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The iPhone 7 will not have the industry standard 3.5 mm headphone jack. More than likely the room will be used for a secondary speaker for better audio, and Apple will include headphones with a lighting plug on the end instead of the 3.5 mm jack.

Lighting sounds better than Bluetooth only.
 
I haven't used the mic jack since Iphone 4, so I will gladly give up the space taken by the jack for another speaker. And my Bluetooth headsets are very cheap. I use LG HBS-730s , they sound great on both ends, last 8-10 hours on a charge, vibrate when a call comes in , a voice tells you the battery life, and has built in equalizers. And I get them for $20 shipped any day.
 
Some say that the iPhone 7 will lack a headphone jack. I think this would be stupid as bluetooth headphones cost an arm and a leg (if you want something decent) and would require the end user to purchase the headphones, and besides they run on batteries where as the apple earbuds do not. Thoughts?

you're certainly on a roll with discontent about apple abandoning things. its been apple's m.o. for a long time, and the world has survived the transition every time.

they'll either include wireless earbuds, or a lightning adapter. you might hate it, but it'll still be plenty usable.
 
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I couldn't imagine audio output being limited to bluetooth or internal speakers only, but I've been surprised before. The lightning port already supports audio out, so I have a hard to fathoming a logical reason to disable what is already there.
 
I couldn't imagine audio output being limited to bluetooth or internal speakers only, but I've been surprised before. The lightning port already supports audio out, so I have a hard to fathoming a logical reason to disable what is already there.

The only drawback to this idea is that I won't be able to use the lighting adaptor on my Macbook Pro.
 
The only drawback to this idea is that I won't be able to use the lighting adaptor on my Macbook Pro.
I am not sure I understand what you mean by this. Are we talking about syncing and/or charging while playing music? I imagine we will see a product, perhaps even packaged with the first run of phones, that is essentially a splitter/adapter.

I am not a fan of the idea myself (getting rid of the 3.5mm port) due to my gym use. I really only use my port for the gym, and this would be a step backwards for me no matter how I look at it. I have tried multipe bluetooth buds and none of them worked for me in terms of staying put during a heavy workout as did my yurbuds, and those are even significantly cheaper than any sport bluetooth product on the market (I haven't treid the yurbuds bluetooth, admittedly). I am intrigued by some of the in ear no cable buds emerging on the market though. Battery life is limited, from what I read (3 hours max), though this would be sufficient for my personal needs. The price point of $300 hurts though, My yurbuds were $40 (you can get some models now for $20). They're also going on four years old and have been through the wash 2-3 times and even the dryer once. I doubt I could get that out of a bluetooth set no matter the cost.
 
I am not sure I understand what you mean by this. Are we talking about syncing and/or charging while playing music? I imagine we will see a product, perhaps even packaged with the first run of phones, that is essentially a splitter/adapter.

I am not a fan of the idea myself (getting rid of the 3.5mm port) due to my gym use. I really only use my port for the gym, and this would be a step backwards for me no matter how I look at it. I have tried multipe bluetooth buds and none of them worked for me in terms of staying put during a heavy workout as did my yurbuds, and those are even significantly cheaper than any sport bluetooth product on the market (I haven't treid the yurbuds bluetooth, admittedly). I am intrigued by some of the in ear no cable buds emerging on the market though. Battery life is limited, from what I read (3 hours max), though this would be sufficient for my personal needs. The price point of $300 hurts though, My yurbuds were $40 (you can get some models now for $20).

I also spent allot of time at the gym and or outdoors. I use my iPhone 6 as well as my iPod Nano (much smaller and lighter) and I like how the IPhone 6 buds work with the iPod Nano just fine as well as with my MacBook Pro when I watch movies either via a DVD or on the hard drive.
 
I also spent allot of time at the gym and or outdoors. I use my iPhone 6 as well as my iPod Nano (much smaller and lighter) and I like how the IPhone 6 buds work with the iPod Nano just fine as well as with my MacBook Pro when I watch movies either via a DVD or on the hard drive.
The idea of an adapter would just be something simple like a 3.5mm female end and a lightning male end that maybe splits allowing charging and the plugging in of a 3.5mm at the same time.

