OnePlus Mocks Removal of Headphone Jack in iPhone 7 While Copying its Design for New OnePlus 5

[curtvaughan]

All I want is headphones that have more than 2 channels, and be able to do something like a pseudo-surround sound system.

For that the 3.5mm jack is obsolete.

The LG V20 has a 4-channel DAC, and uses the 3.5 mm jack. When Apple released the jackless 7, I bought a V20. I recently purchased an iPhone 6S Plus rather than a 7 just to continue with the iPhone without using bluetooth for sound. When wireless speakers/headphones catch up with wired sound technology in both quality and price point, perhaps I'll consider another iPhone. Until that time, my 6S Plus will remain my last iPhone purchase.
[doublepost=1498050893][/doublepost]

Old joke.

Personally, I don't mind the headphone jack but Bluetooth is the future and I am glad Apple is forcing this change. Next step, remove it from iPad, iPod and Macs.

Wonder how many forward thinking folks got rid of their horses before the invention of the car?

 

[LordQ]

The LG V20 has a 4-channel DAC, and uses the 3.5 mm jack. When Apple released the jackless 7, I bought a V20. I recently purchased an iPhone 6S Plus rather than a 7 just to continue with the iPhone without using bluetooth for sound. When wireless speakers/headphones catch up with wired sound technology in both quality and price point, perhaps I'll consider another iPhone. Until that time, my 6S Plus will remain my last iPhone purchase.
[doublepost=1498050893][/doublepost]
Wonder how many forward thinking folks got rid of their horses before the invention of the car?

We'll never know, but I am ready to get rid of my old fossil fuel car for a Tesla and my headphone jack for Bluetooth. The future is now.

 

[Col4bin]

Actually a pretty nice looking phone, but not moving back to Android again any time soon.
[doublepost=1498051450][/doublepost]

Once I got my QC35's I haven't touched a headphone jack ever since..

Too big and bulky

The Jabra Elite Sport is where it's at!

 

[LordVic]

Did you not read my original post? I said I have enjoy GOOD sound audio, so i pay $200 IEMs but then run them from a portable tiny high quality DAC. There's no point in having $200+ IEMS and plugging them into the headphone socket on an iPhone as the DAC costs about $3 and you won't hear the difference over a pair of $80 headphones.

The person who replied to me said it's "all very good for who likes serious audio quality but others just want convenience" to which I replied in that case they can buy a cheap set of headphones and just leave the adapter in the box connected to them. It's literally no different to before for the average user - and if they're really not bothered about sound quality but convenience they'd have been using bluetooth headphones by now anyway.
[doublepost=1498043559][/doublepost]

You can't afford to just buy a $20 pair of headphones for your phone? Come on man... If you use cheap headphones just use the lightning connect AirPods Apple gives you anyway. You're really clutching at straws here.
[doublepost=1498043671][/doublepost]

There are no other reasons to want a headphone jack. It's not for sound quality as the iPhone DACS are terrible, so what other reason is there? Convenience. That's it - and i've outlined numerous ways in which it's no less convenient at all. It's just a non issue for any iPhone 7 owner.

your problem is your only defense to anyones argument essentially boils down to

"you're cheap because you won't pay for cheap dongles or pay for a work around solution"

There's absolutely zero legitimate technical reason for dropping the headphone jack.

Shall we go over the arguments ONE more time for posterity sake?

1: Wireless is the future
while this might be true. Having the headphone jack does not preclude wireless. Bluetooth existed long before the headphone port was removed. it is not a requirement to remove the headphone port to use wireless

2: Waterproofing
This is more an indictment against Apple Engineers. The 3.5mm audio jack has been capable of being fully waterproofed for years. Heck, I had a waterproof sony walkman in the 90's that was waterproof that featured not just one, but TWO 3.5mm jacks. So, if Apple was unable to waterproof the phone because of the headphone jack, they failed to engineer it properly. So in all likliness, it wasn't dropped for this purpose.

