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Comment by TazeTSchnitzel | Hacker News Reader

I thought they might replace the headphone jack with a USB-C connector. Then they could do the same thing on the MacBook and it'd have two USB-C ports.

But instead they chose Lightning, so now we have iPhone headphones and Android headphones.

Why did it have to be this way?

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Apple gets a lot of (semi-rightful) flak for going their own way and developing their own tech, protocols, and connectors, but in many cases they were legitimately first and the 'standard' option came later.

-- Lightning pre-dates USB type-C, which fulfill the same usability goal

-- AirPlay pre-dates Miracast

-- Metal pre-dates Vulkan

In some cases, Apple's product was later adopted as the standard:

-- The mini-DisplayPort was their custom connector but later adopted as an official standard

-- the MOV format was adopted for the ISO base container format (MPEG-4 Part 12), which forms the base of MPEG-4 Part 14, commonly known as the 'MP4 container'.

In some cases, they did develop custom tech where open ones existed:

-- ALAC is fairly close in implementation details to FLAC, which pre-dates it.

-- Apple's 'HTTP Live Streaming' came well-after MPEG standard ways of doing HTTP streaming, and is roughly contemporaneous with Adobe's and Microsoft's proprietary ways of adaptive streaming. Later, DASH was developed as a vendor-neutral alternative, and is now the preferred way of doing adaptive streaming via HTTP.

I don't believe that Apple is any more proprietary than a lot of other companies. It's just that they're a tempting target, because they dictate their ecosystem so strongly, and it certainly doesn't help that they ship a lot of locked-down, premium devices.

But blatantly user-hostile changes like removing the headphone jack won't earn them any goodwill.

I think that removing the headphone jack could be justified if they were moving to an open standard. But instead they're moving to Lightning.

There is an open standard; it's the analog headphone jack. </sarcasm>

But there is no 'other' open standard yet, although Intel and other vendors are pondering it [1].

This doesn't mean that HDMI or DisplayPort can't be shoehorned to do it and you can't carry those over the USB type-C plug, but they're meant for other things. This type of 'let's invent one that meets our needs slightly better than the 5 others' is what leads to standards proliferating (and I'll avoid linking the xkcd).

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12305410

USB audio has existed for decades and can be used with type-C like any other USB class. Intel's thing may provide improvements but it's hardly necessary.

This is correct, it's called 'Audio Device Class', specs here [1][2]. It's said that the new enhancements that Intel is pondering add power-management features to this spec, but I can't find much documentation on it, other than rumours.

[1] http://www.usb.org/developers/docs/devclass_docs/audio10.pdf

[2] http://www.usb.org/developers/docs/devclass_docs/frmts10.pdf

What about Bluetooth audio? That is an open standard.

It's not a very good one. Audio quality sucks and bluetooth has a lot of issues. But if you want to use it, Apple's always supported Bluetooth headphones.

I was limiting my comparison to wired audio interconnects.

It may be that from many people's point of view, the user experience is comparable and/or better. But it's accomplished using a fundamentally different mechanism. I wanted better apples; even if some oranges are tasty too.

The open standard is Bluetooth...

The current 4-pole headphone jack used in mobile phones is hardly a standard. At least both iOS and Android use their own flavour when doing anything more complex than play/pause.

They're standards, there's just too many of them! [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phone_connector_(audio)#TRRS_s...

They are. They're moving to Bluetooth. If you don't want those then you can get a Lightning adaptor.

Edit: no they're not, I was skimming the news too hard. Oops. Well I guess they're trying to fix the Bluetooth latency everyone is complaining about with their existing stuff then.

In a few years I'm sure Apple will find a wireless charging solution they like, and then they'll drop the Lightning connector as well. I cannot even begin to imagine the hue and cry that one's gonna cause.

They're not moving to Bluetooth. They're packaging Lightning headphones in the box and announced their own wireless earbuds that are not Bluetooth.

Update: as noted below, they do use Bluetooth though that's not in the marketing pitch. They don't promise compatibility outside of Apple devices though so who knows if it's based on a standard profile.

I guess there's no way to know for sure right now, but it seems like the Airpods probably do in fact run over Bluetooth since they'll work with existing iPhones and Macs. Maybe they're using Wifi and building on top of Airdrop, but that seems like excessive power consumption for tiny headphones. I'd bet they're using Bluetooth 4.x + some proprietary magic to get them to pair super easily.

> They're packaging Lightning headphones in the box and announced their own wireless earbuds that are not Bluetooth.

Have a source for that? That they claim it works with existing Macs kind of implies that it uses Bluetooth.

This is not true. They are Bluetooth.

See http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MMEF2AM/A/airpods, then scroll down to "Tech Specs".

