USB, FireWire, "RS-232-like" Serial I/O, analog audio out L/R, Analog Audio In?, Analog Video out, Power, and a few other signals I can't remember right now.
USB, FireWire (on some devices), stereo audio input and output, 3.3V power output (for accessories), serial (for accessories), composite and S-Video output (on iPod Photo only). And the USB contacts could be used in either device mode or host mode (on hardware that supported it). In fact, IIRC, many iOS devices could actually drive standards-compliant USB audio interfaces through the dock connector, so with a small amount of effort, it was possible to provide digital audio through that connector as well, albeit slightly indirectly, and with less than 100% compatibility.
Thanks for that list!
I know a lot of iOS Device engineers at Apple were actually not too happy with the video capabilities they lost when Apple moved from the 30 pin connector to Lightning. But the Dock connector was beginning to show its age, and I don't miss having to play the " which way does it plug in?" Game with the 30 pin charging cable.
The HDMI switch does audio extraction from HDMI to TOSLink, so I run TOSLink from the switch over to another Optical Input on the A/V Receiver.
RCA To/From TOSLink for less than $20 per device-to-convert with things like these
That's very interesting, didn't know that these converter existed.
Thanks for the reply.
Yeah, there's all kinds of converters and extractors and switches, and combination-devices thereof. Amazon and eBay seem to be good sources of stuff, and also B&H Photo.
You just have to plan it all out a bit, and be willing to re-think parts or the whole thing to get to what you want, as your research turns up devices that may suggest a better way to do things. Try to make sure anything that has multiple inputs also has a Remote.
Speaking of Remotes, For me, the other thing that made it all make sense was the purchase of a Harmony Remote for $52 on Amazon. It "knew" every one of my kinda obscure Audio and Video devices except for my WAAAY off-brand Chinese HDMI Switch. But defining it only took about 5 minutes. But having a " scriptable" Remote takes ALL the "set this to that input, set that to this input, and set the other to another input" stuff and turns it into a one-button "Watch a DVD" or "Listen to Tape" or "Watch the Computer" "Activity", while also providing full and separate control of each device. I think it took me all of a half hour to set everything as far as the "Add Devices" and "Create Activites" goes, and then, I was actually just using the thing!
they moved to lightning to more cables and adapters, not because the internals may be smaller or thinner than ordinary micro usb... just like the 'dock' connector of previous generations was also not usb but proprietary. to sell more shit, make more money. in the end, that's all it is about... making more money.. fucking over the customer is just 'acceptable collateral damage'. apple has enough people brainwashed into buying whatever they're selling, so they will get away with it.. regardless of how stupid it is.
You ignorant little fuck.
The 30 pin Dock connector was more akin to the "Dock" connectors of legacy laptops than anything else. It had:
USB, FireWire, "RS-232-like" Serial I/O, analog audio out L/R, Analog Audio In?, Analog Video out, Power, and a few other signals I can't remember right now.
The Lightning connector, which is an all-digital interface, was created to solve two issues: 1) Size. The 30 pin connector is huge. 2) Orientation-Agnostic capability. You can insert a Lightning connector either way (unlike those maddening USB conns), and it automagically re-routes the signals to match.
I don't think it has anything to do with cost reduction. If anything, it's probably about space/weight savings. For mobile phones, each millimeter and milligram make a difference.
Closer to saving $0.005 per unit. Yes less than a penny. That jack might cost you $0.05 or a little more if you were to buy a one off, but in the 10,000s that Apple purchases them in bulk they are super cheap.
It's just a dumbass move by a dumbass company who is totally out of touch with the end user.
Also even at $100k, Apple pisses that 100 times over every single morning. It's nothing.
It isn't a cost-saving measure, you insufferable twit.
It is mostly about making the next iPhone waterproof. Yes, there are waterproof 3.5 mm jacks; but they are all necessarily much bigger (in all dimensions) than the non-waterproof kind (which are already almost too "thick" for current smartphones). And "bigger" (and especially THICKER) is obviously the last thing a smartphone designer (regardless of Brand) wants to be...
But due to its design, Apple can waterproof a Lightning connector much easier than a 3.5mm jack. So the Lightning conn can stay; but the analog headphone jack must go.
I am not sure whether Apple will just ship a Lightning Headset with that iPhone, and either include or sell a Lightning "DACJACK"(tm) for those who want to use old-Skool analog phones; or whether they will just start leveraging Bluetooth 5, but more likely, that will have to wait at least one more product-cycle.
Wow. So you like adaptors to protect against ground loops. Do you also walk around with shark-repellant bat-spray, just in case?
For your information, I'm a physicist, so I actually know more about electricity than you ever will. And my professional advice is that you should worry more about being hit by a lightning than about having your motherboard fried by a ground loop.
For your information, I have been an Embedded hardware/software developer for almost 40 years.
So, you definitely know more about the Second Law of Thermodynamics than I ever will; but I'll bet I've had my hands on more electronics than you will ever have, you insufferable snot.
Oh, and at one point in my youth, I was a professional audio engineer, and have personally experienced what a ground loop (or other potential caused by disparate power sources) can do, when I plugged in the non-isolated preamp-out of a guitar amp that was powered by the stage power into an audio input (also non-isolated) of a mixer that was running on "house" power. An op-amp IC in the guitar amp lost that battle, instantly, and with a nice SNAP and a satisfying little curl if smoke. This was all on stuff running on plain ol' 120 VAC.
So, in the hypothetical example with a Projector, if the Projector was mounted on the ceiling (as many are), instead of sitting on a conference table, it is not at ALL unheard of that the Projector could be sitting as much as 192 VAC away from the power that the computer was running on. In fact, around 50 VAC mismatches are rather common. It just depends on how much CURRENT can flow through that unintended "circuit".
