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0098386

Suspended
Jan 18, 2005
21,574
2,908
It would be nice to see them do wireless charging, and Bluetooth headphones to get rid of the headphone jack, and waterproof the speaker/mic system. Just a thought.
Hi!
I recently bought some 2014-model Sony BT headphones for use with my Apple Watch. One of the reasons I took both back was the lag with BT headphones and music. I synced it to my phone and tried watching videos but there was a good half a second lag. Do all BT headphones do this? I can't imagine dropping the headphone port if BT headphones are all like that.
 

Smigit

macrumors 6502
Feb 21, 2011
403
264
you can drop anything in a bucket or water, toilet, etc... my concern is, does it happen enough to warrant putting time and money into making the entire phone water resistant? if there is a risk of dropping your device in water don't take it with you.
I tend to feel that I take good care of my gadgets. Never lose them, never smashed a screen or caused much in the way of damage to any mobile device including close to 15 mobile phones. That said, I had one slip up in the 18 years of owning a mobile device where I threw some jeans in the wash which had my phone (iPhone 5 from memory) in the pocket and despite realising the mistake in a few minutes, managed to wreck my phone (the display specifically was water damaged).

My partners not quite as careful and one of her casualties was to drop her phone in the sink. I can't remember if her phone was ok after that one, I think it may have survived in that case but possibly not. So yeah. We've managed to lose one maybe two iPhones to water damage through minor mishaps. Completely our fault, but a story I'm sure many are familiar with.

I'd love to see them be more resilient to water (which apparently the 6s already is). Even things such as a torrential rain is a big problem I imagine for many if you're stuck outside, carrying a phone and don't have anything waterproof to house it.

The assumption being that weatherproofing the device doesn't necessarily have to come at the cost of other features and is just one more 'nice to haves' in a list of other improvements.
 
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Cayden

macrumors 6502a
Jul 10, 2014
926
544
Utah
And it's already starting. I'd be pretty excited if this does happen. I'm guessing this will be the year that the home button finally goes away and the bezels will finally be substantially decreased in size
 
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PilotC150

macrumors regular
Apr 24, 2015
189
268
Of course as soon as anybody mentions wireless charging the haters come out of the woodwork continually spewing the line about how "you're still tethered to the wall so it's not really wireless charging".

If a phone ONLY supported wireless charging, yea, that would be annoying, But if you've ever had a phone that has it as an additional feature you know how much more convenient it is to have. The extra convenience of not having to deal with plugging in a phone in the dark or accidentally grabbing it while it's plugged in and yanking the cable is wonderful.

I'm just waiting for the day that Apple adds it and everybody finally realized how awesome it is.
 
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mbh1976

macrumors regular
Oct 17, 2014
176
408
I'm definitely looking forward to the iPhone 7! Performance wise Apple has gotten it right with the 6S/6S Plus. I am looking forward to smaller bezels and thinner phone.
Why on earth would you need/want an even thinner phone? The current ones are impossible to hold they are so thin!
 
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ArmCortexA8

macrumors 65816
Feb 18, 2010
1,074
205
Terra Australis
Of course as soon as anybody mentions wireless charging the haters come out of the woodwork continually spewing the line about how "you're still tethered to the wall so it's not really wireless charging".

If a phone ONLY supported wireless charging, yea, that would be annoying, But if you've ever had a phone that has it as an additional feature you know how much more convenient it is to have. The extra convenience of not having to deal with plugging in a phone in the dark or accidentally grabbing it while it's plugged in and yanking the cable is wonderful.

I'm just waiting for the day that Apple adds it and everybody finally realized how awesome it is.

Convenience is not always a good thing, especially in this context. Whats the point of having a wireless charging system that take longer than an AC adapter - still connects to the wall the same way just a different design. You never plug in a phone in the dark as the screen backlight works instead (as long as not completely dead) and you should know if your phone is plugged in or not as there is only one connector for it.
 

clausbvc

macrumors newbie
Jun 20, 2014
28
27
Denmark
The benefits of the smaller form factor of a 4" are numerous:

Smaller display is less costly
Fewer pixels to fire up - longer battery time (even with less space)
Better heat dissipation
Less prone to bending
Actually being mobile,
Fitting a pocket (the best camera is the one you carry)
Better grip, no over-reaching your thumb
Does not make you look like an mobile addict, even if you are

So I would strongly advocate for going back to a human form factor. When I reach my alien 2,5 meters high and my hands are grown by 30 percent, I might just like the bigger size, but not now.
 

nfl46

macrumors G3
Oct 5, 2008
8,349
8,704
Why on earth would you need/want an even thinner phone? The current ones are impossible to hold they are so thin!
I always put cases on my phone so I never really benefit from the 7.1mm. With a case, it probably as 2mm, so a 6.5mm iPhone 7 would only be around 8.5mm with a case. IMO, I like that.
 