It's not entirely unprecedented. Look what apple did with the macbook air line. Granted, a laptop is different than a mobile phone. I guess what I am saying is it's something I could live with, but I wouldn't be terribly happy about it. But who knows, maybe they wow me with waterproofing or something else neat. There are certainly features I would like to see in the upcoming devices that would be worth the sacrifice.
 
I'm not 100% on board with this decision. I'd prefer the jack be kept over it being removed, but if Apple included an adapter in the box it would remedy my complaints a little bit.
 
I am against this for several reasons.

The first and foremost is we do not have a universal standard that works with all of a persons devices to replace 3.5mn. Right now I can go and buy any portable electronic and be 100% sure my headphones will work with it.

Lightning is proprietary hardware. That means we will not see on other devices any time soon. Also Apple has the worst luck in the industry on getting their hardware standards to become standards. I don't think they have one thing what is used on other devices except for Apple.

If apple switched to USB type C for the iphones I can see this working as Type-C is more open and more devices support it and it will be the standard in a few years but locking people into the apple headphones is not a solution. Also it seems like another apple cash grab in forcing adapters and certification for headphones.
 
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The idea of an adapter would just be something simple like a 3.5mm female end and a lightning male end that maybe splits allowing charging and the plugging in of a 3.5mm at the same time.

It's not entirely unprecedented. Look what apple did with the macbook air line. Granted, a laptop is different than a mobile phone. I guess what I am saying is it's something I could live with, but I wouldn't be terribly happy about it. But who knows, maybe they wow me with waterproofing or something else neat. There are certainly features I would like to see in the upcoming devices that would be worth the sacrifice.

You're right about how the adapter will be, but with one other thing to add on what you said about it. It will also have the DAC and because it would no longer be inside the phone and limited by the very valuable space inside the iPhone. It can be a better quality one. This improves the audio quality for pretty much anyone still with 3.5mm headphones, even the EarPods. Other headphone companies could also release their own Lightning to 3.5mm adapters with high end DAC's best suited for their own headphones.
 
you're certainly on a roll with discontent about apple abandoning things. its been apple's m.o. for a long time, and the world has survived the transition every time.

they'll either include wireless earbuds, or a lightning adapter. you might hate it, but it'll still be plenty usable.
It's amazing the amount of people that can't figure out Apple's design pattern.
 
I am against this for several reasons.

The first and foremost is we do not have a universal standard that works with all of a persons devices to replace 3.5mn. Right now I can go and buy any portable electronic and be 100% sure my headphones will work with it.

Lightning is proprietary hardware. That means we will not see on other devices any time soon. Also Apple has the worst luck in the industry on getting their hardware standards to become standards. I don't think they have one thing what is used on other devices except for Apple.

If apple switched to USB type C for the iphones I can see this working as Type-C is more open and more devices support it and it will be the standard in a few years but locking people into the apple headphones is not a solution. Also it seems like another apple cash grab in forcing adapters and certification for headphones.

Not to mention the would also need to remove the headphone jack on all iPads and iPods.
 
You're right about how the adapter will be, but with one other thing to add on what you said about it. It will also have the DAC and because it would no longer be inside the phone and limited by the very valuable space inside the iPhone. It can be a better quality one. This improves the audio quality for pretty much anyone still with 3.5mm headphones, even the EarPods. Other headphone companies could also release their own Lightning to 3.5mm adapters with high end DAC's best suited for their own headphones.

Do you realize that no internal DAC means no internal speakers? They still have to include it in order to provide the stand-alone phone/music/video functionality. And i doubt that either Lightning or wireless earpods would provide a way better sound quality with an external DAC. Those cheap solutions aren't currently held back by the internal DAC and i don't see Apple upgrading them to such a high quality level, where this would be a bottleneck.

By the way Philips is already offering Lightning Headphones, which only use an external DAC. You can also buy external DAC/Lightning 3,5mm adapters (Beyerdynamic A 200), but it is so far only a niche market for audiophiles. Most people probably don't seem to care about high end audio quality. Therefore i would rather see Apple making improvements to wireless solutions, which are in dire need of innovation (currently lower sound quality, unreliable connection, lack of lip sync, another thing to charge...).
 
