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

[Feenician]

I seriously doubt 90% of people will complain if the iPhone is as thick as a Galaxy phone if it means a better battery life and no camera hump, or complain if it was also a little heavier.
Many people would like a phone that lasts a day from even just talking on it! It's just making excess for what Apple has chosen to do and their are many events everyday that people go to expecting their phones to last the day. Reviewers even called Apple on their battery life compared to the competition.

People are already complaining in advance about a phone that hasn't been released, or even unveiled having "no innovation". If Apple released a bigger, heavier phone right now the internet would collectively crap itself and the very same people calling for more battery life would have a field day if the iphone got thicker and heavier. "Weightgate", no doubt

In any case the iphone is competitive in battery life to other flag ships, winning some and losing others, and the macrumors beloved galaxy phones also have a camera hump.

 

[44267547]

sad thing about most android phones is their resale value and pricedrops.
my allmost 2 year old iphone sells used for the same price as my big brothers 7 month old s6 edge plus now cost as new.
worse with my little brothers sony z phone.

It's true. iPhones have an incredible resale value, as well as most of Apple's products do. I plan on selling my SE next month on EBay in place of the new iPhone 7 launching and I can guarantee I will gain about 90% of what I spent, even though it's a newer phone.

I have seen broken/smashed iPhones sell for over $200.00 just for parts.

 

[thekeyring]

You don't have to pay 100 bucks for wireless earbuds, and I doubt the price delta for lightening earbuds will be much... there are enough iPhones for the market to adjust. I used these to workout - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B017GQ6KI6/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1 . They are $25. They sound great and stay in my ears well during a workout. I charge them about 1-2 times a week. The last earbuds I bought I paid more for and they didn't last because the cord gets hung on things and eventually breaks. My other headphones are Bose QC25s, and the cord is detachable so possibly they will release a lighting cord... if not, the adapter won't cause me that much of a problem.... annoying at most.



My Dell laptop that my company gave me to use doesn't have a DVD drive. Its not just Apple that has dropped them. I bought a cheap external drive that I use (ironically made by Samsung) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MLXA1KI/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 . I had an Apple one that I passed to my daughter because the Apple one would not work if it were plugged in to a hub... had to be directly attached to a Mac. So you don't HAVE to buy expensive Apple peripherals and other companies are dropping the DVD drives. About the only use case that is a real problem is someone that wants to watch DVD movies on their laptop while traveling. But the battery usage of that is high, and much better to use a downloaded version of the movie. I use the Amazon app on my iPad/iPhone to watch movies on planes.



I'm sure they'll include lightening earbuds, so the complaint about not including wireless won't really be valid.

That was just meant to be an example of how Apple wouldn't have to take a 'backwards step' to respond to customer feedback.

Another example is Watch criticisms: people often say things like 'I don't see the point in the Watch ... because it requires an iPhone.' The clear change there is not to discontinue the Watch but to remove its reliance on iPhone.
[doublepost=1470295229][/doublepost]

The person who spent money on high end wired headphones will simply add an adapter to the end of the wire and forget it. "99% "of folks use one set of headphones; thus not the life altering experience some are suggesting. Moreover, those who purchase high end wired headphones are exactly the people who will most appreciate the improvement in sound that the new phone is providing, better speakers, improved wireless, two way DAC, etc.

I know people bitch and moan about them, but most people you see use the headphones that came in the box. If Apple believes wireless is the future they can ship wireless headphones (or lightning headphones if they want to be cheap) and people will carry on the same as before.

 

[Jimrod]

*Phil Schiller enters*

Sounds like a spoken-word descriptive of a terrible porn film.

 

[The Game 161]

It's true. iPhones have an incredible resale value, as well as most of Apple's products do. I plan on selling my SE next month on EBay in place of the new iPhone 7 launching and I can guarantee I will gain about 90% of what I spent, even though it's a newer phone.

I have seen broken/smashed iPhones sell for over $200.00 just for parts.

Fair point yes

My s7 edge can go for 330 pounds while my iPhone 6s Plus I could sell now for 470

BUT the edge is a 32GB while my iPhone is 128GB So that is rather big difference

 

[beanbaguk]

Aren't they removing it for space and you get better audio quality with the lightning connection?

