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

[CarlJ]

By the way... everyone keeps making somewhat flawed comparisons to the floppy or CD drives...

The real comparison is the USB port. When the original iMac launched, everyone was up in arms that it had no serial or parallel ports (yes, sure, it wasn't the absolute first one - who cares, it was the first to garner international attention). How can it possibly be used without these ports that are absolutely fundamental to all computer uses? It will absolutely fail, nobody uses USB, there's hardly more than a handful of peripherals available that use USB - Apple better get their act together and release a proper computer with serial and parallel ports or they are DOOOOOMED!!1!

Fast forward umpteen years, and can you imagine a computer now without USB ports? Everything uses them. And for all sorts of new uses Beyond what was originally imagined. Who here would prefer an external backup drive that connects over RS232 serial, with a bunch of DIP switches to configure it to the host? (Because USB isn't simply a connector, or a data transfer protocol, it's a whole family of communications and discovery protocols.) Want another example? Can you imagine a phone with a physical QWERTY keyboard? (Again, yes, Apple wasn't the very first - who cares, the public wasn't aware of it before the iPhone, and all the established players insisted it was unworkable.)

Apple has a track record of dragging the rest of the tech world, kicking and screaming, into the future, a future that is usually better than what the others were clinging to so tightly. Will that happen this time? I have no idea. But I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. I'd like to see what they have to offer and hear their explanation of why and how it's better.

 

[teknikal90]

Yeah! Maybe if you complain enough Apple will give you a free clip-on headphone jack for your iPhone 7!

Vote with your wallet my friend.

Maybe... Not even sarcastic.

 

[CarlJ]

My ears are still analog. There needs to be a converter somewhere in the chain between the digital file and my ears.

I print out all the 1's and 0's of the digital audio files and read them, and hear the music in my head.

 

[Elmo1938]

The removal of the headphone jack will be a slight inconvenience but only for a year or so

My 3.5mm earbud collection will be around longer than a year or so.

 

[Dr McKay]

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

It's a jab at anybody who's removed the headphone jack, something some Android makers like Lenovo have already done.

 

[CarlJ]

I disagree... by removing the 3.5m jack, they also remove the preamp, and the DAC, which saves space, and computing power on the handset side of the device...

It only removes the DAC and preamp/amp if you also drop the internal speaker(s), which rely on them as well. I don't see Apple dropping the internal speaker any time soon.

 

[todhug]

At some point an audio jack is no longer going to exist in anything. Innovation will find a replacement. Apple's thinking ahead and others will soon follow.

 

[Dr McKay]

At some point an audio jack is no longer going to exist in anything. Innovation will find a replacement. Apple's thinking ahead and others will follow soon. Here's to his comment

Until everyone makes the jump to the same standard, it's going to be a mess. If you buy a 3.5mm pair of headphones today it's going to work on an iPhone, an Android handset, your Mac/PC, your PS4/XB1 controller.

Android handset makers are moving towards USB C headphones, so you're going to have headphones that work on your phone and a handful of computers. What are Apple going to do? Lightning headphones that you can only use on iOS devices? That isn't an improvement.

 

[Mac 128]

Until everyone makes the jump to the same standard, it's going to be a mess. If you buy a 3.5mm pair of headphones today it's going to work on an iPhone, an Android handset, your Mac/PC, your PS4/XB1 controller.

Android handset makers are moving towards USB C headphones, so you're going to have headphones that work on your phone and a handful of computers. What are Apple going to do? Lightning headphones that you can only use on iOS devices? That isn't an improvement.

You couldn't be more wrong. Good future headphones will be platform agnostic, and a cord swap will make them compatible with any platform, wireless, digital or analogue. In addition, adapters will allow you to use a 3.5mm analogue equipped cable on a 1/4" stereo headphone jack. Or a USB-C digital cable on a 3.5mm equipped device. People who have a need to connect to multiple devices throughout the day, may have a third party cable with several port connectors integrated into it, so they will never be without the proper connector.

So no, nobody's going to lose their investment in digital headphones. Moreover, Apple customers will not have to change all of their Lightning cables and accessories to USB-C for the short time that may becomes the standard before wireless takes over completely. USB-C isn't even really in use anywhere, and there is no USB-C audio standard that exists yet. Not to mention the years it will take for USB-C to become the standard audio port on even mobile and desktop computing devices, much less people to replace their existing home stereos, and other analogue equipment. So it doesn't matter whether Apple uses Lightning or USB-C, since the rest of the world is going to require adapters to connect digital headphones to legacy devices anyway. Apple is saving the customer a lot of headache by maintaining Lightning until wireless becomes the standard connection for charging, data and audio.

