The iPhone 7 has no headphone jack

[MNicolai]

I want to be frustrated by this but it was inevitable. It may be rough starting out but it will become 2nd nature to people before long and other manufacturers will follow suit.

In general, iPhones hold their technical value quite well. I know a lot of people who are still on 5's and 5S's who don't feel their phones are obsolete yet. For the people who aren't happy about this development they can hold out for 18 months on a 6S until the bumpy part of this transition is over.

From a security perspective, I'm not surprised that they didn't go with Bluetooth. Bluetooth is rather easy to hack and is not secure. Audio transmission also isn't particularly reliable. That they baked their own tech for this should come as a relief to everyone who's been scorned by Bluetooth in the past. I haven't seen an indication that this new protocol includes encryption but I would expect to see that added in time to come.

This a step towards eliminating the GUI. Every year VUI's like Echo, Siri, and Cortana get better and better. For people who grew up with buttons, they'll be used to whipping out their phones to do things. For teens right now growing up on voice-activated products, GUI's and buttons feel almost prehistoric. Moving to wireless, bidirectional headphones is a necessary next step toward this advancement in user experience.

To that end, I expect we'll see an API, chipset, or something that Apple will open up or license out because the real meat of this in years to come will be in getting more devices and environments ready for voice-only and voice-mostly controls.

This isn't unlike HDMI killing off VGA. Most people hated it at first, and years later some people still have fixations on how much they hate HDMI connectors but before long the VGA connector was largely killed off, and somewhere in there we reached a tipping point where it just couldn't die fast enough.

Are some people gonna be upset? Sure.

Are the same number of people going to be upset today as they would be if this happened in 10 years? Probably.

So why delay the inevitable?

And as someone who has had to take my iPhone in to get the headphone jack fixed or who has had to jam a paper clip in there to clean the lint out, I feel little or no remorse that this jack is gone. It's temporarily inconvenient but like the death of VGA, optical discs, and floppy drives, greatness doesn't come without compromise, and compromise doesn't begin without inconvenience.

 

[techieman33]

A solution to the charging issue was announced today by Belkin. They are offering a Lightning port twofer for $40.
http://www.belkin.com/us/p/P-F8J198/?clickid=w0:Tn93NMT980FBWvKWrFS7UUkk1CsQ90zOdTY0&utm_campaign=Online+Tracking+Link&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=impactradius&irgwc=1

Another solution for those of us who want a solution to live with our Sound Board is the Apple Lightning Dock. It allows you to charge and pass audio out through a 3.5mm port.

This is what's so frustrating. Now you have to spend $50 to get the same functionality that you've always had in the past. And you have to remember to carry around the stupid dongles. With a laptop that's not the end of the world, your going to have a bag to carry the laptop around that the dongle can live in. But with a phone it's not something that your going to remember to carry around with you all the time. So you'll end up needing one at home, one in the car, and one at work. It's stupid. Just one more way for Apple to take our money.

 

[MNicolai]

This is what's so frustrating. Now you have to spend $50 to get the same functionality that you've always had in the past. And you have to remember to carry around the stupid dongles. With a laptop that's not the end of the world, your going to have a bag to carry the laptop around that the dongle can live in. But with a phone it's not something that your going to remember to carry around with you all the time. So you'll end up needing one at home, one in the car, and one at work. It's stupid. Just one more way for Apple to take our money.

Most people aren't going to have headphones and power plugged in at the same time. Even the small number of people who do that presently will dwindle with the increased battery life. That's an edge case, and once wireless becomes popular it will become almost non-existent.

 

[sk8rsdad]

The use case my venue is going to struggle with is somebody showing up with an iPhone 7 without any way to connect it to our sound system. We're not investing in some proprietary bridge, Dante isn't supported over WiFi, and Bluetooth audio into a Meyer/QSC system is going to sound like cr*p.

