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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.
What ever happened to Apple's patent on a magnetic jack?
The idea was that a normal headphone plug could be placed against an indentation on the phone, and the magnet would hold it fairly securely against the electrical contacts. That would allow it to be thinner and smaller than a normal jack that surrounds the plug.
I'm hopeful that these rumors of not having a headphone jack refer to a regular jack...
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
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?
All that bitching and moaning. You Apple fanboys just know that if Steve Jobs were still alive you would be lining up in the street for the new phone audio jack that only worked if you had to painfully shove it into your testicles at least every 5 minutes. Don't bitch about the monster company you helped create.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
This Apple being weird and special again. The reason for ditching floppies was actually quite simple, it outlived its usefulness. It was replaced by CDs, DVDs and at a later time USB-sticks. There is no actual need for floppy disks and therefore FDDs are obsolete. This is however not the case for the 3.5mm jack. Apple likes to "innovate" by removing sensible things from their electronics. Their new Macbook, for instance, has only one single usb-c port and no other ports. You can call this strategy brilliant but in practice this means that people have to buy an extra adapter to connect all their peripherals to the one single usb-c port. It's not an improvement, it's a cashgrab and an annoyance. And naturally the Apple customers are gobbling it up.
The same holds here. What's wrong with the standard 3.5mm jack? It works, it's universal(and I believe unencumbered by patents) and the peripherals are everywhere. It's a solution that works and any "better" idea on audio should at least be included side-to-side with the old adapters as this will allow an actually better standard for audio ports to form. As it is, this is a simple money and power grab from Apple by making stuff incompatible. Sure, you can buy a converter, but knowing Apple this will cost you dearly. Apple is being annoying again and the audio peripheral market will suffer as this will gain traction as Apple has clout in the electronics world.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
Why in tech must we call everything old "legacy" and then assume it should go away? Maybe some thing work well enough that they should always be there. Some things are well designed and don't need to be changed. The 3.5mm port is resilient, rotatable, and universally supported, and only slightly bigger than the latest tech now would be able to replace it with.
Just because it is analogue does not make it irrelevant. Your ears are analogue. Why add another level of technology, another thing to charge, putting a digital-to-analogue converter on every pair of earphones rather than just one in the phone...
I remember having to have an adapter for headphones on the T-Mobile G1 and old Nokia phones, and it sucked then, and it will suck now. And so what if Apple release lightning headphones. Do we think they make the best headphones? They make crap headphones when compared to actual audio companies.
This Apple apologist doesn't even try to make is sound good, just that Apple are going to do it anyway so you might as well get used to it.
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.
All I have been hearing is Apple, Apple, Apple. Yet from Motorola killed the headphone jack and nobody noticed 10 days ago
There are many interesting things about the Moto Z devices presented yesterday, ultra-thin handsets that bring modularity to Motorola’s lineup of mobile products. One of them is the lack of a 3.5mm headphone jack, which absolutely nobody noticed during the event.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
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.
I don't give one hoot about Apple dropping the 3.5mm jack if the are providing a Lightning Port to 3.5mm adapter. The 3.5mm jack is fine in a larger device but it probably does need to go away in a modern, thin phone.
As far as port compatibility that some rant on about, if it means having a micro USB port on my iPhone then to hell with compatibility. I don't know how many broken USB ports I've had to to repair or replace on devices in my shop. The Lightning Port is a far more robust mechanical design.
Kudos to Apple for moving the industry forward!
You can buy a smartphone, with 3.5 mm jack for less than Apple's dongle will cost you.
As it stands they already make great home control panels/security devices. Cheap enough to put one in every room. Low power use and a solid sensor suite.
I can buy bluetooth headphones, but at a 300% markup, because of Apple's bluetooth lock-in."
ANY Bluetooth headphones will work just fine. Not being an audiophile jerk, I listen to lots of stuff on my iPhone using El Cheapo Bluetooth headsets all the time. A fine trolling though, congrats.
Paul Lenhart writes words!
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.
Have they considered how this will affect Square and other similar hardware and functionality?
You never expect irony, do you?
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@iyfwrestling
if you don't want one then don't buy it.
Floppies faded out because people stopped using them once better (as in, improved longevity and capacity) media came around. The new media were still physical and inserted into PC's, so they functioned rather similarly although in some cases you were trading magnetic degradation for scratching or failing dyes in the cheaper CD-R's.
Bluetooth is *not* a 1:1 replacement for regular headphones because
a) It requires power. That means another device that needs charging, and it can run out in inopportune moments
b) It doesn't give the same quality of audio (yes, it can be good, but even I can notice quality loss with BT headphones, usually in the top-end).
c) It requires power from the device. Having BT on - especially playing audio - is a drain on your phone's battery
Currently, I keep a pair of decent quality earbuds (the type with a mic) in my bag. They take up a minimal amount of room, and anytime I want to privately listen to music or have a private conversation I can. I also have a bluetooth headset, but I have to keep it charged up, dick around with pairing, etc before I can use it for a call. It's not nearly so small or convenient as my headphones, and while there are now standalone BT earbuds, with small size comes less battery (plus they're expensive).
