Apple Discontinues iPhone X, No Longer Sells iPhones With Headphone Jacks (theverge.com)

Apple just killed the iPhone's headphone jack for good. Not only is the company no longer selling iPhones with headphone jacks, as they've removed the iPhone SE and 6s from their website, but they're no longer including a Lightning to 3.5mm headphone jack adapter with the purchase of a new 2018 iPhone. The Verge also reports that the company is discontinuing the iPhone X with the introduction of its three new iPhones today. From the report: With the iPhone XS starting at a price of $999, and the addition of the cheaper $749 iPhone XR announced today, the iPhone X has become redundant. [...] There's no longer a good reason to shell out for the more expensive iPhone X, except maybe the exclusivity of owning a phone that was ushered in with the 10th anniversary of the original iPhone. It was the first to introduce the now-ubiquitous notch that's influenced the entire mobile industry with a wave of copycat designs, and the first iPhone with Face ID. It introduced intuitive gesture controls and with the phone came wireless charging, plus AirPods.

Comments

Distortion field activated.

[msauve]

"It was the first to introduce the now-ubiquitous notch that's influenced the entire mobile industry"

No, the first phone with a notch was the Sharp Aquos S2, followed by the Essential phone. Both before Apple.

Not that introducing that butt-ugly "feature" is worth any sort of bragging rights.

Re:Distortion field activated.

[Anonymous Coward]

Its the verge. An apple ass-sucking web site. So of course apple invents everything.

Re:Distortion field activated.

[Cmdln Daco]

For some reason said 'chin' is considered objectionable.

Not that 'the rest of us' have been able to figure out why.

Re:Distortion field activated.

[Anonymous Coward]

> the notch increased sales
Please, continue your gargling.

Re:Distortion field activated.

[alvinrod]

Apple rarely introduces new features, but they do tend to popularize or polish them. They certainly made everyone else think it was okay to get on the front-face fugly-bump train.

Re:Distortion field activated.

[Hallux-F-Sinister]

What phone has a notch at the bottom? And, I'd much rather have stereo front facing speakers with a chin and no notch, than an edge-to-edge display.

But without an edge-to-edge display, it will be much harder for you to accidentally drop your new $1000+ toy while trying to hold it by its tiny little edges! While you're trying not to cause it inadvertently to respond to you touching the screen and accidentally working some control or another, stopping a video, opening or closing an app without meaning to, etc.?

And without users constantly dropping and instantly breaking them, how will Apple be able to afford to buy Amazon.com, in order to become "Applezon" the world's first 2-trillion dollar company?!?

If Apple applies these same ideas to their cars, (if/when they ever shit out any such automotive abomination,) they'll stick the gas and brake pedals on the outside, so the foot-well in front of you has a neat, clean, and uncluttered appearance!

Then they'll stop selling them with steering columns, because they've just absorbed a company that makes bluetooth steering wheels, and they'll be damned if they're going to INCLUDE one of those for free when people are dumb enough to pay for them! There's customers to be fleeced, damnit!

In the shareholder meeting, I wonder if they run things a LOT like their public-facing product announcements.

"The new iPhone X(R) has an edge-to-edge display that will allow us to part gullible fools from their money 117% more quickly, and efficiently than EVER before!"

(Shareholders applaud dutifully.)

"The Buzz-Word Bullshit Salad that is the A12 "Bionic" Chip (which has nothing whatsoever to do with life so it's a really stupid name,) enables us to convince people with a perfectly good iPhone that is only a year or two old, to fork over another thousand dollars between 12 and 18 months BEFORE they were expected to do so!"

(More dutiful applause.)

"Upcharging by terminating the policy of including an adapter dongle will allow us to convince between 11 and 23 percent of potential suckers to buy our overpriced Beats Headphones, or even more premium-priced AirPods increasing the value of your iNvestment by up to a total of 37.8% over the next 2 to 3 fiscal quarters!"

(Delighted whoops and cheers.)

I'm getting soo sick of Apple.

Not about headphone jacks

[Excelcia]

Apple's removal of the 1/8" headphone jack isn't about headphone jacks, nor is it about updating to new technology. It's about control and is just one small front in the war to erode the user controlling their own data. Headphone jacks are completely audio, analog, and offer no form of DRM. They are something Apple can't control once the signal is on the jack. You can do anything with it. Re-digitize it (this isn't the 80's where duping a cassette tape lead to rapid quality degradation), or pipe it to any device. The sound was yours once it got to that jack. Apple really doesn't like that, and they are basically tossing an invite to the entire industry to follow along and start down a more restrictive path. Follow us and you can get in on the action too. Erode what you can do with your audio one tiny tenth of a step at a time.

If anyone thinks that it's about device jack real estate, upgrading with the times, or innovation, they are hopelessly naive.

Re:Not about headphone jacks

[Powercntrl]

Apple's removal of the 1/8" headphone jack

...is because they bought a headphone company (Beats) and want to sell wireless headphones. That's it.

