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Comment by ihuman | Hacker News Reader

>My standard listening headphones are Etymotic ER-4Ps; there is no way I am going to downgrade to AirPods

The phone comes with a 3.5mm to Lightning adapter, so you can continue to use your existing headphones.

Also, you can disable 3D touch and reachability (the double-tap home button thing) in the accessibility settings, if those are causing your issues.

>offer a system that just underlines words-thought-to-be-wrong without changing them, and let me tap on them to change them

If you disable auto-correction in the keyboard settings, it acts just like that.

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> The phone comes with a 3.5mm to Lightning adapter, so you can continue to use your existing headphones.

Yeah, no. When will I need this dongle? Exactly when I left it somewhere else. Then Apple will need a "Find my Dongle" application next to all the other "Find my*" applications.

I am not going to buy expensive spare dongles just so I don't rage when I realize I left the dongle at work so now I can't listen to music in the garage while I work on my projects. I am not going to carry it around all the time with my phone just in case I need it. The removal of the 3.5mm jack is a failure by Apple.

I just keep mine connected to my headphones, since I use them more with my iPhone than a computer. Also someone made a cool keychain to attach it to if that works better for you. [1]

> expensive spare dongles

They're only $10 USD.

[1] https://uncourage.com/

Why are people so desperate to defend this clearly user hostile move? A dongle is a poor user experience and continues to degrade user experience over time. The fact that there was a market demand for a "cool" keychain shows how unnecessary the removal of the jack was. Believe it or not, people enjoy using things without unnecessary accessories that you have to keep track of and swap around

I think the best use case for a dongle would be the first MacBook Pro I bought. They had phased out the VGA port for a DVI port, but included a DVI to VGA adapter in the box. The great thing about that is it simple a physical wiring adapter with no other logic inside. It worked well and no one complained since carrying the adapter in the bag with the laptop is not a big deal.

In the case of the iPhone 7 the laptop bag is my pocket which has much more limited space and a hard connector getting situated in the wrong spot could end up being uncomfortable until readjusted. Additionally it is not just a wiring adapter. The Lighting to 3.5mm adapter actually contains a DAC and ADC inside of it which unfortunately causes the audio quality to suffer slightly compared to a higher quality dedicated DAC/ADC solution inside the phone.

http://ifixit.org/blog/8448/apple-audio-adapter-teardown/

The conclusion on sound quality at the bottom of your link:

"when playing an uncompressed 16-bit audio file on the iPhone 6s, the dynamic range dropped from 99.1 dB at the headphone jack to 97.3 dB at the adapter. Though keep in mind, this slightly lower measurement is still higher than the theoretical maximum you get from a compact disc (which is 96 dB). So, is it a difference you are likely to notice? If you sit in a quiet room with a really, really good pair of headphones … and you’re a canine, the answer is: maybe."

I will not upgrade to a phone that does not have a 3.5mm jack.

But arguing this is a poor user experience is probably wrong for most people. Apple is correct in that this is the way things are going. I bet all the Flagship Android phones will be jackless too soon.

There are rumors:

http://www.androidpolice.com/2016/12/06/samsung-galaxy-s8-ru...

I am hoping they are not as apple-copying

Believe or not only few care about that lousy jack. Most will use earbuds that come with the phone, others will permanently have dongle attached to their headphones. And those who go AirPods way will forget jack ever existed.

> those who go AirPods way will forget jack ever existed

I'm pretty sure that this market segment, while surely it exists, will never overlap with those who care about good sound quality and a good music listening experience.

In other words: they're leaving significant market segments behind.

Are you implying there are no good Bluetooth headphones ? A2DP and aptx solved those issues long ago.

> Why are people so desperate to defend this clearly user hostile move?

Partly because even months before the iPhone 7 came out, sales of wireless headphones overtook those of wired.

http://qz.com/745108/wireless-headphone-sales-just-hit-a-tip...

People are already using it without unnecessary accessories.

