Taking the headphone jack off phones is user-hostile and stupid
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What concerns me is that the most popular phone and probably listening device in the world, will move towards a proprietary sound system, fragmenting the headphone and speaker market into two worlds. That just sucks, and it feels like a major nuisance for an entire industry. It's like some worldwide government just created a law half the world or industry must use one standard and the other half the other, it's just shit.
Further, tinfoil-hat time, but I think some sense to this fear. A lot of people have voiced concerns that one can employ all kinds of DRM/licensing tricks, now that there's full control on the i/o. You can for example only allow a certain level of bass on headphones that have a license with Apple. I think these effects will be very limited, but I also think they'll all be tiny steps in the wrong direction we really don't need.
In short, I'd be fine with a new standard, but not the lightning port, and have a substantial concern about a minor (imo) probability that a digital io leads to walled audio gardens.
I'd have no problem with USB-C headphones.
I wonder if Apple already knows what % of their users listen and recharge at the same time. If it's a small percentage, Apple has always been willing to leave behind that use case, in pursuit of a "purer" product.
I just wish the pure product used a universal standard.
Rather than have a splitter cable, couldn't you have an additional USB-C port on the headphones which could be used to power the smartphone indirectly?
If that's not possible I reckon some manufacturers will start putting small batteries in USB-C headphones.
I would. Can you imagine how terrible the sound would be for 90% of the headphone market? We have all of these manufacturers racing to the bottom of the headphone market, offering crappy speakers and microphones for $50. Now we expect them to also include an amp and DAC?
The least expensive, decent headphone USB DAC that I've personally used was already over $70, and it's about the size of an Altoids tin. There's not a trivial amount of additional circuitry to handle the data and power requirements.
Perhaps it's just me, but I'm not really interested in buying yet another dongle for my phone so I can use decent headphones (that I already own) with it. I thought the goal was to reduce the size of phones.
That's an option, the other option is simply using the physical connector for an old-school analog audio connection.
If the concern is device manufacturers won't support USB-C analog audio that's one thing, but pretending like it isn't the (current) intention to utilize is quite strange to me. This is quite literally changing a round plug to a oval one if implemented properly and to the spec.
Digital, analog, or both... I don't want to have to worry about the parts of the spec implemented on my specific device's connector. Stereo audio is not complicated stuff and shouldn't be made to be that way.
From this, I assume that audio accessory support is unlikely to be implemented by all USB chip manufacturers, so attempting to use it as any kind of standard would fall flat on it's face. Whereas any USB C port will support USB communication, making a DAC interface an obvious one.
[1] http://www.anandtech.com/show/10273/intel-proposes-to-use-us... [2] "Accessory Mode support by phones/notebooks aren’t mandatory, so consumers will need to read the fine print on their new electronic device to determine if audio over USB Type-C is supported or not." http://electronicdesign.com/interconnects/usb-type-c-unplugg...
I guess I'm a little more idealistic in that I think it's too expensive to put DACs in earbuds shipped by phones, and trying to switch both (port + expensive earbuds) at the same time may be too much. I'm hopeful this means we'll see initial implementations of analog support on the first phones that make this switch, and thus set the expectations.
Of course, I'm usually proven wrong about such things :)
It's stupid to bundle headphones and DACs into one package. I like to follow the unix philosophy when doing A/V. Each component should do one thing, that way when you want to upgrade/replace broken components, it's easier and cheaper.
I appreciate there are edge cases and that it's a tricky decision, but getting 5% of a phone's volume/thickness back for a port <5% of people use less than 5% of the time, I think makes sense. (pulling numbers from my ass here but it's probably not that far off)
Further I think the majority of charge & listen usecases are those where dongles aren't horrible. (although they'll always suck). i.e., listening to music while charging in a car, is a specific use case where dropping $25-50 on a one-time solution is somewhat reasonable for the edgecase user who does that every single day. Same with a setup at work where you've got a headphone on and charge because you're a heavy user or forgot to plug it in before bedtime the night before. These are non-mobile situations in known/safe areas, where you can just leave the dongle. Which is a bit different from the dongle experience one has with say a Macbook which is charged during the day, on the go, in many different locations etc.
Despite the fact I think it makes sense for the majority, I'll grant it's still a shitty situation for the minority. But even then, I think the ubiquitous advent of wireless audio is around the corner. We've seen big gains in quality of connectivity, range, price level, battery, style and comfort. And we're now seeing some pretty unique innovations too like swiping your earbud to silence the room. I'm not a big fan yet, but I think it's a very decent extra solution to some of these issues.
Overal, I'm quite alright, even in favour to see the port get dropped, if it was usb-c all the way.
Wireless headphone tech isn't there yet. There's problems that are going to be fairly difficult to solve. Problems that won't be solved in the next iPhone. For instance, again when I'm working from home, my headphones get unplugged from my computer and plugged into my phone when a call comes in. With wireless I would have to unpair from my computer, and then pair to my phone.. Not to mention, for longer calls I'd have to wear my headphones while they're plugged in? Or what?
