Removal of iPhone 7 Headphone Jack Was Essential for Water Resistance, New Camera System

[BobVB]

This may be true, but how much time of the day does an average phone user charge their phone while listening with their headphones?

Music? Maybe not, but playing games? All the time. If I had even an inkling that there wouldn’t ever be a passthrough charge-data cable I might be upset but since that’s all lightening is - a powered data port - I’m sure that they will be being made in vast quantities and available at your local Apple store soon and if not there at your local Walgreens in florescent pink, green and blue before long.

 

[sk1wbw]

I didn't say "much thicker" but way to try to recast what was said to an extreme. Are you about 14 years old?

Per what Apple themselves said, they had to jettison this jack to make room to innovate a few other things into this phone. My point was they could have kept this jack and made the phone only a modest amount less thin to create abundant space for "additional innovation." That was another option that could have been chosen instead of kicking this jack out. Best I know, pretty much none of us have complained about "too thick" ever. Was iPhone 5 "too thick"? 4? Guess what happens if you take the 6 or 7 case and maybe split the difference between the thickness of this 7 and the 5? Lots of internal space is created for new innovations, more battery, etc WITHOUT having to eject this jack.

Else, what's next? If to be able to innovate, it now requires jettisoning internal stuff to accessories, what shall Apple jettison next so they can "further innovate"... and "thinner"? I'm sure whatever it is, guys- or boys- like you will be right back in the threads after it's announced rah-rahing that move too. Think different kid or eventually you'll be endorsing paying $1000 for an empty box, assembling all of what used to come inside from a bunch of accessories sold separately. It's just a headphone adapter. It's just a battery case. It's just a camera adapter. It's just a screen. It's just an aluminum box. It's just a piece of silicon.

And yes, using adapters IS a pain- a needless hassle that will persist for years and years now. Almost all of us will experience the joys of trying to make this work as well in "real world" uses soon. This change... this "innovation" is a catalyst of fragmentation from a thoroughly ubiquitous "just works" with everything & everywhere to needing to lug along a variety of adapters & splitters to cover all possible bases... or adopting an inferior quality Bluetooth that is also not even remotely as ubiquitous... or just doing without when you forgot to pack the adapter, lost or broke it and Bluetooth is not available.

But Apple is always right... and Apple consumers are always wrong unless what they want perfectly aligns with whatever Apple has decided to roll out. Guys or kids like you will rip individual consumer opinion when it does not comply with a giant corporation's spin. Thank you for doing your part. I'm sure the corporation appreciates your efforts.

You should have just told him that the included dongle will let you use your wired headphones.

 

[imronburgundy]

honestly though why are people even mad?
They included an adapter for old school headphones

Can't listen and charge the phone at the same time. Trying to watch a movie on your phone but don't want your battery to drop to zero at the same time? Too bad.

 

[AsherN]

So removing the headphone jack also removes the DAC? I'm confused on this. Wouldn't there be a DAC either way whether audio comes from a headphone jack or lighting jack?

No. The phone still needs a DAC to drive the internal speakers. The Lightning jack passes the digital audio signal to an external DAC. The argument is that that by matching DAC/Amp to the actual analog drivers, you can get better sound. No argument here. Assuming that your headphones have a good quality DAC/Amp. But that has been available since the Lightning connector came along.

And because most of us listen to compressed MP3s, and most don't buy $200 headphones, Lightning earbuds won't sond any better than fully analog ones, and have the potential to sound worse if the cheap external DAC is not as good as the one in the phone.

 

[Funkybunch]

Something tells me there is more to it than what we are just seeing on the surface, and there is a FUTURE reason why they removed the jack that is something they cannot talk about obviously.
This is just a guess of course but their explanation as to why they had to remove it doesn't make too much sense. They could of just made the casing a tiny bit larger if it was because they needed more room .
So I think there is something up with this removal. We'll have to see of course.

You are spot on here. This is because 1-2 versions down the line will need the space even more. This is apples way of easing the transition to the future.

As for waterproofing, I speculate it was not the jack itself that they couldn't water proof. Other companies can do it, of course Apple could too. My guess it was the other components (such as the things they moved to make room for more camera and/or haptic engine?) that would have been difficult to waterpoof with the jack in there. The free adapter and $9 cost for additional proves this is not a money grab. People are letting their emotional attachment interfere with rational reasoning and logic. Would have been nice to have wireless charging for those that want to charge and listen at the same time. But, to call them liars, etc. is so trivial.

