Lightning Headphones: Are They Better or Just an Inconvenience?

Mac 128 said:
Apple isn't going to remove the DAC from the iPhone. They will likely put a less expensive low cost version in there since the built-in speakers don't required the same quality as the headphone jack does.
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Then apple would not need to bring "stereo speakers" on iPhone and fool customers "we are bringing theatre quality audio on mobile device".
 
I don't understand the logic behind this at all. The whole story about 'not enough space for an amp and a DAC in the phone is utter hogwash. It's a flimsy rationalization that is belied by the fact that iPhones have been getting bigger every product cycle while semiconductor technology is always getting smaller. There are certain constraints of physics, such as having to obey that pesky Ohm's law, but driving headphones with adequate noise floor, bandwidth and seperation is not an engineering conundrum.
If this goes forward it is another example of Apple designing products that are inconvenient, hard to use and do not 'just work'.
If I have nice Grado or Beyer headphones that cost me a large amount of money, it is stupid that my brand new phone this fall wont work with them. Suppose I better get a current iPhone with a 3.5mm jack, while I still can.
 
thekeyring said:
It depends - didn't WiFi overtake Ethernet speeds? Because WiFi was more convenient so developed more, where as Ethernet was left behind. I can see a similar thing happening with audio.
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no wifi has not overtaken ethernet.
American Hero said:
Charge your phone at night and you wouldn't have that problem.
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I can easily nuke my battery by lunch if it is a busy day. I've taken to carrying a battery pack to charge from if I have to make calls and reply to emails while I am en route to a site. Then there are the spritekit games with lots of stuff going on that eat into battery life pretty fast.
But hey, I'll give up my commute time alien shooting so I can plug my Apple approved heaphones in with a proprietary connector. /s

This Apple song and dance of special plugs that nobody else uses is getting kind of tired.
 
calaverasgrande said:
no wifi has not overtaken ethernet.
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Depends on what you mean by Wi-Fi and Ethernet.

There's 10 Gbit Ethernet, but nobody deploys it fully because of the high cost (~$100 per port) and the lack of computers with 10-GigE ports. So in practice, most people deploy normal gigabit Ethernet.

In theory, with an 8-channel-bonded configuration and enough antennas on both the base station and your computer, 802.11ac's ~7-gigabit speed can blow away standard gigabit Ethernet as long as there's only one device on your network.

Where Wi-Fi falls apart is when you have a large number of devices. Even with beamforming, there are limits to how much signal you can cram into the air without interference. That and the fact that real-world devices don't achieve even a tenth of what the standard is theoretically capable of achieving. :)
 
nebo1ss said:
I assume you are referring to the theoretical speeds of 802.11 ac when you make this statement. However, in the real world, you are never going to get any wifi ac or otherwise to outperform full duplex Gigabit ethernet. Not quite left behind at this point.
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Thanks. :)
 
I want to see wires gone so I am for this change but I was hoping for significant improvements in 'wireless' options from Apple not to replace the cable with another cable.
It sounds as though Apple could ease people into this by providing two lighting ports and including a set of good quality lighting port headphones in the box as well as an adapter but I can't see them doing this.
 
I am using wireless/bluetooth since a couple of years, never had any problems with it and would never go back to cable. I have plenty of problems with iTunes and Apple Music though and will soon switch to Spotify. There. I said it.
 
friedmud said:
Square already has one: https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5639-set-up-the-square-contactless-chip-card-reader

If you're really a business then it shouldn't be a big deal to spend a little bit of money on a bluetooth card reader...
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I offer my clients to pay by cash check or credit card, (Most pay by check luckily for me) so yes I am "really a business" I am very aware of Squares $50 bluetooth chip-card reader. #1 I don't use Square, not do I want to (I used to use them) #2 It doesn't still ready magnetic cards, only chipped cards. They still give you the little magnetic reader that plugs into the headphone jack and #3 Almost every card I receive still only has a magnetic stipe. So thanks for your "helpful" response.
 
rturner2 said:
Standards exist for a reason. One reason is to cut down on e-waste. Apple promotes its green credentials but using a proprietary port isn't green at all.
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The irony of that condemnation is that Apple actually stuck with the same 30-pin port for 10 years, while the hand phone industry went through about 18 different charging cables.

Another problem is that standards sometimes suck. Lightning made sense at a time when Micro-USB wasn't reversible, plus I felt that lightning was thinner and slimmer and just better engineered overall.

So I don't mind breaking away from a standard when the alternative offers more in benefits for me.

As to what benefits doing away with the audio jack will bring, I will leave it to Apple to surprise me. I think we are all so fixated with having to buy new headphones or adaptor that there simply might be a whole new angle to all of this that we are not seeing.
 
Abazigal said:
As to what benefits doing away with the audio jack will bring, I will leave it to Apple to surprise me. I think we are all so fixated with having to buy new headphones or adaptor that there simply might be a whole new angle to all of this that we are not seeing.
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That's the thing. We already know. There's nothing Apple can do better with audio because we already know how that works. They can change how they deliver it, but doing so means changing the decode point, adding an adapter, or using an inferior protocol that would mandate the conversion of massive existing amounts of expensive gear. That's it.

1. 3.5mm Headphone - as is, potentially removed?
2. Lightning - Requires in-line LDAC or new cans
3. Bluetooth - Limited bandwidth compromises quality of sound
4. Apple surprises us?

The only way Apple surprises us is that either they are going to offer a new protocol that lets Bluetooth perform better (and as stated before, it exists but you give up remote controls), or we have to add an adapter to every 3.5mm male jack for eternity. That's 100x more than 30-pin cables, and those 3.5mm are attached to things costing $2-2000. You can't just wait around for third-party cables on this one; the cable adapter will determine performance.