And if you think what I am saying is so rare, tell that to all the people who have laptops and desktops with one or more fried ports. It is unfortunately all too common. Especially laptops, because they tend to get hooked up to every crazy thing in every crazy electrical environment. And also likely because they are designed with smaller, lower-wattage components; so a mismatch that just makes a nice, fat 0804 SMT 1/4W resistor kinda warm in a desktop is death to the teeny 0201 1/16 W resistor in the laptop.
and the increased battery life that change alone will bring
You may not want to celebrate too much in advance. Those power savings haven't really eventuated in real world use cases. The OLED consortium loves to tell people how power is dependent to the brightness of each pixel unlike LCD which is dependent on the global backlight, but then here I am, nearly every pixel except for the text I am reading is bright white. OLED displays are still massive power drains when showing a picture in natural light.
You're right, of course; but I would imagine that, knowing Apple, they will offer a optional "Dark Look Theme" for iOS (kind of like some OS X applications do) if you want to take advantage of the power savings for "OFF" (or dim) pixels.
I just converted my home stereo system from entirely analog, with piles of RCA cables running everywhere, to HDMI/TOSLink. I thought it was going to be very hard to get everything together; but it was quite the opposite. I replaced a gallon-ziploc bag STUFFED full of RCA cables with about 5 HDMI cables and a couple of TOSLink cables. Took a couple of hours to do the switchover, and everything just worked. So it IS possible to move forward without having to rewrite the entire U.S. Constitution... I swore it would be 50 years before the last RCA jack disappeared from audio/video gear; but now I'm not so sure. More like 10-15 years at MOST. Time marches on... You can either march too, or get trampled. That's just the way it is with everything, and even more so with electronics.
I'm curious how you could do that?
The only devices I have with HDMI are the Bluray player and the TV.
The XBOX 360 has an optical audio out.
But all the other equipment is RCA only, both for video and audio. I'm talking about the Wii, a turntable, a tapedeck, a CD player, the small 3.5mm to RCA lead we use to plug phone/tablets/mp3 players in the receiver (no pairing, no lost connection, no authentication problem... Instant plug and play).
Where can you find a turntable with a TOSLINK out? Or a tapedeck with TOSLINK in/out?
Well, every setup is of course, different. My TV has HDMI (obviously).
My DVD player has HDMI (and RCAs and TOSLink).
I took my VCR out of the system because it had a bad power supply, and because I hadn't used it in about 5 years.
My cable box has HDMI (and RCA (and TOSLink I think)).
I purchased a 4-port HDMI switch box to replace the 3 port RCA switch box I was using to consolidate ports. (I had also been using my VCR to do some signal-routing; but I had long-ago bypassed (literally) that.
The computer I use (an old G5 Tower) as an iTunes server has TOSLink out, so that goes over to one of the Optical inputs on the A/V Receiver.
The HDMI switch does audio extraction from HDMI to TOSLink, so I run TOSLink from the switch over to another Optical Input on the A/V Receiver.
As for your tape deck, unfortunately, most modern receivers don't have a "Tape Loop" anymore (mine does, both analog and TOSLink). But you can get from RCA To/From TOSLink for less than $20 per device-to-convert with things like these, and once it is all TOSLink, there are any number of Switches, or if you have a "modern" receiver, it will likely have enough TOSLink inputs to obviate the need for an external TOSLink switch box.
DId I forget anything? Oh yes, Turntable. Well, my Thorens TD160 has been sitting in quiet repose in my "storage room" for over 20 years; but my Receiver also still has a forest of RCAs (and I believe a Mag-Phono input), in case I ever want to hook it up again. Or, I could just get one of these thingies. I am sure there are less-expensive ones; but that is what I found in 0.5 secs of Googling for "Magnetic Phono to TOSLink".
As I said, every setup is different, and presents different challenges. The more "legacy" media (tape and vinyl) you want to support, the more "shopping" you need to do; but it is still possible in any event.
The only way they could handle this would be to bundle in headphone jack adapter with the phone. It ought to be a cost wash with the shitty headphones, which they really ought to stop including anyway.
You don't travel to conferences, do you? I have just been to a conference in the Czech Republic and had to plug in my laptop into the projector to give a presentation. Which standard did the projector use? That's right, VGA. I just plugged the cable directly in my laptop, whereas all the macfags had to fumble around with adaptors.
And you don't know much about electricity, do you?
So when a ground-loop or other electrical potential between that Projector and your laptop, eats the built-in VGA port on said laptop, you'll WISH you had an interposing "adapter" to serve as a buffer between that projector and your precious laptop's motherboard. Because, if that happens to me, I can go to any largish electronics store and for $30, buy another VGA "adapter" for my "Macfag" laptop, while yours is now TOAST. Forever.
I built a bluetooth receiver for my car out of a Raspberry Pi. You can buy them too, except they cost $80 instead of the $20 I paid. It's much nicer than an audio cable.
It wasn't $20 after that Bluetooth adapter, or if it was a Raspberry Pi3 B, then those cost about $35-$40, not $20.
And of course that all made sense because your time is worthless, right?
Only douchebag and stupid assholes drive around with headphones on.
As long as you aren't driving around with a pair of these on, you should be able to hear with most earbuds just as well as you can with your stereo turned up to a reasonable listening level (let's say around 80-90 dB SPL or so).
Apple need Samsung and LG to create new components before "design" corporations can use said parts in the next iteration of products. Apple do not invent, they use off the shelve components made by the Japanese and Korean R&D electronic companies you xenophobic types love to hate.
Of course.
That's why there are benchmarks for Apple's A[x] SoCs vs. Qualcomm's Snapdragon and Samsung's Exygenous (or whatever) SoCs. That's because Apple just re-branded other people's SoCs rather than designing their own from the ground-up (rolls eyes).