3: Space savings to make room for the larger haptic engine
The larger haptic engine was added so that Apple could replace the mechanical home button with a non-mechanical home button. That performs the exact same functionality, in exactly the same way. Think about that. Apple has put in a new "innovative" functionality, to reproduce, quite literally, the identical behaviour they had before. Was the new home button, that does the identical job as before worth losing the headphone jack over? many of us say no. So what was the point of the larger haptic engine if they could have kept the physical butto and achieved the identical behaviour

what other arguments? Let just hash them out once and for all.

Ultimately, for many (like even yourself), losing the hjack isn't going to be the end of the world. There are work arounds as you mentioned. But i'm one of those people that believe that the proper solution isn't just to have a permanent work around. Apple's current iPhone solution of an adapter or forced wireless is a work around due to a removal of a convenience feature, that either costs users additional money to work around, or get caught up unable to do things they once previously did.

Either way. Removal of the headphone jack had no technical requirement. it was purely a business decision. Acceptance of that is going to be a personal matter, but you show a clear lack of any empathy to believe that eople should just be buying dongles/adapters and ignoring any reasoning why their use cases are interrupted.

 

[curtvaughan]

I think it is true that a lot of people who use the iPhone don't miss the headphone jack, or miss it very little, and Apple did their homework on this, and knew that it would lose only a small percentage of people that do use it, and the rest of us would just deal with it.

It just annoys me because it reduces the usability (something that Apple is known for!) without much gained for that tradeoff in usability, and in the process annoying some of their most loyal users rather unnecessarily, in my view.

As has been pointed out, a phone can incorporate both wired and wireless sound technology. The only real reason for removing the headphone jack was to make the phone even thinner. I agree with you, and you can bet Apple is losing quite a few customers by removing standard ports and interfaces, not only with phones, but with their laptops. Not saying they lost most of the customers, just a significant number of them. I personally think it was a bad decision, at least at time.
[doublepost=1498052232][/doublepost]

Apple should sue this pathetic company. These Chinese companies are cashing on others R&D.

You realize iPhones are also made in China, right?

 

[Michael Goff]

As has been pointed out, a phone can incorporate both wired and wireless sound technology. The only real reason for removing the headphone jack was to make the phone even thinner. I agree with you, and you can bet Apple is losing quite a few customers by removing standard ports and interfaces, not only with phones, but with their laptops. Not saying they lost most of the customers, just a significant number of them. I personally think it was a bad decision, at least at time.
[doublepost=1498052232][/doublepost]
You realize iPhones are also made in China, right?

You're thinking vertical space, think horizontai.

 

[Brian Y]

your problem is your only defense to anyones argument essentially boils down to

"you're cheap because you won't pay for cheap dongles or pay for a work around solution"

There's absolutely zero legitimate technical reason for dropping the headphone jack.

Shall we go over the arguments ONE more time for posterity sake?

1: Wireless is the future
while this might be true. Having the headphone jack does not preclude wireless. Bluetooth existed long before the headphone port was removed. it is not a requirement to remove the headphone port to use wireless

2: Waterproofing
This is more an indictment against Apple Engineers. The 3.5mm audio jack has been capable of being fully waterproofed for years. Heck, I had a waterproof sony walkman in the 90's that was waterproof that featured not just one, but TWO 3.5mm jacks. So, if Apple was unable to waterproof the phone because of the headphone jack, they failed to engineer it properly. So in all likliness, it wasn't dropped for this purpose.

3: Space savings to make room for the larger haptic engine
The larger haptic engine was added so that Apple could replace the mechanical home button with a non-mechanical home button. That performs the exact same functionality, in exactly the same way. Think about that. Apple has put in a new "innovative" functionality, to reproduce, quite literally, the identical behaviour they had before. Was the new home button, that does the identical job as before worth losing the headphone jack over? many of us say no. So what was the point of the larger haptic engine if they could have kept the physical butto and achieved the identical behaviour

what other arguments? Let just hash them out once and for all.

Ultimately, for many (like even yourself), losing the hjack isn't going to be the end of the world. There are work arounds as you mentioned. But i'm one of those people that believe that the proper solution isn't just to have a permanent work around. Apple's current iPhone solution of an adapter or forced wireless is a work around due to a removal of a convenience feature, that either costs users additional money to work around, or get caught up unable to do things they once previously did.

