We already have headphones that do have circuitry, they have the entire DAC on them. That's what USB headsets are for computers. I'm still wondering what you think is going to be able to be done with them on a phone? At the end of the day, all speakers are still analog and will be that way forever.
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Samsung Mocks Apple's Decision to Remove the Headphone Jack in iPhone 7
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We already have headphones that do have circuitry, they have the entire DAC on them. That's what USB headsets are for computers. I'm still wondering what you think is going to be able to be done with them on a phone? At the end of the day, all speakers are still analog and will be that way forever.
So? What about all the other ideas a digital port enables? Stick your head in the sand as much as you like, you can't come up with a sensible answer becuase you don't know what will be invented.
Don't think you understand the benefit of digital audio out, instead of having a poor amp inside the device so what ever headphone or speaker system you have is not going to make much difference in the quality of the sound, by going down the digital road then you can improve the sound with no limitations as the amp and DAC will be handled external.
Apple most likely doing this for other than audio quality as every 1m is important to them, I like to see a thicker phone with a flush camera than thinner with a dick sticking out of the back, but some may like that dick thing on the back of phones
I don't know what's going to be done. The difference between you and me is that you want to forbid those possibilities while I want to enable them. You're either afraid of change or unable to imagine how it can make things better, Either way I feel sorry for you.
I mean for me it is. It is simple. I have headphones. I insert. I listen. I do not have to worry about charging my headphones or pairing.
How do you know when you haven't seen the innovations that the digital port has enabled?
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That's how USB/Lightning headphones work too.
Haha, OK. Moving sideways to a propriety enclave maybe. If Apple went USB C then maybe - that would make sense as the new mac book has USB C (no mac has lightning).
Well I agree with you on that, I have a new phone with no headphone port and one USB C port, which I love by the way. I've never owned an iPhone.
The internal speaker still NEEDS A DAC (internal) to convert the digital signal to an analog signal that can be played over the internal speaker.
Removing the 3.5mm jack, a ubiquitous standard across laptops, desktops, automobiles, tablets, music players, phones, even in-seat audio connections from various airlines, is a bad idea that will inconvenience millions of consumers.
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You don't know enough about how any of this works, that's why you can't imagine specifically how it will make things better. We've had USB headphones for many years now, they supply an important niche but there's only so much that can be done with audio. Source -> DAC -> Speakers. Anything else would be software level control, which we already do through many different applications (lowering volume for notifications, equalizers, etc). All of the control, and the improvements that you imagine, have to take place at the software level because once the signal passes the DAC to go to the speakers, it's a done deal. So having headphones connect to a digital port isn't going to provide any more opportunities for advancements and creative applications than we already have. The capabilities you imagine are already here, and have been for as long as we've used computers for audio, and the port has nothing to do with it.
At the end of the day, multiple ports are always going to be better than a single port. Flexibility for one. Apple were the architects of elegant mobile design at one point, it saddens me to see them reduced to relying (apparently) on an inelegant external dongle. But hey there is always Beats... which Apple own... how convenient.
because it's not like apple took it away and replaced it with the allegedly better port. They literally are going to simply take it away, full stop.
The 'innovations' that you speak of from the digital port is alreadyavailable today. On the iPhone 6s. Don't hold our breath for some amazing new feature that the lightning port will suddenly magically now do because they take away the headphone port..
The argument is not headphone jack vs. Lightning jack here.
That's where the misconception is occurring.
The argument, really, is: headphone jack + lightning port vs. Lightning port + nothing
I say the former is better than the latter.
I've developed hardware and software systems for 30 years. What have you done? You do not have the slightest bit of creativity, looking at your comments. The innovations don't have to have anything to do with the audio, they might be hardware controls or anything. If you think that an analog port is as flexible as a digital port I can't help you, and neither can anyone else.
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Actually it's very important since it forces the issue and moves the market forward, just like several such actions by Apple has shown. Removing a large, dumb port also enables thinner phones or frees up the space for other features or improved performance.
You seem to be intent on being narrow minded about this. "None so blind and he who will not see."
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Wow, that's a convincing argument!
What's you next one, "I know what you are but what am I?"
My comments are the science behind how it works. If you designed hardware and software you'd know that the port doesn't matter here because everything already has to happen at the software level before the DAC, meaning that we already have full access to the capabilities you're alluding to. That's not a lack of creativity. I'm saying that we already have all the tools and access to be as creative as we want with the audio feed and controls. If you were talking about anything but audio output I'd agree that a digital port is better but since there's no way to take analog out of the overall equation, then it doesn't matter how we connect the speakers to the DAC because that connection is always going to be analog no matter what.
But redundant ports take up valuable space - there is no free lunch. Most likely phone makers will provide both options, ie phones with and without a headphone ports (personally I never use mine), people should realize that the headphone is not going away just yet, although it is going to become a bit rarer.
In fact what you're talking about already exists in Bluetooth headsets. Since analog signal cannot be transmitted in that manner, Bluetooth headphones receive a digital signal. Each Bluetooth headset has to have its own DAC, since by design it has to bypass the DAC in the phone to convert the digital signal to analog onboard. As you can see from the Bluetooth market, we still have the same abilities we do with any other form of headphones by controlling things via software. All we've done is move the DAC and eliminate wired interfaces altogether.
I like the continuity of all my apple products but they underwhelm with upgrades. Samsungs phones pack more innovation, surface tablets pack more innovation, heck HP laptops pack more innovation. I'm in no way switching, but I'm also not buying any new Apple products!!
No such pin-out, most of the pins in the Lightning connector are not fixed, except for a brief conversation the connector has each time it's plugged in, to establish what signals should be sent/received on each pin. Yes, some of those could probably include analog audio (left/right/ground), I suggested as much about 20 pages back (yeah, long thread). An external DAC may not be necessary for a basic headphone adapter.
My original thought for such an adapter was to go much smaller than what has been suggested/shown: imagine a small cylinder just barely big enough to hold the 3.5mm jack itself, with the Lightning connector sticking out one side (kind of like one wing sticking out from the fuselage of an airplane, with the open end of the jack where the cockpit would be), so it plugs in and lays flat long the bottom edge of the phone, with the headphone cord sticking out towards one end of the bottom edge of the phone. Bonus points if your headphones have an L-shaped plug, because now the wire points down and/or rotating the plug in the jack makes the cord exit to the front or back of the phone.
Very true, MH1
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Ah nope, both of us forgot that there are still internal phone speakers, so there will still be a DAC in the phone. So all this achieves is adding extra weight and cost to every set of headphones you own (or a dongle). And besides, seriously, what does a DAC in a phone weigh?!
Does everything look phallic to you? Are you constantly seeing male genitalia wherever you go? Is this some sort of weird preoccupation of yours? I have never once before heard anyone manage to look at the iPhone's camera and see only a dick.