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you're certainly on a roll with discontent about apple abandoning things. its been apple's m.o. for a long time, and the world has survived the transition every time.

they'll either include wireless earbuds, or a lightning adapter. you might hate it, but it'll still be plenty usable.

It would render the iPhone useless for me.

I use my phone with high end headphones.

I use my phone to listen to music in my car with an aux input.

I use my phone for my home stereo with an aux input.

I use my phone at friends houses and in their cars with an aux input.

I use my phone as an synth/instrument for my recording studio via aux.

I watch videos and movies with it plugged into high end headphones, my car, my home studio.

I'm a touring musician and I often DJ at venues between bands. The mixing boards across the country take an aux input.

Basically all audio equipment in existence can take a regular aux cable. Nothing accepts lightning.

I would never in a million years buy a phone that necessitated an adapter to interface with the rest of the audio world. I'll never bring that adapter anywhere. It would be lost within days. And my phone would lose it's iPod functionality entirely.

There is absolutely no benefit to losing the headphone jack. It strips the iPhone of it's most valuable feature. The ability to use it as a media player that can connect to the outside world.
 
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It would render the iPhone useless for me.

I use my phone with high end headphones.

I use my phone to listen to music in my car with an aux input.

I use my phone for my home stereo with an aux input.

I use my phone at friends houses and in their cars with an aux input.

I use my phone as an synth/instrument for my recording studio via aux.

I watch videos and movies with it plugged into high end headphones, my car, my home studio.

I'm a touring musician and I often DJ at venues between bands. The mixing boards across the country take an aux input.

Basically all audio equipment in existence can take a regular aux cable. Nothing accepts lightning.

I would never in a million years buy a phone that necessitated an adapter to interface with the rest of the audio world. I'll never bring that adapter anywhere. It would be lost within days. And my phone would lose it's iPod functionality entirely.

There is absolutely no benefit to losing the headphone jack. It strips the iPhone of it's most valuable feature. The ability to use it as a media player that can connect to the outside world.
dont upgrade your phone then.
 
Some say that the iPhone 7 will lack a headphone jack. I think this would be stupid as bluetooth headphones cost an arm and a leg (if you want something decent) and would require the end user to purchase the headphones, and besides they run on batteries where as the apple earbuds do not. Thoughts?

Welcome to the reason they have to remove the 3.5mm jack to spur demand in wireless audio, which drives innovation, improves quality, and lowers prices. Most new bluetooth headphones will allow for wireless, or direct wired connections, thus eliminating battery life as a consideration.

The iPhone 7 will not have the industry standard 3.5 mm headphone jack. More than likely the room will be used for a secondary speaker for better audio, and Apple will include headphones with a lighting plug on the end instead of the 3.5 mm jack.

A secondary speaker would be a catastrophic waste for the removal of this jack.

The only drawback to this idea is that I won't be able to use the lighting adaptor on my Macbook Pro.

You will with an inexpensive adapter for legacy equipment, and if Apple really does this, new Macs will come with a Lightning port.

I'm not 100% on board with this decision. I'd prefer the jack be kept over it being removed, but if Apple included an adapter in the box it would remedy my complaints a little bit.

That won't happen because it will encourage customers to continue to use their old 3.5mm equipment. Apple is pushing the consumer toward wireless. So you will need to make a choice, buy an inexpensive adapter or upgrade to Bluetooth or Digital.

I am against this for several reasons.

The first and foremost is we do not have a universal standard that works with all of a persons devices to replace 3.5mn. Right now I can go and buy any portable electronic and be 100% sure my headphones will work with it.

How many portable electronics do you use? Is this really an issue for you, or just a matter of principle? I have three things I might plug my wired headphones in on any given day -- iPhone, iPad, and MacBook. In my Apple world, a Lightning headphone will work with all future Apple equipment natively. I have a set of BT headphones which currently work with all of my Apple equipment. I also have a $20 BT dongle that I use with my home stereo to connect to all of that equipment, which I can control from my couch without having to run a wire across the living room. If I have to connect to anything else, I don't mind using an adapter.

