CD-ROM as a software distribution standard. It was also about adding less expensive peripherals to the iMac via USB and making it a standard. When the iMac debuted there were only two USB products available with drivers for the Mac. A printer and a floppy drive, and both were expensive, buggy and hard to get. But because Apple created demand, competition increased, quality and innovation improved, and prices fell, so much so that four years later, Apple finally added a CD-RW as part of the cost of the iMac -- the first re-writable removable media included with the iMac since they dropped the floppy.

You may disagree, but based on every standard Apple has dropped, the same cycle of progress follows, and I contend that as long as the 3.5mm jack remains an option on the Apple products, there will be little incentive for developers to improve wireless technology. And that's why Apple won't include a 3.5mm adapter either. But, the only trade off for die hard 3.5mm legacy equipment users is that they have to use a simple adapter.

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.

 

[LauraJean]

And does Apple have reliable data on how many and how often people plug SPEAKERS in preference to earbuds/phone into this jack? The first 3rd party accessory I purchased was a pair of small portable speakers because the internal iPod Touch speakers was too faint to hear or to hear well. Not only for music but for video sound tracks as well, not to mention radio stations...
[doublepost=1452296323][/doublepost]

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Everyone assumes, welp, Apple is doing this. Soon, Android will just be copying them.

This time the "copycat" thing can't work either. Why? Because this copy would require adopting a jack completely owned by Apple. Apple isn't going to license Lightning for Android phones. So there's no copying.

A full copy would have all of the usual copycats creating their own Lightning alternative jacks too. That would fragment the audio connection for portable devices to a ridiculous level.

So instead, they'll stick with the well established, dirt-cheap connection while Apple apparently tries to make the world adopt a proprietary jack that only Apple controls. If Apple succeeds, the walled garden's walls simply get thicker.

Or the copycats will adopt USB3C or just USB or something else that is a much more open standard and Apple will basically have another isolated standard trying to get traction beyond just Apple stuff. The pain in that will be many of us consumers having to support the fragmentation by carrying at least one adapter no matter which way this goes:

• Use headphones that terminate with Lightning- need an adapter for everything else including Apple's Macs
• Use headphones that terminate with 3.5mm- need an adapter for iDevices.

If the copycats jettison 3.5mm for USB3C or just some variation of USB, we might need to carry a second adapter to make our Lightning OR 3.5mm headphones ALSO connect with their alternative when we have any reason to jack into those devices.

This is just a mess if this rumor is true. I think I'm simply going to hope it is not (in spite of it seeming to have been touched upon enough times now to make me believe otherwise). Else, could someone move the ramp over by the shark tank? And find Fonzie.

 

[scapegoat81]

If this removing the jack thing is true they may have to open up an API (or whatever it's called) for NFC. We'll be losing access to more accessories besides headphones such as the Square card reader

 

[mazz0]

They'll have to be good to beat my Jaybirds (which have 8h battery life).

Had a look at the Earin things someone linked to earlier - less than three hours battery life! No thanks.

 

[Santabean2000]

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.

Too funny. 20 years?! Really..? Why?

Personally, the less wires in my house the better.

I'm hoping they do ditch the 3.5mm; room for something better.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

So this is going to mean, in reality, you will need to have your phone in your pocket upside down ?

And an adapter in that pocket unless the only way you listen to any audio at any time is on iDevices. If you ever jack into the plane's audio to hear the sound of a show or movie, or hook into any other audio-outputting product, or have any non-Apple friends that share their music with you with a 3.5mm splitter, or the Windows computer you have to use at work, etc, you carry an adapter. It doesn't matter which way you go (headphones terminated with or without Lightning), you'll need an adapter if you ever want to use those headphones or earbuds with any non-Apple iDevice including the Macs you already own.

 

[firewood]

if it ain't broke ...

After Apple breaks it, as the did with removing Apple II slots, parallel ports, serial ports, diskette drives, CDROM drives, etc., a few months later nobody will think anything was broken... just obsolete and why didn't everybody else get rid of those junky holes earlier.

 

[FloatingBones]

if it ain't broke ...

If companies had an attitude like that, we would still have floppy disks in computers.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

I'm hoping they do ditch the 3.5mm; room for something better.

I'd bet heavily that that "room" will only be for "thinner & lighter."

 

[diddl14]

A wireless only iPhone would render the phone useless on a plane...

Unless your earbuds have 4G, there is no problem.

" If your air carrier provides Wi-Fi service during flight, you may use those services. You can also continue to use short-range Bluetooth accessories, like wireless keyboards."

https://www.faa.gov/news/press_releases/news_story.cfm?newsId=15254

 

[scaramoosh]

All this is making me believe the iPhone 7 comes out in April.

 

[skinned66]

I don't like the idea of having one pair of headphones for a single product line and one pair for everything else.

And I don't like needing an adapter to avoid that scenario even more.

 

[Rogifan]

Do they also have reliable data on how many people plug in SPEAKERS in preference over earbuds/phones? The first accessory I ever bought was a pair of small portable speakers because the interior speakers in their mobile devices are so weak.

Well I don't know about that but one thing I do know is Apple wants to sell as many iPhones as possible.

The problem is that a headphone jack is fundamentally different from the other things Apple has gotten rid of. It is the only way (absent an adapter) to use most of the headphones people actually want to use. Like most people, I rarely use my Apple Earbuds. Instead, I alternate between B&W P5s (very good audio quality) or Bose noise-cancelling headphones (a great option for traveling). These simply won't work unless I carry an adapter with me all the time, which would be ridiculous. For me, then, this rumored change would make the iPhone 7 a significantly less exciting product than any previous iPhone.

