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iPhone 7 May Ship With Lightning-Connected EarPods, New Wireless Earphones Also Under Development
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HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
That's also a tired, tired argument overused around here. It's just another round of "Apple knows best." I'm glad you think that Apple knows best in all things. Good for you. I like Apple's products very much myself- pretty much an all-Apple guy. But I don't think they know best in all things. When they seem to be favoring what appears to be a wrong decision, I'm not afraid to state a personal opinion. In other words, I can "think different."
This one is VERY different than those examples. The superior replacement was already on hand in those. And the replacement was a public standard, not one completely controlled by a single corporation. If this newer way is better, why isn't everyone already gushing about the superiority of the consumer experience via Lightning-terminated headphones already available? Why isn't the obvious improvement in sound quality already getting touted in all of these threads with some links to proof of objective reviews? Either would shut much of this up if it was objective. Part of the problem here is we're not clearly seeing the consumer gain on this one.
Roll out the next iPhone with both options and let the superiority of the replacement rule. If it's really better, people will enjoy that better and roll with adapters to make Lightning earbuds also work with other products- like the Apple Macs we already own.
Similarly, the push to buy someone else's product over any single issue is also over-used and misplaced. It's not easy to just switch when one is deeply invested in (either) ecosystem. Certainly in just replacing a popular bundle of apps alone, it would cost more than buying an adapter... even a premium-priced one. But that doesn't make me love the idea of carrying around an adapter. It just makes me tolerate the aggravation of having to buy an adapter to make something "just work" that used to "just work" just fine inside an iPhone.
Lastly, for every post I've ever seen you post, you're always pro-Apple no matter what. I'd personally respect your opinions in such conversations much more if you could point me to at least a few posts where you are down on some Apple decision. Even Apple faults themselves at times. Can you? Or maybe I've just never noticed those kinds of posts by you.
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IMHO if true the decision is bad but the timing is worse since they just launched Apple Music. I finally ditched my iPod Classic last year with Apple Music, but I also charge my phone more often so a single port is unacceptable. And no, I don't want to change all my headphones just for the iPhone, I'd rather switch to android but there isn't any streaming service in par with Apple Music so far in Japan.
Between this, and the camera lens that sticks out the back of the iPhone 6, and the problems with bending frames, just maybe they're too fixated on making the things thinner and thinner.
Agreed. And that assumes that your particular choice of airline even allows you to use Bluetooth wireless devices in flight at all. It depends on the aircraft model and the airline. So users who fly in an airplane will need to carry a set of wired headphones in one form or another, along with an adapter, if necessary.
Worse, people are most likely to abuse the heck out of their headphones when they're fumbling around with bags in overhead bins on an airplane, putting things under their seats, etc. The 3.5mm connector is robust enough to handle that. Lightning connectors? Not so much. I've seen way too many reviews of Lightning products saying that a plug broke off inside the phone. Good luck charging it after that.
And even many people who don't fly regularly will still want wired headphones. Bluetooth audio is usually compressed, and has latency that is particularly noticeable when playing games, where it isn't possible to delay the visual content to compensate for the audio delay. And not everybody likes the idea of having a wireless transmitter a half an inch away from his or her head, either. The inverse-square law comes to mind here.
Worse, from a typical customer perspective, there is exactly zero advantage to using Lightning. Making the phone another millimeter thinner is not an advantage. It hasn't been for many years. They're already well past the point where I have to put a case around my phones, because otherwise they slip out of my hands constantly. And that's not even considering the increased bending risk or the loss of functionality.
Using a lightning connector for headphones constitutes fundamentally bad hardware design by every reasonable metric.
"That's also a tired, tired argument overused around here."
For you perhaps... It bears repeating because ignoring that indicates you do not understand how Apple works nor their history.
"I'm glad you think that Apple knows best in all things. Good for you."
Ah, you know what I think. That's hilarious. Don't make me die laughing.
"This one is VERY different than those examples. The superior replacement was already on hand in those. And the replacement was a public standard, not one completely controlled by a single corporation. If this newer way is better, why isn't everyone already gushing about the superiority of the consumer experience via Lightning-terminated headphones already available?"
Not different at all. Apple makes a decision to move their technology forward and dumps the old tech (100+ years old in this case) other manufacturers hang on and cling to. At least until they follow Apple a few months later. Why aren't people gushing about the available Lightning headphones? Are you serious? Before today where myself and one other person mentioned them, I'll wager nobody here, including yourself and many others, including the tech press without any reviews, have never heard of them. With that piece of information I'll leave it to you to answer the question you posed, highlighted in blue. It really is easy!
