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Apple Replaced the Headphone Jack On the iPhone 7 With a Fake Speaker Grill (businessinsider.com)
Not long ago, Apple CEO Tim Cook explained why the company felt a need to remove the headphone jack from the new iPhones -- the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. He said, "that jack takes up a lot of space in the phone, a lot of space. And there's a lot of more important things we can provide for the consumer than that jack." His colleague Phil Schiller cited "courage" for the same. As people learn to live in a world where they have to use a dongle to use their existing pair of headphones, gadget repair community iFixit found today that Apple isn't really using that "extra space" it got after getting rid of the headphone jack. BusinessInsider reports: "In place of the headphone jack, we find a component that seems to channel sound from outside the phone into the microphone... or from the Taptic Engine out," they write. Yep -- in the place where the headphone jack used to be there's a piece of molded plastic. "No fancy electronics here, just some well-designed acoustics and molded plastic," iFixit writes.iFixit adds, "Closer inspection shows a new, second lower speaker grille that leads ... nowhere? Interesting." Update: 09/16 21:21 GMT by M : Apple says it's a "barometric vent." The Verge reports: Apparently adding all the waterproofing to the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus meant that it was more of a sealed box, and so to be able to have an accurate and working barometer, Apple used that space. The barometer is the thing that allows a phone to measure altitude, and Apple points out that on the iPhone 7 it can measure even minor changes like climbing a flight of stairs.
You absolutely need to know how high you are.
Having a barometer built into a phone is more useful than you would think, especially when measuring elevation changes.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So what happens when you are in an airplane and the cabin is pressurized?
A more perfect barometer was needed to accomplish what exactly? The device can now tell that I've ascended stairs more accurately. This will lead to what? And this change was as valuable as the headphone jack, how? Sure, more waterproof will probably help some people but overall? It just seems like a dick move.
Now I have a super accurate barometer! Such an amazingly useful bit of tech on my phone, and I only have to spend a couple hundred bucks extra replacing crappy old headphone tech that was removed to make room for this extremely important kit!
Praise Jony!
Can't you people read, they replaced it with a barometer.
Stupid headlines are stupid.
"they replaced it was a barometer" can you people write?
Why on Odin's green earth would a telephone need a barometer? Does it also have a temperature probe, and wind and rain gauges? A telephone should have an earpiece and a mouthpiece and precious little else.
They're just trying to track you better, don't you see where this is going?
Know what I mean, know what I mean?
Somehow Android phone manufacturers have managed this for years (with even more sensors) with LARGER batteries, and maintaining water resistance all while not eliminating the headphone jack.
This is all about generating new earbud+headphone sales.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Between a standard headphone jack and a barometric sensor, I know which I'd find WAY more useful in day-to-day life.
Android's also have that cool exploding phone feature
over time, my sensations and feelings about slashdot have certainly changed.
back when i first joined, it was kind of like recapturing the closely-knit social net that bbsing used to provide. except instead of being largely net by geographical proximity, *cough* we were net by intellectual capacity. "news for nerds", right?
and today i would say my feeling towards or sensation about slashdot is more like, sitting down at a dinner table that's so old and worn it largely resembles found wood, and i'm wearing raggedy, hobo clothes and so is the teenager sitting down across from me, and we have one old iron pot to scoop our food from with disgusting wooden bowls, and i make sure that the teen ager gets the greater portion of food because it's a growing child, but every last thing that comes out of the teenager's mouth just makes me want to kick it down the worn out dingy stairs right into the stupid fucking horse drawn buggy traffic. and it leads me to posts like this which are basically apropros of nothing suddenly standing up and spitting directly into the teenager's fucking soup pot.
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
Never seen a weather station? Any idea what hey are measuring?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Is that Apple-speak for "hot air"?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Fortunately, now there's a sensor that can measure whether the phone has gone up or down.
Except the phone still COMES with headphones that work just fine.
You know what's even more retarded? Not using barometer data to measure slight changes in elevation when combined with an initial GPS pull.
I agree 100%! I can't even begin to count the number of times I have been climbing a flight of stairs and thinking to myself "I wish my phone had a barometer so I could effectively measure how far I am moving along the Z axis".
