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Apple Cites 'Courage' As Reason To Remove 3.5mm Headphone Jack (arstechnica.com)
It didn't come as much of a surprise when Apple Senior VP Phil Schiller revealed that the iPhone 7 doesn't feature a headphone jack, since rumors have mentioned this possibility months before the announcement. In fact, what some may find more surprising is Apple's justification. The company cited three reasons why they decided to eighty-six the port, as well as one word: "courage." Ars Technica reports: "[Schiller said] the company can't justify the continued use of an 'ancient' single-use port. He described the amount of technology packed into the iPhone, saying each element in Apple's phones is fighting for space, and it's at a premium. Schiller explained that no company has tried to deliver a wireless experience between your devices and your headphones that fixes the things that are currently difficult to do -- and since there's only one major industry-wide wireless-audio standard, it's easy to assume that he's talking about Bluetooth there (though he didn't say the B-word out loud). To promote Apple's wireless-audio push, Schiller announced the new AirPods, which look mostly identical to the last official Apple earbud model, only with a small piece of plastic replacing the full cord. While Schiller and Apple designer Jonny Ive talked a lot about wireless being 'the future' of audio devices -- and thus being the reason for Apple's 'courage' to move on from the 3.5mm standard -- Apple is curiously not packing those AirPods into new iPhone 7 and 7 Plus boxes. Instead, those devices will ship with the updated Lightning EarPods by default. AirPods will begin shipping in late October and will cost $159."
Speakers, microphone and volume control are all the same thing.
to tell their customers they need a $50 dongle to use their headphones.
We can't justify an ancient single use port... Not unlike our proprietary power connectors
"Courage" would be to stop making the phone thinner with less battery life and forcing owners to purchase overpriced items. Of course, Apple gets paid by any company that licenses their "Lightning Port" design. Courage? NO, more like GREED.
Courage!.... Cowardly Lion: You can say that again.
Courage is what others can judge you to have shown.
Ego is when you call your own decision "courage".
If they had a good reason they should have said it. Self-claiming courage is a coward move.
E
This move is to get $$$ of every lightening(R) connected peripheral sold, and to eventually force DRM down our throats good and hard.
Courage my ass. IS is courage to sell a pair of crappy headphones for $159, that ONLY get 5 freakin hours of use per charge? My wired headphones can last years with ZERO charge.
Liars!
Subject says it all. Pure, unadulterated greed with the chutzpah to convince the fanbois that it's worth it...
Per a Buzzfeed interview, summarized by MacRumors:
The idea for the removal of the headphone jack was raised during the development of the iPhone 7. In a nutshell, the "driver ledge" for the display and backlight, traditionally placed near the camera, was interfering with the new camera systems in the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 7 Plus, leading Apple to explore other placement options. It was moved near the audio jack, but it also caused interference with various components, including the audio jack itself, so Apple engineers toyed with the elimination of the jack altogether.
When the headphone jack was removed, Apple realized it was easier to install the new Taptic Engine for the pressure-sensitive Home button, implement a bigger battery, and reach an IP7 water resistance rating, so the elimination of the headphone jack became essential for all of the other features in the iPhone 7.
Apple executives also believe the headphone jack is outdated technology that needed to go to make room for new advancements. According to Dan Riccio, it was holding Apple back "from a number of things" the company wanted to add to the iPhone, taking up space that could be used for camera improvements, battery, and processors.
"The audio connector is more than 100 years old," Joswiak says. "It had its last big innovation about 50 years ago. You know what that was? They made it smaller. It hasn't been touched since then. It's a dinosaur. It's time to move on." [...]
For Dan Riccio, Apple's senior vice president of hardware engineering, the iPhone's 3.5-millimeter audio jack has felt something like the last months of an ill-fated if amicable relationship: familiar and comfortable, but ultimately an impediment to a better life ahead. "We've got this 50-year-old connector -- just a hole filled with air -- and it's just sitting there taking up space, really valuable space," he says.
According to Apple's Phil Schiller, there's no ulterior motive behind the move away from the 3.5mm headphone jack. "We are removing the audio jack because we have developed a better way to deliver audio. It has nothing to do with content management or DRM -- that's pure, paranoid conspiracy theory," he said.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
see title
Microsoft, Oracle, SCO, and Comcast have the courage to screw over customers and society and not let anger, complaints, and societal degradation distract or discourage them.
Table-ized A.I.
How much of AAPL do you own?
Switching from PowerPC to Intel was a bigger deal. Fortunately, Rosetta made it work. Now, sadly, that's gone so a handful of still useful yet defunct programs are relegated to old machines.
What's the frequency, Kenneth?
Now, that Apple has invented the Bluetooth technology, when are they going to sue all the copy cats?
Decided I was not buying any more Apple hardware a while ago, they lost their way with Jobs.
The hangover always follows.
they are getting the hate for the Bullshit explanation. It takes Arrogance not courage to do something like that and not provide an explanation why you are screwing everyone over.
When did 86 become a verb?
Geez people - if a 3.5mm analog jack built into the phone is so important, buy any one of the many, many, Android devices on the market - or any other iPhone that Apple still sells, or just use the stupid adapter that comes with the phone.
This phony outrage is ridiculous.
of crap apple comes up with
Something like aptX (but sadly, likely to be proprietary)?
The real explanation for why Apple killed the headphone jack: profits.