Either way. Removal of the headphone jack had no technical requirement. it was purely a business decision. Acceptance of that is going to be a personal matter, but you show a clear lack of any empathy to believe that eople should just be buying dongles/adapters and ignoring any reasoning why their use cases are interrupted.

But if that didn't happen, we'd still be buying computers with firewire and vga ports. Hell, why not throw in a serial port just for fun?

I haven't actually spoken to one person in real life (i.e. not on an opinionated forum) who actually has a problem with the lack of headphone jack. Hell, I'd guess 95% of people use the headphones that come in the box!

 

[LordVic]

But if that didn't happen, we'd still be buying computers with firewire and vga ports. Hell, why not throw in a serial port just for fun?

I haven't actually spoken to one person in real life (i.e. not on an opinionated forum) who actually has a problem with the lack of headphone jack. Hell, I'd guess 95% of people use the headphones that come in the box!

There's always a reasonable time where a port is easily replaced by something that does better, faster, more conveniently.

i'm not against forward progression.

Unfortunately, as of right now, and likely for the near future, There's no current standard replacement for an analogue port. it doesn't exist.

Lightning is non-analogue and must first pay apple MFi licensing to use. It also requires a built in DAC in the process since lightning is digital only. This add cost and complexity.

USB-C may eventually provide this, but the USB-C audio standard isn't widely accepted and rolled out. Most current USB-C doesn't provide analogue audio.

So there we have it. We are still on 3.5mm audio jacks because there's absolutely zero alternative available yet to replace it for a simple analogue audio passthrough port.

All the above also only applies to smartphones. Because you then also have to remember, that the 3.5mm audio port is the de-facto standard audio connector on virtually decades worth of consumer electronics. From walkmans to high end stereo equipment, to even some production / recording use the 3.5mm audio jack.

as I said, i'm not against new standards replacing old ones. But thats not what has happened here.

None of the benefits of wireless, or Digital based solutions required the removal of the headphone jack to be used either. When the headphone port is there, users have choice to use Digital output, analogue output or wireless. Now, they can only choose Digital or Wireless.3


Each of the examples you mentioned in your post, that you tried to compare to, all had replacements that completed the identical activities, but better when they were replaced.

firewire was ultimately replaced by Firewire 800, than killed when USB-2 and then USB-3 ultimately rendered Firewire redundant.

VGA ports believe it or not can still be found on lots of computers, But like above, VGA ports have been replaced by technologies that accomplished the same things. DVI, HDMI, Displayport, etc.

Serial: Replaced by USB (hence universal SERIAL bus) that not only accomplished the identical activities, but did it faster and more reliably.

 

[toph2toast]

All I want is headphones that have more than 2 channels, and be able to do something like a pseudo-surround sound system.

For that the 3.5mm jack is obsolete.

I have a sincere question regarding this, I'm not very familiar with audio technology, so apologies if the answer is simple. Question is, I use headphones when playing xbox, and I get "surround sound" quality out of them, and they use a 3.5mm jack. What allows the surround sound in these and not standard headphones you'd plug into your phone.

 

[Ploki]

Not a simple question. There are two direct inputs, sure, but the fleshy part of the ear changes this.

The shape of the ear allows us to distinguish 3D sound, if you like. The way sound waves bounce off the ear when they approach from different directions changes the way things sound. This is why you can determine the exact location of something in a 3D space but with just two ears - including whether a sound is coming from above you or below you despite both ears being horizontal to each other.

So the answer to your question is how accurately we can determine location. If the "resolution" of our ears is one rotational degree, and there are three plains of movement, then there are 360 cubed channels in our head, which is 46m channels.

Although the actual resolution is probably a lot lower (as I haven't done a study into this), it is certainly a lot higher than the two channels you were insinuating.

please read into binaural technology. With headphones you nix the envronment... so with right EQ, reflections and compression (and knowing HRTF and psychoacoustics) you can create a perfect surround mix with two channels. Imagine headphones being closed, and as such acoustically an infinitely big space.

