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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
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?
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.
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 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.
No, but the rest of us are going to tell you what you can do with your "selfie stick" instead.
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?
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.
How is Apple going to charge a tax on every peripheral manufacturer if they simply switch to a different open standard? How would they implement DRM on a 2.5mm jack? This solution solves only part of the problem for Apple.
I read the internet for the articles.
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
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!
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.
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!