iPhone 7's Secondary Speaker Holes May Be Purely Cosmetic

[Piggie]

Good question, I'm not sure how industrial design works, but I'd assume they balance usability and looks.

It's a tricky one.
And depends a lot on the knowledge of the designer.
there is a BIG difference between say the design of a watch, where the function is simple, but a LOT of it is the form/looks.
As opposed to say a piece of machinery, a power tool, then being superb as a piece of equipment that does it's task in the best way must be the top priority.
A chainsaw that cuts down trees just do it's job well, even if it could look better.

Modern phones and tablets are terrible designs for human hands.
If someone sat down, years ago, and said, ok, come up with a design for a object from 5" to 13" that's sole purpose was to make this as easy to drop as possible, and hard to grip as possible, and as likely to break as possible, they would design what we have today.

Smooth/Flat/Glass/Slippery/Shiny etc, are all terrible designs for human hands.

 

[ani4ani]

It's replacement is called wireless earphones, which Apple themselves are rumoured to be working on. As for charging you will find that Apple will adopt wireless charging, maybe not in the iPhone 7 but in the future. That's the way everything is heading, wireless.

If Apple was doing this as you intimate for purely technical progression and a "better" solution to a (unknown) problem, then it will be repeated on every single Apple from this point forward...wouldn't it? I suspect that will not be the case and we will see the headphone jack on their products for a long time to come. In reality, removing it would a much easier on virtually every other product they make to remove it rather than their phones? Why didn't they remove from the SE where the space is even more valuable?

 

[thekeyring]

The limiting factor for the camera is z-depth, hence the hideous wart that the iPhone 7 has managed to armor up and emphasize even further.

No one outside of this forum cares about the camera bump. I pointed it out to people at work last week and said 'you've no idea how angry this has made people' and the reaction was that of bewilderment.

'Why?' 'It sticks out a little' ... They peered closely, holding the phone right underneath their nose. 'Oh. But the phones so much thinner than the 5S?'

Apple really understands the average consumer. My fiancée said she didn't understand the point of the Apple Watch, despite wearing a wrist watch and wanting a Fitbit. I pointed out the Apple Watch tried to be both, and she wasn't interested. Then, when I was looking at different Sport watches as she saw the 38mm rose gold watch (that passed me by) and said 'Wow, I want one of those'.

 

[Dave245]

If Apple was doing this as you intimate for purely technical progression and a "better" solution to a (unknown) problem, then it will be repeated on every single Apple from this point forward...wouldn't it? I suspect that will not be the case and we will see the headphone jack on their products for a long time to come. In reality, removing it would a much easier on virtually every other product they make to remove it rather than their phones? Why didn't they remove from the SE where the space is even more valuable?

I can't believe the amount of fuss that's being created by people over a headphone jack! People don't like change I get that, but do you really think Apple will care? They didn't care when they removed the 30 pin connector and lots of people complained about that. I don't think this will affect Apple or their sales, will a few people threaten to leave? Sure they already have, will they actually leave and go to a competitor? Maybe a few will, but the majority will moan and dig their heels in like children, but eventually they will embrace it, just like we have always done when Apple have removed things such as the DVD drive from Mac`s and the 30 pin connector from iPhone`s and iPad`s.

I'm not being funny but we don't even know what's going to happen yet, we don't even know why Apple are removing the headphone jack. At least let them hold their keynote, announce the iPhone 7 and whatever else they have to announce and then decide for yourself. Do I think it will be a deal breaker? No, do I use the headphone jack? Yes daily when I listen to my Apple Music subscription, but I will upgrade to a new set of wireless or lightning port headphones, problem solved.
[doublepost=1471170038][/doublepost]

No one outside of this forum cares about the camera bump. I pointed it out to people at work last week and said 'you've no idea how angry this has made people' and the reaction was that of bewilderment.

'Why?' 'It sticks out a little' ... They peered closely, holding the phone right underneath their nose. 'Oh. But the phones so much thinner than the 5S?'