So yes, you can wait around and be surprised. We won't be. This is how it works, end of story.
 
dsmedic10 said:
Whatever Apple does I'm sure it will only improve audio quality. The iPhone made its bread and butter on high quality audio in a portable device. The biggest appeal was quality audio and the iTunes Store on your phone. It's highly unlikely they would mess with that in a negative way.
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You mean Apple earpods on a 900$ (i.e.) phone?
 
I love Mike Gonzalez's work on MR, but he's dead wrong on this one. He claims the iPhone's built-in DAC+AMP "aren't all that great" where is the source for this? I can't find any evidence, any study that dismisses the iPhone's dac so candidly, in fact all I find online on hi-fi forums, arstechnica, etc is that the iPhone has a great DAC/AMP. And that if you want to get a better DAC/AMP, you have to spend upwards of $300 or so on one.

So his the entire argument hinges on a bogus claim.
 
Breaking rumor: the iPhone 7 can make toast, as long as you buy a Lightning connected toaster. Drains the battery really quickly but it makes good toast as long as you buy a good model of Lightning toaster.
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trifid said:
I love Mike Gonzalez's work on MR, but he's dead wrong on this one. He claims the iPhone's built-in DAC+AMP "aren't all that great" where is the source for this? I can't find any evidence, any study that dismisses the iPhone's dac so candidly, in fact all I find online on hi-fi forums, arstechnica, etc is that the iPhone has a great DAC/AMP. And that if you want to get a better DAC/AMP, you have to spend upwards of $300 or so on one.
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You are spot on.

For those that STILL think the iPhone's sound can be improved by a $45 pair of earbuds... Here is a 50 page thread from crazy hifi people dissecting the iPhone 6s sound quality: http://www.head-fi.org/t/781114/iphone-6s-sound-quality

I stopped reading when the guy said he could "leave his AK240 at home" thanks to the iPhone 6s.

The AK240 is a $2500 portable audio player.
 
If this does come to pass (removing the headphone port) then there is only ONE reason Apple would do this -- more sales for Beats Electronics/audio. It's likely nothing more than a self-serving marketing move to try to get people to buy new Lightning-based Beats headphones that will undoubtedly be introduced with great fanfare at the same time as the iPhone 7.

This was probably started by some marketing person at Apple/Beats who crunched some numbers and decided that Apple could make more money by "forcing" iPhone users to buy new headphones from Beats. Meanwhile, iPhone market share will decrease and I doubt that Beats sales will make up for that deficit.

I'll say it again, wait until you can put USB-C in the iPhone because when that happens (and it will) every Lightning-based audio product will immediately disappear from the marketplace.
 
fpnc said:
I'll say it again, wait until you can put USB-C in the iPhone because when that happens (and it will) every Lightning-based audio product will immediately disappear from the marketplace.
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Spot on. I would remove "audio" too
 
I have completed reading of every single comment I think.
And the commenters supporting removing 3.5mm jack is not dominant even in such tech-oriented forum. We don't even need to check how strong the reaction is when this rumour has been around in the wild for a while.
 
I can imagine twelve south or many 3rd party MFI manufacturers conjuring up use case for many of their products if 3.5mm jack is replaced by lightning socket. Also, Apple may be building new accessories for the new iPhone standards.

1. For those who charge and use headphones concurrently - there'll be a new charging cradle that adds one or two 3.5mm jack (or lightning socket) so that headphones can be plugged in while charging at the same time.

2. Combining charging cable with the headphone. so you carry only one cable ... acts both as charging cable and headphone.

3. Apple introducing wireless proximity charging similar to Qi ... therefore, you can use you headphone while charging concurrently.

4. Apple and/or MFI manufacturers introducing external battery iphone case that includes 3.5mm jack, so you have extended battery plus 3.5mm jack built in.... maybe even throw in a DAC built into the iphone battery case for better sound quality.

5. Simple plain vanilla lightning to 3.5mm adapter that cost $19.90 from Apple.

6. Totally wireless - wireless charging + bluetooth headphones

I see lots of opportunities not only for Apple, but 3rd party MFI vendors to introduce innovative solutions that changes the way we use our smartphones and our headphones. Lets face it, without someone revolutionizing touch interface, we'll still be using Nokias and Blackberries today.
 
@Shirasaki

I agree, think it'd be a mistake dropping it.

Personally, I'd be happy to see it go, I've never once used the headphone jack in my last two iPhones, but I know I'm in the minority when I look around and see wired everywhere.
 
fpnc said:
If this does come to pass (removing the headphone port) then there is only ONE reason Apple would do this -- more sales for Beats Electronics/audio. It's likely nothing more than a self-serving marketing move to try to get people to buy new Lightning-based Beats headphones that will undoubtedly be introduced with great fanfare at the same time as the iPhone 7.

This was probably started by some marketing person at Apple/Beats who crunched some numbers and decided that Apple could make more money by "forcing" iPhone users to buy new headphones from Beats. Meanwhile, iPhone market share will decrease and I doubt that Beats sales will make up for that deficit.
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I've always found the Beats connection to be the strongest thing against this rumor. With iOS only having about 1/4th of the market, Beats would have to split all of their SKUs. They'd also have to still sell 3.5mm headphones to Android (and Mac) customers at the same time that they're claiming Lightning to be superior. It may convince some people over to iPhone, but it could weaken the Beats brand as a whole. Eventually Beats will have to also support USB-C audio or whatever format wins in the Android ecosystem.

As "fashion" headphones, you've got a lot of colors of a lot of models already... Then you've got to split those models by connection. I'd expect Samsung's response to Lightning audio to be quick. In one year, stores will have to carry 3.5mm, Lightning, and USB-C headphones. That's a whole lot of SKUs from all the different headphone brands.

Unless the iPhone 7 is USB-C.
 
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