If they're not capable of waterproofing a simple headphone jack, then maybe their industrial designers aren't as good as they think they are.... This isn't rocket science.
This one is a pretty big leap. Most people who buy headphones I want them compatible with everything. I have some devices I plug into that are 10 years old and will still be used long into the future, and this means an audio cable. While I have an audio cable anyway, why would I want to pay a premium for in-headset bluetooth and at the cost of having to charge them all the time. When flash drives came out, USB was already prevelent and that was fine. I haven't looked for a thunderbolt hub for quite awhile but last I checked they were still a lot harder to find than usb hubs. Finally, I swear at apple every time I have to find my displayport adapter. I still have three working VGA monitors and the macbook is so far the only PC I have without a VGA or HDMI port.
As I said: Depends on how they handle it.
Like everyone else, I have several headphone/earbud sets that have either 3.5mm or 1/4" plugs on them. I would imagine that Apple will go wireless on the next iPhone, with Bluetooth 5 being used (with possible failover to older BT standards). I would NOT expect them to simply switch to using the Lightning connector and keeping the headphone/earbud user TETHERED to the device. What's the sense in that?
If that (Bluetooth) happens, Apple and a zillion other companies will rush to market with receiver/DAC dongles that you can plug analog 'phones into, and Apple and a zillion other companies will start (continue) making BT headphones/earbuds, and as time goes on, the 3.5mm jack will start being the thing you have to have an adapter for, for everything; rather than the other way around.
I just converted my home stereo system from entirely analog, with piles of RCA cables running everywhere, to HDMI/TOSLink. I thought it was going to be very hard to get everything together; but it was quite the opposite. I replaced a gallon-ziploc bag STUFFED full of RCA cables with about 5 HDMI cables and a couple of TOSLink cables. Took a couple of hours to do the switchover, and everything just worked. So it IS possible to move forward without having to rewrite the entire U.S. Constitution... I swore it would be 50 years before the last RCA jack disappeared from audio/video gear; but now I'm not so sure. More like 10-15 years at MOST. Time marches on... You can either march too, or get trampled. That's just the way it is with everything, and even more so with electronics.
As far as your Thunderbolt/DisplayPort issues go, that has more to do with when you bought your last PC and monitors than anything else, and with things like the Surface Pro and others switching to either MiniDisplayPort/Thunderbolt or USB-C, the days of the VGA connector are pretty much OVER. Even Slashdot has admitted it. But don't get me wrong, I have multiple things that are VGA, and so, having something like MiniDisplayPort actually allows me to have VGA compatibility for FAR longer than if I had to depend on a built-in VGA Port or some hinky, expensive, half-assed "converter box". (Been there, done that with HDMI -> Component Video. $70 for something that barely worked, and then failed after about a year)...
I personally like having the TB/MiniDisplayPort connector and Dongle setup; because 1) VGA (and DVI) Connectors, like the Universe itself, are BIG, REALLY BIG; 2) With just a little planning, I can output to a variety of Displays, without having to worry about having a particular Port available on the computer itself (and with an aftermarket TB display adapter, I don't even have to have 3 separate dongles; instead I can have ONE dongle that costs about HALF that Apple's dongles and has VGA, DVI and HDMI on the same dongle, how cool is that?); and 3) There is a modicum of protection afforded by having an active "dongle" b
Apple is releasing a new product with little to no changes compared to the previous model, and yet still expects people to shell out hundreds of dollars for the new version? Sounds like they've finally figured out their customer base! Steve Jobs would be so proud...
I would suggest that TFS was written to give that impression; however, I personally would consider the shift to OLED (and the increased battery life that change alone will bring) is a pretty significant change, in and of itself.
As someone who was starting to look at upgrading his phone (5s going strong so far), I know that the lack of headphone jack is going to make me sit right back down and wait on the purchase.
Depends on how they handle this.
You DO realize that Apple has a pretty long and successful track record of getting excoriated for getting rid of "legacy" ports and peripherals, only to have the rest of the industry follow suit in the next year or so, right?
This isn't a surprise. The next Intel chip won't be much different than the last one either. The next computer you own will be very similar to the one you owned 5 years prior. We have really reached an end of the digital road now. You won't likely see huge progress like we have seen in the past due to limitations of physics and power concerns. I know people will scream "Moores Law!!!" but that doesn't apply in 2016. It looks like the Star Trek type future won't be happening.
Exactly correct.
Unless there is some newly-discovered law of Physics, Moore's Law is proving to be a "For limited values of..." doctrine.
I wouldn't say that the Star Trek future won't EVER be happening; but it doesn't look good for the next 20 years or so...
Definitive proof that you're not just a disgusting Apple zealot (fuck you for that, by the way. You force a mac on me and I'll slit your throat will a rusty saw-blade)
Kind of a over-the-top reaction to someone's PERSONAL CHOICE of Computing Platform, Music Media Type, and CODEC, don'tcha think?
Why don't you log on and fight like a man, rather than hiding behind your AC status, you sniveling COWARD?
I DO understand that studio production and mastering techniques (most notably the INSANE "volume wars" compression that so many "popular" albums employ) have a LOT to do with the quality of the final product; but I tend to listen to Progressive Rock, which (thankfully!) never fell victim to the soul-and-quality-sapping "everything pushed to 11" techniques; so that's not (entirely) it, at least for the music I tend to like.
Not that I have to explain myself to the likes of you; but I bought a USED Oppo DVD player for $125 offa eBay, not because I am an audiopile (in fact, I laugh at those people too), but because it happens to support nearly EVERY recording format known to man (not talking about data formats; but rather "disc" formats). In fact, it was the only brand of player under around $1000 I could find that supported BOTH SACD and DVD-A, as well as everything from CD up.