It will be interesting to see how many users restored their wired headphones, or get adapter (if Apple or third parties make one) to connect wired headphones convert to lighning port.
and how many people based on they have wired headpnes like me, who would get an iPhone 7 or not just for this reason alone...
Personally, i'm bettering that no one will chuck out their wired headphone if it works fine for them.....
I bet the same reason users don't get the 12' mac for the same USB-C port reason, we will see the same set of rules here too..
No doubt with the iphone 7 someone (or Apple) will bring out a mult-pupose adapter 2x lightning ports.. or y-split connector. I can see someone doing this to charge/play music at the same time.
and how many people based on they have wired headpnes like me, who would get an iPhone 7 or not just for this reason alone...
Personally, i'm bettering that no one will chuck out their wired headphone if it works fine for them.....
I bet the same reason users don't get the 12' mac for the same USB-C port reason, we will see the same set of rules here too..
No doubt with the iphone 7 someone (or Apple) will bring out a mult-pupose adapter 2x lightning ports.. or y-split connector. I can see someone doing this to charge/play music at the same time.
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I have an iPhone 6. If this is true, in September might get an Android phone or just get the 6S.
Those aren't similar at all.
- Floppy drives could easily be connected externally for desktops, and remained available internally for Apple laptops until more than a year after USB thumb drives came on the market (which were far superior to floppy disks in every way).
- SCSI ports were replaced by a far superior technology—FireWire—and were rarely used on portable devices, making adapters a much more palatable solution for anyone who needed to maintain backwards compatibility.
So in both cases, Apple was replacing an inferior technology with a vastly superior one. That's not at all true here.
Lightning ports are not superior to 3.5mm mini jacks. They are:
- Less robust. Headphones get yanked pretty hard on an ongoing basis. A headphone jack has to be tough. Lightning isn't. And that same jack has to charge your phone, so the risk here is considerable.
- Less compatible. There are hundreds (thousands?) of companies that manufacture headphones, and all of them use a 3.5mm mini plug. That means everybody who uses wired headphones will end up carrying around an adapter for no good reason.
- Higher latency
- Lower sound quality (typically)
- Additional power requirements (e.g. batteries that run down, or 12V power for a new receiver in your car)
- Restrictions on use in some aircraft by some air carriers
- Safety concerns (proximity of wireless transmitter to your brain)
It's not the same situation. Not even close.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
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
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No nerves, just Apple and Steve Jobs publicly stated 3.5" as the perfect size screen device, then the 4" screen device, they mocked bigger screened Android phones until they copied them. And 2GB of RAM is common sense, that's why iOS struggles on older devices, Apple needs to protect those profits after all.
I can post proof if you want me to?
But it's typical arrogant Apple marketing. You are the one who needs to get a grip on reality and get out of the Apple marketing spin.
Here's one example for you:
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.
Errr... Apple never removed the command line interface. Quite the contrary. One of the reasons I'm using OSX over Windows is that the command line is more powerful ! The day Apple removes the command line is the day I have to ditch OSX since it will have become useless...
The knee jerk panic and angry diatribes around here (and elsewhere) are hilarious - if not a bit early, even for Apple watchers. I also enjoy seeing how being "Anti-Apple" is somehow construed as being "objective".
I'll trust that Apple and their designers, engineers, and R&D are thinking things through based on data involving their MILLIONS of users, and will offer solutions to potential change-driven "problems". I won't get worked up over anything involving a phone, let alone rumors likely 8 months before Apple shows/announces ANYTHING.
Benefits outweighing disadvantages... that's what I want.
"Innovate, Apple... INNOVATE!!!"
"...noooooooooooooo!!!! Don't change what I'm comfortable with!!!"
I'll trust that Apple and their designers, engineers, and R&D are thinking things through based on data involving their MILLIONS of users, and will offer solutions to potential change-driven "problems". I won't get worked up over anything involving a phone, let alone rumors likely 8 months before Apple shows/announces ANYTHING.
Benefits outweighing disadvantages... that's what I want.
"Innovate, Apple... INNOVATE!!!"
"...noooooooooooooo!!!! Don't change what I'm comfortable with!!!"
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.
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.
Actually there are tests that show you are completely wrong about the sound quality of the phones. Come on google them if you dare. I'm really tired of this kind of nonsense affirmations.
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.
So, much god damn whining about a rumour... Good grief, you'd think Apple killed people's dog by the sound of it.