 

[Footer]

From a security perspective, I'm not surprised that they didn't go with Bluetooth. Bluetooth is rather easy to hack and is not secure. Audio transmission also isn't particularly reliable. That they baked their own tech for this should come as a relief to everyone who's been scorned by Bluetooth in the past. I haven't seen an indication that this new protocol includes encryption but I would expect to see that added in time to come.

This a step towards eliminating the GUI. Every year VUI's like Echo, Siri, and Cortana get better and better. For people who grew up with buttons, they'll be used to whipping out their phones to do things. For teens right now growing up on voice-activated products, GUI's and buttons feel almost prehistoric. Moving to wireless, bidirectional headphones is a necessary next step toward this advancement in user experience.

To that end, I expect we'll see an API, chipset, or something that Apple will open up or license out because the real meat of this in years to come will be in getting more devices and environments ready for voice-only and voice-mostly controls.

This isn't unlike HDMI killing off VGA. Most people hated it at first, and years later some people still have fixations on how much they hate HDMI connectors but before long the VGA connector was largely killed off, and somewhere in there we reached a tipping point where it just couldn't die fast enough.

The reality distortion field is strong with this one....

First, they did go with bluetooth. The new "lose them in a week" headphones run bluetooth. Just plain bluetooth. http://www.recode.net/2016/9/7/12841136/apple-airpods-do-use-bluetooth. They rolled a bit of sauce in to possibly fix some of bluetooths paring issues but... that crappy experience that you have had with every bluetooth device you have ever owned.... could possibly be here as well. Don't think for a second thing Apple invented anything new here.

Second, GUI's aren't going away. People don't actually want to talk to their phone for every interaction. For people in our business, you can't. For the people taking public transit every day... you can't. For the kids texting in class... etc. We spent a long time trying to get rid of the bluetooth bro, society dealt with that and doesn't want him back.

To the API/Chipset point... apple has yet to release an API that other manufactures want or have used. Swift is not being picked up outside of Apple. Apple claimed it would release a facetime API... never happened. There is no history of this. They are going to make proprietary things as long as we keep buying them. If they wanted this thing to be cross platform they would have put a USB-C plug on it and called it a day. USB-C headphones already exist and the standards are out there for anyone to use.

With the VGA to HDMI transition, I would argue that only a small percentage of actual people ever hooked their laptops up to a projection system or external monitor. The people who wanted to do it jumped through the hoops to make it work. On the flip-side, everyone has used the headphone jack.

As an Apple stockholder I'm hoping they are right and they get to sell more headphones and dongles and make more money. As a person who has to deal with this stuff in the real world, I'm more then annoyed.

 

[gafftaper]

My S7 Edge has headphone jacks, higher ip rating and wireless charging. Take that apple!

Just be glad you don't have the Note 7... It catches fire!

 

[techieman33]

And just think with iPhone 8 they'll probably introduce wireless charging, and by iPhone 9 the physical connectors will be gone entirely. Then you'll have to buy their proprietary charging docks and redtooth headphones.

 

[StradivariusBone]

Saw this and thought it added an important point to the debate. Fair warning on some strong language, but too relevant not to share-

This is what wearing "AirPods" will look like from the front.

 

[jasonallenh]

No offense, but it will likely become standard. This seems to be leaving an older tech behind (the analog TRS connection) for far more modern advances to take it's place. .

Headphones are electromechanical devices... the analog signal still exists as the last thing before the transducers pump sound into your ears. This isn't something that can be phased out for new tech. That's why dropping the TRS connector is pointless- eventually whatever you're playing has to be converted back to analog signal anyway. You're just taking away an option to do that. This is not new though, Apple likes proprietary connectors, because it keeps your money flowing back to them. If they inconvenience you enough by taking away the jack, you'll eventually buy wireless headphones.

 

[MNicolai]

Are you suggesting that driving your amplifiers digitally at 48K or 96K has no difference to driving them analog?

RE: Bluetooth. I'm ambivalent. Like I said, extra security may not exist today but it will exist in the future, whether Apple leads that charge or someone else does. Apple seems more primed for it than others though as they have been relentless in fighting for user privacy.