All this trouble for a thinner phone? Is the iphone 6s really that fat? I don't need it any thinner. Do 95% of people need it thinner? It looks like they are solving a non-problem and introducing new ones. (Or what's really going on is the whole DRM lobbying thing, and they're just pulling sleight of hand.)
Sure, a new car has a USB port that integrates with the media center, but thats only cars purchased in the last few years with the premium media options. A lot of car USB ports are power-only USB.
By far most people I know who drive use an aux cable. Since most music now is streamed, you need to be charging it at the same time or else your battery drains by the end of your trip.
Seems like you're saying "get this $25 dongle or a new $25000 car". Both are shitty and unnecessary options.
1. There was a functional reason that CDs and floppies went out of style: low capacity and the Internet. What’s the functional reason to get rid of analog headphones? It’s not quality – analog headphones have excellent sound quality, and 99% of people won’t be able to tell the difference with ‘digital’ sound, right?
2. So what happens if I want to charge my phone (e.g. from an external battery) and listen to headphones at the same time? Do I have to use some sort of ... dongle? That’s going to get silly.
3. Wireless headphones are ideal, but the price-to-performance ratio still sucks. Maybe if in the future we all have excellent wireless headphones, it might be a good idea to remove the headphone jack and provide a legacy wired output through the Lightning port, but we're not there yet.
4. Why do this in an era of declining iPhone sales growth?
Admittedly, analog headphone jacks will go away at some point, but I hope it's not before we have an elegant solution to these problems – like wireless headphones, perhaps.
[0] https://daringfireball.net/2016/06/headphone_jacks_are_the_n...
should: I don't know if they actually do, I've never used usb-c or lightning headphones. But they should.
What happens if you want to charge your new 12" macbook and you also need to use your cellular dongle ? They've shown total contempt for even this common, necessary use-case - why would they not show the same contempt for your use-case ?
"Admittedly, analog headphone jacks will go away at some point"
There is no reason to assume that. Only a childish contempt for "old things" and a desire to fix things that aren't broken would lead to that outcome.
Age is meaningless when evaluating technology and its function. It could be 1000 years old or 10; what matters if fulfills the requirements of the relevant use-case in an acceptable manner.
> Maybe now is the wrong time, and Apple is making a mistake. I don’t know.
You might be responding to the Gruber in your head rather than the one who wrote that post.
He's not extolling the virtues of Apple's decision, saying it was the right thing. He's responding to Patel's reaction to it.
It's okay for people to be ambivalent, or to have an opinion on only some aspects of an issue. Not everything you see is Red Team vs. Blue Team.
(He also kind of addressed some of your other points in the article as well, but perhaps not to your satisfaction or as directly as you'd like.)
You're probably right – there's likely more mutually shared opinions between my thoughts and Gruber's article than I think, though I'm only partly responding to his post.
> (He also kind of addressed some of your other points in the article as well, but perhaps not to your satisfaction or as directly as you'd like.)
Yes, exactly. I think a big thing that got me was his response to the dongle question: "External floppy drives sucked too." That's it. Not quite the level of detail I was looking for.
You have it backward - analog headphones are superior, generally speaking.
The signal chain is:
digital source > D/A converter > amplifier > transducer (speaker / headphone)
"Digital headphones" simply move the D/A converter, amplifier, and transducer into the headphone package.
In almost all cases, the higher-quality D/A converter and amplifier will be ones not crammed into your headphones; and the higher-quality transducers are not the ones packaged with a cheap DAC and low-power amplifier into your earbuds. The same holds true for speakers (exception being high-quality powered loudspeakers, still, keep the DACs out of the speakers).
And don't get me started about Bluetooth....
Yes, I worry even more about Bluetooth. But I guess 80% of people won't be able to tell the difference (or care), so I don't know.
With the D/A and amp in the device then your quality level can vary from device to device depending on the D/A and amp quality of those devices. If you want higher quality you not only need to get high quality headphones, you also have to get high quality devices.
Since device makers are going to tend to put their best D/As and amps on their higher end devices those who want higher audio quality will have to be higher end devices even if they don't need most of the features those higher end devices offer.
With the D/A and amp in the headphones they can buy phones and tablets and such that just do what they need and no more, which should save them some money (money which can go toward one set of headphones with a top notch D/A and amp).
What if you buy speakers? Now you need a different DAC for them. If you have a good DAC in source device you have no problem to begin with.
Having said that I'll retract my previous statement in the instance that the system is able to stream lossless digital audio to the headphones. In that case putting the DAC in the headphones could be used to actually deliver high quality wireless audio.
Past that, wired will "always" sound better than wireless with lossy compression (ie bluetooth).
Past that, the best DACs and headphone amps will be component. The worst ones are likely to be powered by whatever tiny battery powers the wireless headphones.