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?
Heh, how laughable. Apple could add a lot more battery by making their already beyond-svelte iPhones 1mm thicker. No one is complaining about the phones being too thick any more, but they are complaining about battery life.
But as for Apple customers, I have no sympathy: YOU decided to enter the walled garden. Enjoy your toilet paper ration.
Right. When my 2006 MacBook died a few years ago, I transferred my data over to a Windows PC and continued on. Why? Because I'm using standard formats that interchangeable between Linux, Mac and Windows. If I decide to move away from my iPhone, nothing prevents me from moving to a cellphone with Android, Blackberry or Windows.
specifically because they *don't* design macbooks like thinkpads and imacs like HP pcs.
Don't you idiots ever get tired of being so consistently fucking wrong about Apple all the time? Seriously? Do you enjoy looking like a fucking moron on the internet?
Yep if it weren't for Apple we'd still be in the stone age installing windows 10 from 4216 floopy disks. All technical progression such as digital monitors would not happen without Apple.
Except the summary and the comments are a load of bollocks.The floppy drive was being replaced by many people, with efforts on multiple fronts. Apple was the first to remove it as having complete control over their platform meant their system didn't rely on things like floppy disks for recovery.
Let's ignore the people who developed and pushed for USB were Microsoft, Intel, IBM, Compaq, and DEC, ... there's a name missing from the list .... oh no there isn't Apple didn't have any hand in developing the USB successor. But hey the iMac had the first USB port so it must all be Apple's good work.
Speaking of Apple doing things. Which was the only computer company not part of the DDWG who created the successor to VGA? Oh that's right Apple didn't take part. But hey they're the reason we're not using VGA for some reason.
The idiot in the summary is nothing but a troll.
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
You Johnny-come-latelys and your fancy 16 color Tandy graphics. Luxury! Luxury, I tell you!
Except that now you have to charge two items instead of one.
Amplified headphones tend to be a bit more bulky than ear buds to tote around.
Ear buds are cheaper to lose.
My car stereo has an aux jack but no BT.
Average Intelligence is a Scary Thing
Why would Apple make such a stupid anti-consumer change?
Beats me.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
You do know that MFi allows for 100 mA draw from the Lightning port, don't you? Most - probably more than 99% - of those Lightning headphones will NOT have batteries, they'll pull power from your phone to run THEIR circuitry to do the D/A and amplification - most of which STILL has to exist inside the iPhone because it still has speakers internally. That's what happens now with the few Lightning-equipped headphones on the market - the iDevice provides power to run everything.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
They have their own version of EFI, why not their own version of Bluetooth. Microsoft used to pull stunts like that all the time (probably still do) pushing hardware vendors to support broken versions of standards.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
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.
That is VERY relevant.
Depends on how you use your iPhone. I keep my iPhone in a cradle to charge overnight and start my day with a full charge. I got a cable in my overhead cabinet at work if I need to charge up my iPhone during the day. Car adapters and battery packs are available for extended usage. The only time I ever ran out of battery life was when I forget to charge the iPhone during the day.
The comparison falls flat on so many levels.
First an foremost, the floppy died because it was no longer able to fulfill its role as a data storage medium. Data size simply outgrew its ability to hold it. The older ones here might still remember playing Monkey Island on the Amiga with a ridiculous amount of floppies, constantly swapping despite having two floppy drives.
There was simply a demand for something that could hold more data than the floppy was able to. CDs filled this role, as well as ZIP drives did. There was a demand for such larger media because the floppy was simply getting too small.
I fail to see this development with headphone jacks. Considering that our kids consider YouTube videos good enough to watch their music, I doubt that they are really craving the high quality audio digital audio could deliver.
This looks more like a solution desperately trying to find a problem so it could become relevant. Or, in other words, we'll get another demand from the supply side shoved down our throats.
Could someone explain capitalism to me again? I think I misunderstood a thing or two.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
but if you had battery powered headphones they could do all of the amplification.
But now you have two things that you have to keep charged instead of one. More importantly, the summary mentions they could have a larger battery if they got rid of the headphone jack. That is bizarre. If you want to increase the battery size, just do it. If you just made the iphone 6 the same depth as the camera on it, that would give you significantly more area to work with than removing the headphone jack. You would have also avoided "bendgate". What is apple's obsession with ultra thin devices? Give me a thicker phone and throw in a longer battery life and waterproofing. As it is the iphone is so thin and fragile that everyone ends up putting it in a case anyways.
it's not rocket science. No one is being tricked into buying an iPhone, and other manufacturers aren't being tricked into copying the iPhone. If people really want a 3.5 mm headphone jack then other manufacturers will keep it and people will buy those instead of an iPhone. If not, then I guess it doesn't really matter and we'll add this to the list of legacy technologies that Apple has taken the lead on EOLing, causing mass hysteria from the technoratti and complete indifference from everyone else.
Admittedly, I'm a corner case, but I need the 1/8" jack to connect to my cochlear implant, if I want to do the equivalent of "use headphones." The sound processor has an input jack just for that purpose. So, unless Apple makes a Lightning-to-1/8" adapter, I won't be able to "plug in" and listen quietly to my music. Why do you hate handicapped people, Apple...?