Oblivious.Robot

macrumors 6502a
Sep 15, 2014
817
2,177
iPhone 7.. iPhone 7.. FREAKING IPHONE 7!! :D

Why do I have such a high hopes for the 10th edition of iPhone?
I know I should lower some expectations, but man am already saving up for that magnificent device to be. Lol
 

ArmCortexA8

macrumors 65816
Feb 18, 2010
1,074
205
Terra Australis
The benefits of the smaller form factor of a 4" are numerous:

Smaller display is less costly
Fewer pixels to fire up - longer battery time (even with less space)
Better heat dissipation
Less prone to bending
Actually being mobile,
Fitting a pocket (the best camera is the one you carry)
Better grip, no over-reaching your thumb
Does not make you look like an mobile addict, even if you are

So I would strongly advocate for going back to a human form factor. When I reach my alien 2,5 meters high and my hands are grown by 30 percent, I might just like the bigger size, but not now.

And smaller battery. It's a well known fact that when people go to larger screen devices, they never want to go back to smaller device. As for bending, this is caused by fools who cannot determine what's too large to fit in their pocket, and if it should be removed before sitting down. This is caused by the owner, not the phone.
 
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JulianL

macrumors 68000
Feb 2, 2010
1,657
654
London, UK
Ditching the headphone jack? No way. Requiring powered headphones is one of the worst things they could ever do...

I agree. That would be a disaster for me. When I'm travelling it's frustrating enough making sure the iPhone has enough battery power when I need it. Forcing me to use Bluetooth headphones (a) drains power from my iPhone faster and (b) means I have another battery in my headphones that I also need to worry about.

I do think Apple will do something with the headphone socket though. They have a patent on a 3.5mm jack with the top approx 1/3rd cut off so that it is thinner. This would tally well with the rumours of them wanting to get the next iPhone down to 6mm thick.

I do still wonder whether another option just might be to use the lightning connector for analogue headphones. I know the current lighning connector doesn't have analog audio on any of the pins but isn't there smart circuitry in an Apple-approved lightning connector that can communicate with the iPhone the moment it's plugged in and negotiate what pins do what, currently primarily used to implement the reversibility of the connector I think. I wonder whether the communication protocols are expandable enough so that Apple could make a 3.5mm to lightning adaptor with the official Apple chip in it programmed so that, when it's plugged into an iPhone 7, it says "I'm a analogue audio device, please map ground, signal-Left and signal-Right to these three pins". I do see that the existing pins are very small however, maybe too small for decent analogue audio quality, but there is also a fairly big unused area of the flat bit between the current pins and the main body of the connector that could perhaps form a much bigger contact area suitable for analogue signals. There would still need to be negotiation on plug-in to ensure reversibility but it might be possible.

It seems worth the effort to me because relatively speaking the headphone socket takes up a lot of space internally and, if the iPhone 7 is going to get smaller, every little bit of extra space freed up for a bigger battery is like gold dust. I would happily pay an extra £10 or even more to buy the required 3.5mm to lightning analogue audio adaptor if the space saved by not having the headphone socket was given over to extra volume for the battery.
 
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navaira

macrumors 68040
May 28, 2015
3,914
5,138
Amsterdam, Netherlands
I use an Xperia Z3 Compact in a very dusty environment (I'm a blacksmith). I completely ruined the camera on my iPhone 4 by using it in the forge. Then proceeded to doing something similar to my Galaxy S3. The Xperia has no problems whatsoever. I didn't try to use it underwater though ;)

As for iPhone 7, I hear that the Very Highly Esteemed Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicts that it will be faster than 6s, with special attention to Safari, which will be much snappier.
 

ArmCortexA8

macrumors 65816
Feb 18, 2010
1,074
205
Terra Australis
I agree. That would be a disaster for me. When I'm travelling it's frustrating enough making sure the iPhone has enough battery power when I need it. Forcing me to use Bluetooth headphones (a) drains power from my iPhone faster and (b) means I have another battery in my headphones that I also need to worry about.

I do think Apple will do something with the headphone socket though. They have a patent on a 3.5mm jack with the top approx 1/3rd cut off so that it is thinner. This would tally well with the rumours of them wanting to get the next iPhone down to 6mm thick.

No thanks they can leave the headphone jack at 3.5mm. Im sick to death of this obsession with thinness when you lose functionality for aesthetics. People don't want to keep buying adapters because of Apple's decisions in built-in obsolescence, and a lot of them are getting sick of it.
 

LordQ

Suspended
Sep 22, 2012
3,582
5,653
The headphone jack is the only thing stopping the thinner iPhones I take it. Maybe they plan to make the EarPods with a Lightning entrance and have two on the phone (unlikely) or a smaller jack like the patent we saw last week. Interesting.
 

yaboyac29

macrumors 6502a
Sep 24, 2014
651
468
Ugh- just make a phone with a 4" screen that someone can actually pick up/hold without it slipping out of their hands. I know I'm in the minority, but the 6/6s is miserable to use.

Go pick up a LGG4 and you'll see how perfect it feels in your hand.

The material used on the iPhone combined with the thinness is what makes them hard to use, not the screen size.
 

freediverx

macrumors 65816
Feb 19, 2006
1,009
1,022
It would be nice to see them do wireless charging, and Bluetooth headphones to get rid of the headphone jack, and waterproof the speaker/mic system. Just a thought.

When I hear "wireless charging" I think of a system that doesn't require any contact between the device and the charger, and certainly not some awkward charging base or pad. The only so-called wireless charging systems I've seen use Indicative charging, which is not in any way wireless.

Bluetooth headphones are great, but not to the exclusion of wired headphones. They're still too expensive, have too little battery life, have issues with latency, and nobody wants more devices to charge.
 
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