 

[conceptvbs123]

He just doesn't know the capabilities of what usb-c can do. Just another used car salesman.

Galaxy Note 7 comes with USB-C.

 

[netdoc66]

Apple, every lack of feature solved by the use of an adapter. You got me last year with the 12" Mac Book. You will not get me again with this.

 

[Dirtydutch]

At some point an audio jack is no longer going to exist in anything. Innovation will find a replacement. Apple's thinking ahead and others will soon follow.

Exactly, a proactive move so they can begin broadening the spectrum of what could possibly be done with the increased real estate

 

[CarlJ]

We will have the full explanation and reasoning like always come the keynote there's no need to tear into it so in depth right now when we're still so in the dark and uninformed.

How dare you speak reason!
[doublepost=1470251981][/doublepost]

Any reason why Apple cant just add 2 Lightning Ports, so you can charge and use headphones at the same time

I expect the primary reason would be, Apple likes simple. Like really likes simple. Like, would marry simple if they could. Two identical jacks would not be simple.

 

[gregoryalee]

You couldn't be more wrong. Good future headphones will be platform agnostic...

Oh you mean the way wired headphones are today? Do you not see the insanity?

 

[yettavr6]

It also has a bigger battery. mAh for mAh iPhone is superior.

Definitely, no disagreement there. Having used multiple iPhone's and Android's, the optimization between Apple's hardware and software is apparent. I just don't put any faith into that chart because based on my experience, it's inaccurate as far as the Nexus phones go. Most likely their testing doesn't represent real-world use very well.

 

[MH01]

Because if Apple does it, Samsung has to copy it.

They will only copy it , if it's successful , let's see how the sales go

 

[jujufreeze]

At some point an audio jack is no longer going to exist in anything. Innovation will find a replacement. Apple's thinking ahead and others will soon follow.

Great- inconvenience! the Future! Headphones/auxiliary inputs will no longer "just work" for all your equipment. Let's introduce latency, inferior audio quality, need to recharge more devices and clunky adapters that are a pain in the a**!

 

[1129708]

I don't think you or most people understand the reasons behind moving away from the 50 year old technology of the 3.5mm analog headphone jack. All music files played on any handheld device today are digital. The audio jack requires an analog output, so every device has to have a digital to analog converter chip to convert the file on the fly. It makes sense to just keep the flow of digital to digital. And the biggest port now on any device is the audio jack, so it limits the size to which a device can be manufactured. So why should we stick with 50 year old technology and limit the size of our devices, just for nostalgia? Heck, let's just put the 8mm headphone jack on there too. When you have a look at old pc laptops of the 90's and see the massive serial ports on the back, you cringe. The same will go for the headphone jack.

That's not how audio works. All speakers are analog, even Bluetooth ones, so a DAC (Digital to Analog Converter) still has to exist somewhere between the source component and the speakers you play the music through. Right now what happens is the DAC is inside the phone, and then passes the audio to the 3.5mm headphone jack and to the speakers. There's no quality improvements for sending the analog signal through the Lightning connector like Apple is proposing, you're just changing the shape of the port (and making most existing headphones either incompatible, or requiring an adapter). Also, you can see on breakdowns that the 3.5mm jack doesn't really consume that much space in the device, which is why the iPod Touch has been thinner than iPhones but still has the jack - there are other components that take up more space and are preventing the phone from utilizing the loss of the jack component piece.

The real fear from this is that eventually devices may not have a DAC, and will instead outsource that to the headphones themselves (this is the manner that USB headphones work on computers currently when they identify as sound cards upon insertion). That's piss-poor design, and makes finding quality headphones annoyingly more difficult, since you'll have to research the DAC and the speaker sound quality of the cans. It also makes headphones more expensive by buying a duplicate component for each set when you could just buy the DAC once in the price of the original source device.

 

[drumcat]

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.

This is technically false unless you have an A2DP dongle. Audio passed over BT 4.0 is inferior by specification. Fast & loose with facts doesn't cut it.
[doublepost=1470255488][/doublepost]

The average person isn't going to care. The only people who are going to care are people who spent money on high-end wired headphones, and people who just want to complain because they want to complain.

The average iPhone user is either going to think it's awesome or be completely indifferent. Why would the average person give a crap about wired or wireless? They just want headphones to listen to music. If its wired, cool. If it's wireless, cool. The average person doesn't care about this, at all.