I know it's not a popular move, but those are the reasons right?

No, no, no.

Once again the lack of knowledge in this shows how Apple's marketing engine targets ignorance in the general public.

They make an absolute mockery out of their customers and I think it would be great if MacRumours actually did a proper piece on this to explain what the in's and out's of removing an audio jack mean.

In the meantime, here's my input.

Apple have decided to remove the jack explaining they want to offer better quality audio and provide more space for a battery in the phone.

This is ludicrous as they are making the phone slimmer so the capacity increase will be minimal (probably an extra 10 minutes if you're lucky), for pretty much no advantage, and I'll explain why.

Audio on a digital device such as an iPhone is digital by nature. A series of 0's and 1's that need to be translated into analogue form for humans to hear. Whatever happens, humans cannot hear digital sound so this data needs to be converted into analogue form at some point as it reaches your ears.

Another very important thing to consider is most of your music is compressed using algorithms that compress the data and eliminate "the bits you cannot hear". The lower the bitrate, the more it strips out and that means poorer quality audio.

Before this digital music can be heard, it has to be decompressed to a RAW PCM format. Most users will listen to 160Kbps audio which is pretty terrible quality so unless you have high bitrate or lossless compression music, no change in the audio output will increase the quality for you.

Therefore, all the following statements are wrong:

• 3.5mm jacks are old technology so therefore inferior quality to digital lightning connectors
  • The audio jack is simply a means to carry an analogue audio signal to your ears. It has nothing to do with the quality of the audio.
• 3.5mm jacks don't offer HD sound.
  • If you genuinely think this, what do you think "HD sound" is? This is total marketing crap and once again, the jacks have nothing to do with the quality of the audio.

Remember what I started with. Digital audio must be converted to analogue form at some point in the process and all Apple are doing is making their phones cheaper to manufacture (by removing the necessary components to do this), and forcing many users down a proprietary format for more control on their side.

Here are some real facts:

• Current iPhones have a chip inside them called a DAC. This stands for a "Digital to Analogue Converter". It's this little puppy that turns all your 0's and 1's into something you can listen to. This analogue signal then gets pumped through an amplifier to boost the sound volume and then sent through your 3.5mm jack to your headphones.
• Apple is simply removing all three components to save money and forcing you to buy an adaptor that will do the same thing, outside of the phone.
• By using an adaptor plugged into your lightning port, you won't have any improved audio quality at all (unless Apple choose to use a much higher quality DAC inside their adaptor which will be highly unlikely as high end DAC's are rather pricey).

So what does this mean to you? If you have a good quality set of wired headphones / earbuds, you will have to invest even more money and have to carry a dongle adaptor around to continue using them.

Moreover, unless Apple offer a solution to this, there will be no way to listen to music and charge your phone at the same time.

The only advantage is to Apple. They save money manufacturing their phones while removing important features from their phones.

And what about Bluetooth users I hear you ask? There's no change to you but Apple doesn't support AptX so unless you have a set of headphones that supports AAC, you will experience poorer quality audio; But the fact of the matter is few of you will notice or care.

On top of this, Bluetooth headphones have the DAC built into the headphones so if your headphone manufacturer puts a cheap DAC inside them, you will get crap quality audio. You are entirely depending on 3rd parties to deliver the audio quality you might want and the likelihood is very few will offer decent quality DAC's.

So in a nutshell:

• Removing the 3.5mm jack will not improve audio quality.
• This is purely a money saving exercise for Apple.
• Apple are forcing consumers to buy more accessories to compensate for the loss of the jack.
• The real likelihood is you will actually see a decrease in audio quality as 3rd party manufacturers will use cheap, poor quality DAC's.

Most of you won't really care at all, but don't get misled and fooled by the Apple Marketing Machine. Know the facts first.
[doublepost=1470299243][/doublepost]

Better audio quality than the regular headphone jack .

No. Read my post.

 

[amenono]

No, no, no.

Once again the lack of knowledge in this shows how Apple's marketing engine targets ignorance in the general public.

They make an absolute mockery out of their customers and I think it would be great if MacRumours actually did a proper piece on this to explain what the in's and out's of removing an audio jack mean.

In the meantime, here's my input.

Apple have decided to remove the jack explaining they want to offer better quality audio and provide more space for a battery in the phone.