I'm just pointing out, this isn't about quality - if you want quality, you'll be using wired headphones. Lossless wireless is a nice idea that would justify DACs and amps in the cans, it just probably won't improve sound quality, just cost and troubles.
A decade or so ago Roland tried to convince the pro audio world that it needed "digital speakers." It was a dumb idea then, it's still a dumb idea, and that's what I hear when I hear "digital headphones."
2. So apparently I'm the edge case who never charges while listening, it's just not a thing for me. I charge once, at night, and it's fine. (Galaxy S7). In a car I'm happy with my phone's speakers or a wireless setup, and in newer cars especially a usb-audio or bluetooth audio setup shouldn't be a problem. (ignoring obvious transition issues). And especially here, in a private, safe, storage area like a car is, I'm okay (obviously not thrilled) to buy and one-time mount a $25 dongle. Not the end of the world for me. Same with my fixed office space, and that's about all big usecases I can think of.
3. Completely agree, however it must be noted that stuff like this pushes wireless audio quality forward. There's suddenly a forced market demand when the port drops, which opens up industry incentives to push wireless price/performance ratio improvements which I feel are around the corner (and partially announced already). And tech wise a lot more is possible than the quality we've had in the past years. And price wise, a LOT more should be possible than the past few years of price points. Also I'm expecting Apple (let's not forget, a producer of custom earbuds for years, and buyer of Beats) to drop decent wireless tech, too. I want good wireless audio tech regardless of whether I'm forced to use it lacking a port or not. (!) Again, obvious transition issues but it's alright.
4. Rumours are hey're looking to reinvent their base model with oled screens, no home button, edge to edge screen, delayed to 2017. i.e. a move away from a phone that has ports and buttons, towards a device that's completely digital, mostly screen and almost fully wireless. And I think that makes a lot of sense, stylistically too, if rumours are true and they can pull it off. That can reinvigorate sales, because let's be fair, the iPhone 6 was 'good enough', kind of like the Nexus 5 (still a lovely phone I'd happily use) was for the mid-section, the 6 was at the top-end of the market. I've got lots of friends with a 6 who just don't care for iterations. Something radical is needed to get them to buy, and dropping this port long-term as part of the 10y iPhone anniversary update is part of that narrative. Lots of speculation here of course, just thinking out loud to try and discuss your questions.
Bluetooth will be great next year!
(People have been saying this about Bluetooth since 1999.)
> 1. as far as I know, the jack takes up quite a bit of volume, it's a long and empty space, that could be used for battery, heatsink etc.
This is a good idea in theory, but in this particular case, what is being said now is that the phone will be thinner by 1mm. I'm very, very much for more battery – even with a Plus I don't have enough – but Apple tends not to handle these tradeoffs with an eye toward functional improvements. What I worry about is being able to shave off a millimeter off the thickness of the phone, but then having to carry around an adapter or two that will easily outweigh the space savings. As you say, in stationary situations like car/office, it's not a big deal, but in those situations, neither is the thickness of the phone or battery life, really.
> 3. ... There's suddenly a forced market demand when the port drops, which opens up industry incentives to push wireless price/performance ratio improvements which I feel are around the corner (and partially announced already).
Unfortunately I can only speculate as to what will happen. The plausible explanation is that the market will be able to generate excellent alternatives that become the gold standard, but as my sibling commenter says, this has been said of Bluetooth for a long time. I'm not confident that Bluetooth will be able to catch up soon enough, given its history and how far it lags behind today in sound quality, cost, and reliability. With that said, this will certainly be a big shock that may cause the desired shift, or Apple might have new wireless audio technology up their sleeves (though I shudder at the thought of another closed A/V standard) – and the 90% of people who don't care too much for audio quality will probably be unaffected on this dimension.
> Should the analog headphone jack remain on our devices forever? If you think so, you can stop reading.
What's the advantage to removing the headphone jack? Is the jack some sort of bottleneck to sound quality that nobody noticed until now? I really don't see a benefit in removing the headphone jack, now or anytime in the foreseeable future.
Yes, it will be thin too, but it will also have the same issues as going for a digital interface (annoying people with the change etc) -- but without any of its advanced capabilities (e.g. for device control).
I'll point you in the direction of bsimpson's post, just above.
However, personally, I'll live with a thicker phone if it means I can have a larger capacity battery, let alone a 3.5mm jack
> As an aside, whatever the merits of this decision, it’s not about device thinness. The iPhone 6 is the thinnest iPhone to date at 6.9mm. The iPod Touch has a headphone jack and is just 6.1mm thick. The iPod Nano: 5.4mm. The analog headphone jack is more costly in terms of depth than thickness.
We already have a standardized 2.5mm jack to replace the 3.5mm one in space-constrained environments (just like 6.35mm is still around for hifi setups).
Why is everyone pretending we need to ditch analog audio completely for smaller phones when we can just start using 2.5mm (again!)?