IMHO the 4s was the best iphone and it has been going downhill ever since. They made the phone more difficult to hold and got rid of a perfectly good connector. I never had the old style connector wear out but I have thrown out more lightning cables then I can count. Now I need to plugin my headphones into it? I've always felt locked into apple because of the investment in apps and music, but now with this latest move I believe iphone won't be my next phone. Looking forward to Xiaomi.
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
I don't think "Hate" is the right word, more like "Mockery".
-AC
Not that I care, as I do not own any apple stuff, but I have not seen a bluetooth headset that was not absolute shit.
I had a phone earpeice thing from plantronics that was worse than simply using the speakerphone in the car. When the thing would actually stay connected the speaker was inaudible. When I could hear the other side, my mic would not pick up.
Bought some LG headphones, failed within 2 months. And in those 2 months it was nearly impossible to get the things to stay connected. Press the connect button, beeps loudly, searches for phone, gives up. Bought earbuds, returned the next day. Worthless.
Bluetooth audio is complete garbage.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
There are no issues of fidelity with an analog connector, no batteries, no sync, no wireless interference, and no extra money involved to have a need for the most ubiquitous interface in electronics worldwide to disappear.
"[Schiller said] the company can't justify the continued use of an 'ancient' single-use port."
There is nothing at all that would prevent the simultaneous use of the head phone check and of bluetooth.
Does this standard have encryption? Or will it be trivial for anyone to eavesdrop on what you are listening to?
Have gnu, will travel.
It's a computer. Can't say for the Apple, but the Android phones do computer things even better for me sometimes than a laptop or desktop. I can have 90 tabs open on the things. My one without what they are now calling RAM doesn't keep track of what's in textareas too well so avoid those. My Huawei Valient was a bit... okay very sketchy and its first battery stopped working fast and after I stopped using it, the second battery decided to swell up, but that was about three years ago. The Alcatel OneTouch Fierce XL had power button issues. LG makes them so thin they decided to put the power and volume buttons on the back. I have more of an issue with my fingers accidentally brushing the screen because of the thinness rather than battery life. I forget which phone my mom has, but it developed dialing program problems. You want a phone with 8GB of storage, "RAM", and preferably support for MicroSDXC cards, but those things can be very capable computers.
Building the iPhone 7 is almost exactly like storming the beach at Normandy, except with a lot more butt sex.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I sorta see this as an increase in the attack surface, and just something more to exploit.
You can buy a $4 BlueTooth to 3.5mm converter and a $4 for a 3.5 F/F coupler. Why spend $150 on AirPods when you can use what you already have with an $8 fix? Not ideal, but at least I'd have my analog out that I can plug in to whatever I want.
My eyes are ancient single use ports. Does this mean Phil hopes to do away with them too?
The headphone jack has long since been a misnomer, it actually has much more capability than just the "headphones" associated with it.
Apple just want to restrict the port with DRM so devices cannot transceive audio signals such as gaming device hacks, bank readers et al
Screw you apple. This 6 is my last iphone. The competition will be fierce over this one. Legacy does not always need replacing, only for profit; no more royalty payments on that one is more why they did it.
Another problem is that there is only ONE single use port. I usually listen to music while my phone is plugged in, and to my knowledge there is no way to both listen with the headphone dongle and have the device plugged in.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
If this leads to the abandonment of a2dp, I am all for it.
It's actually quite embarrassing that a2dp is still a standard in widespread use. The very fact you can't bidirectionally stream audio at a high bitrate is so 90s.
If this move brings on 6ch, 320kbit bidirectional audio, I'm all for it (even as an Android user).
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
I expect a higher standard of brainwashing posts from shills. They're either paying you too much or they're not getting their moneys worth because that was a pathetic counter argument.
this is gunna kill audiophile quality stuff. Bluetooth uses crappy lossy compression, the signals are being transcoded over and over, more and more signals and bits are lost, and some signals like HD can't be represented at all. in this case, Bluetooth wireless signals use compression algorithms that are like mp3, so as the audio data is already stripped in the default iTunes format of AAC, it will now go through a second stripping process when the hardware sends it over the Bluetooth link.
wireless signals also cause bio-health effects, and are killing and damaging our DNA and cells. we don't need more wireless tech, we need less as a result.
lightning connectors are fine but the reason for those sucking is the iPhone and iPod's will have only one connector: the fucking flipping lightning port. you're going to need a splitter that allows both connections simultaneously for it to work and not be annoying. users will likely want to listen to their audio, while charging at the same time, or doing a data link.
many modern high-end headphones already allow for swapping cords so luckily most headphones are upgradeable to the lightning port, or the splitter can have a 3.5" headphone jack, and a port for lightning connections.
many high end headphones like those from Sennheiser, Shure, Westone and the like already have removable replaceable cords and multiple cords to choose from, including custom made ones like super high end grade silver, gold, and platinum ones. Westone W60 for example have a custom cord for iPhone, and another specific for Android devices.
the USB C and micro USB ports on Android phones however are not as suitable for this because the ports and connectors are way larger than the lightning connector on Apple products. using USB C, I hypothesize would actually feel like a downgrade. :)
obamasweapon.com
drrobertduncan.com
It takes Courage when you are asking your customers to bend over again.
yet another device to charge, what will the autonomy be on these $160 suckers ?
no tech company in history is more deserving of hate than apple. its almost like they enjoy it
I'm sure there are a lot of idiots that will stand in line for the chance of paying $160 for some airbutts.
