iPhone 7's Secondary Speaker Holes May Be Purely Cosmetic

[MacRumors]

While multiple sources and leaked components have pointed towards iPhone 7 models having dual speakers, which could very well be the case, a new design drawing spotted by French website NWE suggests the additional holes may be purely cosmetic to give the bottom edge a symmetrical design.

The text in the documents refers to the area that occupies the 3.5mm headphone jack on current iPhones as having simply a microphone and microphone mesh, with no mention of a speaker in that location. Most of the secondary holes would be non-functional, except for the one furthest to the right, which would double as a microphone.

The veracity of the photo cannot be confirmed, and the rumor conflicts with some previous reports, but at least one previous iPhone 7 design drawing has depicted the left speaker grille as ornamental. In the photos, the secondary holes are not cut all the way through except for what would be normally be the microphone hole.

The inclusion of dual speakers or lack thereof will be known for certain in less than a month. Apple is expected to announce the tentatively named iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus on September 7, likely followed by pre-orders on September 9 and retail availability on September 16 in first-wave launch countries.

Article Link: iPhone 7's Secondary Speaker Holes May Be Purely Cosmetic

 

[sputnikv]

how wonderful

 

[weeman]

Queue all the threads that say my left speaker doesn't work.

 

[Costino1]

Ugh. So no 5.1 Dolby Digital surround on this new iPhone like I was hoping....

 

[William Gates]

oh for ****s sake

 

[sbrhwkp3]

Haha wow. That would be awful.

 

[SandboxGeneral]

That would seem a little odd if this turns out to be true. Keeping a single speaker and using the opposing side for the mic almost seems wasteful. I would bet that Apple could have two speakers and the mic in the same space.

 

[HopefulHumanist]

I'm pretty sure this has been reported before. I'm still skeptical and hope there are two speakers but anything is possible. We'll know soon enough. Can't believe it's less than a month away!

 

[utsava]

I mentioned this weeks ago and got shot down. There is not going to be two speakers. The extra hols are for symmetry only. And this is not the first time Apple has done this.

 

[tubeexperience]

"Most people don't really want headphone jacks anyway." - Tim Cook

 

[RoboCop001]

Dual speakers on one edge of the phone wouldn't be any different than just having one speaker anyway.

 

[rdlink]

So we put fake speaker holes in the bottom for looks and symmetry, and we leave the giant pimple surrounding the camera lens? LMFAO.

 

[SpiderDude]

Nothing new here.
Even cars have dual exhaust exits but only one with an actual exhaust pipe...

Age of the looks fellas...

 

[marine0816]

Apple is trying to sell as many Galaxy Note 7s as much as possible

 

[usersince86]

Less is not more.

 

[decimortis]

This may sound like sarcasm but it's not: is there actually any benefit to having two speakers that close together?

 

[konqerror]

I doubt it's "ornamental". It probably has an effect on acoustics. That's like calling a bass reflex port "ornamental".

 

[marine0816]

Nothing new here.
Even cars have dual exhaust exits but only one with an actual exhaust pipe...

Age of the looks fellas...

They would remove headphone jack and not replace it with NOTHING, and that's not a big deal?? APPLE HAS EVERYONE hypnotized

 

[zedsdead]

The ONLY reason I was considering upgrading would be dual speakers (simply for added volume, I know stereo doesn't matter on a device that small).

I can see this happening through.

 

[Crzyrio]

They would remove headphone jack and not replace it with NOTHING, and that's not a big deal?? APPLE HAS EVERYONE hypnotized

They would still be filling the space up, just not with another speaker.


This will actually be very interesting. That is a LOT of space that they have to play with and will be interesting to see what they do with it.

 

[jonnyb]

If this is true, it seems counter to Jony Ive's overtures about a material or product needing to 'be true to itself'. There's nothing less 'true' than a purely cosmetic feature appearing to be something it isn't.

http://hypercritical.co/2013/05/03/beauty-truth-and-jony-ive

 

[kskkr]

They should make the apple logo symmetrical too.

 

[redheeler]

Reminds me of the decorative holes Apple put on the front of the Power Mac G4 MDD, to make it seem faster... Definitely picked a good year to skip upgrading this time.

 

[BrettApple]

I wish Apple would take a clue from other manufactures regarding speaker design. My HTC 10 is not perfect, but it does have dual speakers, a good mic, and a headphone jack...

Looking at the bottom you can see the woofer and mic, go up top and the earpiece is a second front firing speaker/tweeter and on top is the headphone jack. Believe it or not Apple, it is possible. With a 3,000 mAh battery to boot. Can anyone imagine how long an iPhone would last with that large of a battery? It would be great.

 

[r3m1]

I doubt it's "ornamental". It probably has an effect on acoustics. That's like calling a bass reflex port "ornamental".

This comment would made sense if it actually was designed as bass reflex port, but it is not - so sticking with ornamental