Eh. Apple's done this before, as Gruber points out, and they basically won. Nobody at this point (at least, that I hear) complains about Lightning cables. Ditching the 3.5mm jack might be a bad idea, but Apple does have a track record of doing this, which is probably why they think they can get away with it now.
Lightning was a proprietary Apple connector that replaced the older proprietary 30-pin Apple connector. Not at all comparable to removing the 3.5mm jack.
I'm all for keeping the jack output, but using a 2.5 one doesn't solve the problem.
You mean a lightning to 3.5 and an usb-c to 3.5 one. With mandatory Apple/USB tax, DRM may or may not be included, and questionable DAC quality.
A fully passive 2.5→3.5 adapter is much easier, would work with all vendors, and has no potential DRM backdoor capability.
And we'd probably quickly see headphones with native 2.5mm plug and an included 3.5mm adapter, just like we currently have for "high-end" (read: $100) headsets and 6.35mm.
I'd pay for more battery life, but the bonus was just not worth it. It was easily twice as expensive as the phone I brought, with similar specs. Batteries last for a couple of days already, some more days are just not that big a differential.
No it's not.
> According to Kilburn, HTC’s consumer research shows people prefer thin smartphones — between 8 mm and 10 mm thick — as opposed to thicker devices with longer battery life.
One data point, but that's what HTC's claiming their customer research shows, and Apple's trends suggest their internal data points the same way.
There's clearly more than the one option going into the choice here.
That's not particularly thin, both Vivo and Oppo have models under 5mm. The former even managed to keep the 3.5 jack in the 4.75mm X5.
I think it'd be interesting to have an experiment where some flagship phone (like the Galaxy S*) is sold in two versions, one with double the battery life but a little thicker (and cases for both sizes are available), at the exact same price, to see which one people really prefer. Personally, I'd certainly go for the double-capacity version, but considering how popular iPhones are, I'm under no illusion that my tastes represent the mainstream.
Along those lines, I've had several waterproof phones with headphone jacks (and no rubber covers, either).
Palm tried to remove the jack with their ultrasmall Veer phone which had audio routed over a magnetic connector. You had to use an adapter to plug in headphones and it blocked off the power connector. The Veer was barely launched before HP pulled the "plug" on the product line, alas.
The 3.5 mm jack still delivers the absolute best sound quality compared to the other options available on a smart phone.
Most, if not all, of the other solutions will be a step backward.
I miss a lot of those ports. A lot of people do. Fumbling around the office for an Apple-compatible video cable is a relatively frequent event, in my experience.
And I don't remember old fashioned serial ports needing special drivers that would brick unapproved hardware, like some modern FTDI USB serial adaptors did.
"Legacy" ports are simple and reliable. Let's not abandon the simple and reliable 3.5mm headphone port.
> Patel misses the bigger problem. It’s not enforcement of DRM on audio playback. It’s enforcement of the MFi Program for certifying hardware that uses the Lightning port. Right now any headphone maker in the world can make any headphones they want for the standard jack. Not so with the Lightning port.
> Presumably Apple’s Lightning earbuds will work on iPads, too. But it’s going to suck having to use different headphones (or a dongle) for the Mac than you use with your iOS devices.
> Will MacBooks ship with a Lightning port in lieu of a headphone jack? If so, will they ship with headphones? (Probably not, I say. Cough up the extra $29 for a new pair of Apple EarPods.)
I'm increasingly irritated by Gruber's increasingly cozy relationship with Apple pitch-people (sometimes even using language only they use, like "with iPhone" or "on iPad").
But this is neither amazing nor apologism. He's ambivalent, at least in the text of this article. He is not defending the decision, extolling it's brilliance, saying Apple's doing the right thing.
(To the commenter who's about to say, "Cherry picking!": Please consider the likelihood that your brain is cherry-picking when you see the name "John Gruber.")
And I see no significant advantage to the change in technology itself. Optical ports provide a measurable advantage in sound fidelity over analog, but you haven't seen them eliminate composite or component ports from home receivers, because there are also significant disadvantages in cost and length of optical cables. I don't even follow that there's such gains to be made from switching to lightning...
Which leaves me at the obvious conclusion that this is just a ploy to sell more adapters and reap licensing fees from vendors at the expense of their customer.
And remarks he makes like "Cough up the extra $29 for a new pair" convey exactly the tone that is bothering us all.
I don't know how anyone could see those comments as favoring Apple, diminishing the problems, or somehow seeing them as acceptable.
I guess if you start out with the assumption that Gruber is an Apple partisan and nothing more, it's easy to read anything you want into his words.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7013002
[EDIT: The link above gives a few quick examples of particularly biting criticism against Apple by John Gruber. Not sure what I've said here that's so objectionable -- perhaps one of you could post a reply?]