You know what Steve Jobs thinks of the Barometer in his new iPhone7? He's pissed off because the only useful thing it can tell him is that he's 6 feet under... Steve Jobs was an exceptional visionary, Tim cook is a no talent hack who's going to run that company into the ground Balmer style.
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
Even one example?
The only waterproof android phone (The Sony Xperia) that I've messed with had issues with waterproofing and the headphone jack. Water in the jack would make the phone think headphones were inserted, and the jack could get corroded and become unusable pretty easily. And it didn't have a barometer.
Which Android phone doesn't have these problems and has a useful barometer?
Except the phone still COMES with headphones that work just fine.
Until you try to plug them into an airplane's entertainment system. Or the headphone jack on the side of your desktop computer speakers. Or a transistor radio. Or anything else outside of the newest Appleverse. Then they don't work just fine.
Should read: Apple Replaced the Headphone Jack On the iPhone 7 With a Huge Taptic Engine
Just look at the pictures:
https://www.ifixit.com/Teardow...
(Look at Step 6)
It's obvious that the huge Taptic Engine is right in the line of fire for where the plug would go.
That said: I do this it's a bit BS to put a "speaker grill" there. It might be aesthetically pleasing (balance) but it's a bit underhanded. I'm not really buying their "it's for the barometer!" schtick either...
With Apple, you've got to pay $100 more to reach the exploding battery tier.
If you actually read the article you find that most of the space for the headphone jack is taken up by the new Taptic Engine, which is situated on the other side of the "barometric vent". They increased the sensitivity and strength of the Taptic Engine and that required more space inside the phone.
The headphone jack protrudes quite a distance into the phone, it isn't just a flat device like the barometric vent.
Casio G'zOne. I had one 5 years ago. The latest model comes with software to undistort images taken under water. How's that?
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
I know there old Slashdot stereotype is old men in a basement eating cheetos, but you've honestly never been on a hike? You know, rapidly gaining elevation when climbing a hill...
Yeah, I can see how that would be useful.
"Hey guys, we're at 1,872 feet now."
"Thanks Kendall."
"Hey guys, we're at 1,886 feet now."
"Thanks Kendall."
"Hey guys, we're at 1,904 feet now."
"Thanks Kendall."
Maybe put the phone down and enjoy the hike. If you really need to know your exact position at some point on the hike, that's the entire point of GPS. You don't need a barometer that's going to give you a different altitude reading based on whether or not there's a storm coming.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Just imagine how much space Apple could use if they made the phone thicker. They could have a bigger battery, headphone jack, barometer... there are all kinds of possibilities.
My S5 once got wet enough to have the headphone jack problem. A few hours of letting it dry + plugging in/out once took care of it. The speaker also sounded funny until it thoroughly dried.
The mistake people make is thinking that these devices being water resistant means they are intended for use underwater/while wet. They are not.
The purpose of the water resistance is to prevent permanent damage to the device in the event of accidental contact with/submersion in water.
Newer water resistant phones no longer have USB/Lightning port covers. I promise you if you take an IPhone7 or S7 device, dunk it in water and then immediately try to charge it /use that port for data transfer without letting the port dry out the phone will not function as normal. You won't have permanent damage because the ports are sealed (won't let water into the phone itself) and the port is electrically protected from shorts, but a water filled port is still a water filled port and won't enable a proper connection.
Even a slight breeze will throw altitude, as inferred through a barometer, off by a huge amount.
"You know what Steve Jobs thinks of the Barometer in his new iPhone7?"
He would be so happy because being 6 feet under, he can't get GPS!
Back with my Galaxy Nexus (so about 2-3 years ago) is when Android introduced their barometer. I imagine most Android devices have one these days have one as well.
The Galaxy S5, S6, and S7 all have water resistance and an exposed headphone jack. Some of the earlier models had a door you had to open and close.
Even if there was corrosion, it's still better than having no option. I suspect they'll use metals that are anti-corrosive externally, and by the time it actually dies, the phone is on it's way out too.
What a POS.
...and dispense with the useless "update". It isn't an update - it is simply a slash editor's realization of a fact instead of a clickbaity non-story. Idiot.
What a bunch of suckers!
Enjoy paying for a new pair of crappy Bluetooth earbuds every few months.