Apple, if this rumor is true, please reconsider! This is a change that would hurt anyone who loves traditional wired headphones!

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'll bet any money Apple has data that shows the majority of iPhone owners use the headphones in the box.

 

[mdlooker]

So what is the resolve for long flights... say 10+ hours?

 

[scaramoosh]

Apple's Bluetooth performance sucks, my headphones are always doing that CD like skip thing where the music cuts out for a split second, it does it like once per song when walking my dog. It got so annoying I went to the Apple store, however I couldn't replicate it in the store, they tested my phone and said it was fine, but it does it with three different headphones, including Beats studio wireless.

I just used wired now because the iPhone's Bluetooth is so bad!

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

its not that we're stupid, we're just unaware of a 5 year roadmap and what certain decisions apple makes mean in the big picture. in a sense, we lack both broad view and facts to relevantly and constructively criticize apple (and other companies). we can do it only retroactively.

and honestly, if it indeed were up to the costumers (majority, some form of democracy) we would have nokias 3310 with googol x googol resolution and googl number of cores. also, a lot of megapixels in camera.

henry was right. people outside of said industry only want more of the same (stronger, bigger, etc.) thats not innovation. i would be very interested in the statistic reporting how many industry defining products were scrutinized at the beginning by both consumers and reporters. almost all wouldnt be too far fetched right?

so yeah, i wouldnt say stupid. just ignorant. thats why we pay them to make choices for us. specialization is the mother of this civilization.

While a nice post, it doesn't change my opinion of slinging the Henry Ford quotes. I don't want to think I'm stupid or "just ignorant" in stuff like this. If the 5-year roadmap is so spectacularly great, show us that future so that we can more optimistically get behind the aggravation of having to carry yet another proprietary adapter now. Else, keep 3.5mm in there until that fifth year when the superiority of the replacement is so obvious, most of us are calling for the old option to get jettisoned.

Look at something like the transition to retina. That was something that occurred over many years and it still not completely done across all of the Apple's product lines. Hasn't it been at least 5 years since the first retina screens were rolled out? And what's happened there? The superiority of retina wins us over. We crave retina over non-retina, longing for the former (non-retina) standard to get jettisoned so the obviously superior option takes over across the board.

Look at CPUs. We know that Intels latest CPU is superior to Intels former CPU. Or we know that an A10 is going to be superior to an A9. So we crave that next Intel or A-series CPU. We want the old jettisoned ASAP because we know the new is better.

Now look at this issue. Here's the 37th thread (maybe not quite 37) about this topic filled with what is mostly a bunch of the most passionate of Apple people split on this topic. The "Apple is always right" crowd is arguing one side but a bigger-than-normal segment is either not-so-sure to passionately against. This is not a Windows vs. OS X or Android vs iOS or Samsung vs Apple split. This is a "I don't want another adapter" and "I have perfectly great headphones now"-driven split vs. rationalization spinning of "waterproof" (when we know devices WITH 3.5mm can be made waterproof), "thinner" (when Apple themselves already deliver an iPhone-like device that has 3.5mm and is thinner) and "the future" argument which could be applied to just anything Apple wants to do- good or bad.

We've also got some typical redirection going by trying to make this about wireless (bluetooth) when we all know the money in this change is in using the Lightning connection. Apple can't make near the profits by encouraging Bluetooth over Lightning. Licensing & proprietary adapters are very profitable.

The Henry Ford quotes would carry much more weight if Ford totally dominated the automotive world today. They were once almost like Windows in terms of market dominance. What happened? The arrogance of "we know better" caught up to them and the "stupid" or "just ignorant" customers chose to buy other player's cars. Do you drive a Ford? If not, why not?

 

[mattrey87]

Surely it will be a USB-C port and not a lightning port...

 

[citysnaps]

Carrying a separate adapter is sooooo much better an option than just sticking with the "as is."

Of course, Apple could go ahead and make the switch to bundling in Lightning earbuds without jettisoning the 3.5mm jack. That would cover all bases:

• Apple could embrace "the future"
• All the people who are already trying to spin this Lightning connection option as superior could take advantage of it (of course, they can already do that too but it doesn't seem to be taking much hold).
• All us dummies that can't just go with what is rumored could compare the Lightning audio playback vs. the 3.5mm audio playback and hear the superiority for ourselves.
• All the people that want their current (perfectly fine) headphones to work without having to carry adapters could keep using the 3.5mm jack
• All the people arguing that this is really about wireless (Bluetooth) could keep using wireless (Bluetooth). And if it is about wireless, Apple could ship wireless earbuds and let us hear that audio superiority vs. a corded option.

Everybody can win with choices. It's reducing choices- especially one like this one- that creates hassles like HAVING to carry adapters to get the very same benefit that used to be delivered inside the phone.

And Apple also could have kept the floppy disk around, too. Or a SCSI port. Just in case.

I think this an excellent time for all those complaining about the change and who embrace clinging to the 100+ year old analog past to go buy a Samsung or HTC phone with an analog headphone jack and finally find some peace in their lives. Of course that won't happen...

 

[Andres Cantu]

"A device that looks much like the iPhone 6s."

If that's the case, we could be seeing another unsubstantial change like the one from the iPhone 4s to the iPhone 5 rather than the radical changes we saw in the iPhones 4 and 6.

 

[nj1266]

Oh dear...connecting in my car will be a pain in the ass. Or, I'll have to buy a Lightning to 3.5mm cord, if that'll exist.

No Bluetooth in your car?