It's naive to think this is about a connector. It's about user experience. Today's inconvenience may be tomorrow's trend, or it may be tomorrow's flop. That's Apple's risk to take and if you don't like it, you can buy something else.

I remember when Apple released the original iPhone. It was expensive and feature-limited in v1. People hated that they killed off the physical keyboard. Then the App Store was brought online, people got acclimated to the digital keyboard, and the next rev that came out was noticeably faster. Now most phones don't have physical keyboards, despite all of the kicking and screaming people did during the transition.

People also transitioned to digital consoles kicking and screaming. But the tech became more reliable, more cost effective, more versatile, and the user experience got better and and better every time. There are still people who hate digital consoles, but they're edge cases and represent a small fraction of users. I have a customer who bought a QL5 to cascade to his CL5 because he couldn't stand fader layers. Should Yamaha have refused to make a digital console or made only digital consoles without fader layers for guys like him?

I also had a customer last week who jammed an 1/8" TRS into an RCA connector and couldn't figure out why their system was buzzing.

For however ubiquitous the 1/8" TRS connector seems, every connector and cable gets in the way of the experiences of many though admittedly not all users.

We're not going to agree on this. That's fine. But as history has shown, I think gut reactions to new tech are notoriously unreliable in predicting if they will stick or not.

If I had to put money on it though, I'd venture a guess that the "rip the band aid off" approach has a better chance of long term success or instant failure than a phased in approach over several years. A phased in approach is a good way to fragment the tech across manufacturers or delay product developments while manufacturers debate standards. A good way to slowly but effectively degrade your brand beyond repair or recognition.

For a forum filled with designers, I'm surprised at the lack of interest people have in taking risks to make what you think is a better product, even if your audience might not figure that out until Act 2. If we only designed things without risk that were safe, watching paint dry would be an Olympic sport compared to picking up a ticket to Hamilton, a straight play with classical music composition with lyrics as written by Rodgers and Hammerstein.

Do you really want to live in a world where the only design decisions made are the same safe, reliable ones that have been deployed for the last 30 years?

 

[jasonallenh]

Are you suggesting that driving your amplifiers digitally at 48K or 96K has no difference to driving them analog?

I'm assuming this wasn't directed toward my previous post. The post-amplifier (in this case, headphone amplifier) analog stage cannot go obsolete or be replaced because air as a medium for sound waves can't be replaced. The headphone jack will be obsolete when ears are obsolete. And I would DEFINITELY prefer a headphone jack to their 'not-Bluetooth' Bluetooth. It makes their phones cheaper to make because they can drop the headphone amp section. It makes them more money because you have to buy their proprietary accessories. That's truly what's at the root of this. They package it as new tech, but this is about money.

 

[MNicolai]

On that point, you're right. I'm in my 5th airport terminal in 36 hrs so I'm not thinking clearly.

I stand by my point though that this isn't about money. Apple already has money. More money than they know what to do with. If they wanted more money and nothing else, they wouldn't have taken the risk of touching the headphone jack.

Long term I suspect though that we'll see some interesting things happening to the amplifier quality inside of headphones once Bluetooth is finally fixed or finally killed in favor of the next best thing. Maybe it won't. Maybe this will all suck. We won't know until we try.

 

[sk8rsdad]

Whatever Apple is up to with this is transitory anyway. Somebody will develop direct neural stimulus and the public will experience going to theatre, sporting event or concert without the need to leave our home. There's a big push on to bring VR to the consumer market for international sporting events, so it's coming and it's going to be disruptive when it gets here.

 

[StradivariusBone]

I stand by my point though that this isn't about money. Apple already has money. More money than they know what to do with. If they wanted more money and nothing else, they wouldn't have taken the risk of touching the headphone jack.

I don't think their investors would agree. Apple has always been a closed ecosystem sort of company dating back to their earliest hardware. There are benefits and consequences to that decision, but for the mobile market I've always enjoyed it particularly for the app store where they keep a fairly tight rein on things. For my computer I'm willing to goof off and experiment, for my mobile I just wanted it to work.