Is it really not obvious what the advantage is? It's a huge advantage: to listen to music on headphones with your shiny new iPhone, you'll have to either buy some shiny new Beats headphones from Apple for $300, or to use non-Apple headphones you'll have to buy some kind of dongle adapter for $29.95. This is a giant advantage for Apple because it'll improve their profits.
The advantage to you is that you can feel warm and fuzzy about being a mindless Apple consumer and having a shiny new iDevice that costs a fortune and only works with other iDevices and forces you to buy new headphones. People like to feel like they're part of an elite in-group.
It's very simple: if you don't like the way Apple does business and treats you as a customer, then don't buy their product. The only reason they're able to get away with this kind of thing (using non-standard connectors is something they've been doing a long time) is because people line up like lemmings to buy their iDevices. If you buy an iPhone with no headphone jack, you really have no right to complain about it being missing; it isn't a surprise at this point.
As for quotes, cherry picked or otherwise, here are some that jump out:
> But I say at some point [3.5mm] will go away
> Apple has proven to be very good at timing the removal of established legacy ports.
> If it weren’t for Apple we’d probably still be using computers with VGA and serial ports.
> surely removing the deep headphone socket can only leave more room for a larger battery
> in five years we’ll look at analog headphone jacks the way we look at all the other legacy ports we’ve abandoned.
Gruber is not just arguing pro-Apple and saying this is the right decision. Indeed, he even says maybe "Apple is making a mistake," and goes on to include several serious problems with it.
Gruber's post is a reaction to Patel's characterization of Apple's move as user-hostile and "stupid." His reply is not, "Here's why I say Apple is right to make this move." Rather it is, "Right or wrong, and like it or not, here's some sober perspective on why Apple would/could do such a thing."
Yeah like 1/4" and XLR, which are used on most studio and enthusiast equipment. Why don't manufacturers ditch that in favor of USB or full fiber, the poor fools?
Some people live in a fairy land with heads up their ass...
That's only true because the only headphones that exist for smartphones are headphone jack or Bluetooth.
You can build a USB-C or Lightning headset with much higher impedance and use a digital signal to a higher quality DAC than the one built into the phone.
Most people don't want a higher quality DAC than the one built into the phone. High quality DACs are cheap. If the one in your phone isn't good enough for you, in two years you will get a new phone -- pick one with a better DAC, since now you know that's important to you. In the meantime, your $1000 headphones from four years ago will still work on all the phones with 3.5mm jacks, and so will the $6 pair you picked up on the boardwalk when you realized that there was no way in heck you wanted to wear the good headphones out on the beach.
You can plug a USB2 DAC into your phone?
A ton of people who own good headphones for their computer use a USB sound device instead of the motherboard's built-in audio. But today, similarly good headphones for mobile phones do not exist because phones can't drive them. This may not be a priority for a lot of people yet, but Apple is in a position to hugely increase the size of the market.
I'm not thrilled that it would create headphone lock-in on iOS vs Android, but you have to at least admit that it opens up opportunities for better headphones for phones than what's out there now.
If you'd tried to do this 10 years ago it would have been pointless because people's music libraries were all a bunch of MP3s ripped at 128 kbps. Now that Apple Music exists, Apple has direct control over the quality of the music they're streaming. If they want to make better headphones workable they can push out media in a format that makes them actually worth using.
Using an adapter to 3.5mm headphones doesn't feel like that big a deal to me. I would guess that Apple can output an analog signal over the lightning connector to allow a small passive cable (like DVI-I to VGA).
Going the other direction, someone (guessing Apple won't) could build a 3.5mm device that converts to a Lightning signal, but I'd expect it to also have to plug into a phone's accessory port to get enough power.
99% of listeners aren't using headphones that are good enough to notice a difference in quality from an offboard DAC.
http://www.head-fi.org/t/595071/android-phones-and-usb-dacs/...
and of course lots of discussion.
Personally, I don't really care about the headphone jack because I never use it. I will admit, I'm different than 99.99% of other users.
But this certainly describes a very limited subset of people who listen to music through headphones, and even though I don't use it much I wouldn't like to see the analog jack go away.
I didn't and really there are no arguments there why would it be better for anybody but Apple. The premise of the article is "once it's accepted that the analog jack must go, let's just write whatever."
It doesn't even discuss what the advantage for Apple should be. Which would make clearer why it's not for anybody else.
Should the analog headphone jack remain on our devices forever? If you think so, you can stop reading.
But hey, Apple can now impose the change from the position of power. And they have Beats who will follow this change...
Does this guy ever write critically about Apple? I've come across his pieces over the years, and he honestly always comes across like a zealous ideologue.
Would you feel less defensive if I just called him a biased partisan instead of using an absolute-sounding word like "ever"?
What I object to is the instant dismissal of every Gruber article by people who can't see nuance but only black and white. It's simply not true that he is as partisan and in-the-tank for Apple as many people here think he is.
And the point is that this degrades our ability to have meaningful discussion.