I do not like the audio jack in my phone. Sometimes the headphones slide halfway out and the sound gets distorted.

I, for one, agree with the decision to let go of the audio jack.

I have 5+ pairs of headphones. One for home, one for the office, one for the gym, and then a couple of spares for when I lose any of the main 3. I have the iPhone 7 and I end up carrying the dongle around in my jeans pocket when I am able to remember it. I'm certainly not paying $10 a pop for spare dongles when most of my headphones didn't even cost that much.

Getting rid of the headphone jack is by far the dumbest move I have seen on the iPhone in a long time.

> Getting rid of the headphone jack is by far the dumbest move I have seen on the iPhone in a long time.

Then why did you get the iPhone 7? Should have voted with your wallet

Unfortunately I have a life saving medical device that only is compatible with the iPhone. I switched from Android to the iPhone 7 because of this.

Somehow I can't understand how a life saving medical device would require a smartphone of a certain brand, but even if this is the case you could have gotten the iPhone 6 for example

I'm a type 1 diabetic. There is a device by Dexcom known as a continuous glucose monitor that reads my blood sugar via interstitial fluids and then transmits the information via Bluetooth.

When I get unexplained low blood sugars in my sleep, which is believed to be the cause of Dead in Bed Syndrome, it sounds an alarm on the iPhone to wake me up before it's too late.

As for going with the iPhone 6

1) my money would still have gone to Apple

2) I didn't think about what a pain it was until after I bought them

Side notes

1) I have contacted Dexcom regarding an app for Android, but it doesn't seem like it will happen anytime soon.

2) I also tried an open source version for Android, but after purchasing 4 phones in a row that it had varying problems with I decided my life was worth more than being able to stay on Android.

[EDIT]

Diabetes is the number 7 leading cause of death in the United States and low blood sugar is the number one reason for ER visits by Type 1 diabetics.

I have Dexcom CGM as well and I just use the hardware alarm that comes with it. The battery lasts days longer than a phone's and it is small enough to fit in my pocket with my phone. I'd argue you would have been safer buying Android and being forced to rely on Dexcom hardware instead of an app.

Replying here to your other reply since you can't nest that deep.

I know there have been some changes on the G5 so I'm not clear how that works.

With the G4 the Dexcom CGM acts as a proxy to the phone. So when everything is working correctly I get two alarms. So this gives me a certain level of redundancy. Anyway it works for me well enough that I can get a full night's sleep. For years I had alarms set to wake me up several times during the night.

[EDIT]

Also, responding to your question about the phone being louder than the Dexcom. The phone is an order of magnitude louder than the G4.

Yeah, that was what I tried at first. Unfortunately I'm an extremely heavy sleeper and the alarm on the Dexcom device doesn't wake me up. My wife was waking up to the alarm and then she would wake me. She travels frequently for work though so that wasn't ideal either.

Also though, which model do you have?

I have the G4 Platinum w/Share. The sensors for it now ship with a warning sheet stating that you may not receive audible alarms due to issues with the speakers.

Ah, yes, I've had that heavy-head issue, but I wouldn't think your phone would be louder than that alarm. Is it?

I have G5 with Share (I think; I have a drawer full of old Dexcom stuff) and have gotten the same letter, but haven't had that issue. I definitely trust it more than Dexcom pairing with the phone. I'm glad your setup is working for you, though.

Thanks for the clarification, and yes, T1 Diabetes is dangerous.

$2 per on ebay. Just throw 20 bucks at it and buy one for every pair you have.

Only $10??? That is a lot of money for something that shouldn't be needed in the first place. I haven't spent $10 dollars on my phone since I bought a case for it in 2013. Then again, I have expandable memory and a headphone jack (Galaxy Note 3).

Alright, so you spend $800 for a phone, and you're complaining that you can't spare $10?

I'm not saying removing the headphone jack to make the phone a mm thinner wasn't a retarded move, but... Really? $10?

