I say no. I use my iPhone heavily as a synth or guitar processor etc. Bluetooth latency is too high to make it useable wirelessly so I require a hardwire into a mixer to perform. The iPhone has the lowest latency audio stack of smartphones when used with a wire. This is important and removing the headphone jack means dongles or latency. What makes this especially bad is that the iPhone camera connector dongle is already required when plugging in many MIDI controllers. This has prevented me from upgrading beyond my 6s as many of my apps are challenged without a real-time audio output that doesn’t also use my lightning connector which I need for the camera connector.
This is the rub. With the removal of the jack, Apple is telling us that their phones are not [music/audio] creators' tools. Apparently it's their desire that creators use, what, iPad? Their ever-disappointing line of laptops? The outdated Mac Pro? I just don't know.
I do know that from the entire collection of screen sizes and hardware configuration options I'd like to choose my mode of creation, but Apple seems to think that telling me "iPhone is not a creation device" is Just Fine®.
It's the same thing as the Macbook Pro. Not to mention letting the Mac Pro stagnate. They seem to have abandoned power users and decided to focus on mass consumers.
Have you checked the Samsung Galaxy S8/Note8 line? It seems that these phones include a customized sound framework for very low processing delays, AND they include jacks. Google for Soundcamp.
The other problem with Android is due to sideloading and app hacking, the best pro level apps (which are expensive for apps) have mostly chosen to avoid Android rather than experience high levels of piracy the last time I researched it. (KORG Gadget for example doesn’t exist on Android)
Maybe these aren't mainstream problems, but they do reflect a change in Apple's brand. Apple used to position themselves as the brand for artists, musicians, and other creative types. They even used to hide an optical audio port in the MacBook Pro headphone jack -- talk about a niche feature!
But around the same time iPhones lost their headphone jack, the laptops lost their optical port: https://appleinsider.com/articles/16/11/02/new-macbook-pro-d.... I'm sure it's ultimately because Tim doesn't care as much as Steve about this stuff, but it does feel like something is being lost.
While that’s quite unfortunate for you, is this a use case that affects a lot of users? I imagine that people in your situation are far less common than those who think the bundled headphones are good enough.
Hardly an edge case. Consider the revenue generated by the Line6 Helix or Headrush and their many clones; it's a substantial revenue generator for these companies. Most live music musicians also purchase custom molded IEMs to protect their hearing and listen to a click track. Digital wireless audio simply does not work here. Even major brands like Sennheiser forgo digital transmission on their monitoring wireless packs because 5ms of latency is enough to induce combfiltering and throw a performer off.
I'm using the headphone jack right now connecting to wireless headphones with a failed Bluetooth section. The headphones will be sent back to the mfgr for warranty service.
I was not irritated by the thickness or weight of my iPhone 6 and its headphone jack. I am regularly irritated by the fact that I can’t charge my iPhone and plug in headphones at the same time.
Obviously I can plan around this, but it’s gone from something I don’t have to think about to something I have to think about.
Somewhat ironically, iPhones have only gotten thicker since the abandonment of the headphone jack. The iPhone X/XS, XS Max, and XR are all thicker than the 6/6S.
This was originally going to read "Phenomenally stupid question, but why hasn't somebody brought out an adapter cable that provides both charging and a 3.5mm jack?"
But I figured I should google first. Does anybody have any firsthand experience with Belkin's adapter that lets you do both simultaneously? Asking since my wife's work phone just got "upgraded" and we found ourselves unable to listen to a podcast on our last road trip.
It wasn't about thickness - the taptic engine takes up the space that would have otherwise been used for the headphone jack. I would also wager that it makes waterproofing to IP68 somewhat harder (not impossible).
Does wireless charging meet the same performance levels of wired charging? Doesn't it take much longer to do an induction charge? It's like a lose lose here. Poorer audio quality with bluetooth, slower charging with wireless....
Won’t do you much good, though when you’re trying to charge and listen while waking or in a moving vehicle. Unless what you mean is contactless charging - which would be ... interesting ... in public spaces (street or transit).
I was totally on the hate train with how ridiculous it was to remove the headphone jack, and how unnecessary Bluetooth headphones were...
...but once I got my first pair of Bluetooth headphones and realized I never need to deal with tangled/frayed/broken/caught wires again, I'm never looking back. Charging turned out to be, surprisingly, a non-issue.
I'm totally convinced Bluetooth headphones are the way forwards, and it's silly to have a jack for old tech. And for the small x% of the time or x% of the users where things like latency or line-out are needed... there's a dongle, it works perfectly, and it's fine. And if you need to charge at the same time, get a dongle that charges at the same time.
That's the whole point of dongles -- a smaller/simpler device for 90-99% of people, at the cost of a tiny bit more expensive/complex solution for the remaining 1-10%.
Ugh, no. Those considerations are fine for people who are like you.
Some of us have different considerations and we're sick of being run over by these convenience freaks
To all the downvoters, these are some reasons:
* Low latency applications
* Existing high-end hardware one may own (old Sennheisers mop the floor with a pair of "high end" Beats)
* same port in use everywhere for past 50 years, there are a ridiculous amount of products for it
* Ability to connect a non-USB headphone amp
* Everybody understands it
* No need to charge your headphones(!)