This is ludicrous as they are making the phone slimmer so the capacity increase will be minimal (probably an extra 10 minutes if you're lucky), for pretty much no advantage, and I'll explain why.

Audio on a digital device such as an iPhone is digital by nature. A series of 0's and 1's that need to be translated into analogue form for humans to hear. Whatever happens, humans cannot hear digital sound so this data needs to be converted into analogue form at some point as it reaches your ears.

Another very important thing to consider is most of your music is compressed using algorithms that compress the data and eliminate "the bits you cannot hear". The lower the bitrate, the more it strips out and that means poorer quality audio.

Before this digital music can be heard, it has to be decompressed to a RAW PCM format. Most users will listen to 160Kbps audio which is pretty terrible quality so unless you have high bitrate or lossless compression music, no change in the audio output will increase the quality for you.

Therefore, all the following statements are wrong:

• 3.5mm jacks are old technology so therefore inferior quality to digital lightning connectors
  • The audio jack is simply a means to carry an analogue audio signal to your ears. It has nothing to do with the quality of the audio.
• 3.5mm jacks don't offer HD sound.
  • If you genuinely think this, what do you think "HD sound" is? This is total marketing crap and once again, the jacks have nothing to do with the quality of the audio.

Remember what I started with. Digital audio must be converted to analogue form at some point in the process and all Apple are doing is making their phones cheaper to manufacture (by removing the necessary components to do this), and forcing many users down a proprietary format for more control on their side.

Here are some real facts:

• Current iPhones have a chip inside them called a DAC. This stands for a "Digital to Analogue Converter". It's this little puppy that turns all your 0's and 1's into something you can listen to. This analogue signal then gets pumped through an amplifier to boost the sound volume and then sent through your 3.5mm jack to your headphones.
• Apple is simply removing all three components to save money and forcing you to buy an adaptor that will do the same thing, outside of the phone.
• By using an adaptor plugged into your lightning port, you won't have any improved audio quality at all (unless Apple choose to use a much higher quality DAC inside their adaptor which will be highly unlikely as high end DAC's are rather pricey).

So what does this mean to you? If you have a good quality set of wired headphones / earbuds, you will have to invest even more money and have to carry a dongle adaptor around to continue using them.

Moreover, unless Apple offer a solution to this, there will be no way to listen to music and charge your phone at the same time.

The only advantage is to Apple. They save money manufacturing their phones while removing important features from their phones.

And what about Bluetooth users I hear you ask? There's no change to you but Apple doesn't support AptX so unless you have a set of headphones that supports AAC, you will experience poorer quality audio; But the fact of the matter is few of you will notice or care.

On top of this, Bluetooth headphones have the DAC built into the headphones so if your headphone manufacturer puts a cheap DAC inside them, you will get crap quality audio. You are entirely depending on 3rd parties to deliver the audio quality you might want and the likelihood is very few will offer decent quality DAC's.

So in a nutshell:

• Removing the 3.5mm jack will not improve audio quality.
• This is purely a money saving exercise for Apple.
• Apple are forcing consumers to buy more accessories to compensate for the loss of the jack.
• The real likelihood is you will actually see a decrease in audio quality as 3rd party manufacturers will use cheap, poor quality DAC's.

Most of you won't really care at all, but don't get misled and fooled by the Apple Marketing Machine. Know the facts first.
[doublepost=1470299243][/doublepost]

No. Read my post.

No kidding?!
Watch this:

 

[beanbaguk]

No kidding?!
Watch this:

The Audeze Sine's have a very high end DAC which influences the sound quality massively, and I would expect just that for US$500.

However, most people will spend US$100 tops and I assure you. No difference in quality (maybe less), and reduced functionality in the phone itself.

You might as well compare Apple's crappy earbuds against a pair of B&W P7's and somehow be "blown away" by the audio quality. Of course it's going to be better.

 

[Atlantico]

People also bitched about the removal of a CD drive on MacBooks, not supporting flash on iPhone, not including flash in OS X, et cetera, et cetera. People will get over it.

Removal of CD drives in all Macs and never supporting BD was crucial for Apple, to change from a company which enabled people to be creative, to becoming a glorified Virgin Megastore.