After all the indisposition with the USG over the encryption thing they wanted to appease them a bit. So now if you are driving a drone to murder someone based on their iPhone's position, you'll know precisely in which floor he/she is.
They are completely out of touch with reality and their user base. It wasn't courage nor any intelligent decision with any sort of research done to decide if this was the right decision or not. Timmy said I don't like it, remove it and we'll make up a bunch of bullshit later.
Because OF COURSE a millimeter-thick grill has the same volume as an entire headphone socket. WHO WRITES THIS SHIT?
http://www.firstpr.com.au/rwi/...
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Now I know where to fire the proton torpedoes.
My move Apple.
Will it work on an airplane? Oh, right, I forgot, you're not allowed to think about your phone on the airplane, because terists. (This is a poorly formed joke, no responses are required. Yeah, right.)
Sheesh. Just because they didn't use the case facade real estate, doesn't mean they didn't use the circuit board and internal space for other things. Maybe you non-technical people think of the jack's case footprint as all there is, but jacks are actually quite large for simply a contact point and take a lot of board and internal space as well. And here I thought Slashdot was a sophisticated tech publication, but you facile analysis reminds me of superficial fashionista leftist rag the Huff Poo more than the technical Ars Technica.
People have been well trained to "turn off" when on an airplane. I often see one person struggling to get a bag in the overhead with other people literally right next to them not offering to help. The Cheney lovers made things terrible; I'm looking forward to that being fixed as part of everything being made Great again.
Is nothing but a slab of plastic. But, it's an iPhone...the iDrones and iFanboys will line up willing to overpay for "a phone".
With all that extra space can we finally get a place to add additional storage rather than paying $100 for every 16GB. MicroSD cards are half the size of my pinky nail. Yes, they can keep their system closed, keep making that incredible margin, but they can also still have the premium, fast memory inside and let us add our slower $10 memory so we can store more media...
Hot off the press: iPhone 8 will come with a rooster weather vane permanently attached to the top.
Decisions, decisions...a standard universal headphone jack that literally millions of devices will plug into, or a barometer.
Gee, which one would I use more? It's such a puzzle.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Over the years, I've submitted some stories Some on popular stuff, and some on tech stuff.
As Slasddot jumps feetfirst into the world of What this Pennsylvania Housewife Found out that is Driving Dermatologists Crazy, I can fully understand exactly why they were rejected.
tl;dr version. Apple removed the headphone jack, and replaced it with something.
Now I'll take the discretion to post in less obviously stupid stories. Peace out.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Apple is just trolling their customers at this point. Might be some sort of social experiment to see how long they can convince people to buy this nonsense. The next iPhone probably won't have a screen.
Look ... The headphone jack is gone on the iPhone 7 series because Apple wants it gone. It's as easy as that. If a 1/8" stereo headphone jack is THAT big of a deal to you? You obviously need to start considering other smartphone products. I'd say chances are real close to 0% that Apple will decide to bring it back again in a future iPhone.
Despite the uproar, the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus phones achieved record sales. T-Mobile said they sold more of them the first day than they've ever sold of ANY phone in their company's history. So there you have it.... Despite all the Internet rage, the truth of the matter is -- people still think the new iPhone is worth buying.
I pre-ordered one myself, in fact. I've been using the iPhone since the very first version was released, other than a couple of brief stints on Android devices. I'm most comfortable with the iOS menu system and like the iPhone overall. I think each new iteration has brought enough value to make it a worthy upgrade from older models I've owned and the 7 series is no different. When I look at how I *really* use my phone, I see that I almost never plug anything into the headphone jack anyway. Sure, I had a Square reader that used it. But I already upgraded that to the new bluetooth model that can read chip cards and do Apple Pay. In the car, my stereo uses a USB to lightning cable to attach it. I have an LG bluetooth stereo headset I use with it, so no need for a headphone jack for it either. And the Mophie and other battery cases I've owned already required dongles to plug something into the headphone jack since their design made it impossible for a regular jack to plug far enough into make good contact with the phone. So yeah ... this really isn't going to be a lost feature I care too much about.
