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POLL: 3.5 mm headphone jack

Should the 3.5 mm headphone jack be removed with the next iPhone?

  • Yes

  • No

Results are only viewable after voting.
Guess it's inevitable.... Everything is moving toward wireless Bluetooth. I'm seeing more & more wireless headsets and earbuds every time I stop by a Best Buy or Target. Kinda like how corded telephones started fading away back in the day. Wired headset days seem numbered now.
 
lordofthereef said:
I see this as an incredibly ridiculously slim possibility. But if it did have USB C I MIGHT (again, MIGHT) even be ok with removal of the 3.5mm jack. The lightning cable does nothing (havent compared spec for spec but this will remain true for most customers regardless) that the USB C doesn't do. Meanwhile it's just a prorietary port that requires special hardware or cables to use. Haveing USB C on iOS, Android, Windows Phone, etc. would be spectacular.
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The USB people would certainly like to see USB-C as the new standard for headphones.
Apple has large presence in the USB Implementers Forum, it's easy to see Apple's hand in the USB-C connector.
USB, Lightning and Thunderbolt are converging. There is a USB3 capable controller behind the Lightning connection in the iPad Pro. It's easy to see Apple go USB-C everywhere eventually.
bigpoppamac31 said:
If they remove the headphone jack then the cost of wireless headphones (bluetooth and NFC) should come way down so that more people can afford to adopt.
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NFC is mostly useless for headphones, it's short range. By design. It can give some convenience for pairing, but that's all. Bluetooth 4 has some features that try to take some the hassle out of pairing.

The only thing that makes cost really go down is mass production. But mass production of new stuff will not happen if old stuff, that is already in mass production, and so cheaper, is already good enough. Deadlock.

A powerful manufacturer can break this deadlock.
Wouldn't be the first time Apple did this.

But...
Can wireless headphones be good enough for enough people?
The laws of physics being what they are, wireless will always be worse for audio than wired.
Also I think it would be good for Apple to adopt NFC. Seems like every other smartphone has it.
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The bulk of Android phones, the cheap ones that the carriers give away with their plans, don't have NFC.
Apple adopted NFC, but so far only for payments, the only thing that NFC does now that is not a gimmick. Apple is an NFC Consortium "sponsoring member", just like for example Google, Intel, Mastercard, Visa, and Samsung.
NFC is not particularly modern or high tech, it's used for payments because banks are careful and slow and prefer old, tried and tested legacy tech. Also, with payments, NFC's short range is a good thing, for many other uses it's not.
 
Would be happy to see it go. Haven't used the headphone jack on a single occasion on my 6+ or 6S+. Used it about twice on my 5S iirc.
 
Tried a pair of Bluetooth headphones on low volume I can't hear the difference. But put it on high volume with high base they sound terrible. And these were beats headphones wired are much better quality
 
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Bluetooth wireless headphones aren't good for a long plane rides, when they have a battery life. Your sol when they die out. Which is why the headphone jack is a necessity and apple would be dumb to remove it.

They would also make every wired headset made obsolete, including my expensive sennheisers I just bought a few months ago.
 
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jlyanks85 said:
Bluetooth wireless headphones aren't good for a long plane rides, when they have a battery life. Your sol when they die out. Which is why the headphone jack is a necessity and apple would be dumb to remove it.

They would also make every wired headset made obsolete, including my expensive sennheisers I just bought a few months ago.
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Not if you stick with your old phone and/or wait for an adapter that is good enough for your sennheisers, and cheap and convenient enough for you.
 
draugminaion said:
NFC is mostly useless for headphones, it's short range. By design. It can give some convenience for pairing, but that's all. Bluetooth 4 has some features that try to take some the hassle out of pairing.
Click to expand...
NFC in headphones would be used for pairing, instead of having to go into the settings, put the headphone in pairing mode, and enter the PIN if needed, you would just tap the phone to the headphone and they are paired.
 
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jlyanks85 said:
Bluetooth wireless headphones aren't good for a long plane rides, when they have a battery life. Your sol when they die out. Which is why the headphone jack is a necessity and apple would be dumb to remove it.
Click to expand...