* No stupidly expensive tech to license to make something as simple and dumb as headphones
* No stupidly complicated tech to master to make something as simple and dumb as headphones
* WHY would you put logic and circuitry in a simple mechanical device?? Do manufacturers just LOVE skyrocketing costs?
* Do any of these guys value simplicity in design any more? Or is tech charging full-steam into unnecessary complexity?
And on the subject of wireless standards:
* Other 2.4ghz wireless standards have way better range. (I used to work in a large factory-type building with literally thousands of consumer printers all turned and broadcasting their individualized ad-hoc 802.11 signals. We would have chronic issues with the Wi-Fi (on account of thousands of networks) and I could be on the other side of the building with my headphones and still get clear audio. (Oftentimes it would cut out depending on location but the range I saw was a good 3x what I could get with bluetooth)
* * *
C'mon this is like 100-year-old tech that everyone understands and loves, EXCEPT for the cable. Way for the technology makers to throw out the baby with the bathwater, so that they can sell you their crap all over again.
I work in a games studio, where I have dozens of PCs, consoles and their controllers running all the time around me in close proximity - my bluetooth headphones(rather expensive pair of Sony over-ear headphones) constantly loses signal. If I as much as wave my hand in between the headphones and the phone, the signal is gone, they start stuttering like crazy. Bluetooth is absolute trash for audio transmission, I have no idea who though it would be a good idea to share the same frequency with other 2.4GHz devices for something so sensitive as audio.
Add to this the fact that, in practice, you can't really listen to high-res audio over Bluetooth.
(I am aware that audio quality has gotten better over time but you still rely on the specs of the Bluetooth chip on both sides which, in practice, usually means that you're still far away from lossless transmission.)
Another thing that is really obnoxious is how there is now an inconsistency with how it's implemented.
Some phones use a pass-through system so USB-C headphones connect directly to the phone's amplifier / DAC (digital-to-analog converter); other cables might contain a DAC / amp themselves, while the last small percentage just transfer a digital signal.
Phones with speakers already have a dedicated DAC and amp. The headphone jack was just a way to interface with the amplifier. Manufacturers turned a small size issue into a giant consistency problem that didn't need to exist.
I have high end sennheisers and airbuds.
The only time I pull out my sennheisers is when im doing recording or live sampling.
Bluetooth is opensource, it's not overly complicated it's just new to you.
This technology was already being used in live performances with no one complaining.
Plus, I don't feel like the cable is all that inconvenient anyway. I got high-end headphones (And low-end earphones for when working out) and the cable has never been an issue to me.
Yes, maybe the wires tangle on the earphones, and then you untangle them.
Plus, for high-end gear I find that I don't move about with it a lot, so the wires are pretty much always in a similar position on my desk and don't create any problems either.
The trend is not so much driven by wanting unnecessary complexity (but that is the result), as by the desire to remove physical interfaces to machines. Optimistically this is just some haughty designer's prematurely executed ideal of human-machine symbiosis; pessimistically this is the transfer of means of user control over machines to the corporation, allowing external control over machines and thereby users.
I mean if you prefer old technology, that's all good. No one is stopping you from using your old headphones with your old phone.
The convenience of not having to untangle headphones, not accidentally yanking them out of a device when walking away, or being able to exercise with a device sitting somewhere else in the room is a welcome innovation IMO.
Yes, apple forced people's hand with removing the port (They aren't making these products for fun) to make money, but when has a business made bold moves if it didn't mean making money in the long run? When apple started removing ports, I bought stock, which payed for my new headphones.
And for the small percentage of people who care about these things, use the included adapter.
As for me, I’ve had the earphone jacks in two if my iPhones go wonky on me. I fully realise few other people have this problem and it’s almost certainly down to me being a bit careless inserting and remove the jack, but still it happens. So I just got a set of lighting earbuds. Never had a problem since. It seems to be a much more robust and reliable connector. So on two of my phones with headphone sockets, I ended up not using them anyway.
You’re on your high horse about the sennheisers but the commodity hardware we are talking about isn’t capable of properly powering those types of devices.
I feel like you’re kinda grumpy here for no reason? You clearly care about sound and want the best experience so why would you attach a non-usb amp to a crappy aux port on commodity hardware? You’d actually want a usb dac/amp in that situation. (Which you claim is a negative)
“Sick of being run over by convenience freaks” sorry to say it bud... but you’re the “freak” here (in the sense that you are the extreme of the extreme, don’t mean that in a derogatory way)
You can’t get grumpy about mainstream devices following the mainstream. You are not mainstream.
I own really good bluetooth headphone and they work great. But at the same time I own really expensive jack phones which are tiny and I can keep them in my pocket. And I have always string of various 10$ headphones (Philips mostly) that I loose when jogging and destroy when biking.
My point is - bluetooth getting better and more accessible - there is a place for compact and cheap headphones that do not require charging. And getting rid od headphone jack takes that away.
I haven't used one myself but I've heard the dongles are horrific. They overheat, and sound quality fades as temperature rises. This was a couple weeks ago my friends were telling me they couldn't get anything decent for their pixel2 on Amazon everything is cheap and produces the same result.
> That's the whole point of dongles -- a smaller/simpler device for 90-99% of people, at the cost of a tiny bit more expensive/complex solution for the remaining 1-10%.
I like your completely made up numbers. Basing of the sales numbers from the article, this is the argument you are making:
A smaller/simpler device for 17% of people and a solution that is up to 2x more expensive and far less convenient and functional for the remaining 83%.
