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Apple Removed Headphone Jack From New iPhones Because It Owns Largest Bluetooth Headphone Company (theverge.com)
Apple's new iPhones -- the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus -- don't have the headphone jack. The company's SVP Phil Schiller said the move signifies "courage" from the company to put a 100-year-old audio standard to bed. But there could be one more reason for this transition to a Bluetooth/Wireless headphones future: it owns the largest Bluetooth headphones company -- Beats. The Verge reports: More likely is that the lack of a headphone jack on the iPhone -- and increasingly, on Android phones as well -- will lead to an uptick in sales of Bluetooth headphones. And it just so happens that Apple owns the number one Bluetooth headphone company, Beats. Beats brings in more revenue from Bluetooth headphones than LG, Bose, or Jaybird, according to NPD figures released in July. In terms of unit sales, it controls over a quarter of the Bluetooth headphone market. Bluetooth headphones are also disproportionately profitable among headphones. NPD has them accounting for 54 percent of all dollars spent in the market, despite representing only 17 percent of units sold in the U.S.. These headphones sell at high prices with high margins, and Apple's company is making the best of it so far. Sales of Bluetooth headphones are already growing, with units up 64 percent year over year according to NPD's US figures. And Apple's removal of the headphone jack is likely to give them another boost.
Beats was just a perfect fit for apple.
Crap product at premium price...what's not to love?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Too bad there aren't any affordable and good sounding bluetooth headphones. The DAC in most BT headphones are shittier than the ones in smartphones, the audo fidelity is worse, and the compression required to use AADP further degrades audio reproduction. Apple just wants to sell people on a shittier experience and force them to like it. 3.5mm headphones sound better, they're cheaper, they're more compatible, and they don't introduce compression artifacts. So on this, Apple can get fucked.
The Amarri pray for god, the Caldari pray for profit. the Gallente pray for peace, but the Minmatar pray their ships hol
Apple likely bought Beats because they were planning to remove the audio jack
You have a very short memory. The purchase of Beats had zero to do with headphones and everything to do with buying an active music streaming service adding something they were missing while simultaneously removing a competitor in the industry.
You don't pay $3bn on a set of crappy bluetooth headphones when you already produce headphones of your own and already have partnerships with companies who also provide Apple dedicated audio equipment. You sure as hell don't run a business with the thought that "hey in 2 years we're are going to do something incredibly stupid, very unpopular, something that will get us grilled from every corner of the tech presses, maybe we should figure out a way to make money of this dumb idea too!"
I think the largest bluetooth headset seller is some anonymous company in China. The cheap BT headsets you can see on Amazon or Alibaba mostly all look the same, so I suspect are just barely-rebadged versions of the same thing. And surely their volume collectively exceed the sum of Beats, Bose and (never heard of them) Jaybird. And by "volume" I don't just mean units, but as the unit number is so enormous, I also mean dollars.
As for their actual motivations etc...whatever.
expected Android to eventually follow their lead
You've got that backwards. Apple follows Android. Android has always had the significant features first. Copy Paste, permissions management, Wifi hotspot, tethering, predictive text, notifications, interactive notifications, third party keyboards, multitasking, OTA updates, quick access to settings panels.
And this is just the stuff stock android had before IOS, lets not even consider custom ROMS. That would just be embarrassing.
If you want to know what might be in IOS in 18-24 months, look at what Android N is introducing now.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
And the most impressive part is how completely, utterly terrible Beats headphones actually are!
Really, go and try some reasonable Sennheiser, Koss, AKG, Pioneer, hell even Sony...
Beats are just plain out terrible, especially for the money.
But then owners are not buying sound are they, ts all about a stylized 'b' on the ears...
The number of people I have donated older Sennheiser phones to who have then given away their
much more expensive Beats amazes me. PX200 for travel, HD280Pro for home. both cheap 2nd hand.
But, yes the move by apple is rather transparent.
#1, take attention off the lack of other improvements in the 7 by doing something controversial.
#2, improve Beats/Apple profit by gouging the fanbase even more.
It seems thats what passes for innovation these days - that and crying over un(fairly)paid tax being called in.
Sad, really.
There are much thinner phones on the market today that use a full-size 3.5mm jack (Vivo X3S is 6mm, Huawei Ascend P3 is around 6.18mm, and the Gionee ELife S7 at 5.5mm, for example). And the volume occupied by the jack MIGHT allow something around 50-70 mAhr of more battery - about enough to run that Bluetooth radio for an hour or so - meaning if you listen to Bluetooth headphones for more than an hour you're down on total operational time as you continue to consume more power than if you just had a wired headphone.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
I'd be with you if this was RF wiring. But at 20 kilohertz maximum (which you won't hear past teenage), no way. The resistance is not significant, the capacitance is not significant, the headphone wire is not acting as a transmission line in any relevant way at that length and frequency, the way it would at RF. If it were acting as a transmission line, what you say would make sense.
Those folks who are selling you oxygen-free copper wires and other forms of guilding the lily are depending on your psychological expectation that things will sound better, just as your car might seem to run better after you give it a good shine.
Bruce Perens.