> Would you feel less defensive [...]
Making assumptions about people's biases is exactly my objection about the reflex reaction many HN commenters have toward Gruber.
Sounds fair enough, but yet it still seems reasonable to mistrust Gruber's opinions on the basis of him having established a pattern of supporting Apple. The fact that he doesn't literally always come to their defense isn't really all that much of a mitigating factor, since his editorial integrity is already suspect.
> Making assumptions about people's biases is exactly my objection about the reflex reaction many HN commenters have toward Gruber.
I make decisions based on available information. Your post came across as derisive and snarky.
If Apple announced that they were using ground-up baby bones in their newest iPhone case, John Gruber would be there to patiently explain how there's a surplus of babies in the world, and besides dirty diapers don't really fit in with the whole Apple æsthetic.
If Apple announced that from this day forth the only way to get an Apple product would be in exchange for selling oneself into slavery under Apple, John Gruber would be there to patiently explain how this is a revolutionary new welfare programme which will ensure that no Apple customer ever goes to bed hungry.
I absolutely love Markdown: he genuinely made the world a better place by coming up with it. But he's about the furthest thing from objective when it comes to Apple.
I think abandoning it for lightning is a bad idea.
Is apple so desperate for hardware money that there is not a single "open" connector on the iPhone?
Why Lightning as opposed to USB-C? Why make it so that people need a completely different set of headphones just for apple devices? (Bluetooth not withstanding)
BT headphones discharge very quickly, have terrible audio quality, and are somewhat uncomfortable due to the added weight.
I've had 7+ hours of listening (normally don't go around wearing headphones for more than that in a day), and good audio quality with Parrot Zik (and they even use bluetooth 3, and not the lighter on battery and better 4 version).
And I have studio monitor headphones too, but still prefer those for casual listening.
>headphones with pretty good sound quality start at $50 and get diminishing returns around $150...
You'd be surprised.
Of course the ones we talk about also have BT wireless operation, noise cancelling and even touch sensitive case (to control volume/forward/stop etc) -- to justify the higher asking price, but even without those things, a good $250 or $300 headphone will be much better than a good $150 one, pretty similarly to a $50 vs $150.
If you look for diminishing returns, that would start around the $400-500 mark.
Why use either? One of the main reasons behind this push to get rid of the 3.5mm jack is DRM. Is that something you really want?
Lightning is not a D-shaped so you avoid the "oh I put it in upside down, no wait, I was right the first time."
In that respect, it is the superior design. For power and data. For headphones, I want the ability to charge and listen to something at the same time (eg working at my desk, going on long trips in a car that's more than 2 years old, etc)
What? USB-C is reversible: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_Type-C
The same is true for USB-C
> For power and data.
The same is true for USB-C
> going on long trips in a car that's more than 2 years old
Lightning has maybe 2 years of existence on USB-C - that's a very small space of tech in-between microUSB and USB-C
It's a solution in search of a problem--like removing physical buttons from the Kindle...the alternative (touch screen page turns) is more high-tech, but not as pleasant.
I'm sure audophiles would appreciate a digital interface for their headphones, but everyone else is perfectly content to use cheap $5 earbuds for their highly compressed audio files.
Yet, we're now supposed to believe that the general public will enjoy paying a premium for new gear that replaces their cheap and perfectly functional headphones?
Just because a technology is old and low tech doesn't mean it's antiquated.
It does solve a problem. It solves the problem of Apple having less money than it wants to have. It just doesn't solve a consumer problem.
I think I read that removing the headphone jack is needed to make phones thinner.
I don't care for a thinner phone. Leave the analog headphone jack. My phone is usually in my pocket when using the headphone jack and the jack does a very good job of keeping the headphones connected. USB-C or lightning cables are much easier to knock out of the port thus interrupting my listening experience.
These are things Apple pursues relentlessly.
Well about that......Heres another point to your argument:
As an audiophile, I'm going to have to compress the music regardless to fit on the phone due to storage limitations. I enjoy owning my music, as does many other people who work in digital music. Otherwise, I can barely fit one full length studio album in lossless compressed FLAC or lossless uncompressed WAV format.
There is also a school of thought that compressed, and even lossy (to an extent) audio sounds better ("punchier" drums is the often cited argument).
Android has a lot of choice, but that also means extra work to find the phone that works for you. I won't even consider a phone that isn't "vanilla" Android and backed by a guarantee of upgrades (so basically I'm stuck on Nexus).
Every single day, my iPhone pops up a box asking if I want to upgrade to the latest 9.whatever. It does this in the morning, when I'm tired... or at other seemingly-random times of the day.
It offers 3 options: "Install Now", "Install Tonight", and "Ask me Later". There is no "Stop asking me" option. One of these days I will slip up and hit Install Now, and probably lose the use of my phone for the next hour.