At the end of the day, 99.9% of the general public will not see this as a reason to switch. Apple clearly is pushing towards wireless with their investments in the airpods technology. I only expect this to get better over time.

 

[AsherN]

Everything else is digital, why have we kept the headphone jack after all these years? It was going to go eventually, why not now? You don't have a good answer, you just want to be upset over something stupid.

Your ears are analog...

 

[BlargKing]

Meanwhile Samsung and other manufacturers are delivering more feature rich phones with good battery life without sacrificing the headphone jack. So Apple is lazy, has bad engineers, or there is in fact, an ulterior motive.

 

[BobVB]

Meanwhile Samsung and other manufacturers are delivering more feature rich phones with good battery life without sacrificing the headphone jack. So Apple is lazy, has bad engineers, or there is in fact, an ulterior motive.

Same ‘ulterior’ motive they have had since Steve Jobs talked about the iMac and said ‘your computer should be like your toaster - you don’t know how it works it just does.’ Got tech support calls from my sister all the time, bought her an iPad, she never calls anymore - she can do what she wants without help. Friend bought an Samsung something and it continually wouldn’t do what he wanted without fighting him, got an iPhone and is happy as a clam.

What the iPhone 7 will be is a phone with a great camera, and great audio for whatever level of fidelity the end user wants, from $15 BT earbuds to passing a multichannel DJ experience to an external board by an audio professional. Been beta testing iOS 10 and the picture ‘deep learning’ cataloging of every single digital picture I have ever taken has amazed everyone I’ve shown it to - I mean how does a phone know the difference between an otter or a sealion? But it does, all on the phone by itself in complete privacy.

The iPhone is for those of us that want technology that just works and don’t mind the occasional purchase of a short-lived dongle or replacing accessories. I’m just glad my charger stand at the bed will still be working fine when I call tonight at 12:01 PDT and order my black 265GB iPhone 7+. (I’ll wait on the EarPods until I find out if they stay in ears better than the earbuds)

 

[Wando64]

Not to mention that it took valuable space and prevented the phone from being symmetrical which constantly bugged me.
The rage in other people's comments only makes me enjoy the whole situation even more.

Well, if there is a positive out of this is that at least you are feeling a bit better.
I hope it lasts.

 

[Otaviano]

Meanwhile Samsung and other manufacturers are delivering more feature rich phones with good battery life without sacrificing the headphone jack. So Apple is lazy, has bad engineers, or there is in fact, an ulterior motive.

Samsung phones also randomly explode.

 

[BlargKing]

Got tech support calls from my sister all the time, bought her an iPad, she never calls anymore - she can do what she wants without help. Friend bought an Samsung something and it continually wouldn’t do what he wanted without fighting him, got an iPhone and is happy as a clam.

The iPhone is for those of us that want technology that just works

Except the same works in reverse. My mother used PC for years and I never had to help her once. She got a Mac Mini and I've had to help her on a weekly basis for 2 years now because basic things are so dumbed down in Mac OS that its actually harder to find.

My mother, one of my brothers, and myself all use Android phones, my mother an HTC, my brother a Samsung, and I use and LG. We've never had issues. My youngest brother is on his 3rd iPhone replaced under Applecare because his first 2 slowly declined into unusable bricks. He said once this iPhone dies hes buying a Samsung.

I hate to break it to you, but Apple isn't the champion of "it just works" anymore. As someone who uses Macs and PCs daily for college, Windows is just as user friendly as a Mac, possibly more so since more people are familiar with them. Same with Android. There are bad Android experiences because you can easily go buy a cheap Android phone and get what you paid for. But a quality phone from a reputable brand is on par, if not better now, than an iPhone.

 

[Silver Idaten]

My Galaxy S7 is water and dust resistant, with an IP68 rating, meaning it can handle being underwater at a slightly greater depth (1.5 meters) for thirty minutes than the iPhone 7's IP67 rating, which is good for only up to thirty minutes at 1 meter.

Oh, and it has a headphone jack.

'Courage' my ass.

 

[BlargKing]

Samsung phones also randomly explode.

A single model of phone has a small percentage of issues because of a bad batch of batteries. Lithium Ion batteries are temperamental. Boeing, one of the biggest aircraft manufacturers in the world had to ground its entire fleet of 787s because of bad lithium batteries. There was issues with the iPhone 4 having exploding batteries.