 

[DeathBecomesMe]

Battery

3300 mAh (non-removable)
Battery

That should give you at least a few hours of use.

​

​

 

[Burton8219]

This is a lawsuit waiting to happen. Design patent infringement.

The design is likely different enough that there isn't much risk... There's a reason they keep bouncing the Samsung case around from the Fed Circuit to the Supreme Court and now, back down again. These cases aren't easy to decide. The traditional reading of the law says that you need to consider the whole design when deciding design patent infringement... The Supreme Court says no, but they're wishy-washy, as they usually are with patent stuff (there's a reason there's a dedicated court for patent appeal cases) about how much (or how little) you need to rip off a design in order to be guilty for design patent infringement.

The placement of the power button being further down the side, along with the rocker switch 1+ has one the left side and (ironically) the addition of a headphone jack will probably keep 1+ from getting slammed with an infringement verdict. Doesn't mean Apple probably won't sue, but it does mean they probably won't get a verdict in their favor.

Sorry for the rant... I'm a Patent Attorney and I kinda geek out on this stuff lol

 

[trellus]

There are no other reasons to want a headphone jack. It's not for sound quality as the iPhone DACS are terrible, so what other reason is there? Convenience. That's it - and i've outlined numerous ways in which it's no less convenient at all. It's just a non issue for any iPhone 7 owner.

There are plenty of other reasons to want a headphone jack, and it's just a matter of convenience. There are many scenarios I routinely have found myself in where it was nice to just be able to plug into my phone without having to first fumble for a dongle (assuming I had the presence of mind to have one with me).

As for the notion that it's a "non issue for any iPhone 7 owner", that's an astounding statement to make, to speak for all iPhone 7 owners.

I assure you, when I do upgrade from my 6S Plus (because even though I find the lack of headphone jack annoying, I will upgrade, because iOS for me is >> Android on a phone), it will still be an issue for me, and I'm certain I'm not the only one. It just won't keep me from upgrading, but honestly, it did slow my normal upgrade cycle because I've been dreading losing the jack.

Is it an issue for most iPhone 7 owners? I don't have a way to know that, but I am confident it is not an issue for most, or it would reflect in the sales, and iPhone 7 and 7 Plus sales have been stellar.
[doublepost=1498059501][/doublepost]

Who always has a Aux cable in their pocket? If you can make sure there's an Aux cable available at all times, surely you can make sure there's a lightning plug on the end of it? Having wires with adapters on the end to plug into cars and speakers might be a bit ghetto but so is a headunit without bluetooth and a speaker without Airplay

I don't usually carry an aux cable in my pocket, but it's not unusual for me to be in someone's car with someone who has an aux cable already for their phone (that has a headphone jack like most phones) and car setup, and to use it with my phone.

To be clear, I actually do usually carry a small aux cable, and at least one external DAC (and Apple CCK cable), and at least one Bluetooth receiver (I have a Sound Blaster E3 and an Elecom LBT-PAR500) with me in my backpack, but I'm unusual, so while I am not looking forward to the need to use any of these solutions because frankly, sometimes, it's just easier to plug directly into my phone (or use Bluetooth headphones directly which is what I do 90% of the time), I'm not at all unprepared at all when I do upgrade, since I already carry with me a lot of the things I'll need.

Still, there are times I don't have my backpack with me, and it's those times that I am sure I will find myself in a situation where I just need that jack....

 

[t1328]

Try the OnePlus 3T for $430, and maybe you'll begin to understand that this company is very far from pathetic. Outside of the camera, it was the best Android phone or 2016, quickest by far, excellent battery life. It has many features that the iPhone should have had years ago like an AMOLED screen, but are only finally moving to now for the iPhone X.

I like both iPhones and Android phones. I see pros and cons to both. The iPhone 7 Plus is fantastic. But it's ridiculously priced for what you get. I for one hope that companies like OnePlus succeed because we need competition to force Apple to lower their crazy high profit margins. You don't get what you pay for with the iPhone as good as it is.

