Samsung Mocks Apple's Decision to Remove the Headphone Jack in iPhone 7

[44267547]

If Bluetooth seems to be main reason why it should be removed (the supply chain has already shown iPhone's cases with no headphone jack) why remove the headphone, we already use wireless headphones next to our hardwired headphones?

Going wireless with headphones is already here, so why remove the jack? To me the only reason is to drive sales, people will need a lightning adapter or headphones if they want a wired experience or carry around a dongle - so how is that for customer experience?

Say the headphone jack is removed. It was rumored Apple would provide the adapter/dongle for the customer, therefore, if this is accurate, it's not like Apple is thinking of making the customer purchase the adapter. And you would still have your wired headphones, no one is forcing you to purchase Bluetooth if You don't want it. I think Apple is smarter than this, if they do remove the jack, it could be for a grander unknown. But Apple is also not afraid to dare the unknown, as we have seen before.

If they remove it, It's likely other manufacturers will also. Motorola already has. Even if Apple chooses not to have it removed by the iPhone 7, I truly believe it will be removed in the next iteration of the iPhone. Ultimately, wires will be a thing of the past. But it will take time to phase away. Apple has a bigger picture and I don't know what that is yet, but soon to find out.

I think all this complaining and negativity has proven nothing, because Apple has confirmed nothing. Customers will be upset if it is removed, but I don't believe everyone will abandon Apple. Apple keeps everyone in the dark and it builds anxiety of 'What are they doing?' 'Why are they doing it?'

I guess we will know soon enough. But all we know is what's in front of us and those are rumors/leaks for the moment. Launch day will be the day.

 

[576316]

because people complained about bendgate and so they started using the tougher aluminium...people complained about iphones chipping so they changed the slate black option. I remember in the old days people complained about there being no buttons on the ipod shuffle...guess what, they added buttons. people complained about #antennagate......

basically now some people are saying that yes, removing the headphone jack is actually going to affect them. that's the point of these forums. I don't think that's an outrageous thing to expect out of a discussion forum...

I think that sounds very entitled. Apple don't care about what you want. They'll do what they want with their products and are you really stupid enough to think the iPhone 7 design isn't locked in at this point? Heck, it's probably already in production. If that device is shipping without a headphone jack, you'd have to wait for the rumoured iPhone 8 next year to see it return and even then, I can't see Apple putting the headphone jack back in after removing it. That would be admitting they were wrong.

 

[44267547]

I think that sounds very entitled. Apple don't care about what you want. They'll do what they want with their products and are you really stupid enough to think the iPhone 7 design isn't locked in at this point? Heck, it's probably already in production. If that device is shipping without a headphone jack, you'd have to wait for the rumoured iPhone 8 next year to see it return and even then, I can't see Apple putting the headphone jack back in after removing it. That would be admitting they were wrong.

I believe the reported iPhone 7 will be in production right about this time frame. It's usually in production between Late July to early August. More iPhone and packaging leaks to arrive soon.

 

[drumcat]

I believe the reported iPhone 7 will be in production right about this time frame. It's usually in production between Late July to early August. More iPhone and packaging leaks to arrive soon.

And they sure as hell don't have time to change the design. This argument and the opening sales numbers are going to drive the iPhone 10th Anniversary Edition as to whether they swallow pride and bring it back, or continue to fight a losing battle.

 

[guse21]

Samsung mocks Apple for trying to remove wires. Hmmm never heard of Samsung trolling anyone about wires. Oh yea their wireless charging B.S. because it's too hard for their fanboys to plug in a single charging cable. So they don't want wires when your phone is stationary and charging but they want wires when your ambulatory. Doesn't make any sense to me.

at least with Samsung you still get to charge with your usb cable and you can still use Bluetooth and wired earphones

 

[Wanted797]

And now if Apple keep the headphone jack they'll look like idiots & Apple can say the same thing.

This was quite horrible to watch, very chringeworthy. At least when Apple joke it doesn't sound so scripted.

 

[maflynn]

And now if Apple keep the headphone jack they'll look like idiots

Why, his comment barely got any response, and there seems to be little noise/media attention to that (other then MR). Apple won't be the first phone to drop the audio jack, another maker already has, so his comment isn't off base, even if apple doesn't drop it, but we all know they will

 

[SGT.GREER]

Which do you think is more useful to the average phone user?

1 - The ability to use normal headphones

2 - The ability to take your phone scuba diving

If you refer to S7 know that water resistance it offers does not apply to salt water.

 

[joueboy]

This guy, he's just like one of us or most of us. He just happened to be a guy that works in a wrong place. Just like a guy who prefers pepsi but works for coca cola or the other way around. That means he comes and visit macrumors and watch youtube videos. He complains about the iphone losing headphone jack and make fun of it. Of course the severity of someone's opinion depends on the current situation, gender, profession, beliefs, race and so on and so forth. For example a white person cannot say the N word in public, then a white celebrity has more drawbacks.