Apple really understands the average consumer. My fiancée said she didn't understand the point of the Apple Watch, despite wearing a wrist watch and wanting a Fitbit. I pointed out the Apple Watch tried to be both, and she wasn't interested. Then, when I was looking at different Sport watches as she saw the 38mm rose gold watch (that passed me by) and said 'Wow, I want one of those'.

The camera bump is not an issue, Apple knows that most people put cases on their phones anyway, peop;e just want something to moan about. The dual camera on the 5.5" iPhone 7 Plus or whatever they call it, will more than make up for the camera bump.

 

[MH01]

No one outside of this forum cares about the camera bump. I pointed it out to people at work last week and said 'you've no idea how angry this has made people' and the reaction was that of bewilderment.

'Why?' 'It sticks out a little' ... They peered closely, holding the phone right underneath their nose. 'Oh. But the phones so much thinner than the 5S?'

That might just be your social crowd, with amazing eyesight !

My friends make fun of the bump , as it's obvious , and I've never heard anyone notice the difference of 0.7mm between the 5s and 6. Guess much thinner means different things depending on the audience.

 

[aleni]

As much as the dissapointment about the single speaker here. From my experience with dozen of android phones, the only speaker that sounds good is htc one m8, the rest sucks. Iphone even with single speaker, it sounds awesome. Why waste battery on dual speaker if the current single speaker in the 6s is prett much good.

 

[ani4ani]

I can't believe the amount of fuss that's being created by people over a headphone jack! People don't like change I get that, but do you really think Apple will care? They didn't care when they removed the 30 pin connector and lots of people complained about that. I don't think this will affect Apple or their sales, will a few people threaten to leave? Sure they already have, will they actually leave and go to a competitor? Maybe a few will, but the majority will moan and dig their heels in like children, but eventually they will embrace it, just like we have always done when Apple have removed things such as the DVD drive from Mac`s and the 30 pin connector from iPhone`s and iPad`s.

I'm not being funny but we don't even know what's going to happen yet, we don't even know why Apple are removing the headphone jack. At least let them hold their keynote, announce the iPhone 7 and whatever else they have to announce and then decide for yourself. Do I think it will be a deal breaker? No, do I use the headphone jack? Yes daily when I listen to my Apple Music subscription, but I will upgrade to a new set of wireless or lightning port headphones, problem solved.
[doublepost=1471170038][/doublepost]

You would have solved a problem that needn't have existed. You can have the march of technology advancement e.g wireless, lightning etc, without removing the headphone jack. A far better decision would be to include these magical improvements (as they will no doubt be claimed to be at the keynote) and retain the legacy past...that is the real advancement. That way over time folks can be weened off the past.

All the current phones today allow the use of Bluetooth / wireless / lighting listening and everyone of them still can do it with a headphone jack in place? As for having to use some kind of dongle to allow a headphone with a jack to be used is just poor design and no advancement whatsoever

 

[mazz0]

What would be the point of a second speaker there? Stereo for ants?

 

[Dave245]

You would have solved a problem that needn't have existed. You can have the march of technology advancement e.g wireless, lightning etc, without removing the headphone jack. A far better decision would be to include these magical improvements (as they will no doubt be claimed to be at the keynote) and retain the legacy past...that is the real advancement. That way over time folks can be weened off the past.

All the current phones today allow the use of Bluetooth / wireless / lighting listening and everyone of them still can do it with a headphone jack in place? As for having to use some kind of dongle to allow a headphone with a jack to be used is just poor design and no advancement whatsoever

We will have to wait and see what Apple announce and say at the keynote. How many people use the headphone jack anyway, if wireless headphones are becoming more popular, it makes sense to remove the headphone jack. What if Apple have made a breakthrough with a pair of wireless headphones? we just don't know the reason, and we don't know what they will be doing with space of the headphone jack when it's removed. Technology is about moving forward and things like this along with technology of the past are left behind (flops driven DVD drive, 30 pin connector). I think only time will tell but i do think Apple will eventually remove the headphone jack from everything, iPhone, iPad and Mac's, leaving just a wireless solution.