    Connections
    AirPods: Bluetooth

Apple says they're bluetooth right on their website: http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MMEF2AM/A/airpods

How they pair with non-Apple gear is yet to be seen, but the connection is BT.

"Right on their website", but not in any of their marketing materials or during the presentation. It will be interesting to see if they work at all with non-Apple devices.

Update: CNET is providing a little more on this, looks like they will be compatible (but without any buttons on them, it may not be a great experience):

http://www.cnet.com/news/apple-intros-totally-wireless-airpo...

> They all work with Apple's new proprietary W1 chip that's being described as a custom chip that uses ultra low-power Blueooth and keeps the two earbuds in sync. CNET reporter Shara Tibken spoke to Apple reps who confirmed the headphones will work with other Bluetooth devices, not just the new iPhones

Are there any restrictions about advertising something as "Bluetooth" if it doesn't follow the spec, and thus have compatibility with devices other than Apple?

I could have sworn they are, in fact, Bluetooth...

>But instead they're moving to Lightning.

Are they? Because none of their computer nor laptops have a lightning connector.

"-- Lightning pre-dates USB type-C, which fulfill the same usability goal"

Lightning only operates at USB 2 speeds. Well, except for the large iPad Pro.

Oh, and it requires an authentication chip so has to be approved by Apple (not overly 'usable', but definitely proprietary).

For clarity, 'usability goal' I was referring to is plug-into-slot-blindly-with-your-eyes-closed.

I used the word 'usability' to attempt to imply UX, and I was deliberately avoiding commenting on speed, features, DRM, and the like, because those aren't delivered by USB type-C, which is only the plug. As you imply, those points are addressed by the jump from USB 2 to USB 3.0 or the type-C-compatible USB 3.1.

> Metal pre-dates Vulkan

Vulkan was announced first. Apple was even a part of the effort. Then they went off and did their own thing and withdrew from Vulkan and announced Metal.

As I see it, Apple took Vulkan ideas. Of course it was faster for them to create Metal because they didn't have to care about cross-platform and multi-party support.

> Vulkan was announced first

No it wasn't. Khronos' own slides on Vulkan disprove this (slide 6) [1], saying they began the effort in June 2014. Apple announced Mantle to the public that month.

[1] https://www.khronos.org/assets/uploads/developers/library/20...

> Apple announced Mantle(sic)

Announced, didn't release.

In the same presentation as you linked, on slide 9, you can see Apple was a part of the Vulkan effort. The subsequently withdrew from Vulkan, before releasing Metal.

WWDC 2014 in June had the 'Zen Garden' demo running Unreal 4 on the Metal API [1], and it was released to the app store in September [2]. In a different session, CryEngine was shown running Metal on an iPad [3]. That's two high-profile game engines already using the API. A limited release perhaps, but I count that as a significant head-start, all the while Khronos was just organizing glNext.

[1] http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/183567-apple-unveils-metal...

[2] http://appadvice.com/appnn/2014/09/unveiled-at-wwdc-2014-for...

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Thb2841jCQ4

Wow. You're right.

What about HFS then? And HFS on OSX as the primary option? I think that's the one that's probably caused me the most grief.

Apple's NIH syndrome is exceedingly strong...and I say this being an Apple product guy.

The shit-show that has been owning a 6 Plus, the rapidly declining quality of OSX & its applications and now this has me quickly looking for the door.

Edit: And they're pushing iCloud hard now...to the point that I don't sign into it on my devices anymore. iOS nags me to create an iCloud Backup _every day_ and when the setting was (accidentally) automatic, a single backup filled all of my free iCloud storage space...which caused iOS to nag me into paying for more iCloud storage. I simply cannot stop it from sending push notifications.

>> Later, DASH was developed as a vendor-neutral alternative, and is now the preferred way of doing adaptive streaming via HTTP.

Source? The entire industry as far as I can tell still uses HLS as the only mobile streaming tech, whether within or beyond the Apple ecosystem. HLS won. If DASH is going to take over, I haven't seen any evidence of that yet, and don't expect to in the near future.

There may have been a reason to create Lightning, but no reason to continue using it now that USB-C exists.

Getting rid of the headphone port would have been better if the alternative port was USB-C rather than Lightning.

> so now we have iPhone headphones and Android headphones.

I think you answered your own question there.

We have bluetooth headphones, which work on iPhones, Androids and computers.

Some silly stuff happens with bluetooth headphones such as my PS3 bluetooth headset being unable to hear music played from the iPhone but they work fine for calls.

Well, they work... sometimes.

The latency of bluetooth headphones makes things like mobile rhythm games unplayable.

Don't most rhythm games have a latency calibration option? Rhythm games don't need low latency, only predictable latency.

