No headphone jack on the iPhone 7... really?

A little of a tangent, but I’ll try to get it to atleast G2

One thing that doesn’t make a ton of sense to me, and why I was not jumping for joy when the 6’s came out is why is the lens still sticking out?

Why isn’t it flush? Oh right, got to keep the “thinnest i-Phone ever” as thin as it is now. Going flush should theoretically give them a little over 6% more space to work with inside the phone, while increasing it’s stiffness in it’s weakest dimension, this might even allow them to further optimize the case and thin out other areas allowing for more space. If removing the earbuds was even partially about more space for tech, increasing the thickness that 0.5mm (making the camera flush) theoretically nets you over 8 times as much space as removing the audio jack.

You are Apple, be brave, make the phone / lens flush, don’t get caught up in thickness claims when that thickness is past the point of user benefit.


I like the argument that this is 1 step closer to a wireless future, BUT why have they not brought done wireless charging yet? Wanna get seamless? Wireless charging, BT audio… done… as I typed that, the case for selling more proprietary lightning connectors and licensing fees starts to feel a little stronger…

ALSO … when I saw this image (first image I saw related to the AirPods) it reinforced the fact that I might
have problems keeping them together, and oh yeah… one more thing to keep track of and carry around

The Bragi version. You get a couple more charges out of putting the buds in the case. They already sell tethers to connect the pair…

Did you know that every 3 button microphone on a headphone pays them not only a royalty but there isa tiny proprietary chip in there to make it work with Apple products. Unlike the 1 button for Android which is open of course… but doesn’t always work. Trade offs.

but still doesn’t solve the problem of the buds ding when cranked up on a long plane flight which is why I think in the end this will be less about going to BT and more about transmitting analog audio via lightning until there is a breakthrough in battery size.

Odd parallel here to this port/cable story…

Last night my cable guy paid me a visit. He brought in a bunch of new toys to clutter up my apartment here in Seoul. A new set top box as they do now every 9 months now. We can now watch 4 channels at once, which will be great for the online retailers I suppose. :angry: The odd bit however was that he also brought in and installed a new BT remote control and additional box that needed yet another power socket. As my cable guy explained this to me he said, “Yeah, its great now you can change the channel from the other room.” :laughing:

I theorized that Korea Telecom had acquired a small bankrupt SME that made the hardware and rather than dispose of the inventory they just pushed it out to the customer (probably with some sort of new upgraded spyware installed :imp: ). The ‘hair’ behind my tv now is even longer.

Perhaps “cable stylist” will be a growth market career choice in the future…

Yo…what is being done more broadly in the CE space to address this issue? Apple is obviously now taking their turn.

Only this design forum has this kind of first world US culture hyperbole… :laughing:

Cable proliferation and elimination seem to go hand in hand. On one side you have technologies like HDMI which allows 2 way communication through the cables in your AV world (finally!) allowing Multiple devices to turn on simultaneously and has the potential to drastically simplify the user experience (once protocols become more universal)… And the flip are new technologies like ATMOS effectively doubling wiring but creating amazing home theater effects. You can go ultra simple, and you can go ultra high performance, but it is hard to do both. I have parallel set ups in our living room so I can live with both ends of the spectrum.

On the no headphone jack topic, LeEco also eliminated their headphone jacks. You may not have heard of LeEco but this is a huge brand in China with global ambitions. Wishing these couple of years these brands will establish themselves in the US. The

Another article on phones that have already eliminated the jack:

This article makes sound quality one of the reasons to get rid of it. While it is true that the DAC in all phones and laptops are terrible, if they just replace it with a crap DAC in the lightening connector, the quality will still suck. You either need a great DAC like a Firefly which takes the digital file and sends through an awesome DAC making the 3.5 connection wonderful, or you go digital all the way and have great DSP in the headphone, something very few brands or factories know how to do.

DAC= Digital to Analog Converter
DSP= Digital Signal Processing

This issue of sound quality is an interesting one for me. I am certain it can be improved, but I believe my phone and my ipod both have very good sound quality currently. Since I primarily listen to them when I’m on the go (walking around downtown, my neighborhood, in the airport, while running, when flying, on the train, etc.), I’m not sure I could hear or appreciate better sound quality in those contexts. When I really want high fidelity sound, I listen to my stereo at home - with great speakers (or a great headset) in an environment where I can control the ambient background.

Also, when I’m on the go - especially when I am running or navigating around a different city - I want some of that ambient background noise to inform my situational awareness.

reminds me of where cell phones were prior to readily available digital music. I remember having a nokia phone (5300)

that was built on its mp3 functionality… odd twist was that it had a 2.5mm jack, so you used an adapter to use 3.5mm headphones, if you werent using the cheap 2.5mm ones it came with.




that was just about 10 years ago.

i would really like to see some hard polling data (which im sure apple used) that shows what percentage of headphone users are wireless.

I am also curious if the split holds true in the android realm, or if one group is more likely to be wireless.

http://www.unbiasedamerica.com/media/apple-needs-to-hire-an-economist

i think this is an innovation. Love this idea although it’s for sales of wireless earphones.
Most of recent water-proof phones don’t meet user’s expectation. i hope this change from Apple could really made Iphone 7 water-proof

On one level I feel disappointed because of the history of music listening experiences I have had since the first iPod. It just feels strange that Apple is removing “THE” audio port on a device that’s had one since the beginning, how could they etc etc. However, I don’t think this is a good enough reason to despair for too long. I don’t miss having to plug a phone cord or ethernet cord into my computer because wifi has improved the experience of getting a device on the internet so greatly.

Recently I got my first $20-40 bluetooth earbuds from Amazon to use for chores around the house and mowing the lawn and they are so convenient since the cord isn’t snagging on everything. I think further expanding the wireless headphone market and making the wireless syncing experience much easier can only be good things, even if it feels like removing the headphone jack was maybe one or two iPhone versions too early.

I wonder if Apple will end up removing the headphone jack on the iPods too.

exactly which part do you consider innovation? They are removing a feature, not adding one.

it is sort of like saying an auto manufacturer is innovative because they reduced the number of manual gears on an automatic… even though they are still there for automatic use. :confused: :open_mouth:

I use a pair of Astro A50 wireless for gaming, movies, and to play Rocksmith on my Xbox One, the A50’s have optical input that takes advantage of the Xbox’s optical output, which helps cut down on the latency quite a bit, and they sound amazing. So if your studio rig has optical out you might want to give them a try.

Astros are not practical as everyday walking around headphones due to the required transmitter-to device set-up.

Sorry, off-topic, I use an Android phone, got nothin’

Apple Lossless is one of many lossless audio compressors, meaning that it can achieve a certain level of file compression without compromising the audio data at all in the process. Unlike WAV and AIFF files, Apple Lossless files support full tagging with metadata, and output file sizes tend to range from roughly 50-70% of the size of uncompressed WAV or AIFF files.

As far as the consistency of the compression, it’s lossless, so unless some bizarre error occurs during compression (VERY unlikely), the output is always the same as what it would be if you were encoding directly to WAV or AIFF. :smiley:

WOW :slight_smile: :slight_smile:
airpods-concepto-earpods-inalambricos-3.jpg

Perfect !!! The New Apple Air Bag.

My issue is not with the removal of the 3.5mm jack…it us with the AirPods. The UX of those devices is poorly executed.

I’m sure Otterbox will take care of all these problems.