 

[bobob]

Modern phones and tablets are terrible designs for human hands.
If someone sat down, years ago, and said, ok, come up with a design for a object from 5" to 13" that's sole purpose was to make this as easy to drop as possible, and hard to grip as possible, and as likely to break as possible, they would design what we have today.

Smooth/Flat/Glass/Slippery/Shiny etc, are all terrible designs for human hands.

What might you imagine as the ideal hand design for a smartphone?


(Personally, I think the iPhone 5 (and it's offspring, the 5S and SE) are the pinnacle of hand design for smartphones - - both in size and with their chamfered edge.)

 

[Sylonien]

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

Age of the looks fellas...

Sorry dude that's because it's pictured is a fake C63 AMG, the real one has "real" dual exit exhausts with a real purpose for sound and performance.

 

[Piggie]

Personally, what I would like to see, is more technical design going into these tiny speakers.

Much like Camera's were so bad, and got work done to them, to get us where we are today, which is genuinely amazing.
Now we are looking at 2 camera's to further improve the image which is great.

How about speaker design?
I'm no speaker expert, but common sense always tells you 1 item is never that great at doing everything.

Perhaps, and I'm thinking out loud here, but it seems a valid viewpoint.

You could have 1 speaker specifically designed for the upper end of the scale, midrange/tweeter end.
And build it JUST for this.

Then you make another speaker shaped? designed differently perhaps different porting/chamber, that is only designed for the lower (woofer) end of the scale.

Run them both and you would/could them promote your "slim" phone as having the most accurate/quality sound output that's currently on the market.

It's an area that's been and still is neglected and it's a shame.
So much work has been done on almost every other aspect. Perhaps in time the speakers day, WILL come.

 

[nope7308]

What would he listen to? A bunch of disparate opinions responding to a rumor that may or may not be true? Also, since the next phone is already in production is he going to base his decision based on an infinitely tiny number of people on MR, or the close to 70 million who will decide to actually buy it in the next quarter or the around 200 million people worldwide who will buy it in the next year? Remember, MR posters like you and I don't represent the masses of people who love Apple products and its ecosystem. There's a reason they've sold over a billion of them, and assuming these rumors are true, the reason a couple hundred million will buy it, let that sink in, will be because they will find the new iPhone with double the base memory storage, double the available high end storage, increased battery life, more powerful processor, waterproofing, great new camera, etc., plus whatever features we don't even know about, to be a nice improvement to a product line they are very satisfied with.

iPhones sales will fail to meet analysts estimates. Watch.

Yes, Apple is going to sell a crapload of iPhones, but it's going to be considerably less than before. And the trend will continue. And stock prices will drop.

The iPhone is indisputably inferior to the competition. It's really as simple as that. Anyone who claims otherwise is willfully blind.

Apple is acting like Sony in the 90s, and it's going to bite them in the ass. Don't take my word for it, though. Just wait and see what happens over the next year.

 

[Piggie]

What might you imagine as the ideal hand design for a smartphone?


(Personally, I think the iPhone 5 (and it's offspring, the 5S and SE) are the pinnacle of hand design for smartphones - - both in size and with their chamfered edge.)

If someone said, design me a shape that the human hand can grip easily and would not slip, you seriously think a smooth faced thin shape would be deemed the ultimate?

Think about anything ergonomic. It's designed to fit the hand, be grip-able, non slip etc.
These items are designed to LOOK simplistic, neat etc.
They are in effect a non finished item, that an end user then has to fit into a case to either give it grip, protect it from damage etc.

Just google the word:
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=e...ved=0ahUKEwiumZmg8sDOAhUFCcAKHUZtAg4Q_AUIBygC

The ideal shape is a shape that's designed for humans to use in their hands, to hold easy, to not slip from being held, to not break easy when dropped from a normal standing height.

These devices LOOK great to our current societies viewpoint on things, but in reality for a device held by a human that are about as bad as you can get.