 

[guse21]

all

You do know that ALL speakers are analog right? And that all corded headphones are capable of playing 24Bit/192Khz recordings (as long as the media and dac support it) right?
[doublepost=1470175421][/doublepost]
Um...All speakers are analog.

all sound that you can hear are analog

 

[MrNomNoms]

So Samsung's 'zinger' is to make a snarky remark about a product that hasn't even been announced yet - ok, that makes a lot of sense! /s

Oh and if Samsung want to 'win me over' then how about making Kies not royally suck on OS X and Windows along with not bundling duplicate Samsung applications for no other reason than the idiocy of 'branding'. Really, if Samsung is the poster child for Android then god help the platform - I wish Google had the balls to actually push Nexus a lot harder than they are now.

 

[TallManNY]

Apple removed the audio jack because listening to decent quality bluetooth headphones is a superior experience. Apple doesn't care if you have nice corded headphones. First, buy a dongle and leave it on the end of your headphones. The experience with the dongle is going to be nearly identical to plugging into a normal headphone jack. Second, Apple's view is you should just go out and buy some new high quality bluetooth headphones and stop being either cheap or broke. They don't much care for cheap or broke customers anyway. And they certainly don't make design decisions around their cheap or broke customers.

 

[SGT.GREER]

all

all sound that you can hear are analog

As far as i know the brain is not analog.

 

[inscrewtable]

Mock in haste, copy in leisure.

 

[x0vash0x]

As far as i know the brain is not analog.

As far as I know sound waves are not digital.

 

[TengZero]

Not sure how anyone at spin the removal of the possible 3.5mm jack as something good. Other manufacturers seems to be able to make their phones smaller while having a larger screen and battery, more powerful and water-resistant.

I think this is going to hurt them in the short term removing the jack, forcing people to buy headphones that can only work on iPhones and nothing else. Yes there are bluetooth headphones, but what happens when the batteries die?

Plus when you think about wouldn't an extra speaker take up more space than the 3.5mm jack internally?

Taking the headphone jack out of the iPhone feels like it's creating more questions than answers and is also anti consumer.

 

[5105973]

So I guess we can safely assume Samsung execs follow Macrumors...

Actually, I have seen them accused of having hired Internet trolls to fan the flame wars against Apple over the past couple of years. We know for a fact, having seen it in action, that they paid people to troll Apple fans waiting in line for new IPhones by giving them promotional items for Galaxy phones.

It would not be a huge leap in logic to surmise they do pay people to follow online comments. If I were CEO of either Apple or Samsung I surely would pay a few entry level or part time employees to monitor popular sites pertinent to my business and keep my executive team abreast of customer opinions.

I think their immediate reaction in refining the edges of the Note 7 was a swift reaction to negative customer commentary on the negatives of the curves on the S7 Edge phone. Their comments during the unpacked event demonstrated a keen awareness of user dissatisfaction that they attempted to address with the changes.

They did also return the ability to use removable storage per customer demand. When they did not return the also highly demanded user replaceable batteries, they answered frankly in an interview the negative impact returning to such a feature would have on the size and cost of the devices if they also wanted to retain their water resistance ratings.

I suspect Apple does not pay a lot of attention to customer forums or they would not have seem so surprised at the interest in a 4" iPhone. They really seem caught by surprise there and that frankly caught ME by surprise. If I had their billions to throw around, spending a little of it on the salary of minions to take the pulse of my user base would seem a natural thing to do.

 

[mytdave]

Sad to see Shamesung spanking Apple's butt these days. Got to admit, the S7 looks like a killer device. So sad. I'm a huge fan of Apple gear, but reality is reality. Well, at least Shamesung's device still suffers from Android.

 

[neuropsychguy]

You mean people don't prefer dongles hanging from the bottom of their phone?

Why would you leave a dongle/adapter connected to your phone? Why not just leave it connected to your headphones? If you have multiple headphones you could move the adapter or buy a second adapter.

 

[x0vash0x]

I think this is going to hurt them in the short term removing the jack, forcing people to buy headphones that can only work on iPhones and nothing else. Yes there are bluetooth headphones, but what happens when the batteries die?

Plus when you think about wouldn't an extra speaker take up more space than the 3.5mm jack internally?

No one is going to care in the long run. Short run there will be backlash, people will bitch and moan, and then the world will keep on turning, people will either use the dongle, or buy bluetooth headphones. Beats in-ear headphones are rated at 6 hours and beats solo are rated at 12 hours which is a pretty long time. The vast majority of people listen to four hours of audio a day, with less than half of that for things that would need headphones. (Source) So, basically, people are probably using, on average their headphones 1-2 hours a day. So, the typical person would need to charge their headphones once a week.

Seriously, this 'what happens when the battery dies?' is such an old meme. How many hours a day do you REALLY use your headphones? Or is it just an excuse to complain?

