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'Headphone Jacks Are the New Floppy Drives' (daringfireball.net)
According to the Wall Street Journal, Apple's upcoming iPhone won't have a 3.5mm headphone jack. The news has already upset many people. The Verge's Nilay Patel wrote on Tuesday that the decision of getting rid of the legacy headphone port is "user hostile and stupid." Apple commentator John Gruber makes a case for why Apple's supposed move is not a bad idea at all. He writes:Patel misses the bigger problem. It's not enforcement of DRM on audio playback. It's enforcement of the MFi Program for certifying hardware that uses the Lightning port. Right now any headphone maker in the world can make any headphones they want for the standard jack. Not so with the Lightning port.He adds that the existing analog headphone jack "is more costly in terms of depth than thickness," and by getting rid of it, Apple could use the extra real estate to stuff in more battery juice. Addressing Patel's point that the move of ditching a deeply established standard will "disproportionately impact accessibility," Gruber adds that "enabling, open, and democratizing" have never been high on Apple's list of priorities for external ports. Gruber also addressed Patel's argument that introducing a Lightning Port-enabled headphone feature will make Android and iPhone headphones incompatible. He wrote: Why would Apple care about headphone compatibility with Android? If Apple gave two shits about port compatibility with Android, iPhones would have Micro-USB ports. In 1998 people used floppy drives extensively for sneaker-netting files between Macs and PCs. That didn't stop Apple from dropping it.As for "nobody is asking" Apple to remove headphone jack from the next iPhone, Gruber reminds: This is how it goes. If it weren't for Apple we'd probably still be using computers with VGA and serial ports. The essence of Apple is that they make design decisions "no one asked for".The 3.5mm headphone jack has been around for decades. We can either live with it forever, or try doing something better instead. History suggests that OEMs from across the world quickly replicate Apple's move. Just the idea of Apple removing the headphone jack -- the rumor of which first began last year -- arguably played an instrumental role in some smartphones shipping without the legacy port this year. If this is a change that we really need, Apple is perhaps the best company to set the tone for it. Though, whether we really need to get rid of the headphone jack remains debatable.
They've managed to find a way to force you into buying all new audio equipment, or at the very least, an expensive dongle. It's genius, it really is. You thought it was bad when Apple made hardware companies pay for the right to put that ipod port on there, to provide a better "experience" well... kiss your non apple branded EVERYTHING goodbye. God I hate these guys sometimes. We don't need to replace every piece of technology we own every 2 years you assholes
apple wants the $29.99 for old ports wants to be more thin and git even more profit. What is next for the mac pro no analog audio out no e-net no full size usb. But for only $19.99-$29.99 each you can get that back.
It will kill your battery life and/or require you to purchase a bunch of f*cking dongles to charge your phone and use the headphones at the same time. Patel's list is right on the money. Most people can't even hear well enough to differentiate between the quality of analog vs digital and don't use music with that high of a bit rate anyway. Looks like I'm gonna be limited to the iPhone SE when I finally upgrade off my 5. I don't want a huge phablet and I want a god damn headphone jack.
By the 1990s, floppies were woefully inadequate in capacity and needed to be replaced. In which way is a 3.5 mm analog jack inadequate at delivering audio?
They could save 1mm by going to 2.5mm jacks. Those are reasonably standard and would require only a small (and inexpensive!) adapter for older headphones. My Bose noise-canceling headset uses a 2.5mm plug/jack into the actual headphones (cable is removable).
I suspect the loss of this jack may be somewhat related to improving water resistance; those 3.5mm jacks are deep and have lots of potential for leaking.
It is still the lowest common denominator of video ports. When all also in the stupid conference room is mis-configured to the point of uselessness you connect to VGA. However I have not seen anyone actually request their monitor be hooked up via VGA, it is just nice to have as a last ditch option to still be able to have your meeting.