After getting new fairly expensive Bose Bluetooth headset I started wondering about the lousy sound quality when making VoIP calls on PC (Windows/Lenovo). Turns out others have similar complaints [1].
Vendors seem to claim that the problem is the low bandwidth available. I suspect the real reason is that they don't want to standardize on more modern (complicated) codecs for this purpose as it would make the headset more complicated and increase cost.
Bluetooth is alright for audio only like listening to music. For games though (a huge percentage of users) Bluetooth is trash on the iPhone. The latency is a huge issue; something will occur in game and then there are noticeable delays before you here the accompanying sound. This ruins the immersion of games when it happens.
It still makes me mad that I can't use my Apogee JAM in any practical way with new iPhones. Bluetooth is way too laggy and there doesn't exist an adaptor that lets you use data and analog-out at the same time. The only option is to use the built-in speakers.
When I used plug-in headphones, they’d all break within weeks and start automatically skipping and enabling Voice Control, when I have all voice command options disabled.
Bluetooth headphones come with a headache, but mine haven’t broken in a month. I call it a clear improvement.
I’m a musician and have thousands of voice memos from writing tapes over the years. Those effing dongles disappear on me. I actually prefer the dongle + old iPod headphones to newer Lightning headphones, because I can plug them into EVERYTHING ELSE. Bluetooth headphones don’t play voice memos (built-in iOS application) back at a normal (acceptable) nitrate. It’s been that way for years and Apple refuses to fix it.
I’m sure there are plenty of other arguments for including headphone jack. I mean, I have probably 10 sets of nice headphones in my studio that all use a standard connector. It’s real frustrating to have to consider going Android just to get a headphone jack on my device.
..and when those Bluetooth headphones are AirPods, it’s very easy to never look back.
I do a fair bit of work with Logic and Ableton and consider myself reasonably advanced when it comes to audio production. When I am doing recording or mixing on my Mac, the built-in headphone jack is never used: it’s always a fairly high end audio interface. Since AirPods, I can’t remember the last time I actually plugged into the Mac’s headphone jack: it’s either using “pro” headphones via the audio interface or AirPods.
While I can appreciate the headphone-jack vitriol on iPhone, I can’t help but drawing parallels with the ditching of the DVD drive. At the time that happened, people were losing their minds for a variety of similar reasons. I used to own mixers that only took 1/4inch plugs and remember to have a 1/8inch adaptor was a real pain, however it just became commonplace. My point is that having a lightning to 1/8th adaptor is no bigger of a deal than having a 1/8->1/4 inch adaptor.
I must be in the small % of people with ears that don’t work for AirPods. My right ear doesn’t hold it and if I’m moving at all (walking) it’ll fall out.
I wish they made in ear phones like the shure style ear phones - even Apple’s old design was better for me.
I've got AirPods and I'm sold. I'm not going back to wired headphones.
Apple has got proximity-based pairing nailed so well, it's easier than plugging a jack in. I can connect to other iPhones as easily as mine. Macs logged in to my iCloud don't need pairing at all. It works like it should, not like a typical Bluetooth crap.
The charging case is more convenient to carry than a bundle of wires. And of course I can walk around, zip my jacket, etc. without minding the wire.
It's more expensive, proprietary, it doesn't work well for some people. But I can definitely see why having AirPods Apple thought wired headphones are the next floppy drive.
I love my AirPods. I find them fairly comfortable and the audio quality is fine, perfect for podcasts (theory: the rise of AirPods and rise of podcasts are related).
However, AirPods don't require the removal of the headphone jack! The removal of the headphone jack is still so consumer hostile: it serves zero benefit to anyone apart from bluetooth accessory makers. If Apple really was serious about advancing bluetooth headphones, they would at least license the W1 for the pairing magic to other manufacturers.
Good Bluetooth headphones AND headphone jacks can exist at the same time! Anyone arguing for the removal of headphone jacks aren't grounded in any sort of reality tbh.
>However, AirPods don't require the removal of the headphone jack! The removal of the headphone jack is still so consumer hostile
This is key. When they removed the disc drive in the macbooks there was a decent argument to be made about more space for other ports (or reduced thickness). But the 3.5 mm headphone jack is literally... 3.5 mm, right? Another commentor even pointed out that the new iphones are thicker than the 6 line. I just dont ubderstand the argument here.
Agree, I love wireless audio and I've used decent bluetooth headphones on and off for a decade now. But that still makes the removal of the headphone jack a disaster and I miss it every day.
Apples user might have become accustomed to the dongle life but it is unbearable. Also, my non-standard dongle have started to glitch and buying a new one costs about 100x more than it is worth. Go figure.
It might have felt better if there was a reason for it. But no, there is absolutely no sane reason to ditch it other than forcing people to buy wireless peripherals. And that is just unacceptable. Too bad alternatives are running out.
This is all also under the assumption that bluetooth is good enough. It isn't.
This is also under the assumption that bluetooth is secure. It isn't.
> Anyone arguing for the removal of headphone jacks aren't grounded in any sort of reality tbh.
The problem is that there isn’t really a good argument to keep the headphone jack. It’s a redundant port because lightning/usbC and Bluetooth both handle audio. You would need a strong justification to keep it when you could use that space for other stuff in the phone.