What makes the elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist or the dusky dusk? What makes the muskrat guard his musk? What makes Apple remove the 3.5 mm headphone jack?
COURAGE!
Easy to lose, low battery capacity and most seriously, they have poor ergonomic design.
They have a long stem hanging down from your ear containing the battery, which is most of the weight.
When you move about this extension combined with the weight balance causes them to work loose.
Might be OK if you listen stationary, bad for walking, useless for jogging/running.
Bluetooth simply doesn't have the bandwidth for standard stereo, which means they'll have to encode and decode the signals - which means reduced sound quality no matter how hard they wriggle.
Given the set of people who buy Apple hardware have a big intersection with people who buy expensive audio systems I can see Apple having some unhappy customers here.
Apple has single-handedly made it possible to slice off one of the last bastions of personal freedom... audio (headphones). I can only guess that they have reasons for this as the new I-Obey is now too slim to utilize a headphone jack (nope). A headphone jack makes it less waterproof than its competitors (nope). This is another 2 or 3 layers of blocks that make Apple owners admire the very pretty walled garden containing them. It is another step that is defined by content providers and content deliverers. Many years from now.. in a new future following this latest revelation... Apple will remove the microphone and speaker from their phones.. and replace them with a digital filter that meets the needs of their content constricting overlords or they could face the possibility of a minute decrease in their profit margin.
After all under their policies they have pretty much squeezed the supply chain so hard that it might be able to make a diamond out of a charcoal briquette at a theater near you.
Peace out.
Apparently if I want the new iPhone I'll need the courage to let my battery drain while I listen through headphones.
they are getting the hate for the Bullshit explanation. It takes Arrogance not courage to do something like that and not provide an explanation why you are screwing everyone over.
They did; you just weren't listening.
It is spelled GREED not courage. Courage would be releasing their custom bluetooth standard along with open sourcing the head phone design so that it can be easily copied by other manufacturers and become the industry standard. Nice try though Apple...
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
Ever heard of Microsoft?
EOMA68 is a standard of standards. It basically strips out all non-general purposes ports. It's intended to be a 10-year standard. The only thing it has is USB and MicroHDMI. There are two other general purpose components, but if you are talking elimination of everything that is truly unnecessary, this is it. And surprisingly you can do a lot with it. Laptops, desktops, and so on. Basically any EOMA68 compliant device will enable users to replace the computer without replacing the housing. So you can take your EOMA68 compliant laptop and replace the CPU, graphics, memory, etc just by popping out the EOMA68 computer card and replacing it with a new EOMA68 compliant computer card.
Hey, don't get me wrong. I use my wired headphones/earbuds exclusively and I feel sorry for anyone that has to charge their headphones and drain their battery on their phone just to use them, but hey, someone has to make the leap into the future, and this is it! Now that Apple, the leader in innovation (cough) has done away with the headphone cables, everyone else will follow. We will soon see Bluetooth headsets that are better than even I can imagine. They will power themselves over Bluetooth soon so no charging. Once all the bugs are worked out and the competitors realize people hate wires as much as Steve Job's ghost, we will have this fantastic technology in our cars, our alarm clocks, and our intercom systems (don't you have one?). Someone has to take the leap to show people just how great it can be. I think it should be Apple. On the other hand... Why the fuck don't wireless repeaters work well with different brands? Why is upload speed so shitty when I pay $60 a month? Why does VoIP have such problems with different firewalls? Does everyone set UDP timeouts so fucking low? Why are hotels so obviously throttling bandwidth? Why can't I get a goddamn USB jack on the airplane to charge my Kindle? And why does my Kindle suck at managing shows on the SD card? WHAT THE FUCK! Well, I can say one thing. My wired headphones always work, even with that little button that answers and hangs up calls. I love it.
The original iPhone had a 3.5" screen, and it had a 3.5mm audio connector. So why can't it fit in the iPhone 7 which has a 4.7 or 5.5 inch screen?
https://www.buzzfeed.com/johnp...
Apple's Lightning cable does the same thing as a USB cable, but costs twenty times the price. This is another Apple ripoff. My iPhone headphones work fine thank you very much. There is no need to do this except greed in Apple squeezing blood from a declining customer base. Apple Senior VP Phil Schiller, I won't buy an iAnything with your "COURAGE" jack. How stupid do you think we are? Try some real innovation, num nuts.
2.5 mm jacks are standard and there are plenty of already available products using that size connector.
Gay people love abusing the word courage ad nauseam right down to Tim Cook's "I'm proud to be gay" article that was featured here on slashdot back in 2014. /yawn
Courage to proceed in the face of condemnation and disdain... courage which your slashdot posts so bravely exemplify.
When the Rohirrim charged at Pelennor Fields, they did it to remove 3.5 mm jacks from phones. Orcs, being the crude and unshapely beasts they are, wanted to keep the jack in their vile Anorc phones.
And then Apple made a console called Pippin in honor of the battle.
> Schiller says that AirPod users can expect five hours of playtime http://arstechnica.com/gadgets...
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Oh Schiller you stupid dumb fuck. I hope your greed backfires and this kills the iPhone and your name and resignation letter are forever attached to this debacle.
> Android remained the world's most widely used smartphone operating system with 80.7 percent market share, while iOS recorded 17.7 percent market share. http://www.macrumors.com/2016/...