 

[H2SO4]

Good question, I'm not sure how industrial design works, but I'd assume they balance usability and looks.

maybe. I see it in ths same way as I view designs for the power modules in our equipment. That is to say, there is a brief that specifies performance of an item and after that, things like looks and repairability etc. etc. are considered, (or aren’t).
So, in our case; The engineering team are told, 'We would like 200KW inside of X space’. They go away and design it and guess what the status quo is now, what was a simple service or repair on the old design, now takes days or isn’t possible on the new one.
The knock on effect is we charge the customer, (You and I), even more money, at the same time as telling the world we have excellent green credentials whilst we throw the old item in the bin.

 

[The Game 161]

iPhones sales will fail to meet analysts estimates. Watch.

Yes, Apple is going to sell a crapload of iPhones, but it's going to be considerably less than before. And the trend will continue. And stock prices will drop.

The iPhone is indisputably inferior to the completion. It's really as simple as that. Anyone who claims otherwise is willfully blind.

Apple is acting like Sony in the 90s, and it's going to bite them in the ass. Don't take my word for it, though. Just wait and see what happens over the next year.

Guess it depends what people want from their phone. The iPhone 7 will still likely sell more than any other device this year.

At the end of the day though it's always going to be harder to keep up these crazy sale figures year after year

Next year will likely break all kind of records though

 

[H2SO4]

iPhones sales will fail to meet analysts estimates. Watch.

Yes, Apple is going to sell a crapload of iPhones, but it's going to be considerably less than before. And the trend will continue. And stock prices will drop.

The iPhone is indisputably inferior to the competition. It's really as simple as that. Anyone who claims otherwise is willfully blind.

Apple is acting like Sony in the 90s, and it's going to bite them in the ass. Don't take my word for it, though. Just wait and see what happens over the next year.

I believe you are correct a this time. The reason Apple will not suffer too badly though is that we are fickle humans and often choose what to prefer for what ever reason suits us on the day.
I chose the 5S. I chose not to buy the 6 or 6S as to me they were too ugly, (this years model too also). The important bit for Tim is that I still haven’t chosen to give my money to Samsung et al, opting instead to go without. This may not be the case for ever though.

 

[nope7308]

At the end of the day though it's always going to be harder to keep up these crazy sale figures year after year

Next year will likely break all kind of records though

It's not just sales figures, though. I seriously believe customers are going to begin abandoning the Apple ecosystem altogether -- I've already started.

Apple really needs to focus on the upcoming MBP release if they want to entrench their user base. That's the only product that still has me tethered to Apple, tbh. The iPad is fading, the iPhone has too much competition, and then what? Watch bands?

It's not just a 'lack of innovation', but a complete lack of focus across their product lines. Apple's momentum has slowed considerably as of late.

 

[The Game 161]

It's not just sales figures, though. I seriously believe customers are going to begin abandoning the Apple ecosystem altogether -- I've already started.

Apple really needs to focus on the upcoming MBP release if they want to entrench their user base. That's the only product that still has me tethered to Apple, tbh. The iPad is fading, the iPhone has too much competition, and then what? Watch bands?

It's not just a 'lack of innovation', but a complete lack of focus across their product lines. Apple's momentum has slowed considerably as of late.

It has you're right but until people stop buying the products Apple won't take the action needed

 

[H2SO4]

It's not just sales figures, though. I seriously believe customers are going to begin abandoning the Apple ecosystem altogether -- I've already started.

Apple really needs to focus on the upcoming MBP release if they want to entrench their user base. That's the only product that still has me tethered to Apple, tbh. The iPad is fading, the iPhone has too much competition, and then what? Watch bands?

It's not just a 'lack of innovation', but a complete lack of focus across their product lines. Apple's momentum has slowed considerably as of late.

Me too. I’m now gaming on, (ie spending more time booted into), Windows. Why? Because Apple hardware isn’t optimised for it or even designed in such a way that I can take advantage of it.
This is the kind of thing that lets the rot set in becasuase one day I might start doing more in Windows as I can’t be bothered to reboot or the VM I’m using is too much of a hit to performance.

