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The iPhones of the Future May Be Wireless, Portless and Buttonless (cnet.com)
The first iPhone to shed its headphone jack was the iPhone 7, which launched in late 2016. Now it seems like the Lightning port may be the next to go. CNET reports: Apple has considered removing the Lightning port on the iPhone X, according to Bloomberg, citing unnamed "people familiar with the company's work." While earlier rumors suggested that Apple would remove the Lightning port in favor of USB-C, Apple's goal may be to remove all ports entirely.
Bloomberg's report is about the challenges that Apple faces with its AirPower wireless charger, but it also shares some details about Apple's vision for a wireless future. The report says: "Apple designers eventually hope to remove most of the external ports and buttons on the iPhone, including the charger, according to people familiar with the company's work. During the development of the iPhone X, Apple weighed removing the wired charging system entirely. That wasn't feasible at the time because wireless charging was still slower than traditional methods. Including a wireless charger with new iPhones would also significantly raise the price of the phones."
Bloomberg's report is about the challenges that Apple faces with its AirPower wireless charger, but it also shares some details about Apple's vision for a wireless future. The report says: "Apple designers eventually hope to remove most of the external ports and buttons on the iPhone, including the charger, according to people familiar with the company's work. During the development of the iPhone X, Apple weighed removing the wired charging system entirely. That wasn't feasible at the time because wireless charging was still slower than traditional methods. Including a wireless charger with new iPhones would also significantly raise the price of the phones."
and they want to fix that?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
I guess after all ports are removed, the next idea would be to remove the leading cause of repairs, if there is no screen, it won't crack... /s
Until a bug is introduced in firmware and a factory reset is required.
Or you get nailed by malware that takes over your phone, and there is literally no way to reset the fucking thing!
Wireless, Portless and Buttonless or in a word ... very Useless
They're also going to be screenless. It's going to be a huge breakthrough.
It might be good to have wireless charging ability at home but what about when you're "on the go" and just need to connect to a cable somewhere to charge your phone, and there's no special Apple wireless charger?
Sorry, Apple, but my Samsung Galaxy S8 (which I bought to replace an iPhone last year) is far superior to your feature-stripped strait jackets.
Is it really news that mobile phones will be wireless?
I mean, there were probably wired mobile phones in the trenches during WWII, Korean war and Viet Nam war, but since the 90s at least, I think most mobile phones have been wireless.
What I miss the most are tactile buttons, allowing me to call without looking at the phone. And, of course, the times when people actually picked up the phone when there was a call, because calls were expensive and telemarketers and Indian scammers non-existent.
Potting the whole thing, so it is literally impossible to open or repair it, as the phone is a solid block of resin.
If they remove the screen as well they will have a fairly rugged device
The only Apple product I own is the White Album.
How about also rid the screen: just shove your iSuppository up your rump, and learn to "read" vibrations.
A simple shiny little sphere: the ultimate in Apple Design.
Table-ized A.I.
Wireless, Portless and Buttonless or in a word ... very Useless
Watching tens of millions of people line up to buy this hardware, or in a word from the CFO....very Priceless.
All the better to sell you proprietary charging pads and AirPods!
You forgot "Userless".
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
I will love spending the extra money for a wireless charger at home, at work and in the car. Assuming I can find a place to put the wireless charger in the car.
In other news, Apple makes 100% more profit on wireless accessories. And the sheep just keep on buying it.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
The fact of 'caught using' being a thing shows the real problem. Who cares what we use? Why it it so important to visibly be using a particular companies gadget?
The iPhones of the future will be crippled -- fixed that for y'all.
The only Apple product I own is the White Album.
Whoa -- talk about being way behind the times there grandpa!
You should totally check out Abbey Road. Best. B Side. Ever.
Yaz
Form over function.
#DeleteChrome
Apple will allow you to add iClown Export for only $5 per month :)
The only Apple product I own is the White Album.
Careful! You'll trigger Yoko to file another decades-long frivolous lawsuit!