Lightning is proprietary hardware. That means we will not see on other devices any time soon. Also Apple has the worst luck in the industry on getting their hardware standards to become standards. I don't think they have one thing what is used on other devices except for Apple.

Oh you mean like we didn't see any other devices accommodating the 30-pin dock connector for the original iPod? Obviously not as that was one of the most popular connectors in the iPod peripherals market. I'd say Apple was pretty successful in getting that standard adopted across an industry despite not being compatible with anything else.

If apple switched to USB type C for the iphones I can see this working as Type-C is more open and more devices support it and it will be the standard in a few years but locking people into the apple headphones is not a solution. Also it seems like another apple cash grab in forcing adapters and certification for headphones.

Are you willing to bet USB-C will be the standard in a few years? I'm not. I m looking at 6 "standard" USB devices on my desk right now, all of which require their own proprietary USB cable. And even if USB-C becomes the standard, it will likely take the better part of a decade before legacy 3.5mm equipment is replaced with USB-C native hardware to be compatible with native USB-C headphones. I personally believe by the time that happens, wireless audio will be the new standard for consumer audio, and not a wired connection of any kind.

By the way Philips is already offering Lightning Headphones, which only use an external DAC. You can also buy external DAC/Lightning 3,5mm adapters (Beyerdynamic A 200), but it is so far only a niche market for audiophiles. Most people probably don't seem to care about high end audio quality. Therefore i would rather see Apple making improvements to wireless solutions, which are in dire need of innovation (currently lower sound quality, unreliable connection, lack of lip sync, another thing to charge...).

Apple is not the only one who has to make improvements to wireless audio. The entire industry needs to step up, and they aren't going to do that as long as there's no demand because there's a cheap 3.5mm solution to be had in the form of low quality earbuds for less than $10 at any 7-11.

It would render the iPhone useless for me.

I use my phone with high end headphones.

I use my phone to listen to music in my car with an aux input.

I use my phone for my home stereo with an aux input.

I use my phone at friends houses and in their cars with an aux input.

I use my phone as an synth/instrument for my recording studio via aux.

I watch videos and movies with it plugged into high end headphones, my car, my home studio.

I'm a touring musician and I often DJ at venues between bands. The mixing boards across the country take an aux input.

Basically all audio equipment in existence can take a regular aux cable. Nothing accepts lightning.

I would never in a million years buy a phone that necessitated an adapter to interface with the rest of the audio world. I'll never bring that adapter anywhere. It would be lost within days. And my phone would lose it's iPod functionality entirely.

There is absolutely no benefit to losing the headphone jack. It strips the iPhone of it's most valuable feature. The ability to use it as a media player that can connect to the outside world.

Dude, to quote Seinfeld, you're living in the past man.

And I have no idea how you survived the 1/4 to 1/8 transition from the 1970s to the 1990s. And I have no idea how you cope with common RCA, 1/4" or standard XLR connectors on all the pro audio equipment you claim to use.

Good thing you represent less than a fraction of a percent of Apple's market.

By the way, good luck after you switch to Android, and they remove the headphone jack a year after Apple does as well.
 
I am against this for several reasons.

The first and foremost is we do not have a universal standard that works with all of a persons devices to replace 3.5mn. Right now I can go and buy any portable electronic and be 100% sure my headphones will work with it.

Lightning is proprietary hardware. That means we will not see on other devices any time soon. Also Apple has the worst luck in the industry on getting their hardware standards to become standards. I don't think they have one thing what is used on other devices except for Apple.

If apple switched to USB type C for the iphones I can see this working as Type-C is more open and more devices support it and it will be the standard in a few years but locking people into the apple headphones is not a solution. Also it seems like another apple cash grab in forcing adapters and certification for headphones.

Adapters for home. Adapters for the car. For me. For my spouse. Extra separate headphones for my laptop (unless the supplied wireless ones work with my old MacBook). It all looks like an expensive hassle for my use case.
 