The pairing isn’t great IMO. So many calls take a minute to figure out AirPod connectivity issues. It’s frustrating switching airpods between a Mac and iPhone. Much of the time only left or right pair, and the only way to fix it is to put them back in the case and re-pair them. Sadly it doesn’t “just work”
Another common problem is the mics tend to rust out after about a year of usage, eventually breaking down. This happens if you use them for any exercise (which apple advertises them for) with sweat rusting the mesh on the bottom.
Eventually I switched back to a manual headphone cable with a mic built in. It always works...
The switching between iOS and Mac is indeed buggy. macOS also lacks system-wide support for airplay 2. I think they must be dealing with legacy code and/or support that needs modernized. Switching between iOS and iPad with AirPods doesn’t give people issues, so I don’t think it’s a problem with AirPod hardware or iOS.
Rhe sweat problem is interesting! I haven’t experienced this degradation, but I think my head’s sweat mostly runs off my nose. Is it because of how your hair is styled?
None of that requires there to be no jack. Im on the phone for hours at a time, need my hands and speaker isn't an option. Batteries are a real concern and getting a backup pair would be expensive.
AirPods warn you when they're low (it requires a considerable amount of time in-ear to get them low, about 4+ hours), then if you pop them in the case for 5 minutes, you get 45 minutes of play time.
Battery life is rarely a concern for me, and I wear my AirPods almost constantly. I even sometimes sleep with them.
The trick for the AirPods is duty cycling such that there is no down time. You put one in the case when the tone sounds, put it pack in your ear a few minutes later, and then charge the other one. You can be on a single call all day.
I loved everything about the AirPods except that they have no noise reduction. The New York City subway is loud as hell. Street noise is loud as hell. Even when not wearing headphones I wear earplugs to block out all the noise.
I don't understand the appeal at all of headphones with no noise reduction. How does anyone use them in a noisy environment without setting the volume uncomfortably high?
The BeatsX are earplug type headphones that do decent sound isolation. They’re not as snazzy as the AirPods and they have some minor UX frustrations, but for the most part have been pretty good.
Man, I really find myself on the opposite end of the spectrum here. The only thing I love about my airports is the charging case. Size wise it's great.
However, airpods are uncomfortable, always feel like they're going to fall out. I've already had to replace one of them because they're easily lost. The sound quality is so-so. I have to crank the volume way up because there isn't any kind of noise isolation, much less noise cancellation.
All around they're a very very average product offering.
this is not my experience. my MacBook often refuses to connect to my airpods. rebooting usually fixes it. sometimes I have to re-pair. then I also can't use them with other devices.
they also cut out quite often probably because I live in a crowded downtown area.
when they work I mostly like them but sadly for me they don't always work.
Can you replace the battery in your airpods? No? So you mean you're literally buying something to throw away every 5 years or so? How environmentally friendly, but I'm sure Apple is glad you've decided to make paying them a regular part of your life. Nothing about removing the headphone jacks had a point other than to increase profits. The phones are thicker, waterproof phones have headphone jacks, they parts are cheap, the next big thing isn't really a drop in replacement or better yet.
Same experience here, don't think I'll ever be able to go back to wired headphones. Especially in the gym / when running, the AirPods are amazing, they fit perfectly (unlike a lot of other headphones), never run out of battery and connect instantly to my devices.
I believe Apple made the right move, many other manufacturers are already following, bluetooth headphones are getting cheaper and quality is getting better.
Not sure I understand - wired headphones are much cheaper to manufacture, are inherently higher quality (they'll always have less loss and less latency), can fit just as well, don't have batteries to begin with, and are much easier to connect to devices. The only point that makes any sense to me is that wireless headphones are better for exercise, but why would Apple remove the audio jack just to indirectly improve the state of wireless audio for when people exercise?
Well Airpods work perfectly well with my Galaxy S8. You don't need Apple phones to use them.
And my S8 also has 3.5mm jack for when my 2 hour calls exhaust the airpods battery or when I want to push a drum track from my phone synth to a speaker :-)
Anyone that has walked through Shinjuku, Tokyo or Shinagawa station in peak hour with Bluetooth headphones will be able to confirm that there is not enough spectrum.
I get audio drop outs with airpods everytime I pass through one of the above stations.
Funny how they really should have worried about this but apparently haven't.
But you can still use the lightning earphones that come together (or buy a dongle, since the newer model phones are dropping the adapter). 3rd party dongles are cheaper and some allow you to charge and listen to music at the same time.
I am amazed this issue isn't raised more often. The majority of my headphone usage is in downtown San Francisco. Any wireless headphones will break up like every other second. For my purposes they are useless.
Some adaptive system for adjusting the transmission power might help. Now I can leave my phone on the desk and wonder to the other floor and other end of the apartment with my AirPods working just fine.
Since a year or two in entire EU using any electronic devices is completely allowed (except for a takeoff and landing but that's for security reasons in case of emergency) so I'm not sure where are you flying. I've been using my Momentums' without a single issue for few years now and I fly a lot.
> I fly regularly and have yet to be on a EU flight where Bluetooth is allowed.
Really? Am I missing something? I've never been pulled up on using bluetooth headphones on a plane in the EU. The flight attendants have never said anything, and I've been in full view of them before...
OnePlus did a poll that got the answer 88% of customers wanted them to keep the headphone jack. Which they then got rid of anyway. Presumably the poll was hoped or expected to reinforce a decision already made.