I purchase DVD-As whenever I can (at least to an extent) for two reasons:
1. As time goes on, having the music sampled/resampled onto 24/96 (or above) Masters helps "future-proof" that musical material.
2. These DVD-As tend to have 5.1 remixes of material that was originally only available in stereo, and although I don't have a surround setup right now (because I'm too lazy to deploy some rear speakers), I do have a nice Arcam 7.1 capable A/V receiver (which was recently GIVEN to me by a friend that works for a repair-shop, so again, not an audiopile-purchase), for when I get around to putting together rear speakers and a sub.
Obviously, because Apple pushed AAC so hard, you'll claim it's the best. I doubt you even have a car. No doubt your ideal form of transportation is sitting on Tim Cook's dick while he carries you around and titillates you with Apple propaganda, but in a modern car with a decent sound system 128 kbps AAC or MP3 often doesn't cut it.
So, let me get this straight: On the one hand, you are lambasting my decision to purchase (some) music in DVD-A format, and even owning equipment capable of playing back anything mastered at above 44/16 as being "audiophile shit", and claiming "If... you can detect a difference between 96kHz/24-bit and 44.1kHz/16-bit from the same master, then you're the delusional one", and then turning RIGHT AROUND and claiming "but in a modern car with a decent sound system 128 kbps AAC or MP3 often doesn't cut it.". So which is it? "Golden Ears", or not???
As I sit here at work typing this, I never claimed AAC is "the best"; only that it is better than MP3 (at a given bitrate). That's what it was designed for by the CONSORTIUM of companies (none of which was Apple, BTW) that developed it.
And yes, I really DO believe that 128k AAC is sufficient for ANY "mobile" application. NOT for "home" or "broadcast" use; but for bombing around with your earbuds, or playing through your car stereo (and I really don't care HOW "advanced" your car stereo is. NOW who's the "audiopile"?). There are just too many external factors (road noise, vibration shaking the speaker-cones, causing intermodulation distortion), insufficient instantaneous power supply (either by too-small wiring and/or just plain running out of power-supply current capability) causing clipping, that conspire against making your car stereo, and the environment it is in, anywhere CLOSE to equivalent to listening at home.
As someone who purchases music in 96/24 (or better) DVD-A format whenever possible (and has a DVD-A player), if you think you can hear ANYTHING above 128 kbps AAC (or probably even MP3) in a CAR, you're DELUSIONAL.
Untrue. Granted, I had a significantly upgraded system compared to what was available as a stock system, but I was easily able to tell when a song was at 128kbps or below. Oddly enough, I didn't read what you were replying to until now, but I was about to say that the cutoff in my car was 192kbps. That and above was next to impossible for me to hear a difference, but 128kbps was easy to spot.
That being said, none of this matters to me these days. I'm driving a 95 Vovlo station wagon now and the cassette player in my car isn't terribly friendly with these MP3 and AAC things.
I would challenge you to an A/B/X test in your car. I don't care how advanced your car system is, road noise, vibration causing intermodulation distortion products right in the air of the cabin, and other factors conspire to hide anything but the crappiest CODECs at above 128 kbps in AAC. Did I mention AAC as part of my "conditions"?
Having said that, when I conducted my own (unscientific) tests before committing all my CDs to iTunes, I found that 160 kbps AAC was where I stopped being able to tell in a NON-mobile environment; so I encoded everything at 192. I would have done it at 256k if I'd been thinking straight, just because.
The built-in radio/cassette player in my 1990 Volvo 740 Turbo Wagon (GOD I loved that car!) actually sounded REALLY good with the stock speakers/amps. They obviously tuned the system to work together, like Bose does with their stuff (not that I'm a Bose fan; I'm not).
If the FM section still works in your Volvo radio (mine didn't), I would suggest an FM modulator to pump tunes from your phone/PMP to your Volvo's car stereo; or if your FM is kaput (because of a protection diode in the antenna input that gets fried from static in the air), then you can get one of those cassette-adapter thingys to do the same thing. That's what I did, and it sounded damned good, actually. You just have to be careful not to turn up the volume of your phone/PMP too high, or you will start saturating the magnetic core of the tape-head that they have in the "cassette" adapter, and it will start mudding-out and distorting. Turn your phone DOWN to about halfway, then turn the car stereo UP to get the volume you desire. THEN play around till you get a good balance between "I can go as loud as I want" and "Ick, that's horrible!"
Or, if you are handy, you can find cable assemblies online that will let you use the outboard Power Amps in your Volvo, and pump the audio straight from your phone/Player right into the business-end of your Volvo's car stereo.
I use Apple Music differently than most people, I think.
I completely ignore the "Stations", and just use it as a gigantic Music Server, where I can simply Search and Stream WHATEVER is in their ENTIRE Catalog.
To me, that's what makes Apple Music a standout among Streaming Services. I can tell IT what to play; IT doesn't tell ME what to listen-to.
Pandora (paid) for radio-type streaming and Amazon Prime Music for purchased music and playlist type stuff. I would get rid of Pandora but it's the only streaming service out there that still plays Tool.
Hmmm. You may be right. I looked on iTunes, and there is NO Tool ANYWHERE.
Must be the Artist's decision. Probably influenced by Tool's close association with Robert Fripp of King Crimson. He HATES digital distribution (no KC on iTunes, either).
Slashdot Mirror
USB, FireWire (on some devices), stereo audio input and output, 3.3V power output (for accessories), serial (for accessories), composite and S-Video output (on iPod Photo only). And the USB contacts could be used in either device mode or host mode (on hardware that supported it). In fact, IIRC, many iOS devices could actually drive standards-compliant USB audio interfaces through the dock connector, so with a small amount of effort, it was possible to provide digital audio through that connector as well, albeit slightly indirectly, and with less than 100% compatibility.