Apple Macintosh used to be able to do everything a PC could do, but better and in a more elegant way. No longer.

Now it's just a bunch of fanbois bitching about the people who dare point out that it's stupid to drop the 3.5mm jack.

 

[CarlJ]

Apple have decided to remove the jack explaining they want to offer better quality audio and provide more space for a battery in the phone.

You're saying that Apple has already given an explanation of their reasoning for features which haven't themselves been announced yet? Please cite an article where this information has been published.

Here are some real facts:

• Apple is simply removing all three components to save money and forcing you to buy an adaptor that will do the same thing, outside of the phone.

Saying, "here are some real facts," before stating your opinion, does not magically turn your opinion into a fact. Furthermore, you're giving motives for Apple's (future, possible) actions, which you cannot know (unless you personally are highly placed in Apple's management, and breaking all sorts of NDA's) - you're guessing. Guesses are not facts.

In addition, you're responding to comments from page one of this thread. We're up to page thirty three now. The comment you're answering at great length (with a bunch of opinions misrepresented as facts) has already been answered a dozen or so times. The person you're answering has long since moved away, gone to college, gotten married, had a long career, and retired. Did you not think to check this?

 

[The Game 161]

I'm sure next month Apple will explain why they are doing it. Can't imagine them just acting like it's not happened.

I'm sure they will put more focus on the new camera which will likely be the main new feature.

 

[amenono]

The Audeze Sine's have a very high end DAC which influences the sound quality massively, and I would expect just that for US$500.

However, most people will spend US$100 tops and I assure you. No difference in quality (maybe less), and reduced functionality in the phone itself.

You might as well compare Apple's crappy earbuds against a pair of B&W P7's and somehow be "blown away" by the audio quality. Of course it's going to be better.

Use "Apple's crappy earbuds" and compare the same file played on iPhone 4, iPhone 5(S), iPhone 6(S).
You'll be blown away by the audio quality of the iPhone... 4! What is the explanation? Newer iPhones use low-power audio chip for headphones output.

So I prefer lightning/bluetooth headphones.

 

[sanook997]

These days, it seems Samsung appears be innovating more than Apple in the mobile phone market.

Could you be specific about innovations that have meaning?
[doublepost=1470305887][/doublepost]

No kidding?!
Watch this:

Post your resume.......

 

[beanbaguk]

You're saying that Apple has already given an explanation of their reasoning for features which haven't themselves been announced yet? Please cite an article where this information has been published.

Saying, "here are some real facts," before stating your opinion, does not magically turn your opinion into a fact. Furthermore, you're giving motives for Apple's (future, possible) actions, which you cannot know (unless you personally are highly placed in Apple's management, and breaking all sorts of NDA's) - you're guessing. Guesses are not facts.

In addition, you're responding to comments from page one of this thread. We're up to page thirty three now. The comment you're answering at great length (with a bunch of opinions misrepresented as facts) has already been answered a dozen or so times. The person you're answering has long since moved away, gone to college, gotten married, had a long career, and retired. Did you not think to check this?

Thank you for your concerns. I'll duly ignore your rhetoric and continue as normal. Kind regards.

 

[drumcat]

Do you honestly believe you're the only one in this thread who understands what a DAC is? How audio processing works? How speaker cones work?

You declare that they are not going to pass analog audio through the Lightning port, and you declare opinions to the contrary to be "factually wrong". You can't know that. The Lightning standard is proprietary to Apple, and they've stated they designed it to last for fifteen years, after their long experience with the 30-pin connector and all the trouble they had reassigning wires on that over the years to support new things while not breaking old things. The Lightning connector is known to assign pins through software negotiation at startup. It's Apple's connector to do with as they please (it has to not break current uses, but given the startup negotiation, that isn't too hard) and we know they left themselves lots of avenues for expansion. It's not unreasonable to assume they could probably route analog signals over the connector if they chose to do so. With you unequivocally declaring it a fact that this is not possible, I see two possibilities: 1) you have inside knowledge from Apple and are currently breaking NDA's, or 2) you don't know what the word "fact" means when you say, "that's just factually wrong" (saying something is a fact doesn't make it true). Would it help if we give you a detailed multi-paragraph lecture on the meaning of the word "fact", like you've delivered about DAC's?