It's very clear consumers aren't clamouring for losing the jack. There are a lot more dollars selling wireless and they have an inherent limited life thanks to battery lifespan.
The SE, with a headphone jack, is roughly the same thickness as the new XS without. They both have bluetooth for those who might like wireless.
That's not Apple or whoever listening, that's them imposing.
A) They could make it thicker. It’s not an either/or.
B) No one was calling for the elimination of the headphone jack. Every poll shows broad support for it. Apple themselves said it took ‘courage’ which is not the adjective you’d use to describe an action that the world agrees with.
The strange parts guy on youtube added a headphone jack to the iPhone 7. So, I think the stated reason for removing the headphone jack to make room for the battery is complete BS.
> But it comes at the expense of more space for batteries or features that more people will use.
Yet Samsung did fit a 4000 mAh battery, a headphone jack, wireless charging, expendable storage, fingerprint sensor, 512Gb of storage AND a PEN in their IP68 Note 9.
Comparing the headphone jack and Ethernet port is silly. A great majority of users use the jack for headphones which are always within 1 meter of the device. Ethernet is often much further away, meaning wireless adds more value / convenience.
> the options for phones with headphone jacks and no crapware preinstalled are exceedingly limited.
A thousand times this. The current market for phones is absolute crap. We need more competition. (And we also need at least some of that competition to quit playing "follow the leader" when the "leader" is an imagined title, and the "leader" is clearly blind and thrashing...)
Android One has at least helped expand the options for phones with no crapware and a reasonable update policy. A decent number of them still have jacks.
Yeah, they made a bunch of jokes/roasts about apple removing the headphone jack, and still having one on the pixel, and then just removed it on the pixel 2. Tech hypocrisy at its finest.
This, I see people calling the removal of the headphone jack a colossal failure, but if phones are selling, then how can it be a failure?
People have a natural resistance to change, 20 years ago my city saw major protests when it wanted to close a road and open up to the river underneath it. It would be a colossal failure, naturally it wasn’t and today no one can imagine the town without the nice nature stuff.
I think the headphone jacks are in that category. They weren’t really great, and now that they are gone, only niches really miss them.
The AirPods are such a nice product. I mean, Apple basically made Bluetooth not suck. They are locked to the Apple ecosystem, but they connect seamlessly across your devices, and Apple has frankly once again embarrassed the rest of the tech sector by making age old technology actually useable for people who don’t want to fiddle around.
Now, if removing the headphone jack had been a failure, it would probably have come back, and everyone else, the one-plus included, probably wouldn’t be removing it.
I’m not for or against it by the way. The AirPods would’ve worked with the headphone jack. I just think calling it a failure or a fiasco is silly when it’s so obviously working out great.
But Apple isn't the top selling phone any more. It's the Galaxy models. The only time new Apple phones retake the top spot is when they first release a new model.
>But Apple isn't the top selling phone any more. It's the Galaxy models.
The iPhone rarely was the top selling phone and never had the majority of the market (though it was of course a single company against 4-5 other companies anyway).
It was the phone that caught most of the top end (pricy) market and almost all of the profits, and it remains that.
That said, not sure what's this "isn't the top selling phone any more" is supposed to mean. The headphone-jack-less iPhone X killed it in the market:
As with most decisions that Apple makes lately, you are correct, it is not a disaster for them. Just like when you stick your middle finger up at another person, usually you won’t personally feel offended by your own finger. And if you don’t care if that person comes back to speak to you again or not, then I guess you’ve “won”.
You missed the whole part where the person that was supposed to have been offended (by all those armchair pundits) in fact not only keeps talking to you, but goes out and buys your product in even larger quantities...
While I’m definitely not a fan of losing the headphone jack, and don’t love not being able to use my headphones and charge my phone, I do see one positive side effect, and I wonder if Apple is doing it on purpose.
You can now buy $20 bluetooth earbuds from Anker that are pretty decent. Apple saying “guess what, everybody: you love bluetooth” has forced the market to respond, and that whole price-down-quality-up thing is really starting to happen.
This, of course, is of no use to people who depend on minimal latency. It will be a very long time, if ever, before bluetooth can match hardwired latency.
What we really need next from Apple is for them to replace lightning with USB-C. I’d love to see the ability to choose to externalize the DAC+amplifier without buying either a lightning-only accessory or a camera adapter. Oh, and also be able to charge the phone while we’re at it.
> Apple saying “guess what, everybody: you love bluetooth”
I'd think Apple's trick isn't really Bluetooth which remains often “not great”. It's the W1 chip:
“As well as making pairing and switching devices a lot easier, the W1 chip also increases the range of the Bluetooth connection and gives headphones a better battery life. For example, the Beats Solo3 has a battery life that lasts 40 hours and a range of up to 150 feet. Those numbers are just insane for Bluetooth.”[1]
Regarding latency: although I love my AirPods and I do not miss the headphone jack, there’s one real application that I doubt will ever be adequate over Bluetooth: monitoring the audio while you’re playing electric guitar through an amp simulator on your phone. The tiniest amount of latency really stands out while you’re playing.
Haven't found a set of BT headphones that have acceptable latency for gaming, so I thing the latency a problem for any audio application that requires low-latency.
Yes! goddamnit Apple. What’s with lighthning ports in iPhones when you make all this huzzy wuzzy talk that MacBooks are all usb-c because usb-c is the future.