My iPad 3 is pretty much "the Reflec Beat machine" and while it does have a timing adjustment option it only moves the moment in time that it uses for judgement. If I delay it to compensate for wireless earbuds then it will be visually delayed too past the judge line. Sure they can compensate for this with more options but I like sane defaults. I have never had to touch this slider because zero is already perfect, and in games with separate audio and visual lag compensation options I'm never confident that I've gotten it accurate. This isn't something you should have to ask the user to do. https://i.imgur.com/qU2TEP5.jpg

I've pretty much given up rhythm gaming on mobile platforms. There's always going to be too much overhead and too many unknown variables.

Only games that I think have ever gotten this right (insofar as lag correction can be "right") is the Rock Band series, which has auto lag compensation via a photosensor and mic on the guitars.

I imagine the best rhythm game experiences will remain on crappy PCs running Windows XP Embedded for a while.

It depends on the headset. Of course with an audio jack the other end would have to be doing something very wrong to induce a comparable lag.

The phone has a pretty good microphone. It should be able to adjust latency by having you hold an ear bud up to the mic.

> Why did it have to be this way?

We could have a world where Vulkan was the one stop shop graphics API anywhere. Instead, we are in this situation where everything but Apple products supports / will support it.

Why did it have to be this way?

It's the same problem as with USB C, Vulkan is predated by Apples own standard and you can't change it without hurting someone. Apple made the decision that they would rather save their own customers unnecessary pain.

You can't change it from one day to another, but Apple has all the power to add Vulkan as alternative interface to the same hardware, in addition to the Metal API. They can do this at any time, now or in the future, without inflicting pain on anyone.

Eventually Metal won't be used anymore since there's no point in using the less portable API with the same capabilities. Finally, once use of Metal is low enough, discontinue it in a new iOS/macOS update.

Upgrades with parallel maintenance and deprecation timelines are well understood, and very feasible for a company with Apple's engineering prowess. There's really no argument other than continued lock-in to stick with Metal only.

> save their own customers unnecessary pain.

The pain is going to be that very few video games will be ported to OSX / iOS unless they dramatically increase their market size to justify the heavy cost to port to Metal just for those systems. If Apple cared about customers in this case, it would be an obvious choice to use Vulkan to pressure developers into using the industry standard rather than the Microsoft only product they are using predominantly now.

Or the 4 engines that most games are made in will just add a metal layer. Or you use something like https://moltengl.com/ to make a direct opengl -> metal wrapper.

And sales is what will drive ports.

It makes the old OpenGL/DirectX situation look great by comparison, doesn't it? Now there's three competing modern graphics APIs, and none works on every platform. At least OpenGL worked everywhere, if poorly.

OpenGL never worked on Xbox 360, and didn't work convincingly (for non-trivial games) on PS3.

Consoles have always been a special case, though. For one thing, the entire API is usually under NDA, so a different graphics system is the least of your problems.

Aren't Vulkan, Direct X 12 and Metal much closer than Direct X pre 12 and Open GL ever were? The three are derived (at least in philosophy) from AMD's Mantle, not like Direct X pre 12 and Open GL that are (or at least were) very different beast.

I only ever programmed with OpenGL 1.3 and 1.4, so my knowledge is not very up-to-date to say the least...

Porting complexity is still non-trivial, and then you need people who understand multiple bare metal APIs.

The architectures are all based off Mantle, but OpenGL 3.3 and DX10 were very similar in their hay day, and porting was still fairly limited (you can still partially blame the horrible adoption of the 3.x series that took so long to take off).

Metal was done [1] even before the Khronos Group issued a call to develop a next-gen low-overhead API [2] which became Vulkan. It helped that AMD basically donated Mantle so they were able to turn around in a year. Apple understandably was in no appetite to use DX12, and then-AMD-specific Mantle could not be construed as any more than a tech demo and/or an attempt to eke out more performance from their cards.

[1] http://www.anandtech.com/show/8116/some-thoughts-on-apples-m...

[2] (slide 20) https://www.khronos.org/assets/uploads/developers/library/20...

If they'd made metal an open standard, they wouldn't have found themselves sidelined again.

Lock-in. When you buy any apple accessory it is not usable on anything else adding more friction for people considering a switch.

iPhone headphones (ligtning), Android headphones (USB-C) and laptop/desktop or any old device (audio jack)

We already have Android and iPhone headphones with the jack. The 4-pole connector uses a different standard for the control signals for both.

You can't do anything beyond play/pause or answer calls on iOS with Samsung headphones or vice versa.

Now we have iPhone headphones and MacBook headphones, even worse.

The AirPods are Bluetooth so they should work with the MacBook too.

Because Apple.

I really don't want a shitty android phone. Might get a 6s I guess. I damaged my 6 recently.

Then choose a good one.

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