Do you really think $159 earbuds are going to lift your market share? Yeah Hipsters are stupid but they are not that stupid.
It must take courage to make anyone using their assortment of cheap headphones (all they can afford!) to expensive headphones (vastly superior to anything Apple has ever offered!) switch to an entirely new standard, one that bravely will only work with just this one device. Very brave. Wow.
If you hate Apple, you deserve to have every bad thing possible happen to you and your family. Your mother, after all, was obviously a brain-damaged asshole for even carrying you to term.
Seriously. Apple has done nothing to deserve hate. If you don't like their products, don't fucking use them. It's only a concept that's difficult for shits like you to understand. Real people with normal minds don't have an issue with it.
Jesus Christ their shit makes me want to vomit.
Courage would be porting SystemD to the iOS
No, they provided a copout. It came down to a choice between slightly better speakers that most people will never use anyway (because it is usually rude) or a headphone jack that lots of people use every day, and they made the wrong call. I've already (since the announcement) heard three people who have used iOS for years say that they're seriously considering switching to Android because of this. That number represents about 50% of the iPhone users in my team at work, and 100% of the iPhone users who were present at the time. I know that anecdotes aren't data, but if Apple's upper management isn't absolutely scared sh**less right now, then they don't deserve to be there.
From where I'm sitting, if the case manufacturers don't save Apple from themselves by building cases with built-in headphone jacks, this will probably mark a turning point where Apple rapidly accelerated their descent into niche-playerdom. There's a very small chance I'm wrong, and that the iOS users that I know are all just the 1% of power users that Apple doesn't care about anymore. For the sake of my Apple stock, I hope so, but I'm not holding my breath.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
It really does take a lot of courage to fuck your fans over that hard!
Courage to remove the 3.5mm headphone jack
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bISNmzp4GVg
Use my iPhone on a car stereo with 1/8inch(3.5mm) aux input only AND charge it at the same time? Not 'hating'. I still love my 'old school', 'i7', quadcore, upgradable (RAM and HD/SSD) macmini for running VM's. (You can't buy those anymore)
OK, I've converted to a cell phone. No landline any more. So when I'm on a long conference call using my headset so people on the other end can hear me, how do I charge my phone for the long call?
It's not courage. It's gall.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Apple just wants to make more money to create more dumb things that's why they are changing the standard headphone jack another problem is that everybody uses these headphones so changing it is dumb, foolish and arrogant. It's a standard for a reason now Apple changes the standard now what we have to buy new headphones or dongle just to use Apple what if they have this in their future devices it would be terrible
Or you Buy an Android phone, which costs less than the Apple Earbuds.
aaaaaaa
Greed and stupidity.
Your stupid troll ass wouldn't know a thing about normal.
Stupidity more like it... I do understand apples drive to maximize profits by moving to proprietary custom BT chips, with added bonus of tieing customers even more to apple products, etc... but i dont undestand why remve good reliable connector. It can be water proofed if wanted, so thats just xcuse of bad manufacturing and engineering..
I have yet to see an Android phone support WebGL and HTML5 audio or video properly, or at all. All the hand-wringing over patents regarding mp3 and aac results in content either never working on Android, or WebGL just straight up not working.
In the "RPG Maker" community, we all discovered that Android phones are absolute pieces of rubbish unless they had 4.4.4 on them (which switched the webview from Android's webview to Chromium's) Yet, the only phone powerful enough to run it was the Samsung Galaxy G5. Meanwhile people with iPhone 4S's and later had no problem getting any of the games to work.
It's that kind of Android fragmentation (and piracy) which makes all good things come to iOS first, and maybe a bone will be thrown to Android once all the money has been made on iOS, because Android users don't like to spend money, and they hack their games to get "freemium" items.
"The tire is almost 200 years old. It had its last big innovation about 70 years ago (radial tires)."
I guess you forgot about run-flat tires and the countless innovations in compound and tread design. Whereas it's not a NASCAR type thing, watch F1 to see how tires are constantly bring improved.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Hey Apple lawyers, what happens when Apple discovers Bluetooth bud users get brain cancer?
Remove that ancient headphones port now!
$160 dollar headphones sound much better.
Yeah right.
So "courage" is what we call in France a "faux-ami" (false friend) : a english word that looks like a french word but does not have the same meaning.
Courage is a synonym for stupidity. Good to know.
It's simply a way to force people onto their own proprietary connectors, standards and peripherals. There is absolutely no sound technical reason to eliminate a head phone jack.
What's this new trend of water-proof phones? Are we preparing for a post-global-warming world where we live in water, like that Kevin Costner's movie?
There is a morality issue here: a company is trying to sell a product with the purpose of limiting and removing a traditional method that people use it.
This also is the first step in closing the analogue loop, as a proof of concept, which may inhibit fair use, not just Apple fans, but for everyone.
Human beings do not need to use natural resources to make new heaphones just because a marketing person decides to do something different.
I know there are a lot of Apple fans out there. If you are not a fan boy, have the courage to skip this product.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
Even though I do not care about the phone at all, if all of this excitement over one port somehow leads to a new standard for wireless audio, that would be awesome.
Bluetooth sucks for anything above skype calls.
Bluetooth hifi-headphones are a joke. The better the headphone, the more you realize how horribly bluetooth compression mangles the sound quality.
Because of this, every manufacturer is running their own wireless audio format. Your typical audio sources (phone, pc, hi-fi system) do not support any of them. Adapters everywhere...