That argument is the "why is anyone going to be upset when we leave 30-pin cables". The difference is that the newer cable was better and faster (overall durability aside). The "average user" is going to be more upset that his/her $15 crap headphones have nowhere to go than you realise.

 

[Nuvi]

Even in something as small as an iPhone it will make a big difference.

Sorry mate but it will make zero difference if channel separation is non existent. You need channel separation to create stereophonic soundstage.

 

[drumcat]

Exactly, a proactive move so they can begin broadening the spectrum of what could possibly be done with the increased real estate

That's bogus. All that's happened thus far is "thinner". No one wants thinner, but thinner is what you get when you don't have anything else to add. But yes, let's speculate. What goes in the "hole"? More battery? OK, another 50mAh. Oh, now it's waterproof? Nah, bro. Other phones with 3.5 plugs are already there. So, are we holding out for the iris scanner?

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Exactly, a proactive move so they can begin broadening the spectrum of what could possibly be done with the increased real estate

Sure. My prediction for that "increased real estate"? It will be consumed with "thinner."

And I'm somewhat buying that they may put a stereo speaker in there too, so apparently people with access to Pym Particles can sit in the Lightning jack and hear good stereo separation. Those without? Just think how nice it will look (probably inside some case) to have matching set of smaller round holes to those on the other side of the Lightning jack. Personally, I have been sooooooo embarrassed that total strangers might see that lack of symmetry in those few moments when the iPhone might be out of it's case and that abomination is visible.

If they had big plans for increased real estate, they could have chosen to thin it less when they went from the 5 to the 6 and fill all that much greater space with all kinds of possibilities, particularly a much bigger battery. Nobody faulted the 5 as being "too thick" but Apple went "thinner" (as thin as they could go) anyway. And that- IMO- is what this ejection will yield too.

I believe Apple has bumped into a "thinner" wall, where to get that 10 seconds to make the "thinnest iPhone ever" claim at the big reveal, it now takes kicking things OUT of the iDevices. First to go was the former proprietary 30-pin connecter replaced by proprietary Lightning.

Next to go? the 3.5mm connector replaced by proprietary Lightning.

Next to go? Camera? Battery?

Next to go? the other one that you didn't just guess.

Next to go? Lightning for proprietary Lightning 2 because by that point, Lightning "as is" will be in the way of "thinner"

Who cares about any of that? There's always at least 10+ guys who will passionately argue for anything or everything Apple wants to do. Eventually, there will be an empty box called iPhone and those 10+ guys will be arguing the genius in paying for that box and then assembling what used to be INSIDE all from accessory purchases. Every one of those steps can be spun as "the future" just like this one. For example, battery & camera are MORE antiquated than 3.5mm jack. So see "the future..." coming to an iPhone near you.

 

[drumcat]

Sorry mate but it will make zero difference if channel separation is non existent. You need channel separation to create stereophonic soundstage.

I'd grant you that if you were watching a video, landscape, and the sound came out left & right equally, it would be an improvement.

That said, it wouldn't be about the plug at that point, would it? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
[doublepost=1470256094][/doublepost]

You couldn't be more wrong. Good future headphones will be platform agnostic, and a cord swap will make them compatible with any platform, wireless, digital or analogue. In addition, adapters .......

Aaaaaand stop. There are no adapters making this stuff better. Only less convenient. I mean re-read that... "and a cord swap will make them compatible"

Why on earth would you want to introduce a solution that isn't a problem now?

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

At some point an audio jack is no longer going to exist in anything. Innovation will find a replacement. Apple's thinking ahead and others will soon follow.

At some point, cell phones are no longer going to exist for anything. So let's hurry that along by getting rid of them now.

As some point, people are no longer going to exist for anything. So let's hurry that along by getting rid of them now.

Is any of that genius too? Isn't that "thinking ahead" and making a good decision to accelerate inevitable change? (rhetorical) I know, only Apple's moves that inconvenience us can be genius.

 

[drumcat]

Yes so lets help apple make more money!

You can save a $1, and when you sell 0.05% fewer because of that reason, the margin evaporates like a fart in the wind.

Any reason why Apple cant just add 2 Lightning Ports, so you can charge and use headphones at the same time

There seems to be enough room and it would probably still take up less room internally than the current Headphone Jack. And you would get the better water resistance

Two lightning ports? You'd take up more room and cost more in parts than the 3.5 removal, by far. The easier way to do this is to look at the HDMI Lightning dongle. It has its own stupidity in how it downrezs the picture, but it does offer a "lightning power in" option. This lets you charge and do the HDMI out at the same time. It also helps justify the large size of the adapter itself.