The other benefit to Apple is that with the closed ecosystem, they control the accessory market exclusively. This is as much of a user-experience decision as it is a financial one. They profess their tech just works and the best way to do that is to completely control everything that plays with it. This also absolves them from blame when their users employ non-licensed hardware that causes failures. People who want that experience will pay for it, so to say that this decision is unrelated to money and somehow a purely "courageous" move on Apple's part to further the advancement of technology smells a bit of fan-boyism to me, no insult intended.

I just can't imagine this was enacted without a thorough and heavily data-backed market analysis. Whether those market predictions come true remains to be seen. I suspect that it will become the new norm (remember all the "iPad" jokes when they settled on that name?), but for my experience I still want an analog connector with my phone. While Apple has the home user market in its pocket, they never have really established a reasonable foothold in the enterprise/business atmosphere so those of us still rocking the VGA port will continue to find our needs met elsewhere. We had an Apple rep in here talking to our district's IT specialists about their new method for managing iPads on an enterprise level. They just implemented a real method to remotely administer these things years after their introduction. So many schools have carts full of these things that sit unused because there was no way to handle them on an enterprise level and techs just didn't have time to mess with it. But for that product I think the education market was secondary, and really only driven by educators who are not super-tech-saavy and liked the app offerings for their classes.

On the bluetooth note- wireless communication as it is will remain at least moderately unsecure without server authentication. Even WPA2 is not super secure without a RADIUS server to handle user logins. I can't see Apple creating a wireless standard that will out-do what the entire industry is constantly pushing for as a general rule, but necessity breeds innovation so who knows? Bluetooth wasn't invented with the audiophile in mind so it might be interesting to see what a wireless audio connection looks like from the ground up. Granted, security with an audio stream is generally not going to be a priority, but anytime you're broadcasting a connection over the air it's simply not going to be as secure as a copper connection. Whether or not hackers employ this as a strategy to get into your phone or just rick roll you depends on how they design the phone.

 

[Footer]

Yes they have gobs of money BUT their stock is in the toilet right now because investors don't think they will continue making MORE gobs of money.

They won't be able to get away from bluetooth for a long time, if ever. Every car has it and that is the one thing you don't swap out yearly. Add to that the bluetooth speaker and you are in a pretty saturated market that would be hard to change.

Apple does know one thing... they know how many of their users actually use the headphone port and how often they used it. I guaranteed they looked at that and compared it to the number of bluetooth devices people used. They have the data, no question about it.

Who knows, maybe it will work out. Maybe their users don't care. I don't see as many people carrying iPhones as I used to. Then again, since Chromecast audio came out I have replaced all of my bluetooth speakers with that. This is the company that still have YEARS of trying has never figured out a proper cloud and syncing strategy that actually works... so they can make mistakes. This could be one.

 

[dvsDave]

People hated that they killed off the physical keyboard.

You might be too young to remember the Newton. They tried this back in 1993 and screwed up the handwriting recognition royally. It wasn't until 1995 when Palm released the orginal Pilot that they sorta got handwriting recognition to work. In any case, there is a LONG history of devices without a keyboard that came before the iPhone.

. There are still people who hate digital consoles, but they're edge cases and represent a small fraction of users.

They are people, not edge cases.

For a forum filled with designers, I'm surprised at the lack of interest people have in taking risks to make what you think is a better product, even if your audience might not figure that out until Act 2. If we only designed things without risk that were safe, watching paint dry would be an Olympic sport compared to picking up a ticket to Hamilton, a straight play with classical music composition with lyrics as written by Rodgers and Hammerstein.

Do you really want to live in a world where the only design decisions made are the same safe, reliable ones that have been deployed for the last 30 years?

Gonna call a debate foul here. Just because the decision to not include a headphone jack isn't considered a safe choice, doesn't mean that it's going to be a success like the other cases mentioned.