I guess now we have yet another standard with Apple's... But maybe they can push theirs to more devices than just their phones? Any chance of something Apple to ever become an open standard?
You can give it the spin you want, but what you cannot say is that the earphones plug has fallen into disuse. I think it's the single most used phone accessory nowadays, with no second competitor in sight.
So you remove a widely used feature, and you provide a worse alternative, or rather, you simply point out that an alternative has always existed. The glaring fact that practically nobody used that existing alternative is gloriously lost on you. Or rather, you don't care.
So basically you are doing something to screw your users, thinking that it will improve your company. Again the glaring fact that your company is nothing without your clients, is lost in the glare of your new shiny state-of-the-art office.
Let's see how it plays out. People can be really dumb that way, and certainly that's not a deal breaker. Also, there is always the possibility of backtracking. Never underestimate the marketing department ingenuity of selling an Apple 7 Super Plus "With earphones plug!!!", only for 100$ more. But IMHO, Apple is accumulating small mistakes with a sore lack of the former big hits that could ,in past times, have covered them.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
... away from the audio jack. It makes sense in quite a few ways and I trust that Apple knows what it's doing when it intruduces a new wireless audio standard.
However, I do the potential of this failing if they don't open up the standard for everybody to implement for free. ... I'm curious to where this is headed.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Morons...
Slashdot Commentor Cites 'Stupidity' As Reason To Remove 3.5mm Headphone Jack
But then, I honestly don't care as I don't use their products. I just hope nobody is stupid enough to follow suit like they did with the no-expansion-card thing and then had to backtrack.
To be honest, if I was Samsung, I'd now release a phone with TWO headphone sockets. Because almost every kid I know has a headphone doubler or does the "one-earbud-for-you, one-for-your-friend" thing. And then let the market decide.
"A most courageous decision, if I may say so Minister"
"Oh god no - it's not is it?"
There will be a time when armies of dumbass beardy, barefoot hipsters, who enjoy being caressed, hypnotized then robbed and controlled like sheep led to a butchery.. ... will open their eyes! and wake up from the appalling, arrogant, greedy tyranny of "spaceship office" "tax dodging" monster.
They will then go and try some of the alternatives:
- A privacy violating, forced updates, dull OS delivered by OEMs on any sort of hardware, together with a big bunch of malware and bloatware to which is subject
- A permanently unfinished OS for nerds with 1.000.000.000+ different souls, hardware and software incompatibility or lack of support, all dependent on the fading good will of a starving OSS community increasingly growing older and giving up to inconclusive arrogant young DEVs who just care about attracting Venture Capitalists then run to the next Venture and hot hype word...
It's not just Apple. It's an entire world and ideals that have long gone.
To listen to my existing headphones and charge the phone at the same time, I'd have to buy a Lightning splitter. Neither the earbuds nor the adapter has an extra Lightning port, and they take up the only Lightning port on the device.
Apple missed a HUGE opportunity to bank on the Wireless charging craze.
They could have even not needed to go with Qi like everybody else, but invent their own peculiar standard as usual (as Palm did with TouchStone back when Qi wasn't a thing yet).
Call-it "iCharge", require an Apple-cryptographically signed NFC chip inside (à la MFI) and bingo, they got a reason for their fan to yet again rebuy all of their accessories (new docks).
Also, I don't understand at all this craze of making smartphone so thin that you can cut cheese with them... the things got screen wider than a paperback book, and users who don't want to break them within 1 month after buying will put them in a cover/case any way.
Keeping smartphone a couple of milimeters thicker would allow not only for extremely useful legacy connectors like the analog audio port, but would even increase space for bigger battery (and add a LED at the bottom of the audio connector so it can double as a digital-out, like some minidisc players used to do).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
So close to the truth, but more accurately NPH: Not Patented Here.
Everyone with 2 braincells knows this is a move of apple not from courage, but to lock you up further in their walled garden.
As Iphones can no longer use standardised stereo jacks, only companies paying apple for the right to work with their SHITSTORM of a "lighting" connector can make equipment that'll work. So in that way this is a pure money grab.
On the other hand, look at the rights issue. Apple cannot block you from recording from your stereo out jack, I bet ya they'll have put something in place to stop you from recording the output on their "lightning" connector. So in that way it's apple saying to the MAFFIAA look how well we are protecting your rights, please lower the apple store price of all your songs as they are now so well protected. Of course our customers will see no drop in the end price.
So using the word courage as a reason to stop having a stereo jack is about as real as a politicians trustworthiness, about -235 K
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Balls of milled aluminium....
I'd much rather have a thicker phone with a better camera, huge battery, microSD, FM radio, and a 3.5mm jack than a thin phone with crap or non-existent features.
A decent case makes the phone twice as thick anyway, so what's another 1-2mm on thickness?
Not courage, greed. The one and only connector the iPhone now has is Apple proprietary. Judging from past history Apple will either:
1. Refuse to license it to other parties and make buckets of money forcing people to buy headphones from Apple or Apple-owned Beats.
2. License that connector to other companies for a heafy fee.
In either case, the motive is greed, pure, unmitegated greed.
And no, the fact that Bluetooth headphones will still work with the iPhone 7 means nothing. Their limited life makes them a pain to use in comparison to those that plug in.
where are the Long term studies of radio waves in the ear please? Do we know what bluetooth does to the brain with a radio strapped to the back of your head for years? I'm sure this will be all fine.