You know when else your SOL on a long plane ride? When your iPhone runs out of battery life before your BT headphones, because maybe you forgot to charge it the night before your trip, or you've been surfing the web, texting, making calls, and watching movies and listening to music during your trip. That headphone jack isn't much a of a necessity when the phone runs out of power is it?

So I suspect the answer to your particular dilemma is to pull out the headphone charging cord you're carrying in that bag with all your other cords we all have to travel with now, and plug it into the in-seat chargers available in many newer planes (especially the long trip variety), or at the airport passenger lounge while you're charging that iPhone up before your flight. Or maybe like anyone who relies on mobile electronics, a spare battery.
 
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I support it but I hope the pairing process for headphones in particular can somehow be simplified in the next rendition of iOS. If people are going to use them, they will be expecting to put them on, hit the switch, and it just works. They don't want to go in Settings and wait and tap things.
 
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yaboyac29 said:
did you even bother to read the rest of my post?

yes there are other phones with a smaller bezel but they are THICKER which allows for the headphone jack to go UNDER the screen.

why is this something that people are having a hard time grasping? you can't change the dimensions of the port, it's standard.

show me a phone that has smaller bezels and we can look into it some more as to how they fit it in there.
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Galaxy s6 is thinner has smaller bezels and a 3.5mm jack.
 
Apple needs the money
iPhone sales cannot continue to climb forever
iPad sales may not recover
Apple Stock is wavering

To those of you who are extremely obsessed with jumping to "Apple's Doomed"

No Way!
Why?
They've got enough cash to live on for decades...
 
PJM83 said:
Galaxy s6 is thinner has smaller bezels and a 3.5mm jack.
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Yes and I already explained that the bezel is only a few mm smaller than the iPhone. It's not much of a difference and the iPhone can shed the same amount.

But some people want a bezel-less phone for some odd reason.
 
I voted no.

I can clearly hear a difference between a set of comparably specced bluetooth headphones and wired headphones. Not to mention bluetooth headphones have the occasional drop outs, etc. It's not a viable solution.

If they switch to a lightning or usb-c headphone option, they better include an adapter in the box (although I know they wouldn't do that)
 
ohio.emt said:
If they get rid of the jack, the bye bye iPhone for me. I'm not paying extra for headphone just so they can be mifi certified.
Click to expand...

i'm willing to bet that once apple does it, many phone manufacturers will ditch the jack as well.
 
People tend to forget if Apple remove something they often replace it with something else. Poll would be a lot more interesting if you were to pit features against each other. For example would you prefer:

- Headphone jack or wireless charging?
- Headphone jack or 10% more battery life?
- Headphone jack or dual-lens depth sensing near-SLR quality camera?

All of a sudden I'm thinking the headphone jack is a sacrifice I'm willing to make in order to gain one or more of the features above.

It's not out of the question either. That headphone jack takes up an awful lot of space on the inside..

Step-21_3045165k.jpg
 
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Isn't one of Ive's biggest goals to make his devices a single, unbroken slab of metal? I remember reading that somewhere, but I don't remember where. Maybe this is the next step for him in that goal (like removing the mute/lock rotation switch on the iPad). Maybe nobody is willing to stand up to the "master designer" at Apple anymore for the sake of user experience.

EDIT: Also, this feels like a marketing leak to me. Put the bad news out there almost a year in advance to let the public fluster over it now. That way, when the phone is released, the missing jack is old news. The news cycle will be about what is in the phone rather than what isn't.
 
goobot said:
Why would they remove it from an s model which would have the same body and wouldn't benefit from such at all?
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The Taptic engine was fitted to the 6S, which in turn caused the battery capacity to decrease. Had Apple instead removed the headphone jack from the 6S and filled the space with the Taptic engine instead of sacrificing battery space we'd all be enjoying a longer battery life in the 6S.

Point is there are benefits and downsides, as is with everything in the tech world. It's all about finding the right balance.
 
My old HTC Diamond had an adapter, it was such a pain in the butt to use! Was very relieved when I moved to an iphone.

I really don't want this change, I do have 1 pair of bluetooth headphones (that I actually really like!) but I have a few others that do not come in "bluetooth" form that I don't want to have to use a stupid adapter to use.

I love Apple but c'mon seriously, this is stupid!!! and for what? Just to make your device EVEN thinner???

I already need a spatula to pick my "caseless" Iphone 6 off a table

*So frustrated*
 
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