Please be consistent. USB-C everywhere in all your devices. You’re a trillion dollar company now, get your shit together!
I wish there could be a transition period of, say, 3 product cycles on the phones where they had BOTH lightning and USB-C ports. It would be a little ugly and take up space (presumably side by side), but would make the transition a lot less painful. No real chance of Apple doing this, though.
Readit News
I do know that from the entire collection of screen sizes and hardware configuration options I'd like to choose my mode of creation, but Apple seems to think that telling me "iPhone is not a creation device" is Just Fine®.
Or maybe ... none of the above? Content creators are probably a tiny fraction of Apple's user base at this point. I think they just don't care.
These aren’t mainstream problems, but are problems nonetheless.
I don’t mind using a dongle, as long as it works. In my case, there is no solution. That Why I still use my old Samsung on the gimbal.
But around the same time iPhones lost their headphone jack, the laptops lost their optical port: https://appleinsider.com/articles/16/11/02/new-macbook-pro-d.... I'm sure it's ultimately because Tim doesn't care as much as Steve about this stuff, but it does feel like something is being lost.
So I suppose Apple would just want you to buy an iPad as well! for your music production.
Obviously I can plan around this, but it’s gone from something I don’t have to think about to something I have to think about.
https://www.apple.com/iphone/compare/
But I figured I should google first. Does anybody have any firsthand experience with Belkin's adapter that lets you do both simultaneously? Asking since my wife's work phone just got "upgraded" and we found ourselves unable to listen to a podcast on our last road trip.
https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/5/18/17369236/a...
If you're on Android the answer is no, there's no way to do it.
https://www.belkin.com/resources/img/overview/f8j198/belkin-...
...but once I got my first pair of Bluetooth headphones and realized I never need to deal with tangled/frayed/broken/caught wires again, I'm never looking back. Charging turned out to be, surprisingly, a non-issue.
I'm totally convinced Bluetooth headphones are the way forwards, and it's silly to have a jack for old tech. And for the small x% of the time or x% of the users where things like latency or line-out are needed... there's a dongle, it works perfectly, and it's fine. And if you need to charge at the same time, get a dongle that charges at the same time.
That's the whole point of dongles -- a smaller/simpler device for 90-99% of people, at the cost of a tiny bit more expensive/complex solution for the remaining 1-10%.
Feels like the right tradeoff to me.
Some of us have different considerations and we're sick of being run over by these convenience freaks
To all the downvoters, these are some reasons:
* Low latency applications
* Existing high-end hardware one may own (old Sennheisers mop the floor with a pair of "high end" Beats)
* same port in use everywhere for past 50 years, there are a ridiculous amount of products for it
* Ability to connect a non-USB headphone amp
* Everybody understands it
* No need to charge your headphones(!)
* No stupidly expensive tech to license to make something as simple and dumb as headphones
* No stupidly complicated tech to master to make something as simple and dumb as headphones
* WHY would you put logic and circuitry in a simple mechanical device?? Do manufacturers just LOVE skyrocketing costs?
* Do any of these guys value simplicity in design any more? Or is tech charging full-steam into unnecessary complexity?
And on the subject of wireless standards:
* Other 2.4ghz wireless standards have way better range. (I used to work in a large factory-type building with literally thousands of consumer printers all turned and broadcasting their individualized ad-hoc 802.11 signals. We would have chronic issues with the Wi-Fi (on account of thousands of networks) and I could be on the other side of the building with my headphones and still get clear audio. (Oftentimes it would cut out depending on location but the range I saw was a good 3x what I could get with bluetooth)
* * *
C'mon this is like 100-year-old tech that everyone understands and loves, EXCEPT for the cable. Way for the technology makers to throw out the baby with the bathwater, so that they can sell you their crap all over again.
(I am aware that audio quality has gotten better over time but you still rely on the specs of the Bluetooth chip on both sides which, in practice, usually means that you're still far away from lossless transmission.)
Some phones use a pass-through system so USB-C headphones connect directly to the phone's amplifier / DAC (digital-to-analog converter); other cables might contain a DAC / amp themselves, while the last small percentage just transfer a digital signal.
Phones with speakers already have a dedicated DAC and amp. The headphone jack was just a way to interface with the amplifier. Manufacturers turned a small size issue into a giant consistency problem that didn't need to exist.
Plus, I don't feel like the cable is all that inconvenient anyway. I got high-end headphones (And low-end earphones for when working out) and the cable has never been an issue to me.
Yes, maybe the wires tangle on the earphones, and then you untangle them.
Plus, for high-end gear I find that I don't move about with it a lot, so the wires are pretty much always in a similar position on my desk and don't create any problems either.
The convenience of not having to untangle headphones, not accidentally yanking them out of a device when walking away, or being able to exercise with a device sitting somewhere else in the room is a welcome innovation IMO.
Yes, apple forced people's hand with removing the port (They aren't making these products for fun) to make money, but when has a business made bold moves if it didn't mean making money in the long run? When apple started removing ports, I bought stock, which payed for my new headphones.
As for me, I’ve had the earphone jacks in two if my iPhones go wonky on me. I fully realise few other people have this problem and it’s almost certainly down to me being a bit careless inserting and remove the jack, but still it happens. So I just got a set of lighting earbuds. Never had a problem since. It seems to be a much more robust and reliable connector. So on two of my phones with headphone sockets, I ended up not using them anyway.