Which leads me to my next point: Apple could just say they improved the audio quality of the iPhone with a double speaker, so why would you even NEED headphones? Just listen to music directly from your iPhone. I could imagine them going that route 'Now, with our stereo speakers on the iPhone, you have three great ways to listen to music: directly on the iPhone, bluetooth with our amazing bluetooth earbuds, or using a dongle included in the box for your legacy headphones'

 

[The Game 161]

If you refer to S7 know that water resistance it offers does not apply to salt water.

Well judging by some videos on YouTube and by one guy on MR who tried it out it works just fine afterwards.

 

[cdmoore74]

Mocking a phone that doesn't exist? That's how you sell your product?

Wait a second. Motorola was officially the first OEM to introduce a phone to the US without a headphone jack. A Chinese OEM did it months before everyone else. This article and your comment is out of line and assumes that Apple is the only one that has done it yet they haven't officially announced it.
Time to visit tech sites that are not Apple related.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Currently the 3.5mm jack uses the DAC built into the iphone. With the lightning port a digital signal is sent direct the the DAC built into the headphone. This will allow a higher quality signal sent direct to a higher quality DAC.

What in the world makes you think a pair of headphones will have a higher quality DAC than the iPhone? Hey, let's buy multiple pairs of headphones for home and at the office and put a DAC in each instead of just one in the phone. In other words, instead of removing the jack, why not just put a "better" DAC in the iPhone??? Oh yeah, that would make too damn much sense.

Besides, DACs have pretty much been perfected over the past twenty-four years. The ONLY real difference in high quality external DACs designed for headphone use is having a better quality amplifier stage (not really part of the DAC itself but the number one reason some headphones sound "bad" with cheap digital devices that have tiny little op-amps in them). Frankly, lack of quality amplifier power is the number one reason any stereo sounds bad (put better speakers in your car that are low efficiency and you NEED higher amplifier power than those tiny 8-14 watt head units will produce. Otherwise you will get insufficient volume and when turned up further, it goes into distortion which sounds AWFUL.

But marketing people will try and convince you that a $3000 DAC sounds better than a $20 one (maybe true in 1986, but not 2006 given DACs typically have frequency response variations in the 0.1 dB range at most (many with less than 0.01dB). A typical human can BARELY hear a frequency response variation of around 1dB and that's typically full volume adjustments, not over a small frequency band, which is much harder to hear, especially around less sensitive frequency ranges of human hearing.

In other words, high-end audio has been notorious for taking advantage of the general public's IGNORANCE on the subject and high-end audio rags further that ignorance by catering to advertisers' snake-oil claims (hello Stereophile).

If you want better sound with an iPhone NOW, buy a pair of headphones that are high efficiency and have good reviews (e.g. Grado, which I dare say is considerably better than "Beats" headphones which are bass junky inaccurate reproductions that cater to the "more bass is better" crowd, but do not represent what's on the recording accurately). Thinking of spending a lot on noise reduction headphones from Bose that typically cost $300+? You're paying for advertising and (pseudo) cachet. You can get sound quality that's comparable for $99 from JVC (I've got a pair myself).

 

[redhawk87]

The headphone jack is going away eventually. Its inevitable. The only problem I see here is that the headphone jack is so damn ubiquitous. Right now you can just go to any store and pick up some 5 or 10 dollar headphones and they just work. I think this is why people are so alarmed by the move. Apple has done this numerous times in the past though... Remember when they got rid of the floppy drive? And then the CD drive? When they got rid of the CD drive, everyone was up in arms... but let me ask you now: When was the last time you loaded a CD in to a computer other than your grandmothers stash of pictures you saved off for her in the 90's? The headphone jack is no different.

The only thing I think is worth to note here is that, as I mentioned, the headphone jack is ubiquitous and cheap. Removing it means one of three things:

1. You now have to keep track of TWO small devices to listen to your music... an adapter and your headphones. For people like me who spend $10 on headphones because they always get lost, this is a huge problem.
2. You have to cough up the money for Bluetooth headphones... to just loose them in a week.
3. You have to further entrench yourself into the apple ecosystem by buying Apple-only headphones (headphones with a male lightning port) while the headphones you currently have collect dust. Oh and when you loose them, you will be constantly reminded of this when you ask your significant other to borrow theirs.... and then you remember they have an Android. fml.

Getting rid of the CD drive was not as big of a deal in my opinion because most companies already started offering digital downloads of everything you would need and music/movies already went digital for the most part.

But, maybe this is just the pre-removal-of-headphone-jack me talking and in two years I will look back on this post and wonder what I was on.

p.s. I am not trying to argue whether the headphone jack should or should not go away... it is DEFINITELY going to go away at some point. Just pointing out the annoyances I know some people (not all) will have with it.

 

[cdmoore74]

Sad to see Shamesung spanking Apple's butt these days. Got to admit, the S7 looks like a killer device. So sad. I'm a huge fan of Apple gear, but reality is reality. Well, at least Shamesung's device still suffers from Android.

Android is awesome. It's Touchwiz and the lack of fast updates that hurt Samsung. Only reason why I'm considering a Nexus this year. Oh, and the fact that Apple is releasing the same old design for the third time.