Thanks for that list!
I know a lot of iOS Device engineers at Apple were actually not too happy with the video capabilities they lost when Apple moved from the 30 pin connector to Lightning. But the Dock connector was beginning to show its age, and I don't miss having to play the " which way does it plug in?" Game with the 30 pin charging cable.
The HDMI switch does audio extraction from HDMI to TOSLink, so I run TOSLink from the switch over to another Optical Input on the A/V Receiver.
RCA To/From TOSLink for less than $20 per device-to-convert with things like these
That's very interesting, didn't know that these converter existed.
Thanks for the reply.
Yeah, there's all kinds of converters and extractors and switches, and combination-devices thereof. Amazon and eBay seem to be good sources of stuff, and also B&H Photo.
You just have to plan it all out a bit, and be willing to re-think parts or the whole thing to get to what you want, as your research turns up devices that may suggest a better way to do things. Try to make sure anything that has multiple inputs also has a Remote.
Speaking of Remotes, For me, the other thing that made it all make sense was the purchase of a Harmony Remote for $52 on Amazon. It "knew" every one of my kinda obscure Audio and Video devices except for my WAAAY off-brand Chinese HDMI Switch. But defining it only took about 5 minutes. But having a " scriptable" Remote takes ALL the "set this to that input, set that to this input, and set the other to another input" stuff and turns it into a one-button "Watch a DVD" or "Listen to Tape" or "Watch the Computer" "Activity", while also providing full and separate control of each device. I think it took me all of a half hour to set everything as far as the "Add Devices" and "Create Activites" goes, and then, I was actually just using the thing!
Controversial opinion:
Switch to the 2.5mm jack, instead of 3.5mm? - The one used on the older blackberry? It's significantly smaller, despite it only being 1mm smaller.
And how many people own 2.5mm headphones?
they moved to lightning to more cables and adapters, not because the internals may be smaller or thinner than ordinary micro usb... just like the 'dock' connector of previous generations was also not usb but proprietary. to sell more shit, make more money. in the end, that's all it is about... making more money.. fucking over the customer is just 'acceptable collateral damage'. apple has enough people brainwashed into buying whatever they're selling, so they will get away with it.. regardless of how stupid it is.
You ignorant little fuck.
The 30 pin Dock connector was more akin to the "Dock" connectors of legacy laptops than anything else. It had:
USB, FireWire, "RS-232-like" Serial I/O, analog audio out L/R, Analog Audio In?, Analog Video out, Power, and a few other signals I can't remember right now.
The Lightning connector, which is an all-digital interface, was created to solve two issues: 1) Size. The 30 pin connector is huge. 2) Orientation-Agnostic capability. You can insert a Lightning connector either way (unlike those maddening USB conns), and it automagically re-routes the signals to match.
I don't think it has anything to do with cost reduction. If anything, it's probably about space/weight savings. For mobile phones, each millimeter and milligram make a difference.
It's about waterproofing,pure and simple.
Closer to saving $0.005 per unit. Yes less than a penny. That jack might cost you $0.05 or a little more if you were to buy a one off, but in the 10,000s that Apple purchases them in bulk they are super cheap.
It's just a dumbass move by a dumbass company who is totally out of touch with the end user.
Also even at $100k, Apple pisses that 100 times over every single morning. It's nothing.
It isn't a cost-saving measure, you insufferable twit.
It is mostly about making the next iPhone waterproof. Yes, there are waterproof 3.5 mm jacks; but they are all necessarily much bigger (in all dimensions) than the non-waterproof kind (which are already almost too "thick" for current smartphones). And "bigger" (and especially THICKER) is obviously the last thing a smartphone designer (regardless of Brand) wants to be...
But due to its design, Apple can waterproof a Lightning connector much easier than a 3.5mm jack. So the Lightning conn can stay; but the analog headphone jack must go.
I am not sure whether Apple will just ship a Lightning Headset with that iPhone, and either include or sell a Lightning "DACJACK"(tm) for those who want to use old-Skool analog phones; or whether they will just start leveraging Bluetooth 5, but more likely, that will have to wait at least one more product-cycle.
How did you like your free lightning to 30 pin adapter?
Never needed one.
Wow. So you like adaptors to protect against ground loops. Do you also walk around with shark-repellant bat-spray, just in case?
For your information, I'm a physicist, so I actually know more about electricity than you ever will. And my professional advice is that you should worry more about being hit by a lightning than about having your motherboard fried by a ground loop.
For your information, I have been an Embedded hardware/software developer for almost 40 years.
So, you definitely know more about the Second Law of Thermodynamics than I ever will; but I'll bet I've had my hands on more electronics than you will ever have, you insufferable snot.
Oh, and at one point in my youth, I was a professional audio engineer, and have personally experienced what a ground loop (or other potential caused by disparate power sources) can do, when I plugged in the non-isolated preamp-out of a guitar amp that was powered by the stage power into an audio input (also non-isolated) of a mixer that was running on "house" power. An op-amp IC in the guitar amp lost that battle, instantly, and with a nice SNAP and a satisfying little curl if smoke. This was all on stuff running on plain ol' 120 VAC.
So, in the hypothetical example with a Projector, if the Projector was mounted on the ceiling (as many are), instead of sitting on a conference table, it is not at ALL unheard of that the Projector could be sitting as much as 192 VAC away from the power that the computer was running on. In fact, around 50 VAC mismatches are rather common. It just depends on how much CURRENT can flow through that unintended "circuit".