I feel like you’re kinda grumpy here for no reason? You clearly care about sound and want the best experience so why would you attach a non-usb amp to a crappy aux port on commodity hardware? You’d actually want a usb dac/amp in that situation. (Which you claim is a negative)
“Sick of being run over by convenience freaks” sorry to say it bud... but you’re the “freak” here (in the sense that you are the extreme of the extreme, don’t mean that in a derogatory way)
You can’t get grumpy about mainstream devices following the mainstream. You are not mainstream.
My point is - bluetooth getting better and more accessible - there is a place for compact and cheap headphones that do not require charging. And getting rid od headphone jack takes that away.
Why? You can use your wired headphones just fine...
I like your completely made up numbers. Basing of the sales numbers from the article, this is the argument you are making:
A smaller/simpler device for 17% of people and a solution that is up to 2x more expensive and far less convenient and functional for the remaining 83%.
Vendors seem to claim that the problem is the low bandwidth available. I suspect the real reason is that they don't want to standardize on more modern (complicated) codecs for this purpose as it would make the headset more complicated and increase cost.
[1] https://www.howtogeek.com/354321/why-bluetooth-headsets-are-...
This is exactly my complaint.
The device is just the same with zero improvements to show for this change.
The proportions are also closer to 60-40 than 90-10.
Bluetooth headphones come with a headache, but mine haven’t broken in a month. I call it a clear improvement.
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I’m a musician and have thousands of voice memos from writing tapes over the years. Those effing dongles disappear on me. I actually prefer the dongle + old iPod headphones to newer Lightning headphones, because I can plug them into EVERYTHING ELSE. Bluetooth headphones don’t play voice memos (built-in iOS application) back at a normal (acceptable) nitrate. It’s been that way for years and Apple refuses to fix it.
I’m sure there are plenty of other arguments for including headphone jack. I mean, I have probably 10 sets of nice headphones in my studio that all use a standard connector. It’s real frustrating to have to consider going Android just to get a headphone jack on my device.
I do a fair bit of work with Logic and Ableton and consider myself reasonably advanced when it comes to audio production. When I am doing recording or mixing on my Mac, the built-in headphone jack is never used: it’s always a fairly high end audio interface. Since AirPods, I can’t remember the last time I actually plugged into the Mac’s headphone jack: it’s either using “pro” headphones via the audio interface or AirPods.
While I can appreciate the headphone-jack vitriol on iPhone, I can’t help but drawing parallels with the ditching of the DVD drive. At the time that happened, people were losing their minds for a variety of similar reasons. I used to own mixers that only took 1/4inch plugs and remember to have a 1/8inch adaptor was a real pain, however it just became commonplace. My point is that having a lightning to 1/8th adaptor is no bigger of a deal than having a 1/8->1/4 inch adaptor.
Indeed. Because if your ears aren’t the same shape as the prototypical Apple ears, and you look back, or anywhere else, the earphones fall out.
I wish they made in ear phones like the shure style ear phones - even Apple’s old design was better for me.
Apple has got proximity-based pairing nailed so well, it's easier than plugging a jack in. I can connect to other iPhones as easily as mine. Macs logged in to my iCloud don't need pairing at all. It works like it should, not like a typical Bluetooth crap.
The charging case is more convenient to carry than a bundle of wires. And of course I can walk around, zip my jacket, etc. without minding the wire.
It's more expensive, proprietary, it doesn't work well for some people. But I can definitely see why having AirPods Apple thought wired headphones are the next floppy drive.
However, AirPods don't require the removal of the headphone jack! The removal of the headphone jack is still so consumer hostile: it serves zero benefit to anyone apart from bluetooth accessory makers. If Apple really was serious about advancing bluetooth headphones, they would at least license the W1 for the pairing magic to other manufacturers.
Good Bluetooth headphones AND headphone jacks can exist at the same time! Anyone arguing for the removal of headphone jacks aren't grounded in any sort of reality tbh.
This is key. When they removed the disc drive in the macbooks there was a decent argument to be made about more space for other ports (or reduced thickness). But the 3.5 mm headphone jack is literally... 3.5 mm, right? Another commentor even pointed out that the new iphones are thicker than the 6 line. I just dont ubderstand the argument here.
Apples user might have become accustomed to the dongle life but it is unbearable. Also, my non-standard dongle have started to glitch and buying a new one costs about 100x more than it is worth. Go figure.
It might have felt better if there was a reason for it. But no, there is absolutely no sane reason to ditch it other than forcing people to buy wireless peripherals. And that is just unacceptable. Too bad alternatives are running out.
This is all also under the assumption that bluetooth is good enough. It isn't.
This is also under the assumption that bluetooth is secure. It isn't.
The problem is that there isn’t really a good argument to keep the headphone jack. It’s a redundant port because lightning/usbC and Bluetooth both handle audio. You would need a strong justification to keep it when you could use that space for other stuff in the phone.
The pairing isn’t great IMO. So many calls take a minute to figure out AirPod connectivity issues. It’s frustrating switching airpods between a Mac and iPhone. Much of the time only left or right pair, and the only way to fix it is to put them back in the case and re-pair them. Sadly it doesn’t “just work”
Another common problem is the mics tend to rust out after about a year of usage, eventually breaking down. This happens if you use them for any exercise (which apple advertises them for) with sweat rusting the mesh on the bottom.