 

[Otaviano]

A single model of phone has a small percentage of issues because of a bad batch of batteries. Lithium Ion batteries are temperamental. Boeing, one of the biggest aircraft manufacturers in the world had to ground its entire fleet of 787s because of bad lithium batteries. There was issues with the iPhone 4 having exploding batteries.

They are doing a recall, but feel free to go buy one.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

A single model of phone has a small percentage of issues because of a bad batch of batteries. Lithium Ion batteries are temperamental. Boeing, one of the biggest aircraft manufacturers in the world had to ground its entire fleet of 787s because of bad lithium batteries. There was issues with the iPhone 4 having exploding batteries.

Correct, remember the story about the asian woman dying due to something similar with an iPhone. I recall "us" blaming her, "cheap accessories", etc... basically anything & everything other than the iPhone itself: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...e-4-likely-used-unauthorized-charger.1611688/

Here though and probably forevermore, EVERY Samsung phone everywhere is a bomb about to blow... and perhaps kill thousands.

We are dazzling in our collective biases.

 

[LIVEFRMNYC]

Then how does the Samsung maintain the water resistance when it has a headphone jack?

And they make it IP68 rating compared to iPhone's IP67.

 

[sracer]

Your ears are analog...

While that is true for human beings, there is a segment of Apple's customer base that possesses X-Men-like super senses. They're the ones that complain about how the current retina displays are "pixelated blocky messes" and how they can discern the difference between lossless compressed audio and uncompressed audio.

 

[spacemnspiff]

Meanwhile Samsung and other manufacturers are delivering more feature rich phones with good battery life

Care to explain the battery life comment. 6s plus (2750 mAh) has a far smaller battery(27%) than the Note 7(3500 mAh). Where do you see the extra 27% battery life in the Note 7?

 

[spazzcat]

If everyone who has criticized Apple for the removal of the headphone jack bought a competitor's phone, I'd bet that Apple brings it back in a subsequent version of the phone.

Complaining won't do anything. Emailing Tim Cook won't do anything. The only thing Apple responds to is sales... especially a drop in sales of their products in conjunction with an increase in sales of their competitors'.

Not going to happened there is a small vocal group freaking out about their cheese being moved.

 

[Scorpion67]

This explains why Samsung removed both the S pen slot and the headphone jack on the new Note 7, to allow better resistance! I never though of that before.

 

[DotCom2]

Meanwhile Samsung and other manufacturers are delivering more feature rich phones with good battery life without sacrificing the headphone jack. So Apple is lazy, has bad engineers, or there is in fact, an ulterior motive.

The "ulterior motive" is that there is probably a future feature that they can not speak about now that necessitated the removal of the jack.

 

[noekozz]

People are absolutely freaking out about this. They are screaming that they can't use their headphones. It comes with an adaptor. They will also be sold for $9, which is 3 times cheaper than a lightning cable but nobody bitches about having to buy them. It's crazy listening to the stupid.

I know right? Who listens to music and charges their phones at the same time anyway? Who cares if they got rid of the 3.5 headphone jack when they're giving you an adapter you can carry around with you for free. Or better yet, you can buy a pair of of wireless earpods for $159, which is a steal if you think about it .... and so what if they fall off your ears and you lose them within the first week, you can just go to your local apple store and buy another pair !!

People these days, smh.



/end sarcasm

 

[Scorpion67]

Care to explain the battery life comment. 6s plus (2750 mAh) has a far smaller battery(27%) than the Note 7(3500 mAh). Where do you see the extra 27% battery life in the Note 7?

It's actually about a 5% difference for the Exynos (international variant) but pretty impressive results for the Note 7 nonetheless since it is pushing 77% more pixels than the 6S Plus.

Note 7 = 1440 x 2560 = 3,686,400
6S plus = 1920 x 1080 = 2,073,600

 

[DotCom2]

I know right? Who listens to music and charges their phones at the same time anyway? Who cares if they got rid of the 3.5 headphone jack when they're giving you an adapter you can carry around with you for free. Or better yet, you can buy a pair of of wireless earpods for $159, which is a steal if you think about it .... and so what if they fall off your ears and you lose them within the first week, you can just go to your local apple store and buy another pair !!

People these days, smh.



/end sarcasm

Yes, because the $159 EarPods are the ONLY wireless option there is.
/end sarcasm

 

[keithtae]

Like this

Or like this?

http://gizmodo.com/cyclist-falls-with-iphone-in-his-pocket-iphone-explode-1784699296