Hmm, perhaps this will turn out like the movie "The Jerk". Glasses anyone? Apple should follow Monsanto's lead and bribe congress for a personal protection rider.
The phono jack, in it's 3.5mm, 2.5mm and 1/4" incarnations, is the standard for analog audio connectivity for a good reason. It's the oldest electrical connector still in use for a good reason. It works fantastically well! They're cutting themselves out of the audio market, and it's a dumb move. That jack could, with a $5 adapter, connect a phone to virtually any other audio device as input or output. You could plug a guitar into it, you could plug it into a mixing board, a car, a microphone, an instrument amp, a stereo amp, anything. A DJ could entertain a crowd with just a phone and a sound system, any sound system.
Sure, and Apple ignored innovation by companies like Square -- using the 3.5mm jack for data transfer. It's all about the semantics of what counts as a "big" innovation. Apple doesn't want to admit anyone else has innovated since it was founded, so it makes silly claims like the last "big innovation" in the audio jack being 50 years ago.
They'll sell a special tethering cord for them if you need more than 5 hours. It's a slim cable that is shaped like a Y, and connects to the end of each airpod. the third end plugs into the bottom of the phone, making the whole thing powered by the iPhone. Wireless *and* infinite battery life*. I realize that this is a radical departure from normal wireless headphone usage, but that's what makes Apple such an innovator in the space.
*life limited to the endurance of the transmirting device
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
"Easy, lets take away the 3.5mm jack and replace it with a lightning adapter that is sure to snap in a few pockets! We will see so many more phones that way because we can deny them warranty over physical damage!"
--Jonathan Ive
It is not courage.... It is stupidity and greed for higher profit by lowering the manufacturing cost by $.50 a unit.
I remember last time when I had to use a special adapter to use my headphones... 2004, on my UIQ phone. The adoption of 3.5mm among smartphones was the progress. Yay, courage to regress!
AirPods will begin shipping in late October and will cost $159.
Gotta be out of your mind. I paid $3 for my (wired) headphones and have been using them about 6 years now (even I am surprised they have lasted that long). They still work fine, and sound good enough to me. Will probably cost me $6-$10 to replace them, with inflation and all.
Just how do they expect people to connect their new iPhones to their car stereos or whatever else they have that uses standard Bluetooth?
Why do people get so upset over this? The new phones come WITH a 3.5mm adapter. So who really cares? Use the adapter if you really want a stereo mini TRS. They wanted to make it smaller so they did. I really don't see the big deal. It's their choice. It cuts down on a connector. That's good engineering in my book. Buy another phone if you are really that concerned. And seriously, if Apple still had that big ass flat connector wouldn't you think it looked "ancient". Lightning cables aren't very expensive and there are plenty of third party ones out there. Bottom line, you can use a FREE adapter if you want, or you buy another phone. Stop bitching about it. This is a stupid argument.
So far, the big enhancements I have heard announced are (1) no headphone jack (an inconvenience, if you ask me), and (2) a better camera. Is this a good enough reason to spend over $600 to upgrade to a new iPhone?
I predict it won't be missed by anyone except the geeky people on here. I think I've used the headphone jack about a dozen times on my iPhone 5S, preferring to opt for a bluetooth headset while running. The damn cords! I hate 'em! I say good riddance.
This makes it so much easier for the government to spy on your machine thru the wireless connection even if you are off the internet.
They aren't wrong. They're going to get a lot of crap for this, and if they brought it on themselves knowingly but did it anyway, that does indeed take courage.
However, I'd also imagine it takes courage to publicly be a White Supremacist these days. Those public-area preachers who call random passing women "whores" while their husbands/fathers/sons are with them are being pretty courageous too. Just because you are showing "courage" doesn't mean you doing the right thing, or that you aren't also being a total asshole.
coming out of the closet
one day apple fans will parade in the cities in the middle of the gay parade with iphones attached to their peepees while doing the helicopter spining cock trick
god damm it, we all KNOW its going to happen, its their DESTINY
..What is your greatest weakness?
I'm too courageous
Courage is for wussies.
Also, if the dongle is taking up the port, does that mean you cannot charge the phone (say with a USB battery in your pocket) while listening to music?
It sounds like they are equating courage with bravery...
Wasn't there an expression about bravery... something about a "fine line" and "stupidity"
hmmm...
And of course I get modded "Troll" for that one. Great job guys, keep it up. Anyone who disagrees must be a troll.
Not to mention the addition of the short ground to add an extra pin for a microphone, the addition of short detection on the mic line to detect plug/unplug and clicking of the button, the addition of sideband data on the microphone to provide more complex controls, The advent of low-removal-force jacks that minimize damage, the advent of jacks that use the case as part of the jack to make the jack thinner....
Incidentally, run-flat tires have existed in one form or another since the 1930s; technically, the concept predates radial tires, if not the specific modern implementation.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
“In the year 22, of the third month of winter, sixth hour of the day [] among the scribes of the House of Life it was found that a strange Fiery Disk was coming in the sky. It had no head. The breath of its mouth emitted a foul odor.
Its body was one rod in length and one rod in width. It had no voice. It came toward His Majesty’s house. Their heart became confused through it, and they fell upon their bellies. They [went] to the king, to report it. His Majesty [ordered that] the scrolls [located] in the House of Life be consulted. His Majesty meditated on all these events which were now going on.
