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Comment by stephenr | Hacker News Reader

> That's because unless your Samsung actually blows you up there isn't a perceivable effect

There is a real risk of the Samsung causing a great deal of damage and/or injury. It's been fucking banned by most major airlines because of the risk, and after much typical Samsung fucking about, have issued a full recall.

> vs making me have to buy new headphones if I get the latest iPhone.

Why. Why do you need to buy new headphones?

Either you

a) genuinely aren't aware they include a Lightning to 3.5mm adapter in the box, but somehow feel the need to comment about an aspect you've apparently spent 0 seconds researching; or

b) you know damn well they include an adapter and you're being disingenuous.

This type of thing is exactly what I'm talking about. You downplay a literal health and safety risk "eh, it won't happen to me" but trump up complaints about "i can't use my headphones" which are not even accurate.

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Samsung's bad battery does not absolve Apple of sin. Yes, I know they include an adapter. This adapter is a kludge--meaning it adds size and yet another point of failure. More important, when that adapter is used I cannot charge the phone, which means I can't use an iPhone 7 to play music in my car on long road trips. (I have an excellent car audio system, and it has no bluetooth). Without buying yet another kludgy adapter which is manifestly not in the box.

Including the jack to lightning adapter appears to me like a contradiction: it's like saying "we remove the audio jack but we know that you need it".

Your complaint is that they're including a free adaptor?

I know its "cool" to be anti-Apple, but you're clutching at straws.

> I know its "cool" to be anti-Apple

I sincerely doubt that someone would be anti-Apple on HN just because it's cool. What Apple is doing is a conscious choice of direction, which has a lot of potential for discussion.

What Samsung did is catastrophic, yes. However, it doesn't have any depth for discussion. Yes they messed up big time, and yes the situation has been down-played, but in the end, it affects Samsung market share and the health of the poor people who got affected. Discussing the market-share of Samsung and their policies doesn't have any meaning, and for the people, you can only hope that the authorities take enough precautions.

On the other hand, Apple has been making decisions, which, in the end, can affect far more many people, regardless of their usage of Apple products, in a good or bad way, for a far longer term. It is a statement, at the very least.

Or maybe I'm exaggerating, that's also possible.

This is silly. I know me - I lose stuff, I don't need one extra thing to lose, and I am not buying lightning headphones.

No, my complain is that they're removing a standard port in favour of their own propietary alternative while they know that a lot of users would be more comfortable with the standard one. I also think that using the lightinig port has no real advantage over the audio jack but I admittedly don't know much about lightning, so maybe somebody can prove me wrong. (Removing a component from the phone isn't in my opinion an advantage because the audio jack uses a very tiny space and removing it gives you far less choices if you want to buy a new pair of headphones).

More like, "We know you might need it." I plug audio in quite infrequently on my Note as I use bluetooth most of the time. Kill them for introducing a new, proprietary standard for wireless audio, but not for removing the jack which in my case is just a dust magnet which frequently requires a cleanout to solve the blocked proximity sensor problem.

>a new, proprietary standard for wireless audio

Isn't it just Bluetooth?

You're right. I guess the way they pitched it, given their track record I was just assuming. That being said, I'm not sure what they did that was so world-changing with wireless connectivity since I never had the bluetooth connection problems that they say everybody has.

So you can switch a bluetooth device from your phone to your laptop without some weird dance?

To me, that's the real magic. Pairing is obviously very slick, but being able to seamlessly transition between host devices is huge.

With the later versions of bluetooth I don't have a problem with that. Also, we haven't seen this in the wild yet so I'll reserve judgement and praise.

Yep. The 3.5mm audio jack comes in the box, so they didn't really remove it, they just moved it off-device. Maybe they could move the battery off-device too and make the iPhone 8 even thinner.

> a) genuinely aren't aware they include a Lightning to 3.5mm adapter in the box, but somehow feel the need to comment about an aspect you've apparently spent 0 seconds researching; or

You've posted about the adapter multiple times now, but unless the adapter has the 3.5mm jack and a power connector allowing a person to use their head phones and charge the phone simultaneously it's not equivalent of the existing functionality.

Perhaps they plugin a battery pack when they're using their headphones? Can't just be me that does that.

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