If I buy an $800 device, I make sure it does what I want it to do with the least amount of friction (add/replace my other hardware).

What if I buy a router today and there is a company that sells routers with a nice gui, but all the rj45 jacks are removed and it requires a dongle on the power jack to be able to connect a rj45. (For some reason it comes with a dongle but that requires the router to run on batteries)

Anywho, I am not the guy that is going to buy apple hardware anyway. So I don't really have any impact on apple if I don't buy anything.

I'm buying a second-hand iPhone 6s instead of an iPhone 7 because of the headphone jack (mainly out of principle).

It's just that I see so many comments arguing that dongles are expensive... The problem is not that they're expensive. I agree that they suck, but I can't possibly believe that people that can afford to spend $1000 on an iPhone Plus all of a sudden can't afford a $10 or $29 dongle.

Agreed, if you buy it then it is your own responsibility to know that it requires more than just the money for the phone.

Then again, some people buy expensive cars and are surprised about the high price of spare parts. I guess many consumers like to pay a big amount of money for a single product, and not a big amount + 10 small amounts for a product that needs multiple other products during its life.

Its like a phone case, we all wish it wasn't necessary to have one, but many people buy cases because the phone needs it to stay nice/safe. And I don't think there is a solution readily available that makes phone cases abundant for those people.

I thought the removal was to recycle the space while making waterproofing easier.

The removal is to introduce a way to control which headphones are connected and to get license payments in the future.

Doubtful. My guess is within 1-2 generations max the iPhone will have USB C to follow the Macbook line.

This statement is false.

The removal is to sell dongles

Ah, true. That was mentioned as well.

It's amazing that people would pick an extra millimeter trimmed off or waterproofing over a headphone jack (I assume they did surveys..?).

Why bother with expandable memory if you haven't bought a memory card for it in over 3 years?

It matters less as phone storage finally drops below $1 per GB, but traditionally it was not fun to pay 5x as much as a good-quality microSD, and that's if they even have the option to put in enough in the first place.

Bad comparison, memory cards are a clear need (gotta have more storage space) and are not responses to poor design decisions (gotta counteract a port I use every day being taken away).

A clear need for you isn't a clear need for everyone. Maybe I have all my stuff in the cloud, so I don't "gotta have more storage space". Meanwhile I've been using Bluetooth headphones for a decade now, I have no need for the headphone port.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no Apple fanboy. But the real injustice here is that they're clinging to their proprietary Lightning port instead of going with the standard USB-C. That is complete bullshit.

> A clear need for you isn't a clear need for everyone.

This goes both ways.

They're about $2 per on ebay.

> The removal of the 3.5mm jack is a failure by Apple.

It's been a total non-issue for me. Since the iPhone 7 comes with both the adapter and Lighting headphones work/home usage isn't a problem. I just use the adapter + existing headphones at home and the Lighting headphones at work.

That's sort of what I found. I thought it was going to be a major inconvenience because I don't like talking directly on a phone without headphones and a mic.

It turns out that what I really don't like is having a conversation on a Samsung phone with the consistently awful earpieces Samsung puts in them (Note 4, S4, Galaxy Nexus, Nexus S...). I've been pretty happy with the iPhone 7 earpiece.

My plea to Samsung: you guys make killer displays; couldn't you figure out how to make an earpiece that isn't awful?

The adapter will go away in the future, it's just a technology to get people on the jackless train. I'm sure iPhone 8 will no longer support it.

I have just one pair of headphones that I use daily. How many dongles would you need to have one for every set of headphones?

The headphones stay on the desk at work. Then there is the old set of Altec Lansing speakers in the garage. There are a few more spots that I rarely use, but they all have 3.5mm connectors.

You can get a dongle attacher, like this one for the magsafe 1 adapter:

https://www.amazon.com/Cozy-Industries-MC-RD-1-2-MagCozy-2-P...

You'll probably want to pick up a dongle attacher attacher as well.

In my experience, the amplification that this adapter provides is not enough for larger headphones.