 

[dannys1]

your problem is your only defense to anyones argument essentially boils down to

"you're cheap because you won't pay for cheap dongles or pay for a work around solution"

There's absolutely zero legitimate technical reason for dropping the headphone jack.

Shall we go over the arguments ONE more time for posterity sake?

1: Wireless is the future
while this might be true. Having the headphone jack does not preclude wireless. Bluetooth existed long before the headphone port was removed. it is not a requirement to remove the headphone port to use wireless

2: Waterproofing
This is more an indictment against Apple Engineers. The 3.5mm audio jack has been capable of being fully waterproofed for years. Heck, I had a waterproof sony walkman in the 90's that was waterproof that featured not just one, but TWO 3.5mm jacks. So, if Apple was unable to waterproof the phone because of the headphone jack, they failed to engineer it properly. So in all likliness, it wasn't dropped for this purpose.

3: Space savings to make room for the larger haptic engine
The larger haptic engine was added so that Apple could replace the mechanical home button with a non-mechanical home button. That performs the exact same functionality, in exactly the same way. Think about that. Apple has put in a new "innovative" functionality, to reproduce, quite literally, the identical behaviour they had before. Was the new home button, that does the identical job as before worth losing the headphone jack over? many of us say no. So what was the point of the larger haptic engine if they could have kept the physical butto and achieved the identical behaviour

what other arguments? Let just hash them out once and for all.

Ultimately, for many (like even yourself), losing the hjack isn't going to be the end of the world. There are work arounds as you mentioned. But i'm one of those people that believe that the proper solution isn't just to have a permanent work around. Apple's current iPhone solution of an adapter or forced wireless is a work around due to a removal of a convenience feature, that either costs users additional money to work around, or get caught up unable to do things they once previously did.

Either way. Removal of the headphone jack had no technical requirement. it was purely a business decision. Acceptance of that is going to be a personal matter, but you show a clear lack of any empathy to believe that eople should just be buying dongles/adapters and ignoring any reasoning why their use cases are interrupted.

TL;DR,

You've spent more time writing about it than the inconvenience in real life situations would cause.

 

[LordVic]

TL;DR,

You've spent more time writing about it than the inconvenience in real life situations would cause.

what a stupid response that in no way countered or even dealt with the topic at hand.

on other words, you're entire post history can be summed up

"I only care about myself"

welcome to the ignore list

 

[dannys1]

(or use Bluetooth headphones directly which is what I do 90% of the time)

All that moaning and you've just said you use Bluetooth headphones 90% of the time anyway. Here I am and I don't even own a pair of Bluetooth headphones! (Apart from a beat of Beats Solo2 I got for free which sit under my bed never to be used)

 

[trellus]

All that moaning and you've just said you use Bluetooth headphones 90% of the time anyway. Here I am and I don't even own a pair of Bluetooth headphones! (Apart from a beat of Beats Solo2 I got for free which sit under my bed never to be used)

That 10% of the time equals a lot of incidents for me just in the last week much less the last month.

As I said previously, I use my iPhone audio a lot, and about half of that usage is not music (it's news, non-music podcasts, audio books, etc), and so 10% of the time isn't insignificant at all in my case.

 

[The Game 161]

it's scary how much the same the camera is when you go into it

 

[AZ63]

There are no other reasons to want a headphone jack. It's not for sound quality as the iPhone DACS are terrible, so what other reason is there? Convenience. That's it - and i've outlined numerous ways in which it's no less convenient at all. It's just a non issue for any iPhone 7 owner.