After several days had passed, they became more numerous in the sky than ever. They shined in the sky more than the brightness of the sun, and extended to the limits of the four supports of heaven [] Powerful was the position of the Fiery Disks.
The army of the King looked on, with His Majesty in their midst. It was after the evening meal when the Disks ascended even higher in the sky to the south. Fish and other volatiles rained down from the sky: a marvel never before known since the foundation of the country. And His Majesty caused incense to be brought to appease the heart of Amun-Re, the god of the Two Lands. And it was [ordered] that the event [be recorded for] His Majesty in the Annals of the House of Life [to be remembered] for ever.”
Most, if not all, phones use the wire for your earbuds/headphones wire as the antenna for the FM radio. Usually can't use the FM radio with bluetooth because no
antenna wire.
hearing is still analog. I don't want that analog output removed.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
"[Schiller said] the company can't justify the continued use of an 'ancient' single-use port
What makes that asshole thinks I can afford a pair of single use headphones?
oh yes thank you apple for trying to price fix ebooks. i wish you would have gotten away with it for the sake of me and my family
If you think Apple is greedy, then control them with your wallet. The words you type on /. will have no affect on their profit margin. Otherwise, it looks like a bunch of whiners who, if they put the shoe on the other foot, would probably also take every dollar. Admit it.
BTW - I would say it's greed if you had no other option. However, you've got plenty of other options. You're not being forced to buy those headphones by Apple.
My Galaxy S7 also uses the headphone as its radio antenna (FM radio, etc.)
Hopefully, Samsung won't follow Apple into this particular stupidity zone. However, even if they do, it'll be at least few years before I have to deal with such idiocy.
You know, as an owner of lots of Macs, it's been painful to watch them fumble the Mac Pro and Mac Mini lines so badly, while ignoring the middle tower market completely; now the iPhone sings a little louder in this symphony of screw-ups with its latest really serious dysfunctional hardware choice...
Be a trip if they managed to get someone to the head of the company who understood hardware better.
Oh well. Lots of other things to do than worry about Apple these days.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
AC signs his post as someone who "still buys desktop PCs with floppy drives"... which isn't likely and almost impossible.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
"There's no simple explanation
For anything important any of us do.
And, yeah, the human tragedy consists in the necessity of living with the consequences.
Under pressure
Courage, my word. It didn't come. It doesn't matter."
(Yeah that's right just buy the device and deal with it. If you're lucky enough we'll shove some Tragically Hip down your throats this time.)
120 characters ought to be enough for anyone
Wondering if there's been a deal made between Big Content and Apple for better/exclusive access, if they'd just deep-six the 3.5mm jack. Look for announcements in coming months for music/video content on iTunes store.
Welcome to 3D.
So Apple Senior VP Phil Schiller is the Cowardly Lion? Or is it CEO Tim Cook?
But +1 for Courage!
No, you're just a stupid motherfucker who's dug so deep into the Cult of Apple that if Tim Cook showed up at your doorstep and whipped out his cock you'd instantly drop to your knees and suck it purely out of instinct. The number one goal at Apple is to fuck the customer as hard as they possibly can, more so than any other company on Earth, particularly by using proprietary connectors that require their sheep to pay the Apple Tax. It's been that way since the Apple II. By removing the headphone jack, yes, they can make the phone just a cunt-hair thinner, but that was never really necessary to begin with. Waterproofing? Other phones and equipment have achieved better waterproofing without removing the jack, so that claim is bullshit too. It's just another way to milk their customers. Granted, their customers are clueless dumbfucks like you, but that doesn't excuse their unethical behavior.
Now. You've also been astroturfing this bullshit claim that all other phone manufacturers will follow Apple and also ditch their headphone jacks. While a few companies have released such models, they aren't selling well at all and an overwhelming majority of phones sold the next 5 years from now will still have headphone jacks. Fact is, Apple does a lot of idiotic, stupid shit that no one else does. SD card slots? Nearly all Android phones still got em! Removable batteries? Yup. Overpriced, proprietary ringtones? Nope. User accessible file system? As accessible as ever. Forcing people to use the aborted fetus known as iTunes to upload media? Not in a million years. I could go on and on. And it doesn't just stop at the phone. See a one button mouse lately? Nope. Another idiotic idea from Apple that sits rightfully in their graveyard of failure.
And, by the way, Macs for all? You'll NEVER force your fucking obsolete garbage on me. If you gave me a Mac for free, I'd smash it into little pieces with a sledgehammer and jam every single last shard directly into your asshole. But, I'm sure you'd like that, you faggot. FUCK YOU, your whore mother, loser father, and any women desperate and drunk enough to get within 20 meters of you.
Have you ever taken a phone apart? Most of it is battery. Will removing the headphone jack really make a significant difference in the battery life?
F1 is a funny example. F1 tires are deliberately crap; it's part of the contract that the manufacturer isn't allowed to deliver good tires.
If Formula 1 teams could buy any tires they want, the tires would have better grip, work over a wider range of temperatures, and there would be no tire changes during a race. But that would be boring.
For quality tires, look at endurance racing.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
Twasn't courage, it was cost-savings. One less mechanical object to be inside the phone.
Soon there will be no buttons or interactions at all with the device, it will all be wireless to our brain (or so they'd hope).
I'm guessing Jobs always hated that audio port. Therefore they had to remove it.