 

[nope7308]

It has you're right but until people stop buying the products Apple won't take the action needed

Agreed, but I think we're approaching the breaking point. Personally, I'm waiting for the new Nexus to be released -- it's either that, or the Samsung S7. The removal of the headphone jack, which is all but a certainty at this point, is the last straw.

 

[anthorumor]

This is like the Nexus 5's secondary grille.
It holds the microphone while it outputs mono sound.
Thanks, Apple - make the competition easy.

 

[doelcm82]

You would have solved a problem that needn't have existed. You can have the march of technology advancement e.g wireless, lightning etc, without removing the headphone jack. A far better decision would be to include these magical improvements (as they will no doubt be claimed to be at the keynote) and retain the legacy past...that is the real advancement. That way over time folks can be weened off the past.

All the current phones today allow the use of Bluetooth / wireless / lighting listening and everyone of them still can do it with a headphone jack in place? As for having to use some kind of dongle to allow a headphone with a jack to be used is just poor design and no advancement whatsoever

Keeping both (as Apple's current phones do) doesn't really promote the advancement. Let's say they kept both for three years and then dropped the 3.5mm jack. It would be no problem then, right? Well, they've already done that for three years! So, no problem. They've already done as you suggest.

Apple could have kept the floppy drive longer before dropping it, and they'd have kept the people who were still using the floppy happy, while the new USB ports sat there unused.

Apple could have easily supported Adobe Flash on the iPhone at the beginning. HTML5 is so much better that websites would have switched over painlessly, and everyone would have been happy, right? No (I answer my own rhetorical question), what would have happened was that HTML5 would have languished. Not supporting it caused some pain for iPhone users because they couldn't reach many popular sites, and it caused pain for the websites that couldn't reach users who were browsing with iPhones. iPhone users who defended Apple's decision not to support Flash were derided as "fanboys" who "thought Apple could do no wrong" (or worse). Sound familiar?

We've had bluetooth audio on the iPhone for years. Lightning audio, too. The weaning is over. Now it appears Apple is kicking us out of the nest. Those who still need to suckle at the tiny teat that is the 3.5 mm jack will have adapters available. Those who want the comfort of being plugged into the familiar can switch to Lightning audio. Those who are ready to stretch their wings can move to wireless audio.

 

[H2SO4]

Keeping both (as Apple's current phones do) doesn't really promote the advancement. Let's say they kept both for three years and then dropped the 3.5mm jack. It would be no problem then, right? Well, they've already done that for three years! So, no problem. They've already done as you suggest.

Apple could have kept the floppy drive longer before dropping it, and they'd have kept the people who were still using the floppy happy, while the new USB ports sat there unused.

Apple could have easily supported Adobe Flash on the iPhone at the beginning. HTML5 is so much better that websites would have switched over painlessly, and everyone would have been happy, right? No (I answer my own rhetorical question), what would have happened was that HTML5 would have languished. Not supporting it caused some pain for iPhone users because they couldn't reach many popular sites, and it caused pain for the websites that couldn't reach users who were browsing with iPhones. iPhone users who defended Apple's decision not to support Flash were derided as "fanboys" who "thought Apple could do no wrong" (or worse). Sound familiar?

We've had bluetooth audio on the iPhone for years. Lightning audio, too. The weaning is over. Now it appears Apple is kicking us out of the nest. Those who still need to suckle at the tiny teat that is the 3.5 mm jack will have adapters available. Those who want the comfort of being plugged into the familiar can switch to Lightning audio. Those who are ready to stretch their wings can move to wireless audio.

No. They should have moved to a common standard. That would have been the right way. The way to make money and gouge customers is the route Apple have taken.

 

[alexgowers]

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

Age of the looks fellas...

quite clearly though that exhaust is at least attached from left to right?

Personally there is zero point having two speakers only half an inch apart producing left and right audio. Stereo will not affect your experience of music and might actually cause more audio artefacts. I don't see apple putting in two speakers especially if space is so tight they are considering removing the audio jack that takes up zero space comparatively. Removing the audio jack is a huge mistake IMHO and they will defo backtrack for the first time in apple history with the next one.