When I was young, people would talk about the horrors of totalitarianism in Soviet Russia. I guess we only have Apple and North Korea to show us what it looks like now. But as for Apple customers, I have no sympathy: YOU decided to enter the walled garden. Enjoy your toilet paper ration.
Because Apple's change affects many millions of users around the world.
Because Apple brought the mobile audio industry forward after a lull left by the Walkman.
And because many people on here couldn't even name a Motorola phone model. Is this their Razr reboot, or do they actually have a phone on the market right now?
if you don't want one then don't buy it.
I want to pick headphones that fit and sound right, not have some cheesy overpriced shit like Beats forced on me. if I'm at home, I can use my AKG studios. at the exercise joint, earbuds off the rack at Tarzhay.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
You hear what the man said, Lennart?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Clearly since Apple joined the SIG in a plot to take over Bluetooth and make it standards noncompliant in a plot to overturn those who don't worship Darth Jobs. Slashdot is no place to be rational. We have fanbois to pick on.
In 1998 the 1.4MB capacity of the floppy was already severely limiting. While there were still a largish number of system being used on a day to day basis that did not have some better alternative available like USB or writable optical of some sort and alternatives like Zip, Jazz, SuperDisk, SyQuest etc were hardly universal and not always even ubiquitous; it was clear to everyone that the floppy was limiting.
There were a lots of jobs where the floppy was perfectly adequate and even the easiest route but in 1998 it was possible to create a word processing document that did not fit on the standard 1.4MB diskette, all you needed was to include a high res picture or two. Once you had a single files to large for a diskette you were down the path of splitting them somehow which usually implied some software your recipient did not have and kill the whole universality thing. So people had good reasons to want to "move on" from diskettes beyond just the fact that Apple did not feel like offering diskette drives as standard equipment anymore.
Compare this with the 3.5mm jack (at least the modified and backward compatible 4 conductor variety that supports mics). It delivers just about everything you could want as far as getting audio headsets. It offers better fidelity than most of the alternative solutions, bluetooth etc. Its possible to run headsets with some smarts and implement signaling like vol up/dn, next track, in devices while still being compatible with cheapo dumb headsets. Its fairly rugged, easy to blow dust out of with canned air, being round a pulled cable usual 'pops out' without damaging either the cable or the receptacle at anything but fairly extreme angles. Essentially if offers me and I think most users just about everything they could want in an audio jack. Unlike the diskette of 1998 its not evident at least not to me that its facing near term inadequacy for any common application.
As to the thickness arguments, well the camera is really still the limiting factor there. The foot print of a 3.5mm jack in smart phone is not preventing larger batters, that is just strait up BS. Once you already have to have a bump out to accommodate the camera, I am not sure making the rest of the device thinner than that adds value, especially when almost everyone puts these things in some kind of protective box anyway. Most people I talk to use a case not only for protection but because the thing is so thin its actually akward to hold and operate one handed without it!
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
We shouldn't.
This article is just Apple's PR machine gearing up to fight the righteous anger of people who would like to be able to make their own choices. I imagine we're going to hear a lot more about how "You're stupid for wanting to use those earbuds that you love on iPhones. You don't like progress and are not doing technology right if you don't replace your excellent $15 earbuds with some $200 fancy shit that you buy at the Apple store. If you don't want a thinner iPhone, than fuck you, go back to your Razr flip phone, luddite."
This article stinks of Apple marketing. It shows they're starting to get a little desperate.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Actually, this is anything but a first world problem.
Many third-world countries bypassed POTS infrastructure because it was too expensive, but have adopted mobile technology instead. The mobile phones in those countries are their lifelines. Removing inexpensive, ubiquitous technology that isn't broken for no reason except to pad their already unobtanium-lined pockets is ultimately a purely greed-motivated move in Apple's part that will end up harming those third-world people. (A $30 dongle costs the average person two weeks' gross pay in Chad.)
The first world can suck up the cost. But could end up truly being a problem for the third-world.
Back in the day we had mostly black and if green showed up we were happy, because that meant that something was working... and we LIKED IT!