The music Apple sells hasn't had DRM for years, and nobody bothers "ripping" ("dubbing" would be the proper term) anything via analog, except for vinyl records. Back in ye olden days when iTunes music did have DRM, people removed the DRM using their computer (remember those things?) - not their phone.

That being said, Apple is no saint when it comes to DRM. I've had paid apps disappear from my purchase history because Apple pulled 'em, paid apps that died in the 32-bit purge, and I've read of people who've lost movies they'd purchased (I only buy Blu-Rays, so I haven't experienced that one).

Re:Not about headphone jacks

[Hallux-F-Sinister]

Apple's removal of the 1/8" headphone jack isn't about headphone jacks, nor is it about updating to new technology. It's about control and is just one small front in the war to erode the user controlling their own data. Headphone jacks are completely audio, analog, and offer no form of DRM. They are something Apple can't control once the signal is on the jack. You can do anything with it. Re-digitize it (this isn't the 80's where duping a cassette tape lead to rapid quality degradation), or pipe it to any device. The sound was yours once it got to that jack. Apple really doesn't like that, and they are basically tossing an invite to the entire industry to follow along and start down a more restrictive path. Follow us and you can get in on the action too. Erode what you can do with your audio one tiny tenth of a step at a time.

If anyone thinks that it's about device jack real estate, upgrading with the times, or innovation, they are hopelessly naive.

I completely disagree. The analog hole is still wide-open... until they start insisting that no Bluetooth device can have an analog output... there's no HDCP standard for Bluetooth now, is there?

On the contrary, I believe their "courage" comes from the fact that they just HAPPEN to have just bought a company that only makes BLUETOOTH HEADPHONES, right before they did that. (Unless I have my iChronology backwards!) Could be coincidence, but I kinda doubt it.

used iphone SE prices to soar

[elcor]

2x Best phone

Dongle

[JBMcB]

Weird. My Wife's headphone-jack-less iPhone came with an analog dongle. It can also still connect to the Bluetooth to analog adapter on our stereo. Why would they allow this?

Re:Dongle

[Excelcia]

They originally came with an analog dongle as a transition. You don't assert control overnight. The first step is always to remove the technology they can't possibly control in favour of technologies they can control. But in that first step, you can't go all the way to "you will only use our equipment and nothing else", or else no one will adopt the new system. So, as I said, it's one half step at a time.

New phones don't come with an adapter any more. And it is completely Apple's discretion as to when and if adapters will even work. As far as bluetooth goes, that is also completely at their discretion. An update can cause your phone to cease to work with any bluetooth adapter at any time. They can selectively shut down support for a particular adapter, or even shut down all support for any adapter that isn't theirs. This was something that was originally intended for HDMI and SPDIF, the ability to have it so they would only output signals to "blessed" hardware that was guaranteed not to record. This was when they thought DVD and Blu-Ray encryption wouldn't get cracked and they didn't want people re-recording off the TV/Audio signal. Cracking disc encryption and then streaming overtook that vector and that fell to the wayside. This is just one step in that revival. Control the hardware you can hook it up to, control what you can do with your signal.

As a parent who recently got talked into buying

[rsilvergun]

an iPhone for his college age kid I'd like to personally thank Apple for making the X so undesirable and thereby saving me $200-$300 dollars. I hope to see more of these cost saving measures. Maybe a partnership with Microsoft?

Re: Apple's Recent Choices?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have Bluetooth earphones and they are a pain - I can't see the charge level and thus don't trust them for going out on a walk but mostly for home exercise.

Worse, on my last flight I heard the flight attendant announce that Bluetooth headsets are not allowed at all in flight. Good thing I brought the wired!

Why Apple is doubling down on this seems more bullheaded than intelligent.

It'd be nice if we could stop following Apple.

[OwP_Fabricated]

Their design decisions aren't all gold- they just have a massive army of overly-moneyed sycophants who ooh and ahh at everything they do since Apple had the first legitimately good idea for a touchscreen cellphone interface. The notch is dumb. Ditching the 3.5mm jack is dumb. All of the proprietary connectors were dumb. The walled garden is dumb. Glass backs are dumb. No expandable storage is dumb. Smart Watches are in fact, dumb. Bluetooth headphones suck. 3D Touch was stupid. Apple's UI aesthetics have been awful for like 5+ versions of the OS.

But Android manufacturers follow right along because

1. They don't hire anyone who can design UIs or human-usable tech

and

2. Apple makes a shitzillion dollars, and they don't understand that Apple has so much goodwill they can continue flogging really increasingly fucking bad phones for probably another half a decade before even their diehards start to give up.

No one has that kind of faith in Samsung or Motorola or . Hire the right people and make your stuff good on its own merits. You'll never outdo Apple even if your stuff ends up better in the end because you're forever seen as a follower of THEIR trends.