If you're one of those purists who just HAS to use your iPhone as the audio source for your flawless music listening experiences? Apple has added a few proprietary things on to the bluetooth specification so the wireless EarPods and other headphones they make for it will use those enhancements to make wireless listening better than what you usually get with bluetooth. (Probably fixes some of the glitchiness where audio skips occasionally, etc.) And the free adapter they include still lets you plug in your 1/8" headphone jack anyway ...
Had a barometer 5 years ago. It'll report altitude changes as little as 1M.
More technophobes, who can't even understand the phone might be in a pack but recording accurate tracking data...
Sigh, what a bunch of technically ignorant losers come to Slashdot these day!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
After just 1 hour, the accuracy is +-200m, or the height of a 30 story building give or take, so basically useless unless you are constantly calibrating it.
It's almost like you didn't know phones can use GPS more than once an hour.
Detecting how far *below* sea level you are going, as that pressure is usually quite reliable.
The phones seem about as accurate in Death Valley as anywhere.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
They removed the jack to save a few million Renminbi. That's all. Not enough people used the jack, so it was dropped to lower the production costs. I have never used a cell phone jack and looking around me, it is obvious that there are lots of people that don't like to plug schtuff into their ears - the plugged ins are a small minority.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Speaking of radio, does it support FM radio yet? The headphone cable usually doubles as an antenna.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Or until you try Phil Schiller's official workaround for the charging-while-listening problem: Use a dock and some 3.5mm headphones!
Does all this waterproofing mean warranty will now cover water damage as well?
I know there old Slashdot stereotype is old men in a basement eating cheetos, but you've honestly never been on a hike? You know, rapidly gaining elevation when climbing a hill...
Even in your moms basement I would presume there would be stairs. Unless she took them out I guess?
As someone who hikes quite frequently all over the US and Europe, I cannot say that I have cared to measure my elevation even once.
No worse than the people who wrote the original article. At least my excuse is not being a native English speaker who was trying to get a first post too.
What about the poor poor editors and submitter? Don't they have a right to share their piece of wisdom on this hot apple topic before every body realizes there is no story?
Even a slight breeze will throw altitude, as inferred through a barometer, off by a huge amount.
Who told you that? They were dirty liars. Virtually all quadcopters and other drones use a baro for altitude and with no other sensors can manage to stay within a few feet. If you attached a pitot tube to the sensing port, maybe that would be true.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Even a slight breeze will throw altitude, as inferred through a barometer, off by a huge amount.
You've said that twice and been wrong twice. The Baro on my quad doesn't change appreciably with windage, whether it's on the ground or flying around. Who told you that garbage, and why are you repeating it?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You dipshits understand the jack goes INTO the phone right? It's not a 2D portal that floats on the surface of the phone. He's obviously referring to the INTERIOR SPACE no longer occupied by the jack.
Their computers were comical. The ipod sounded like shit. the iTunes store is scam. and their phones suck. Its absolutely baffling why anyone ever still buys their products. Just stahp, for the love of god.
A second lightning port, or even better, a USB-C port would be more useful.
I would have assumed removing the audio port was more a space saving move on the circuit board of the phone, not on the bezel. I mean phones have tons of space on the outside that are left unused, so I don't know why the grill makes one bit of difference on the savings of the port?
Are you sure it wasn't John alone that wanted it gone?
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Virtually all quadcopters use gyros and accelerometers and don't give a shit about altitude unless they're ALSO using GPS.
You're an idiot, and you responded to my post with bullshit TWICE! Amazing, even for drinkypoo!
Barometers measure pressure. You can whisper sweet nothings at one and have it spaz out.
On the 3.5 mm port:
It is a lot more than just a TRS stereo jack. There are about 4 configurations of contacts and switches in the one Apple used going back to the iPod days. To make that sucker robust enough to work over the life of the phone, it used a lot of internal space, and it also was susceptible to damage from foreign objects getting into it. So future phones might get slimmer without the 3.5mm port. And yes apple wants to sell licensed dongles, and probably has a deal with the **AA asshats to close the analog loophole.
Breakage of the lightning port is much easier to avoid. It was designed so that the connector on the peripheral will shear off, rather than damage the socket. Removing pocket lint and other contamination from the lighting port is much easier than removing it from a 3.5mm port. Adding more conductors to the lightening port is a fairly simple design change. Adding more conductors to a 3.5mm jack is a fucking nightmare. There is a lot of win with the lightening port design.