We can begin to see the death of a brand and company.
In honesty, I'd love to see Apple fall back into obscurity. Their products suck and are over priced.
Then don't buy them. Simple as that.
The fact of 'caught using' being a thing shows the real problem. Who cares what we use? Why it it so important to visibly be using a particular companies gadget?
Awww! Sounds like somebody's jealous...
Apple's been telling people that to protect their smaller devices, they basically need to put *something* around it. (remember the sock? or that band to deal with antenna issues?)
But wireless charging uses induction, and the further apart the induction pads are, the worse the charging performance (which might be related to their overheating problems, as they need to use move power). So if Apple's really serious about this, they need to come up with a phone that doesn't need a case ... which might piss off other companies in the accessory ecosystem.
I'd love to use wireless charging again ... but I'm not giving up a headphone port for it. I went from a Palm Pre (with the replaced back for wireless charging) and Pre3 to an iphone SE ... because it had a headphone jack. But even as a 30+ year apple user, I doubt I'll be getting another iphone, as the OS just pisses me off too much.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
The entire tech industry will surge ahead into true innovation when apple is finally gone.
Actually they will have no one to copy from Apple may not have been first with many products but the way they are copied proves they get the user, better than others, and get the basics right. Also Apple tends not to release a product in a rush look up Knowledge Navigator to see how long the iphone idea has been in the works. Racking up feature count doesn't mean much if its difficult to use. And for most users the quality of phone cameras etc. is good enough
Your'e all thinking it, I just said it for you
Honestly, I'm surprised they haven't removed the lightning port yet. At this point its just another back door.
Steam punks will be retro-fitting brass head phone jacks to iPhones next.
It's molded from a single piece of glass. Front, back, sides.. ALL GLASS!
Music apps are relatively popular in iOS... even Apple has one (Garage Band) and there are even MIDI interfaces that allow connecting instruments to an iPhone. ... But you can't really use Bluetooth for music (and I say that as the happy owner of a couple of Apple Airpods) because it has too much latency (noticeable / annoying delay between touching something on screen and hearing the sound).
As a Slashdot discussion grows longer, the probability of an analogy involving cars approaches one.
will have to be hand coded around the bigger and bigger notch. Enjoy notch drift that takes over more and more of your app.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
How many times have you gone on holiday, opened your case, and found you didn't pack your charger? If you were lucky, you packed a spare cable, so all you needed was something with a USB connection and you could charge your phone. At worst, a trip to a shop that sold cables.
Remove cable charging, and now you're needed to buy a full wireless charger. Or visit Starbucks every morning for 2 hours while you slowly sip away at a long-gone-cold coffee.
And then what about those people who still use wired headphones using the adapter that comes in the box... oh yeah, sorry, I forgot that you sell expensive wireless headphones that you want to force people to have to buy also. Silly me.
Copying data to your PC? Or another phone? Getting a charge boost from another phone (like you can [seemingly] on USB-C devices)? In-car adapters? Peripherals?
My last few phones all had wireless charging. I rarely used it. Lately I was even thinking about why this tech is added to phones as it just increases the cost and provides, at least to me, no benefit. I'm not sure I'd like being forced to have to only use wireless charging. Plus you know that they'll change the wireless charging technology in 2 iterations time, making those 2 spare charges you bought when on holidays useless.
At least you can buy another one on your next trip away...
"It's so... black!" said Ford Prefect. "You can hardly make out its shape... light just seems to fall into it!"
I am left speechless and powerless by their decisions to go portless, buttonless.
- They will surely go speakerless and mic-less (this will make the phones analog hole-less)
- Battery-less (no more battery fires, hurrah !)
- Use-less
- Price-less (how much does it cost? How much have you got? Or as they prefer in England, how much can you afford to pay ?)
- Screen-less was already mentioned.