Microsoft paid dearly with Windows 8 when their arrogance made them ignore all pleas and protests over their decision to remove the Start Menu and replace it with the godawful Start Screen. I think Apple is about to learn a similar lesson.
Anyone who has opened a phone can tell you, there's usually enough room for the connector. It's not as if the motherboard takes up the entire space in the device. Frankly, based on the hardware I've had in my LG G3/G4 (IR blasters, audio jack, usb connector, camera, laser rangefinder, etc) and Nexus 4, and the lack of equivalent hardware in the iPhone, I call BS.
Proof.
echo Courage | tr 'aeCougr' 'ntInsia' | sed -e "s/t/ty/"
John_Chalisque
(1) ... Apple made a phone with no mechanical keyboard.
(2) ... Apple gave up trying to get Flash to run on iPhone.
(3) ... Microsoft killed off XP.
(4) ... Oracle bought Sun and took over Java.
(add your own thoughts)
> slightly better speakers that most people will never use anyway (because it is usually rude)
You have clearly never ridden a NYC subway.
This is incorrect. When they made it smaller... the connector had 2 bands. Left Band, Right Band.
Since then... they've added a 3rd Band... a Mic band. This Apple engineer should know this... the 3rd Band has been on every pair of their ear buds since they started including Vol Controlls and Mic.
"The audio connector is more than 100 years old," Joswiak says. "It had its last big innovation about 50 years ago. You know what that was? They made it smaller. It hasn't been touched since then. It's a dinosaur. It's time to move on." [...]
i think they even make waterproof ones now
This isn't going to work. I remember when they were gonna ditch the keyboard on the Macbook for a wheel. It never caught on, so they must have abandoned it. I never saw it at the Apple store after this announcement:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BnLbv6QYcA
"The tire is almost 200 years old. It had its last big innovation about 70 years ago (radial tires)."
I guess you forgot about run-flat tires and the countless innovations in compound and tread design. Whereas it's not a NASCAR type thing, watch F1 to see how tires are constantly bring improved.
Stupid argument - all those innovations you list don't prevent compatibility between 70 year old cars and new cars. The Apple "innovation" (and I use that word very loosely when talking about Apple products) does remove compatibility.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
One of the stated reasons for the removal of the headphone jack is to improve water resistance.
Yet "Liquid damage not covered under warranty" (quote from the official site).
It seems that Apple used up all its courage, there is none left to back up its claims.
There was hew and cry about switching to USB and dumping legacy analog connectors for serial and parallel ports plus keyboards and mice. Those people were fools. The people making a to-do now are the same kind of fool!
Look at the sheer volume of hate Apple has received today, on Slashdot alone...
Hey man, that's NOTHING!
In ONE DAY, have been Punish-Modded from "Excellent" to "Positive" Karma ON MODS FROM COMMENTS ON THIS ARTICLE ALONE.
And BTW, that is now the FOURTH time in my Slashdot History that that has happened when I went to bat for Apple. I've dug myself back up from "Poor" to "Excellent" three times now.
And yet, you know what? When I get mod points, I ALMOST NEVER downvote ANYONE, and I NEVER post Anonymously.
But I think that might change...
And, by the way, Macs for all? You'll NEVER force your fucking obsolete garbage on me. If you gave me a Mac for free, I'd smash it into little pieces with a sledgehammer and jam every single last shard directly into your asshole. But, I'm sure you'd like that, you faggot. FUCK YOU, your whore mother, loser father, and any women desperate and drunk enough to get within 20 meters of you.
Wow. Just. Wow.
Slashdot: THIS is why AC Posting MUST END!!!
Seriously; is that anything even APPROACHING "rational discourse"? Does that add ANYTHING WHATSOEVER to the Conversation?
And yet, that post is "left alone" (surprised it wasn't upmodded to "+5 Insightful"), while post after post of MINE were SYSTEMATICALLY marked either "Flamebait" or "Troll", NO MATTER WHAT.
Slashdot's Moderation system only works if people use it REASONABLY. It has LONG SINCE jumped that particular Shark, and it is HIGH TIME FOR AC POSTING TO GO. These COWARDS would NEVER Post that INSANE SHIT if they had to "sign their name" to it. NEV-ER. Because, afterall, THEY ARE COWARDS, JUST LIKE ALL BULLIES...
"Buy our wireless headphones, which of course will be the only ones that really work well with it."
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
n/t
Its looking like a pretty good phone. But of course, the whole outrage thing is more about the ford versus chevy arguments over Android versus iPhone. The most outraged arn't going to buy one anyhow.
Its such a pity that there are absolutely no options that don't depend on that little phone jack.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I'll buy another 6 before a 7. This time the glass spaceship rolled snake eyes in their innovation quest. The sales will tell the story.
In light of this courageous act of courage on the part of Apple, the Nobel committee isn't even considering other contenders for this year's peace prize.
Apple, you truly are a gift to humankind.
Typical for Apple. Apple has always wanted to limit customer choices to things made by Apple. That started with the Apple IIc and continues to date.
The last time I seriously considered an IPhone was, I think, the iPhone 3. No user changeable SIM card. No SD card slot. Sorry, I'm not interested in being locked into a vanilla mediocre system with no user customization.
Does Apple even subscribe to standard Bluetooth any more?
All you people resisting change fo go yourself
it takes a lot of courage to tell your whole customer base they should go jack off.
Real courage would've been changing the iPhone connector to USB-C.