Does this mean they will route analog over the Lightning port? No. It means they likely could if they wanted to. Will they? I don't know. We'll find out in September. But there's already enough opinions stated as fact in this thread. Please don't presume that everyone will suddenly agree that your opinion is the One Sacred Truth if you explain what some of them big confusin' words mean.

The Lightning cable spec, widely available, requires that MFi certification allow headphones to pass, digitally, lossless 48k sample rate audio.

I'm fairly certain that I'm on safe ground here. Besides, I'm not asking for people to agree with my opinion that removing the 3.5 jack is idiotic and premature. All I am asking is that people who argue the other side don't use misinformation in supporting their argument.

So while it is technically possible to pass an analog audio signal through the copper, the published specifications to headphone manufacturers would have to be thrown out the window for the purpose of some experimental process that would be a huge step backwards technically.

So, please, stop. I would wager 10000:1 that Apple has no intention of passing an analog signal over a digital conduit. Re-read if you must, but the statements about how Lightning, BT4, and A2DP work are facts.

My opinion is simple. Removing the 3.5 is a design choice that offers no improvement over a 6s, and is intended to generate Beats revenue at the expense of customer experience.

Nice and separated for you, Carl.

 

[TallManNY]

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]

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.

I did not know the audio was degraded that much over bluetooth. I've noticed nothing about that so far. What I have noticed between the two headphones I bought is that the over ear "cans" sound better than the in ear sport ones. But that is to be expected due to the size of their respective speakers. Each sounds, to me, as good as my cheaper corded headphones. And the convenience of not having a cord is very nice. It is hard to say why, but it just is.

In the end, I think Apple has gotten this right again. If you want the best quality sound, then connecting to the lightning port is going to be better because more data can be passed through it (I believe). If you want the best convenience, you should be using wireless headphones. But in no event should you be using the jack except because of legacy headphones. And basically the consumer hasn't figured this out because that jack that they know was always there.

That is the thinking. Apple is just going to tell people they should go buy new headphones. And I think there are going to be wireless bluetooth ear pods provided with the phone. This is going to be the first introduction many people get to bluetooth earphones. I bet the sound quality is going to be good enough for them.

 

[apolloa]

People are already complaining in advance about a phone that hasn't been released, or even unveiled having "no innovation". If Apple released a bigger, heavier phone right now the internet would collectively crap itself and the very same people calling for more battery life would have a field day if the iphone got thicker and heavier. "Weightgate", no doubt

In any case the iphone is competitive in battery life to other flag ships, winning some and losing others, and the macrumors beloved galaxy phones also have a camera hump.

Yeah, maybe Apple would make the phone thicker, going against every single rumour so far. What would you say then? You should also go and read my other comments, considering my main complaint was of the phone I own already and not one that is not out yet!
But what ever makes you happy I guess? I also like how you expressed your opinion as a fact of the entire internet lol.

 

[TheKingZA]

Very funny until the next samsung comes without a headphone jack... it will happen just a matter of time.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

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 headphone jack is a LOT different!!!!!! Unlike CD-Roms and floppy drives, there is NOTHING WRONG with current headphones or the jack they use! You will NOT get better performance from a Lightning jack (pure BS; even cheap DACs are damn near perfect these days with <0.1dB variance for even dirt cheap DACs. The headphone op-amp is a different story, but it's not that hard to get headphones that work fine with phones for god's sake) and you will require batteries to operate your headphones on top of that (step down). Bluetooth has had reduced sound quality for ages due to limited bandwidth so it's pure convenience (e.g. http://www.harbeth.co.uk/usergroup/...oth-technology-actually-good-enough-for-audio) and current wired headphones suffer from NONE of these problems and are full bandwidth.

So you trying to compare obsolete standards with something that will NEVER be "obsolete" in the technical sense is RIDICULOUS. The iPhone needs to lose its headphone jack about as bad as I need to lose my hand and replace it with a freaking hook!

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.

I have NO IDEA why you think it HAS TO GO AWAY (or rather "DEFINITELY" will) when there's nothing wrong with it. How thin does your phone need to be? At what point is it going to be uncomfortable to carry if it's even thinner? There is NO NEED to get rid of that jack today, tomorrow or EVER. Even if Bluetooth had tons of bandwidth, it would still require batteries in the headphones (just what you need, more batteries to worry about) so there will always be a COST associated with going wireless and in many situations wireless offers no real benefit (e.g. on an airplane).

