New iPhone 7 Case Brings Back the Headphone Jack (thenextweb.com)

Apple removed the headphone jack in the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, forcing users to use either Bluetooth, the Lightning port or included Lightning to 3.5mm headphone jack adaptor in order to listen to music through headphones. However, one company took it upon themselves to create an iPhone 7 case with a built-in 3.5mm headphone jack. The company is called Fuze and they recently launched an Indiegogo campaign that promises to bring the audio port back to the iPhone 7. The Next Web reports: To achieve this, the company is taking Apple's Lightning to 3.5mm adapter and building it straight into a case, where you can plug your headphones with "no dongles, no adapters, no problems." In addition to the audio port, the Fuze Case will also serve as a battery pack as it adds 2,400mAh of extra battery life to the iPhone 7 and 3,600mAh to the 7 Plus. It will be available in five different colors including white, black, gold, rose gold and blue. The case is currently available for $49 to "super early bird" backers, but will increase to $59 once more people have chipped in and will eventually sell for $69 in retail. The company expects to start shipping the accessory in December later this year.

Comments

Offer a rugged version with bonus battery life

[sjbe]

I'd gladly pay the same price or slightly more for a slightly thicker/tougher, longer lasting phone.

Agreed. I don't really see the downside to offering a "rugged" version with extra battery life. I would think corporations would buy them by the bushel. I would probably buy one too.

As it is now, I have to get Otter cases for my phones for fear of them snapping or shattering.

I've always thought that the Otter cases were overkill for anyone who isn't suffering from parkinson's or has a terminal case of clumsy. I use a very minimal case make by Spigen and it's managed to keep my phone intact despite an occasional drop for over a year. If you want to be able to dribble your phone like a basketball then by all means get an Otter case but I don't think they are necessary for most and are WAY too bulky to be practical for the bigger phones like the iPhone 7plus.

The old nokia-style dumb bricks lasted forever. Sure, I couldn't browse the web but at the time I didn't care to.

That's a rationalization if I've ever heard one. You "didn't care to" because it wasn't an option. Even the early "smartphones" like the offerings from Nokia were absolutely terrible at browsing. I know because I owned several of them. They sucked.

Now with the iPhone 6, I'm able to go a couple days between charges... Less if I'm looking at the thing a lot or streaming music. It's not great, but its acceptable.

That means you don't use your iPhone a lot. If you use it heavily it will last 1 day max. I routinely wind mine down to near empty because I'm using it constantly. It's a rare day I don't dip below 50% charge at some point and I typically get to 20-30% with at least one mid-day recharge. I actually keep a charge cable in my car while driving. And in case you were wondering my battery works fine - I just use the phone a LOT.

Re:Offer a rugged version with bonus battery life

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd gladly pay the same price or slightly more for a slightly thicker/tougher, longer lasting phone.

Agreed. I don't really see the downside to offering a "rugged" version with extra battery life. I would think corporations would buy them by the bushel. I would probably buy one too.

The downside is that it would be durable, useful, and popular. The entire smartphone economy is based on the assumption that no one keeps a cell phone more than 2 years, and that it would be an improvement if everyone had to replace within 1 year.

As speed becomes less of a difference between annual models, designers are looking to make device failure a bigger factor. However, that is a hard trade-off. The glass used on modern phones is harder and more impact resistant than any mass-produced transparent material that came before. The vast majority of electronics are either faulty within a month or last for decades. As a result, the best target for medium-term performance decay is the lithium ion battery. Lithium ion batteries have a fairly well documented decay rate based heavily on partial discharges from full capacity. Encourage habits that wear down the battery, make replacement impossible, and you get your purchase cycle (not that I avoid the battery damaging behavior, it's much more convenient than trying to work with the chemistry's strengths).

Re:Offer a rugged version with bonus battery life

[phayes]

Apple & Samsung & everyone else have performed market studies that show that other than a nostalgic vocal few, not enough people would actually buy thicker phones to justify their development. The proof of this is that If the market for thick phones was as underserved as you pretend, sales of thicker phones and these thick, reinforced battery pack cases for todays thinner phones would be a significant percentage of all smartphone buyers. This isn't the case and battery cases & external batteries exist for those who need them and suffice for almost everyone.

Re:Battery cases prove market for fatter phone

[bobbied]

Which is why I have an Android based Note 4.... It's not that the battery last a long time, being old it doesn't usually make 10 hours actually, but I can carry a spare charged battery which I can insert ANYTIME I choose and presto, I get another 10 hours. My "battery life" is governed by how many batteries I can carry (which is one spare that fits in my wallet case), not how much capacity is built into the phone.

It's not that I'm opposed to the Apple stuff.... But I like the endless capacity I get by having spare batteries that I can switch out on the go, so I never have to worry about not having any power when I'm out and about.