Larger headphones like what? Impedance should matter there, not size, and it would surprise me to learn that there are high-Ω headphones that an iPhone can drive effectively, but the adapter can't.

A sysadmin I work who has had Apple-everything for years (iMac, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, iPhone, Apple Watch...) with walked in last week without his Apple Watch.

Asking him about it, he pulled out a new Pixel and said it was for op's very reason. In particular he noted that the pixel had a much better DAC than any one iPhone he'd ever had - and in particular that it could drive all of his higher end headphones. He also mentioned that the new iThing adapter has it own DAC inside the adapter... it's apparently powered by the lightning port with its own drivers - and that he had tried it out anyway but found it incapable of properly driving any of his nicer headphones.

You're absolutely correct - these things can all be fixed. I think the main point is that it kills the excitement of getting a new expensive device. It just becomes more and more work to regain the control back.

That's the thing I find really interesting about this debate; one of the things that creates excitement for me with new Android devices is customizing it to work exactly how I want. Turning things off, changing default behaviours, IFTTT-ing the device until it's hard for anyone else to actually use.

Same with Precision Touchpad laptops (Dell XPS 15 for instance), changing all the swipe gestures to work exactly how I want. I always joke with my colleagues that if they can use my laptop efficiently, then I'm not done setting it up yet.

I totally get that it's a difference of expectations, it's just interesting to me.

Please don't ever design something meant for public use :)

You don't want designers who realize that everyone doesn't share their taste in how things are configured?

I have headphones in multiple places, so I keep the dongle attached to the phone and realize it's scratching the phone or irritating my pocket. This was clearly a broken by design / apple screwing over consumers more / form over function insanity. They should have used standard USB-C for the damn phone too. Their laptops now standardize on it, but they still use proprietary crap on the phones.

Not an Apple fanboy, but the Lighting connector is way better designed than any USB connector, so I wouldn't call it crap. Proprietary, therefore sometimes annoying yes, but definitely not crap. The USB connectors are equally annoying when you try to insert them. With USB type A I always have to inspect the tip of the connector and the plug, and micro USB is always a pain to insert properly leading to connector damage at both the cable and the device ports.

The decision not to include a phone jack in the iPhone 7 was a crappy decision insteaead.

The USB-A/microUSB strawman notwithstanding, USB-C has the capabilities you're talking about (easy to insert, reversible).

Given that USB-C requires roughly the same vertical space as the headphone jack, the one thing lightning has going for it from my perspective is that it works in a phone too thin for a headphone jack.

USB-C didn’t exist when the Lightning connector was introduced.

It did when the iPhone7 was released, and had already been released on quite a few Android phones.

Sure, but having already invested goodwill and money in Lighting, the benefits of switching to USB-C would have to be substantial before it makes sense for Apple to do so. To reality is that for most of Apple's users, USB-C offers no discernible advantage and quite a few disadvantages (having to buy new cables and peripherals again).

>USB-C offers no discernible advantage

Well, besides being able to charge your phone from your laptop charger, use the same USB flash drive in your phone and laptop without an adapter, use the same powered noise-cancelling headphones in your laptop and phone, connect your phone to your projector/monitor/TV using the same adapter as the laptop, and so many more.

So, there are some benefits if you already have other devices that use USB-C. Most people don't however. Not yet. What people do have, is tons of crap that is Lighting compatible.

>The phone comes with a 3.5mm to Lightning adapter, so you can continue to use your existing headphones.

What if I want to use my headphones while charging my phone?

Quite a few companies sell adapters that allow for this.

So now you need two dongles for one set of earphones.

And how is the quality of the DAC in that adapter?

Sure sounds great!

I wonder how those dongles work for blind folks that use a headphone to connect to ATMs? I know the AirPods and lightning head phones are a no go for them.

Also, I need to buy a 3rd party dongle since power is also important in my car and I'm not buying a new car because of a phone.

"It just works"

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