Getting rid of the floppy drive and old PS2 ports made sense. It made less sense to ditch optical drives entirely when Blu-Ray is still around and moving a music collection will still require a drive, etc. (i.e. I had to buy an external USB3 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD drive for my Mac Mini. It's vital to maintaining my whole house media system (I have to get those movies onto the computer from BD somehow unless you'd rather have Apple-System locked iTunes files that are far inferior to Blu-Ray). Getting rid of a standard that has nothing wrong with it and never will makes NO SENSE except to Apple as they hope to resell you Beats headphones that only work with Apple products or requires an expensive adapter to use with anything else.

This is made worse by the fact that Lightning isn't a standard at all! It's doubtful even Apple will have Lightning in the next 5 years as USB-C (micro or not) becomes the de-facto standard for EVERYTHING including Thunderbolt III. Thus your Apple Beats headphones (inaccurate garbage, BTW) won't work with ANYTHING else without an adapter (from home theater/stereos to other brand phones). WTF wants THAT when ALL headphones currently work with all audio equipment ever made that has a headphone jack (some older 1/4" adapters may be required if you go back to 1980s or earlier equipment)? Why does Apple want to make the world a less compatible more irritating place except for their own personal gain??? Ask yourself that.

 

[MaloCS]

Better audio quality than the regular headphone jack .

Wrong!

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

The Audeze Sine's have a very high end DAC which influences the sound quality massively, and I would expect just that for US$500.

BS. "High-End" DACs are snake-oil these days. The high-end Burr Browns from the '90s that had less than 0.1dB variance in frequency response sell for like 25 cents these days. NO ONE can hear differences that small PERIOD.

I would venture that the real reason they are hearing a difference is that it probably has different volume output levels when connected via Lightning using and internal DAC than an analog cable. This would be like SACD, which outputs different overall volume levels for SACD and CD sound (SACD sounds LOUDER and thus the psychological effect is that with the same 2-channel album included in both SACD and CD versions on the other side of the disc that the SACD version sounds louder and therefore "better" to most ears.

In other words, you MUST volume match (with a meter) the output levels between the two things being compared (in this case the headphone output via analog cable versus the output via Lightning + Internal DAC). If they are not the same, it totally invalidates the test. Pure snake-oil at its best.

However, most people will spend US$100 tops and I assure you. No difference in quality (maybe less), and reduced functionality in the phone itself.

I have no problem with spending thousands on high quality audio gear (e.g. my home living room Carver ribbon speakers were $2000 a pair modified with custom active crossovers and thus bi-amping as well), but I expect actual sound improvements for my money. "Audiophile" gear is NOTORIOUS for selling snake-oil products over the years from green markers (priced up to $30 for something that Crayola would sell you for a quarter) that you "mark the edge of the CD with" and this supposedly magically reduced jitter somehow (How? It didn't! It was a sham) to "mats" you place in your CD player that supposedly make CDs sound better (in reality it caused the CD player's transport motor to load down and use more power which would make the playback speed less accurate in the short term and destroy the motor in the long term unless it had sufficient power to handle the increased mass load).

And of course these high-end external DACs they sell for THOUSANDS in the high-end want you to believe it magically makes a bad album sound great, but that's crazy too. I had an external DAC I was using on the above mentioned system. I paid $20 for it to use with the newer AppleTVs, etc. I wouldn't do that if I believed for one second that it was going to sound bad. It sounded no different at all. I recently replaced that with an older Technics AC-3/DTS/Stereo decoder module I had in a different room when I added surround sound to that (mostly stereo) system (I have a separate home theater downstairs but I already had the unit so I thought I'd try it out with some speakers I acquired to play DTS surround sound music CDs in the living room instead of just the home theater and it sounded so good I kept the setup).

I could go on forever about sham products in high-end audio, but I'm not going to. Suffice to say don't believe everything you read in ads.