However, ideally you will both not purchase and complain publicly, preferably with well-reasoned arguments. Not only will this potentially help dissuade far more people from purchasing a new iPhone than your meager 1-person boycott will, but you can bet there are factions inside Apple that fought tooth and nail against this change, and a large amount of press supporting their opinion helps them make the case internally.
"I've been a customer for years, and this experience disappoints me. I've come to expect more from you folks. I hope in future we can come to a better conclusion. Is there somebody I can talk to about my concerns?"
They (sometimes) look alarmed/turn white, and often get a manager. Of course this is just retail outlets, not manufacturers.
Big global manufacturers don't really see that, and don't care. If people are going to continue to buy from them regardless, they have little incentive to listen to their petty concerns. While there is significant competition for the iPhone (called Android), Apple is extremely profitable, far more so than Android, and there doesn't seem to be any limit to how much Apple can squeeze its customers.
I'll be happy enough to switch back if Apple really shoots themselves in the foot like this, but despite the rumors, I still think it's extremely unlikely.
We also don't have to use IE as a browser, windows as an OS, cisco devices for networking, or anything else. That doesn't mean we won't take issue when a market leader makes a decision that will take the industry in a bad direction.
Just like how the industry rallied against IE and pushed for open standards on the web, the hardware industry is calling foul on this decision for the very same reason. We need hardware to remain open and standard in the exact same ways and for the exact same reasons we need our browsers to be.
Mark my words, this change is about DRM. It's about music, movies and TV. It's about ensuring that the apple store is able to attract and retain more publishers than everyone else. It's about lock-in and not just hardware lock-in but DRM/licensing lock in. The very first thing we'll see after this is implemented is a protocol to secure audio transition similar to what's been implemented in hdmi. This isn't about thinner phones. If it were, they'ed just implement a smaller analog solution. It's not like the phone is pushing 10 amps through that connector. It would be trivial to make it smaller.
IE (6 mainly, that was what everyone was complaining about the most) finally failed not because of people "calling foul" on it, it failed because people abandoned the thing and used alternatives like Firefox and Chrome. When the marketshare for IE finally dried up enough, web designers stopped targeting it, making it even more useless for web browsing, and MS was forced to attempt to make changes. They still haven't caught up.
"Calling foul" on an industry leader is useless, unless you're trying to convince people to abandon that leader and switch to an alternative. You're not going to get the leader to change because it's the "right" thing to do, they'll only change because their profits are in jeopardy. Ditching the headphone jack is the right thing for Apple to do because it'll make them more money: people will buy expensive dongle adapters, or overpriced new Beats headphones. If consumers don't like this, it's their job to not buy the new iPhone, just like Windows users finally wised up and stopped using IE6.
This is exactly what these discussions are about.
What If I want to plug in my phone and listen to music at the same time? Am I going to need another adapter for this?
How does this not violate the
Telecommunications Act Section 255 Accessibility Guidelines
§1193.43 Output, display, and control functions.
(g) Availability of audio cutoff. Where a product delivers audio output through an external speaker, provide an industry standard connector for headphones or personal listening devices (e.g., phone-like handset or earcup) which cuts off the speaker(s) when used.
?
It's bad enough the Gym I go to has a bunch of proprietary Lightning connectors and my phone is obviously MicroUSB, I'd hate to not have the right headphones for that same gym equipment.
If it doesn't have a headphone socket I will just get something else.
I didn’t think so. You wanted better battery life, didn’t you? Everyone just wants better battery life."
raises hand to second point
Show me a phone battery that lasts a week between charges, and I shall show you my wallet
Might not be a whole week, but I'm assuming you'll be buying one?
If it meets my other requirements (that article seems to be short on details), then yes, I absolutely will buy it.
Unfortunately, buying phones isn't like buying a laptop. I can't choose to the bigger battery option, while leaving all the other specs the same.
The fact people aren't buying these big battery phones is pointed to as evidence that they're not actually desired, but I would contend that until we see a current flagship iPhone with an option for an identical phone but a larger battery, we're comparing apples (sorry) to oranges.
One thing Apple gets is that you don't need to constrain your design to appease small minorities of users. I bet 99.9% of people only ever plug in the stock earbuds or a pair of Beats they bought at the Apple Store. So why should Apple waste logic board space on a headphone jack?
> I bet 99.9% of people only ever plug in the stock earbuds
99.9% is a small minority? We could use the same argument for removing display :-)
This is about giving Beats a leg up on Bose, or at least stealing revenue in licensing or dongles.
Apple only gets away with this behavior because countless sheep happily pay them for it.
/sarcasm
I've got $300 headphones I use with my iPhone. They sound exceptionally better (especially with an amp) than shit earbuds it comes with. Even if Apple traded the analog for a digital connection, I'm pretty certain I wouldn't notice a meaningful difference in day to day use.
Now I'm sure if I sat down with the express goal of proving they're different I could convince myself they are but I doubt it.
I know I will, because I won't buy a new headphone in the next 2 hears, mine being very expensive.