Listening to audio on the "cheap" headphones Apple supplies with each iPhone is the only reason to have a headphone jack with the cheap DAC huh?
I am sure Apple would argue with you about their cheap headphones.
Why did you ignored the use cases that you included in your reply and some of the other replys to you you did not include, and just went on to said how you prefer quality audio. That is great for you. I am sure you sit in a nice quiet room with your expensive dongles and headphones while listening to your uncompressed audio tracks to achieve full enjoyment.
Lots of cars have aux jacks for audio in because some say it is a better experience than Bluetooth.
Along those lines, many cars still on the road don't have Bluetooth at all.
My 21 year old truck has neither and so I have a cassette adapter I use to connect my 6s so I can listen to audio.
I work in a school in which I connect my 6s to multiple 1/8 inch connectors to provide audio e.g. cafeteria, library, school intercom/speaker system.
What about the Square people used to take credit cards?
What about the external "high quality" mic people attach to the 1/8 inch jack to record interviews?
Yeah you are correct, the 1/8 inch jack is only good for listening to audio on cheap headphones.
[doublepost=1498067679][/doublepost]

i chuckled.

Considering the sales, they succeeded though.

They did succeed. They usually do succeed in their endeavors.
Apple is a great company run by smart people.
Apple makes luxury items for people who can afford them.
As long as their customers confine themselves to Apple's ideas of how their products should be used then all is good.

 

[tc913]

Battery

3300 mAh (non-removable)
Battery

That should give you at least a few hours of use.

​

​

are you saying that from experience or hating? because my Oneplus 3T with 3,400 last a long time.

 

[vikingjunior]

I just called Boeing and Air Bus they have no plans of removing the armrest head jack in the future.

 

[RedWing512]

That's like trying an alleyway if you're tired of your house.

The grass always seems greener and they'll make it look as lush as possible in their marketing. It's never as good as it seems though. I implore you, use the OnePlus in the flesh before going for an impulse purchase.

To be fair, I switched from iOS to Android in 2013 and have been using it ever since. Believe it or not, some people think iOS is a flaming pile of crap. Different strokes for different folks.

 

[macaddiict]

I think you're overstating your technical ability, I know quite a few people who are basically technical muppets but have no problem using an android phone.

They just aren't hard to use.

I wasn't very clear in my original post. I'm not saying I couldn't make heads or tails of how to operate the basic functions of the phone - although making sense of it was a bit of a stretch at times because of the way Android works.

My point was that, in my opinion, Android is poorly thought out and poorly designed. Again, in my opinion, iOS 10 runs circles around Android in every way when it comes to coherent, sensical design and straightforward operation.

Before you or someone else decides to argue and say I'm wrong or overstating something, please remember I'm just sharing my opinion. Yours may be different and that is fine -- they're just opinions, after all.

In the end, I wish you would not have made a judgment about my technical ability. It is useless to argue about these things online in the first place, but it was annoying to log in and see that a fellow human somewhere out there tried to knock me down a few pegs by making a snap judgement about me based on a quick post I wrote. This world is full of enough negativity - it is no fun to log on to a forum I use for fun to find a message like that.
[doublepost=1498072355][/doublepost]

A 3GS in 2017! Respect! Where did you get a 3GS a year back by the way?

Still had it in my drawer from when I used it many years ago. Shocked me that it worked without any problems for a year before the battery started flaking out.

It is amazing to use older technology and see how well some of it keeps up with modern stuff. The old 3GS could still go to most pages, still get videos and images by text, still give you directions if you were lost, etc. Sure, it was slow... but it worked every time I needed it to. And iOS 5 felt like a great balance of features vs. excess to me. I still miss the 3D-style chat bubbles and more textural design that iOS had up until it changed in version 7.

I will also say that Apple did a great job of supporting older technology. Everything still worked on iOS 5 - iMessage, Find my Friends, iCloud syncing, Photo Stream, iTunes Match, etc. -- I expected that none of the older stuff would work or be supported.
[doublepost=1498072543][/doublepost]

Believe it or not, some people think iOS is a flaming pile of crap. Different strokes for different folks.

Agreed re: the different strokes. And I was somewhat in the camp thinking iOS had gone to hell until I used Android. Glad there are options out there for people who want them -- would be great if there were more than just two mobile phone OS to choose from, but it seems like most things in life are "this or that" in this complicated world we live in.

 

[DeathBecomesMe]

are you saying that from experience or hating? because my Oneplus 3T with 3,400 last a long time.

I'm kidding, kind of. My last Android phone (HTC 10) had awful battery life. That had a 3000 Mah.