My understanding of mobile devices(phones) used in the Third World, is that it is almost exclusively Android based(generic, low end, NOT Samsung).
I would be surprised to find someone in Chad, Nicaragua or Laos using an iPhone.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
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!
"enabling, open, and democratizing" have never been high on Apple's list of priorities for external ports.
Since the very beginning. Even their serial port was nonstandard.
Ah well, at least the guy is being honest. Corporate psychopathy no longer needs to be hidden from view. The audience is captivated.
Actually, their RS-422 Serial Port WAS standard (other than the connector, BFD). It was also signal compatible with RS-232 (for RTS/CTS Applications). All you had to do is only use one "phase" of the Output and Input signals, rather than using it as RS-422's far-superior Differential signals.
It also had the distinct advantage to allow low-cost, essentially zero-hardware, ZeroConf Networking (AppleTalk), which was used in MANY schools and even businesses before 10BaseT Ethernet became a thing.
Yeah, they'll have a dongle to convert... but that dongle is still an additional expense that isn't likely going to be included with the iphone.
The 3.5mm jack is among one of the most ubiquitous audio connector form factors in the history of recorded audio. Breaking from it offers absolutely no perceptible benefit that is not accompanied by significantly greater expense and inconvenience for the consumer
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Apple designed neither the USB which replaced serial ports (I miss them) nor the various standards (now HDMI) which replaced VGA (I don't really miss that). Apple tried to force their own proprietary interfaces for ages, and almost none of that translated over to the non-Apple world. The reason VGA and RS-232 disappeared had nothing to do with Apple.
You MISS Serial Ports?!? I guess it's been too long since you did the Pin 2 or Pin 3 Dance, or the is it 4 and 5 or 6, 8 and 20 Headache, eh?
As an embedded Developer, THAT is the only time I need a Serial Port these days, and that's what FDDI is all about.
The rest of your rant is just that. A rant.
I ran about 8 hours the other night playing white noise through a bluetooth speaker from my LG G5. The phone battery was at 100% when I started and 80% at the end. I'll usually drop 3-5% overnight with nothing running so my bluetooth audio output is responsible for around 2% battery drain per hour.
Some people enjoyed the fewer wires. I personally prefer the reliability and speed of plugging in an ethernet cord.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
I have a dumb phone. Not because I don't like smartphones, only because I'm too poor to afford one. But my dumb phone doesn't have an ear phone jack either. And I had this samsung phone about 5 years ago, it didn't have a headphone jack either, had a dongle i'd have to plug into it's usb port.
So while you peeps with your fancy smartphone and iPhones are complaining, this isn't new at all.
But it still sucks imo.
Be seeing you...
Floppy's ultimate demise came about because of USB technology, which was superior and did much more than just a storage technology.
Somebody please enlighten me, what's the technology making 3.5mm redundant at this point?
You do realize, of course, that the Floppy's demise was not due to USB (as evidenced by a number of USB-based Floppy drives that were offered for about the next 5 years).
br. Oh, wait. You don't know because you were a Zygote back in 1998.
"Microsoft used to pull stunts like that all the time (probably still do) pushing hardware vendors to support broken versions of standards."
ACPI is a common cause of complaint. Windows has a not-quite-standard ACPI implementation, which all hardware is built to fit. A lot of mainboards (mostly laptops) will crash when probed by a proper, standards-compliant ACPI OS, like linux. Usually because there are certain registers for which Windows simply assumes the default values without querying, and which hardware vendors don't bother to fill with valid data. There's a lot of special handling in the linux kernel for specific laptop models to say 'don't try to probe this, it'll crash.'
Valid reasoning.. You just need to realize what an incredibly small percentage of the population you represent.
As for price: it will continue to come down for Bluetooth headsets and I expect it to accelerate as demand and market grows...
If it weren't for Apple we'd probably still be using computers with VGA and serial ports.
I wish I had a fucking VGA port on every laptop I bought recently. The so called new standards are a complete mess, without consensus and often incompatible setups. Seriously, if you have to project something often, then VGA is still the best solution so far. Partly because every projector has a vga input that always works, and partly because to other things are complete garbage. Simple standards that work as expected all the time should never be phased out.
Oh, and give me my ethernet port back too! I'm tired of all those shitty wifi connection with their incorrect authentication schemes and awful bandwidth. So far, I never used a laptop while running, so I don't mind plugging it to the network. Hey, I plug it for power anyway, so...
Video of some good progressive thrash music
iPhones aren't that popular in 3rd-world countries, or anywhere outside the US really. 3rd-world countries mainly use cheap Android phones, for obvious cost reasons.
You're both ignoring the audio quality hit you take with bluetooth, even with Apt-X (which the iPhone doesn't support anyway IIRC).
That's the thing about arguing over hardware specs for cellphones. For the vast majority of Apple/Android users, "good enough" is good enough for them and they don't care beyond that. For the purists, nothing will satisfy them.
Wow, on Slashdot even gibberish gets upvoted if it seems to be anti-Apple.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.