 

[beanbaguk]

The headphone jack is a LOT different!!!!!! Unlike CD-Roms and floppy drives, there is NOTHING WRONG with current headphones or the jack they use! You will NOT get better performance from a Lightning jack (pure BS; even cheap DACs are damn near perfect these days with <0.1dB variance for even dirt cheap DACs. The headphone op-amp is a different story, but it's not that hard to get headphones that work fine with phones for god's sake) and you will require batteries to operate your headphones on top of that (step down). Bluetooth has had reduced sound quality for ages due to limited bandwidth so it's pure convenience (e.g. http://www.harbeth.co.uk/usergroup/...oth-technology-actually-good-enough-for-audio) and current wired headphones suffer from NONE of these problems and are full bandwidth.

So you trying to compare obsolete standards with something that will NEVER be "obsolete" in the technical sense is RIDICULOUS. The iPhone needs to lose its headphone jack about as bad as I need to lose my hand and replace it with a freaking hook!



I have NO IDEA why you think it HAS TO GO AWAY (or rather "DEFINITELY" will) when there's nothing wrong with it. How thin does your phone need to be? At what point is it going to be uncomfortable to carry if it's even thinner? There is NO NEED to get rid of that jack today, tomorrow or EVER. Even if Bluetooth had tons of bandwidth, it would still require batteries in the headphones (just what you need, more batteries to worry about) so there will always be a COST associated with going wireless and in many situations wireless offers no real benefit (e.g. on an airplane).

Getting rid of the floppy drive and old PS2 ports made sense. It made less sense to ditch optical drives entirely when Blu-Ray is still around and moving a music collection will still require a drive, etc. (i.e. I had to buy an external USB3 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD drive for my Mac Mini. It's vital to maintaining my whole house media system (I have to get those movies onto the computer from BD somehow unless you'd rather have Apple-System locked iTunes files that are far inferior to Blu-Ray). Getting rid of a standard that has nothing wrong with it and never will makes NO SENSE except to Apple as they hope to resell you Beats headphones that only work with Apple products or requires an expensive adapter to use with anything else.

This is made worse by the fact that Lightning isn't a standard at all! It's doubtful even Apple will have Lightning in the next 5 years as USB-C (micro or not) becomes the de-facto standard for EVERYTHING including Thunderbolt III. Thus your Apple Beats headphones (inaccurate garbage, BTW) won't work with ANYTHING else without an adapter (from home theater/stereos to other brand phones). WTF wants THAT when ALL headphones currently work with all audio equipment ever made that has a headphone jack (some older 1/4" adapters may be required if you go back to 1980s or earlier equipment)? Why does Apple want to make the world a less compatible more irritating place except for their own personal gain??? Ask yourself that.

You've hit the nail on the head so many times on this; If people don't get it now, they are a lost cause and not worth debating with.

This is all about Apple making money.

It has absolutely no benefit to the consumer whatsoever.

 

[RollTide1017]

This is going to suck for me because I still use an old cassette tape adapter in my car. The removal of the headphone jack means I won't be able to listen to music and charge my phone at the same time. I don't want to buy a new stereo system for my car since the current one works just fine. Long trips are going to suck having to take breaks from music to charge my phone.

This decision by Apple has me seriously looking at other phones for the first time since the iPhone's launch in '07.

 

[SGT.GREER]

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.

In real world it all depends on usage patterns, but this test is also quite revealing. It tells you that under these same conditions you can expect to get that much of playback, web browsing etc.

To me it's impressive that a phone with 1000 mAh less basically can get just few minutes less of gameplay.

 

[Porco]

Ahh, this thread (/these threads) bring back memories of the threads about how Apple should support Blu-ray movie playback. Page after page of the same arguments being made and re-made (I include myself in that!!).

Many will disagree with me I'm sure, but Apple was and is wrong about Blu-ray, and they're even more wrong about this if they remove the headphone jack socket.

The first mac I bought after Blu-ray launched is now 'vintage' (i.e. not capable of running any supported version of OS X), and yet I am still buying Blu-ray discs, because they are still better than most online video is, on numerous levels. I'm pretty sure I, and many people, will be still be happily using standard 3.5mm jack headphones once the iPhone 7 has been long discontinued - this is why removing the headphone jack socket now is way, way too soon, if it should even happen at all in the near-to-mid term (like a decade or so or maybe even longer).

All it will achieve is make the iPhone a less attractive product.