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Dude, to quote Seinfeld, you're living in the past man.

And I have no idea how you survived the 1/4 to 1/8 transition from the 1970s to the 1990s. And I have no idea how you cope with common RCA, 1/4" or standard XLR connectors on all the pro audio equipment you claim to use.

Good thing you represent less than a fraction of a percent of Apple's market.

By the way, good luck after you switch to Android, and they remove the headphone jack a year after Apple does as well.

Dob't be an ignorant ass. The 1/8" headphone jack is not the past. It's used in all audio consumer equipment today, right now. Since you know what an XLR jack is you also know that every mixing board at every club has an aux cable so that anyone can plug their iPod/phone in for house music.

You want to know what's in the past? Firewire 400, Firewire 800, DVI, 30 pin dock connector. And soon, thunderbolt, lightning, and any other proprietary cable Apple chooses on a whim. THAT's the past. Those things will never be universal like the 1/8" headphone jack.

Taking something that "Just Works tm" and replacing it with something that doesn't work anywhere just makes life hard for everyone. And people like you being a cheerleader for that idiocy is why they can get away with it.
 
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Dob't be an ignorant ass. The 1/8" headphone jack is not the past. It's used in all audio consumer equipment today, right now. Since you know what an XLR jack is you also know that every mixing board at every club has an aux cable so that anyone can plug their iPod/phone in for house music.
You know what that "aux cable" is? It's an adapter. And any club you go to will also have a Lightning aux cable, to accomodate the millions of iPhones in the world. It won't impact the DJ at all if they forget their own adapter.

The ubiquitous 30-pin connector got updated Lightning, just like the 1/4" phone jack became the 3.5mm jack -- and adapters were involved in that transition too. By the way, not "all" consumer audio uses 3.5mm jacks, some (like amps) still use 1/4", which requires an adapter. And the so-called standard for audio has only really been such since around 2007 -- before that there was 1/4", 3.5mm & 2.5mm, as well as other proprietary connectors like in airplanes -- all co-existing. The present may currently be 3.5mm. But the future of consumer audio is not the 3.5mm Jack. It's wireless. And Apple has never been in the habit of living in the past or the present for long. And where Apple goes the industry usually follows.

You want to know what's in the past? Firewire 400, Firewire 800, DVI, 30 pin dock connector. And soon, thunderbolt, lightning, and any other proprietary cable Apple chooses on a whim. THAT's the past. Those things will never be universal like the 1/8" headphone jack.

FireWire is not an Apple proprietary standard. It's a widely available industry standard on Macs and PCs alike. Nor is DVI proprietary, another industry wide adopted standard, just like VGA, or HDMI. Thunderbolt and Lightning served a need not addressed by any existing standard, and Thunderbolt will still be there adapted to the USB-C connector. And by the time Lightning has gone away, consumer audio will likely have moved largely to wireless. For those that haven't, there will still be a digital adapter plugged in to any mixing board a person may need to connect a device to, including Android devices which are almost guaranteed to remove the 3.5mm jack if Apple does. Moreover, a digital adapter on a house mixing board which is custom calibrated to any given system will likely produce higher quality and more consistent audio experience between desperate devices. So there are benefits to such a move to, not just inconvenience.

Ultimately, until proven otherwise, I will give Apple the benefit of the doubt that if this rumor is true, there's a reason for it, presumably freeing more space inside the iPhone for other improvements, and it's not just an arbitrary move, but rather a need. If Apple replaces the reclaimed space with a 2nd stereo speaker I'll be the first to castigate them for such a pointless move.
 
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I think everyone is forgetting one thing, unlike Apple's lead in the world when introducing USB in the original iMac, Apple is going backwards with lightning as the future of audio/headphones.

This is not change to stand for, this is propietary expensive plug, with severe repercussions across the board. This will lead to a world where manufacturers will have to do different products, lightning headphones, USB-C headphones and 3.5mm headphones.

Apple should have led the world as they have in the past with industry standards such as USB-C, but I guess the new Apple under Tim Cook as is putting higher profit margins as a higher priority than industry standards.
 
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