- Case-less (the most lightweight phone, lighter than air)
This reminds me of a story about trains:
"When a train derails it is usually the last carriage that causes the derailment. Therefore, to address this problem we will remove the last carriage from all trains."
Problem solved.
Further, if they want to be hip - they never let the apple logo on the back get covered up. Even case makers leave it exposed. Why not make the apple and stem the electrodes of a cradle charging system? Still a sealed unit. But we've moved beyond two pin charging, I guess.
Wow, lots of snark and sarcasm in the posts and responses...but letâ(TM)s think about who whoâ(TM)s could work.
What about changing the port from a male/female configuration (insert plug into receptacle) to the smart port where the connection is held magnetically? Intrusion points in the case are eliminated yet there is a means of a physical connection to the outside.
As has been mentioned elsewhere, change out the home and volume buttons from a operator that goes through the case to some sort of membrane button or Hall effect button with no opening in the case (or at most a sealed seam), and those intrusion points are gone.
Audio? That can go through Bluetooth as it is now, or the smart port for wired connections.
SIM card? ESim, but Iâ(TM)m not wild about it due to the lack of ability to swap SIM cards at-will. Wasnâ(TM)t the whole point of the SIM card the ability to swap cards and phones as desired?
Speaker and microphone, no problem, sealed membranes to transmit the sound waves, probably no change from the present design (except maybe for better sealing methods and materials).
There was a lot of bitching and decrying the loss of the 30 pin connector to Lightning, and loss of the audio jack...but the world kept turning, iPhones kept selling. I bet the same will happen if/when Apple does achieve a hole-less case design.
And I for for one look forward to that.
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
I don't get all the apple hate on this. Going port-less seems _obvious_ to me. I'm sure the major flagship android phones will do this as well.
The primary arguments against this idea seem to be:
1) It will be inconvenient to charge away from home.
2) It will be impossible to reset in the case of an error.
3) It will be impossible to use existing wired headphones.
4) It will be difficult to copy data off the phone.
However, IMO...
1) Qi charging is becoming ubiquitous; Cars, restraunts, hotels, will have wireless chargers. Battery life is getting better, my iPhone X can easily go 2 days between charges if I use the battery saver mode from the start, probably 3 if I turned it off while sleeping. Wireless chargers are cheep, $20 on amazon, plugs in anywhere you have USB.
2) I haven't had to hold buttons to reset my iPhone in over 3 years. Still, it's very likely they'll come up with a way to do this. If not, it'll be valid criticism, until then, its FUD.
3) You already need an adapter to use wired headphones. Now the adapter will have to be bluetooth enabled. It's really not much of a loss. 1st gen AirPods work great and are selling well, so I would expect that sort of wirelessness to be the future anyway.
4) Between iCloud and airdrop, this is a solved problem.
Do I think apple is above criticism? No, the current Mac line is in shambles.
Would such a device be of less use to some people? Sure, and they may be able to use androids for a while, but such folks will have to adapt eventually.
Could apple screw this up? Sure, especially in the 1st generation. Bendgate, you're holding it wrong, plenty of examples here. But they usually learn from their mistakes.
Am I overlooking something?
So if I'm low on battery, I still have to have a clunky device wired to the wall that I sit my phone on. I STILL SEE THE MOTHERFUCKING WIRE!
And now all cars have to have some Apple branded wireless charging SPOT?!?! Guess what, I have NO additional room in my car for something like that. What if I want to charge my phone and my wife's?
I think this strategy is pointless.
This is why I hate Apple. They do stupid stuff to appeal to up-to-the-minute in-style crowd and then all their competitors thinks that they have to follow suit.
...and pointless!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Don't they need at least 1 hardware button to turn the damn thing on? Or are they going to keep the touchscreen active 24/7 even when it's powered off?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
"It's so advanced... you don't even need it." -Stephen Wright
It's not Apple's fault that everybody copies them.
-- Cheers!
AFAIK The present break in methods employed by LEO all use the data port. At least that would make them chase down the JTAGs or something. You know old fashion police work.