 

[MNicolai]

Gonna call a debate foul here. Just because the decision to not include a headphone jack isn't considered a safe choice, doesn't mean that it's going to be a success like the other cases mentioned.

I did not say it would be a success. It might flop, but that's Apple's call to make. What's the point of design if you only ever give people what they already expect?

 

[DeadCheerios]

I did not say it would be a success. It might flop, but that's Apple's call to make. What's the point of design if you only ever give people what they already expect?

It is apples call to make however people get more upset over Apple doing this over android phones for a simple reason.
If you are invested in Apples eco system you cannot get a new gen of phone now with a headphone jack. Even when some Android phones have gotten rid of the jack (Can only think of Motorola but they have a second version of the same phone WITH the jack) you can still get an android phone just a different manufacturer. You cannot do that with Apple. If you want a different phone you have to give up every paid app and purchase you made and start fresh, which for some people is quite shitty.

Also apple isn't getting rid of the headphone jack for something better, they are removing a well use feature so people buy lighting headphones, their overpriced wireless headphones or move to bluetooth which is super meh still.
Or you can use your own head phones but you gotta pay apple for an adapter. Its a way for apple to just get more and more money out of peoples pockets.

Hell, to make something with a lightning connector apple makes $4 per connector. Thats why they are really doing it.

 

[flowalex999]

When they said they removed it because it would create a more water resistant device I feel is misleading. The Iphone has an IP rating of 67, which my phone from 2013 has and it has a removable battery and a headphone jack. I am not saying that it won't cause problems I just feel that some of their reasoning is flawed
IP: Ingress Protection IP67: Dust Tight and able to be submerged in 1 meter of water for 30 minutes
https://www.nts.com/services/enviro...qq8bgZnLQoj2tj2UEr9K0VPfqUfnpTLrfcaAqmg8P8HAQ

 

[MNicolai]

It is apples call to make however people get more upset over Apple doing this over android phones for a simple reason.
If you are invested in Apples eco system you cannot get a new gen of phone now with a headphone jack. Even when some Android phones have gotten rid of the jack (Can only think of Motorola but they have a second version of the same phone WITH the jack) you can still get an android phone just a different manufacturer. You cannot do that with Apple. If you want a different phone you have to give up every paid app and purchase you made and start fresh, which for some people is quite shitty.

At the moment you don't have to do anything. The iPhone 6S/Plus is not obsolete and based on the current obsolescence rate of iPhone models, you can easily make it to the 8 and maybe even the 8S before doing anything. Somewhere along the way, the hope being that the transition to wherever we're going is complete.

Also, if you use an app for 2-3 years and have to replace it on another platform, it's not unreasonable that you should pay the developer again at some point for their ongoing support of the app. This is why Apple is beginning to incorporate a subscription model for app purchases where the apps are continually updated -- the general direction most software licensing models are going. A lot of people take for granted that they bought most of the apps on their phones 3-4 years ago and haven't had to pay for all of the updates they've been receiving, especially the support for a new interface, screen size, and features for the subsequent hardware releases of their phone.

If you use your apps for 1-2 years and don't feel like you've already gotten your money's worth if you decide to leave for another platform, I think your expectations of Apple/Andriod/software developers are unrealistic.

Hell, to make something with a lightning connector apple makes $4 per connector. Thats why they are really doing it.

If that were the case, they wouldn't be including the adapter with the phone and then also selling it for only $9. For comparison, a short 1/8" cable will cost you $6.

By the way, at some point we should argue about how the reason most people replace their headphones is because they destroy the cable. I have a pair of Shure SE315's that I love, and in the last 3-4 years I've had to swap out the cables ~10 times because the cables failed at the 1/8" connector. Also had to replace the drivers because they got overdriven off of the headphone jack on my phone. More efficient earphone elements means they're more likely to become damaged by the average headphone jack. Moving to wireless will have different problems and there's nothing but good self-discipline to keep you from losing them, but long-term it could mean for a lot of people that they don't need to replace their headphones as often.