And if you think what I am saying is so rare, tell that to all the people who have laptops and desktops with one or more fried ports. It is unfortunately all too common. Especially laptops, because they tend to get hooked up to every crazy thing in every crazy electrical environment. And also likely because they are designed with smaller, lower-wattage components; so a mismatch that just makes a nice, fat 0804 SMT 1/4W resistor kinda warm in a desktop is death to the teeny 0201 1/16 W resistor in the laptop.
and the increased battery life that change alone will bring
You may not want to celebrate too much in advance. Those power savings haven't really eventuated in real world use cases. The OLED consortium loves to tell people how power is dependent to the brightness of each pixel unlike LCD which is dependent on the global backlight, but then here I am, nearly every pixel except for the text I am reading is bright white. OLED displays are still massive power drains when showing a picture in natural light.
You're right, of course; but I would imagine that, knowing Apple, they will offer a optional "Dark Look Theme" for iOS (kind of like some OS X applications do) if you want to take advantage of the power savings for "OFF" (or dim) pixels.
I just converted my home stereo system from entirely analog, with piles of RCA cables running everywhere, to HDMI/TOSLink. I thought it was going to be very hard to get everything together; but it was quite the opposite. I replaced a gallon-ziploc bag STUFFED full of RCA cables with about 5 HDMI cables and a couple of TOSLink cables. Took a couple of hours to do the switchover, and everything just worked. So it IS possible to move forward without having to rewrite the entire U.S. Constitution... I swore it would be 50 years before the last RCA jack disappeared from audio/video gear; but now I'm not so sure. More like 10-15 years at MOST. Time marches on... You can either march too, or get trampled. That's just the way it is with everything, and even more so with electronics.
I'm curious how you could do that?
The only devices I have with HDMI are the Bluray player and the TV.
The XBOX 360 has an optical audio out.
But all the other equipment is RCA only, both for video and audio. I'm talking about the Wii, a turntable, a tapedeck, a CD player, the small 3.5mm to RCA lead we use to plug phone/tablets/mp3 players in the receiver (no pairing, no lost connection, no authentication problem... Instant plug and play).
Where can you find a turntable with a TOSLINK out? Or a tapedeck with TOSLINK in/out?
Well, every setup is of course, different. My TV has HDMI (obviously).
My DVD player has HDMI (and RCAs and TOSLink).
I took my VCR out of the system because it had a bad power supply, and because I hadn't used it in about 5 years.
My cable box has HDMI (and RCA (and TOSLink I think)).
I purchased a 4-port HDMI switch box to replace the 3 port RCA switch box I was using to consolidate ports. (I had also been using my VCR to do some signal-routing; but I had long-ago bypassed (literally) that.
The computer I use (an old G5 Tower) as an iTunes server has TOSLink out, so that goes over to one of the Optical inputs on the A/V Receiver.
The HDMI switch does audio extraction from HDMI to TOSLink, so I run TOSLink from the switch over to another Optical Input on the A/V Receiver.
As for your tape deck, unfortunately, most modern receivers don't have a "Tape Loop" anymore (mine does, both analog and TOSLink). But you can get from RCA To/From TOSLink for less than $20 per device-to-convert with things like these, and once it is all TOSLink, there are any number of Switches, or if you have a "modern" receiver, it will likely have enough TOSLink inputs to obviate the need for an external TOSLink switch box.
DId I forget anything? Oh yes, Turntable. Well, my Thorens TD160 has been sitting in quiet repose in my "storage room" for over 20 years; but my Receiver also still has a forest of RCAs (and I believe a Mag-Phono input), in case I ever want to hook it up again. Or, I could just get one of these thingies. I am sure there are less-expensive ones; but that is what I found in 0.5 secs of Googling for "Magnetic Phono to TOSLink".
As I said, every setup is different, and presents different challenges. The more "legacy" media (tape and vinyl) you want to support, the more "shopping" you need to do; but it is still possible in any event.
The only way they could handle this would be to bundle in headphone jack adapter with the phone. It ought to be a cost wash with the shitty headphones, which they really ought to stop including anyway.
Anything else is a massive failure of good will.
Who says they won't?
You don't travel to conferences, do you? I have just been to a conference in the Czech Republic and had to plug in my laptop into the projector to give a presentation. Which standard did the projector use? That's right, VGA. I just plugged the cable directly in my laptop, whereas all the macfags had to fumble around with adaptors.
And you don't know much about electricity, do you?
So when a ground-loop or other electrical potential between that Projector and your laptop, eats the built-in VGA port on said laptop, you'll WISH you had an interposing "adapter" to serve as a buffer between that projector and your precious laptop's motherboard. Because, if that happens to me, I can go to any largish electronics store and for $30, buy another VGA "adapter" for my "Macfag" laptop, while yours is now TOAST. Forever.
I built a bluetooth receiver for my car out of a Raspberry Pi. You can buy them too, except they cost $80 instead of the $20 I paid. It's much nicer than an audio cable.
It wasn't $20 after that Bluetooth adapter, or if it was a Raspberry Pi3 B, then those cost about $35-$40, not $20. And of course that all made sense because your time is worthless, right?
Only douchebag and stupid assholes drive around with headphones on.
As long as you aren't driving around with a pair of these on, you should be able to hear with most earbuds just as well as you can with your stereo turned up to a reasonable listening level (let's say around 80-90 dB SPL or so).
Apple need Samsung and LG to create new components before "design" corporations can use said parts in the next iteration of products. Apple do not invent, they use off the shelve components made by the Japanese and Korean R&D electronic companies you xenophobic types love to hate.
Of course.
That's why there are benchmarks for Apple's A[x] SoCs vs. Qualcomm's Snapdragon and Samsung's Exygenous (or whatever) SoCs. That's because Apple just re-branded other people's SoCs rather than designing their own from the ground-up (rolls eyes).
