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Apple Cites 'Courage' As Reason To Remove 3.5mm Headphone Jack (arstechnica.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the industry-standard dept.

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."

6 of 761 comments (clear)

  1. Ancient single use port by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    We can't justify an ancient single use port... Not unlike our proprietary power connectors

    1. Re:Ancient single use port by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Yes, because one came before the other.

      USB-C has 4 lanes, lightning has 2. USB-C devices started coming out in 2014, but USB3.1 wasn't standardized until 2013, yet motherboards didn't start coming out with them until this year because INTEL. Motherboards have to add chips to support USB 3.1, which takes lanes away from PCIe until Intel integrates a controller for it.

      Lightning (and Thunderbolt) are basically extensions of the PCIe bus. Lightning came out in 2012. So, basically it was Apple's move to Lightning that lit a fire under USB-IF's ass to come out with a better engineered connector and the "alternate mode" system that Lightning/Thunderbolt have.

      To add insult to injury, the micro USB-B connector was selected as the European charging standard. WHOOPS. To which nearly every device still uses their own proprietary cable and power supply for quick charging. So much for that idea.

      What I expect, is by 2020 we will have two USB standards. USB-C for "compact" devices that provide all the services that a "docking port" would have in 1996. So you plug your laptop or iPhone into a USB-C monitor or television and it will switch to the Super MHL 8K profile, while providing 10G-ethernet and 24bit/192khz 22.2 surround sound. None of this is going over wireless, and anyone who thinks so needs their head examined. The second standard which I'll just call "USB-D" for Desktop will be a larger connector that extends 20 PCIe bus lanes. So a laptop or desktop connected to this will shut down it's internal GPU/Audio and connect to the external PCIe bus where an external GPU, Audio processor and USB input hub will be present. The desktop/laptop will still use it's own CPU, RAM and hard drive. This allows the maximum flexibility. If a laptop doesn't have a USB-D port, then it doesn't have 20 PCIe lanes, and may only have 4 (over USB-C, thunderbolt 3 profile)

      As for what such ports would look like, a USB-D port would be a USB-C port (which connects the first 4 lanes) with a small cutout and adds 16 lanes by extending the connector.

  2. Apple is the EpiPen of smart phones by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Subject says it all. Pure, unadulterated greed with the chutzpah to convince the fanbois that it's worth it...

  3. Re:Or the actual reason(s) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    > It has nothing to do with content management or DRM -- that's pure, paranoid conspiracy theory," he said.

    Yeah, that's just a nice, completely unexpected side benefit.

    > "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." [...]

    Also, it still works. With any pair of headphones or any gear, purchased from any store. That's why we like it.

    This is just Apple ensuring that everyone (at least, all Apple fans) must pay the Apple tax on every bit of hardware.

  4. Re: Single use? by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Yeah, Nexus phones don't support FM either.

    I guess Californian hipsters designing these things don't have any decent radio stations or have enormous data plans. FM is built into every Qualcomm SoC, iirc.

    LG recently released a phone with DAB+ digital radio; maybe that will catch on instead.

  5. "better way to deliver audio" my ass by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.