On the barometer:
If Apple added the barometer in isolation of the other sensors on the device it would be useless. However there are a lot of other sensors on the phone that in concert with a barometer become more useful. It has a 3 axis accelerometer, 3 axis gyro, 3 axis compass, GPS, a mic array, two or three cameras, several temp sensors, and now a barometer. By using all of these sensors together, the phone can tell a huge amount about the environment it is in and correlate that with mapping, and weather data. Adding a barometer made all of the other sensors FAR more useful and makes the entire suite of sensors more reliable and accurate. All of the other sensors make a barometer much easier to calibrate and interpret.
The fanboi/hater circle jerk has grown to so dominate the discussion here that almost no one here has any legitimate geek credibility. Turn in your geek card? GTFO... Most of you never had one.
my old motorola phone, the last one i had before smartphones came along, had no earphone jack, and used the (proprietary) power/data connector to connect to the phones as well. slightly annoying for anyone who might want a different phones, or to feed the audio out into an amp or something. before too long, of course, adapters appeared on the market to provide a jack, but there never was any way to power the thing and use the phones simultaneously. i still have the stupid dedicated earbuds for the thing.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
I don't need a phone that can tell me when I've climbed a flight of stairs, I'm well of aware of that - especially now I can't use my noise cancelling headphones.
Just because you and the people in your immediate vicinity don't use a headphone jack doesn't mean the people who do are a minority. Checkout lines in almost every grocery store don't have headphones right by them because they are catering to a niche market. They do because everything from computers to PlayStation controllers have headset jacks and a lot of people like to use them.
I've no interest in a phone that I cannot plug my Bose headphones into. When it comes time to buy a new phone guess I'll go Android.
Right, people who think it's stupid that you blindly stick up for anything that Apple pinches out are people who are afraid of technology.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
I'm guessing this barometer feature is for stupid parachuters who forgets to watch their altitute because they're taking a selfie :v
Actually it does--the guy who built the controls software was just smart enough to know how to filter noise.
Besides, quadcopters don't need to know altitude. Even if you have one that needs it, it would be easier to get that information from accelerometer and orientation data. You could go the route of calculating your gravitational acceleration, which is a direct function of altitude. Accelerometers usually aren't sensitive enough for that though, so you could also have a block that integrates translational acceleration into velocity then into distance. Harder, but still only a couple variables that are already measured.
Using just a barometer is not good for altitude. You'd also need a good thermometer and a dew-point/humidity sensor. Barometric pressure alone tells you nothing about altitude--you have to deal with other variables too.
Source: my aerospace engineering degree
Its not a barometer in that space. Of course we all know this because we rtfaritcle. Its a barometric vent (with some cool spring type mechanics.) So .. they didn't make room for a barometer.. (its always had that... ) they made room for a vent.
For the barometer.
And benjamindees so aptly put. Its forced progress with the goal of domination: If the corporation
can drive progress, and successfully pull its users along, it is impossible for competitors to edge in on you.
If you have a userbase who will follow you down any road, then you can do things like remove the headphone jack
get at the head of the new headphone selling line, and eat your cake, and the headphone cake too.
Do you know notice the regular update schedule? This is to move users away from the idea of the phone as a
platform (steady, stable, buildable upon..) to phone a service - always moving, always changing, - and others
are welcome to board that boat - if they pay the Apple Tax first ( or M$ tax, or google tax).
Its the same phone. The same phone. The same phone.
5 and 5s ---- 6 and 6s ------
-----------
This is the same company that took years to introduce a new color - white
and sold the color WHITE as an innovative new feature.
The headphone jack - is only a symbol of the shift.. They have all shifted..
The platform is closed. They are the keepers of the gate. They charge to play
and decide what you have and what you don't have.
Here's the cool part.. They can give it to you today
and take it away from you tomorrow, and there's not a thing you can do about it..
Anyone remember the split iPad keyboard? iPhoto? iMovie? --
Its one thing to stop development and support..
its quite another - to proactively remove things from folks device, and they
are so there.
Enjoy the ride. // Full disclosure - typing this on a Macbook, beside my iPhone6
https://www.physics.umn.edu/ou...
Perhaps you need to relearn some basic physics? Yes, moving air has a lower pressure than still air.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?