If they're not capable of waterproofing a simple headphone jack, then maybe their industrial designers aren't as good as they think they are.... This isn't rocket science.
No, it isn't rocket science; but it DOES make the 3.5mm jack nearly as fat (5-6 mm) (or maybe even fatter) as a USB connector, which of course won't do in ANY phone.
This one is a pretty big leap. Most people who buy headphones I want them compatible with everything. I have some devices I plug into that are 10 years old and will still be used long into the future, and this means an audio cable. While I have an audio cable anyway, why would I want to pay a premium for in-headset bluetooth and at the cost of having to charge them all the time. When flash drives came out, USB was already prevelent and that was fine. I haven't looked for a thunderbolt hub for quite awhile but last I checked they were still a lot harder to find than usb hubs. Finally, I swear at apple every time I have to find my displayport adapter. I still have three working VGA monitors and the macbook is so far the only PC I have without a VGA or HDMI port.
As I said: Depends on how they handle it.
Like everyone else, I have several headphone/earbud sets that have either 3.5mm or 1/4" plugs on them. I would imagine that Apple will go wireless on the next iPhone, with Bluetooth 5 being used (with possible failover to older BT standards). I would NOT expect them to simply switch to using the Lightning connector and keeping the headphone/earbud user TETHERED to the device. What's the sense in that?
If that (Bluetooth) happens, Apple and a zillion other companies will rush to market with receiver/DAC dongles that you can plug analog 'phones into, and Apple and a zillion other companies will start (continue) making BT headphones/earbuds, and as time goes on, the 3.5mm jack will start being the thing you have to have an adapter for, for everything; rather than the other way around.
I just converted my home stereo system from entirely analog, with piles of RCA cables running everywhere, to HDMI/TOSLink. I thought it was going to be very hard to get everything together; but it was quite the opposite. I replaced a gallon-ziploc bag STUFFED full of RCA cables with about 5 HDMI cables and a couple of TOSLink cables. Took a couple of hours to do the switchover, and everything just worked. So it IS possible to move forward without having to rewrite the entire U.S. Constitution... I swore it would be 50 years before the last RCA jack disappeared from audio/video gear; but now I'm not so sure. More like 10-15 years at MOST. Time marches on... You can either march too, or get trampled. That's just the way it is with everything, and even more so with electronics.
As far as your Thunderbolt/DisplayPort issues go, that has more to do with when you bought your last PC and monitors than anything else, and with things like the Surface Pro and others switching to either MiniDisplayPort/Thunderbolt or USB-C, the days of the VGA connector are pretty much OVER. Even Slashdot has admitted it. But don't get me wrong, I have multiple things that are VGA, and so, having something like MiniDisplayPort actually allows me to have VGA compatibility for FAR longer than if I had to depend on a built-in VGA Port or some hinky, expensive, half-assed "converter box". (Been there, done that with HDMI -> Component Video. $70 for something that barely worked, and then failed after about a year)...
I personally like having the TB/MiniDisplayPort connector and Dongle setup; because 1) VGA (and DVI) Connectors, like the Universe itself, are BIG, REALLY BIG; 2) With just a little planning, I can output to a variety of Displays, without having to worry about having a particular Port available on the computer itself (and with an aftermarket TB display adapter, I don't even have to have 3 separate dongles; instead I can have ONE dongle that costs about HALF that Apple's dongles and has VGA, DVI and HDMI on the same dongle, how cool is that?); and 3) There is a modicum of protection afforded by having an active "dongle" b
Apple is releasing a new product with little to no changes compared to the previous model, and yet still expects people to shell out hundreds of dollars for the new version? Sounds like they've finally figured out their customer base! Steve Jobs would be so proud ...
I would suggest that TFS was written to give that impression; however, I personally would consider the shift to OLED (and the increased battery life that change alone will bring) is a pretty significant change, in and of itself.
As someone who was starting to look at upgrading his phone (5s going strong so far), I know that the lack of headphone jack is going to make me sit right back down and wait on the purchase.
Depends on how they handle this.
You DO realize that Apple has a pretty long and successful track record of getting excoriated for getting rid of "legacy" ports and peripherals, only to have the rest of the industry follow suit in the next year or so, right?
This isn't a surprise. The next Intel chip won't be much different than the last one either. The next computer you own will be very similar to the one you owned 5 years prior. We have really reached an end of the digital road now. You won't likely see huge progress like we have seen in the past due to limitations of physics and power concerns. I know people will scream "Moores Law!!!" but that doesn't apply in 2016. It looks like the Star Trek type future won't be happening.
Exactly correct.
Unless there is some newly-discovered law of Physics, Moore's Law is proving to be a "For limited values of..." doctrine.
I wouldn't say that the Star Trek future won't EVER be happening; but it doesn't look good for the next 20 years or so...
Definitive proof that you're not just a disgusting Apple zealot (fuck you for that, by the way. You force a mac on me and I'll slit your throat will a rusty saw-blade)
Kind of a over-the-top reaction to someone's PERSONAL CHOICE of Computing Platform, Music Media Type, and CODEC, don'tcha think?
Why don't you log on and fight like a man, rather than hiding behind your AC status, you sniveling COWARD?
I DO understand that studio production and mastering techniques (most notably the INSANE "volume wars" compression that so many "popular" albums employ) have a LOT to do with the quality of the final product; but I tend to listen to Progressive Rock, which (thankfully!) never fell victim to the soul-and-quality-sapping "everything pushed to 11" techniques; so that's not (entirely) it, at least for the music I tend to like.
Not that I have to explain myself to the likes of you; but I bought a USED Oppo DVD player for $125 offa eBay, not because I am an audiopile (in fact, I laugh at those people too), but because it happens to support nearly EVERY recording format known to man (not talking about data formats; but rather "disc" formats). In fact, it was the only brand of player under around $1000 I could find that supported BOTH SACD and DVD-A, as well as everything from CD up.