That doesn't mean I think it's a bad move. The thunderbolt migration was a good move. Removing the floppy and the DVD player is a good move. And removing the jack it probably one.
I actually look forward for the day where my phone, laptop and flatscreen only have USB-C port as input and ouput.
But it will be annoying for a while, and way more than 2 years.
Espacially since wireless headphones are a f*ing pain to use.
I know that wireless charging is on the table, but how would that work as I'm walking on the sidewalk? Would it stay flush with the iPhone via a case? If so, doesn't that go back to how a battery pack case makes the phone unnecessarily large? Or do I put it on the phone only when necessary? If I put it on the phone only when necessary, do I take my preferred case off whenever I need to charge on the go?
Or do I buy some sort of Lightning Y-cable to make this work?
This is the one question I want answered.
Or maybe Bluetooth earphones will have good enough quality and battery life for none of it to matter. Who knows?
But here's my minor nitpick. USB-C is loosey-goosey. I slightly tickle the cable and it falls out. 3.5mm has a snap to it. But also the 3.5mm is a lot smaller on my 5X than the USB-C.
I have to admit I'm a bit skeptical of the technical merits, and the analogies to floppy disks drives going obsolete. The analogies don't seem to apply.
The post-Jobs Apple (or maybe even Jobs himself) needs to learn that "less" is not always "simpler" and "combining it into one thing" is not always "simpler".
"Simple" also has to factor in history. If we had all spent decades using devices with a single port for power and audio, then this might make sense.
As far as ugly goes, the ports are pretty well-hidden on phones now. Slim? Not sure shaving 1mm off the phone is going to make as much difference as removing a major port.
But I am afraid that the accessory/phone/speaker industries plainly want to do one thing: make more money. Given that you can get a relatively good pair of in-ears for <€25, and with USB-C you can sell it for €50+, just because it has active circuitry...
In principle, the dac and amp should be paired with the transducers. The longer the digital path, the better.
If you have high-end analog headphones, you might already have a headphone amp. Now a headphone amp will have digital inputs.
BUT this opens the door to various limitations imposed by content publishers. That so many people are so opposed to usb c audio, is a damning indictment of the content publishing industry's untrustworthiness.
And I think more and more people will move to Bluetooth.
Headphones with wires fail all the time, so wireless is arguable better for most folks most of the time. The arguments about sound failures are cherry-picked to ignore that. Also phones are compromised by every hole in the case (water, dirt, static etc). So now there will be fewer catastrophic failures.
And now you can walk with your phone in your pants pocket or purse (or anywhere), without a wire dangling!
{edit: explain}
So yaaaay dongles? Which that's even more fun because if I'm listening music for any length of time, there's a portable amp in between the phone and my headphones.
Is there any reason why a replacement wire with a lightning connection on one end wouldn't be possible?
And if the rumours are true that Apple will release a lightning -> 3.5 mm female for standard earphones, there's nothing stopping them (or someone else) releasing a lightning -> 3.5 mm male to replace that cable.
That said, the other two pair in the house are studio monitor headphones and replacing the wire is non-trivial but supported.
Good luck getting "piece of replacement wire" approved by the MFi program. Apple will only let you sell a complete device (because otherwise someone could just buy lots of these replacement wires and bypass their licensing program)
I don't claim to be able to hear all of the amazing details in songs that many people with HiFi gear can but I do know what the music should sound like and what sound I want out of my headphones. That's why I have the nice headphones and part of why they're 6+ years old... I'm a creature of habit and I like the way those headphones sound :).
EDIT: Now that I'm thinking about it. A DAC/amp with a Lightning/USB-C input and analog output would be tolerable. It's something I have to pay more for and I'd always have to use the DAC/amp.
I don't like it but I can see a workaround.
The only problem I have with your comment is this line. It sounds great in theory, but in practice I've found that getting replacement earpads for my Sennheisers is not that easy: new earpads are almost as expensive as the headphones themselves! Or I can get cheap Chinese ones, and they aren't even that cheap, and have simply terrible fit and thickness.
Seriously, I think there's a great market opportunity here for someone who wants to make OEM-quality high-end headphone earpads. The Chinese ones I've tried actually seem to have decent enough feel quality, it's the size and fit that are all wrong (they don't really fit the headphones, and the pads are too thin, and many don't have the mesh inside).
Citation needed. Have you actually used Bluetooth headsets? Unless the phone has unimpeded LOS to the headset, expect the sound to drop samples, or introduce static, or otherwise be shitty and horrible.
Have your phone in a pocket on the other side of your body from where your headphones' antenna is? Enjoy shit audio.
Did someone turn on a microwave in the same area code? Enjoy shit audio.
Did you run by a new Wi-Fi network? You get the idea.
1. Hassle with batteries
2. I'm not really sure but from quick research it seems most of wireless headphones still use lossy codecs for signal transmission.