I purchase DVD-As whenever I can (at least to an extent) for two reasons:
1. As time goes on, having the music sampled/resampled onto 24/96 (or above) Masters helps "future-proof" that musical material.
2. These DVD-As tend to have 5.1 remixes of material that was originally only available in stereo, and although I don't have a surround setup right now (because I'm too lazy to deploy some rear speakers), I do have a nice Arcam 7.1 capable A/V receiver (which was recently GIVEN to me by a friend that works for a repair-shop, so again, not an audiopile-purchase), for when I get around to putting together rear speakers and a sub.
Obviously, because Apple pushed AAC so hard, you'll claim it's the best. I doubt you even have a car. No doubt your ideal form of transportation is sitting on Tim Cook's dick while he carries you around and titillates you with Apple propaganda, but in a modern car with a decent sound system 128 kbps AAC or MP3 often doesn't cut it.
So, let me get this straight: On the one hand, you are lambasting my decision to purchase (some) music in DVD-A format, and even owning equipment capable of playing back anything mastered at above 44/16 as being "audiophile shit", and claiming "If ... you can detect a difference between 96kHz/24-bit and 44.1kHz/16-bit from the same master, then you're the delusional one", and then turning RIGHT AROUND and claiming "but in a modern car with a decent sound system 128 kbps AAC or MP3 often doesn't cut it.". So which is it? "Golden Ears", or not???
As I sit here at work typing this, I never claimed AAC is "the best"; only that it is better than MP3 (at a given bitrate). That's what it was designed for by the CONSORTIUM of companies (none of which was Apple, BTW) that developed it.
And yes, I really DO believe that 128k AAC is sufficient for ANY "mobile" application. NOT for "home" or "broadcast" use; but for bombing around with your earbuds, or playing through your car stereo (and I really don't care HOW "advanced" your car stereo is. NOW who's the "audiopile"?). There are just too many external factors (road noise, vibration shaking the speaker-cones, causing intermodulation distortion), insufficient instantaneous power supply (either by too-small wiring and/or just plain running out of power-supply current capability) causing clipping, that conspire against making your car stereo, and the environment it is in, anywhere CLOSE to equivalent to listening at home.
And as far a
As someone who purchases music in 96/24 (or better) DVD-A format whenever possible (and has a DVD-A player), if you think you can hear ANYTHING above 128 kbps AAC (or probably even MP3) in a CAR, you're DELUSIONAL.
Untrue. Granted, I had a significantly upgraded system compared to what was available as a stock system, but I was easily able to tell when a song was at 128kbps or below. Oddly enough, I didn't read what you were replying to until now, but I was about to say that the cutoff in my car was 192kbps. That and above was next to impossible for me to hear a difference, but 128kbps was easy to spot.
That being said, none of this matters to me these days. I'm driving a 95 Vovlo station wagon now and the cassette player in my car isn't terribly friendly with these MP3 and AAC things.
I would challenge you to an A/B/X test in your car. I don't care how advanced your car system is, road noise, vibration causing intermodulation distortion products right in the air of the cabin, and other factors conspire to hide anything but the crappiest CODECs at above 128 kbps in AAC. Did I mention AAC as part of my "conditions"?
Having said that, when I conducted my own (unscientific) tests before committing all my CDs to iTunes, I found that 160 kbps AAC was where I stopped being able to tell in a NON-mobile environment; so I encoded everything at 192. I would have done it at 256k if I'd been thinking straight, just because.
The built-in radio/cassette player in my 1990 Volvo 740 Turbo Wagon (GOD I loved that car!) actually sounded REALLY good with the stock speakers/amps. They obviously tuned the system to work together, like Bose does with their stuff (not that I'm a Bose fan; I'm not).
If the FM section still works in your Volvo radio (mine didn't), I would suggest an FM modulator to pump tunes from your phone/PMP to your Volvo's car stereo; or if your FM is kaput (because of a protection diode in the antenna input that gets fried from static in the air), then you can get one of those cassette-adapter thingys to do the same thing. That's what I did, and it sounded damned good, actually. You just have to be careful not to turn up the volume of your phone/PMP too high, or you will start saturating the magnetic core of the tape-head that they have in the "cassette" adapter, and it will start mudding-out and distorting. Turn your phone DOWN to about halfway, then turn the car stereo UP to get the volume you desire. THEN play around till you get a good balance between "I can go as loud as I want" and "Ick, that's horrible!"
Or, if you are handy, you can find cable assemblies online that will let you use the outboard Power Amps in your Volvo, and pump the audio straight from your phone/Player right into the business-end of your Volvo's car stereo.
Guy called macs4all claiming that AAC is not the Apple Audio Codec. lol
Yoke's on you, dumbass.
AAC stands for "ADVANCED Audio Coding", and it is an invention of a consortium of companies, of which Apple wasn't even a part.
Next time, take the 500 ms. to do a little research before being outed as the idiot you obviously are.
I use Apple Music differently than most people, I think.
I completely ignore the "Stations", and just use it as a gigantic Music Server, where I can simply Search and Stream WHATEVER is in their ENTIRE Catalog.
To me, that's what makes Apple Music a standout among Streaming Services. I can tell IT what to play; IT doesn't tell ME what to listen-to.
Pandora (paid) for radio-type streaming and Amazon Prime Music for purchased music and playlist type stuff. I would get rid of Pandora but it's the only streaming service out there that still plays Tool.
Hmmm. You may be right. I looked on iTunes, and there is NO Tool ANYWHERE.
Must be the Artist's decision. Probably influenced by Tool's close association with Robert Fripp of King Crimson. He HATES digital distribution (no KC on iTunes, either).