Eventually I switched back to a manual headphone cable with a mic built in. It always works...
Rhe sweat problem is interesting! I haven’t experienced this degradation, but I think my head’s sweat mostly runs off my nose. Is it because of how your hair is styled?
Battery life is rarely a concern for me, and I wear my AirPods almost constantly. I even sometimes sleep with them.
However, airpods are uncomfortable, always feel like they're going to fall out. I've already had to replace one of them because they're easily lost. The sound quality is so-so. I have to crank the volume way up because there isn't any kind of noise isolation, much less noise cancellation.
All around they're a very very average product offering.
they also cut out quite often probably because I live in a crowded downtown area.
when they work I mostly like them but sadly for me they don't always work.
I believe Apple made the right move, many other manufacturers are already following, bluetooth headphones are getting cheaper and quality is getting better.
And my S8 also has 3.5mm jack for when my 2 hour calls exhaust the airpods battery or when I want to push a drum track from my phone synth to a speaker :-)
I doubt it. Headphone jack was a nice reliable piece of hardware. Thank goodness some other brands are rooted in reality.
I get audio drop outs with airpods everytime I pass through one of the above stations.
Funny how they really should have worried about this but apparently haven't.
But you can still use the lightning earphones that come together (or buy a dongle, since the newer model phones are dropping the adapter). 3rd party dongles are cheaper and some allow you to charge and listen to music at the same time.
Apple, not everyone lives in the suburbs and uses their phones primarily at home or in personal vehicles.
What number of AirPods users would there have to be on a 787 for the interference to become a problem?
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Or do they already have something like this?
I fly regularly and have yet to be on a EU flight where Bluetooth is allowed.
And even for wlan only since one year we started to get planes where it is allowed at cruise altitude.
Really? Am I missing something? I've never been pulled up on using bluetooth headphones on a plane in the EU. The flight attendants have never said anything, and I've been in full view of them before...
Ethernet is more reliable than WiFi. Power is more reliable than batteries. But the world doesn't want wires so Apple has to listen.
It's very clear consumers aren't clamouring for losing the jack. There are a lot more dollars selling wireless and they have an inherent limited life thanks to battery lifespan.
The SE, with a headphone jack, is roughly the same thickness as the new XS without. They both have bluetooth for those who might like wireless.
That's not Apple or whoever listening, that's them imposing.
B) No one was calling for the elimination of the headphone jack. Every poll shows broad support for it. Apple themselves said it took ‘courage’ which is not the adjective you’d use to describe an action that the world agrees with.
https://youtu.be/utfbE3_uAMA
Also, why are you responding to the question about limited RF spectrum? It's like you have an agenda in this thread.
Yet Samsung did fit a 4000 mAh battery, a headphone jack, wireless charging, expendable storage, fingerprint sensor, 512Gb of storage AND a PEN in their IP68 Note 9.
I want to vote with my dollars, but at the moment the options for phones with headphone jacks and no crapware preinstalled are exceedingly limited.
A thousand times this. The current market for phones is absolute crap. We need more competition. (And we also need at least some of that competition to quit playing "follow the leader" when the "leader" is an imagined title, and the "leader" is clearly blind and thrashing...)
[0]: https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/
LG G7 One
Xiaomi A1/A2 Lite
Moto X4
Nokia 6.1/6.1+/7+
Blackberry KEY2 / KEY2 LE
Both have headphone jack, dual SIM (or SIM + micro SD) and monthly updates.
BB even has a keyboard!
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You keep using that word, fiasco. I don't think it means what you think it means. It doesn't mean "hoopla". It means "disaster/failure".
With the phones selling more than any model before them, I'd hardly call that decision a fiasco for Apple.
People have a natural resistance to change, 20 years ago my city saw major protests when it wanted to close a road and open up to the river underneath it. It would be a colossal failure, naturally it wasn’t and today no one can imagine the town without the nice nature stuff.
I think the headphone jacks are in that category. They weren’t really great, and now that they are gone, only niches really miss them.
The AirPods are such a nice product. I mean, Apple basically made Bluetooth not suck. They are locked to the Apple ecosystem, but they connect seamlessly across your devices, and Apple has frankly once again embarrassed the rest of the tech sector by making age old technology actually useable for people who don’t want to fiddle around.
Now, if removing the headphone jack had been a failure, it would probably have come back, and everyone else, the one-plus included, probably wouldn’t be removing it.
I’m not for or against it by the way. The AirPods would’ve worked with the headphone jack. I just think calling it a failure or a fiasco is silly when it’s so obviously working out great.
The iPhone rarely was the top selling phone and never had the majority of the market (though it was of course a single company against 4-5 other companies anyway).
It was the phone that caught most of the top end (pricy) market and almost all of the profits, and it remains that.
That said, not sure what's this "isn't the top selling phone any more" is supposed to mean. The headphone-jack-less iPhone X killed it in the market:
https://www.cnet.com/news/iphone-x-was-best-selling-smartpho...
https://www.cnet.com/news/iphone-x-was-best-selling-smartpho...
You can now buy $20 bluetooth earbuds from Anker that are pretty decent. Apple saying “guess what, everybody: you love bluetooth” has forced the market to respond, and that whole price-down-quality-up thing is really starting to happen.
This, of course, is of no use to people who depend on minimal latency. It will be a very long time, if ever, before bluetooth can match hardwired latency.
What we really need next from Apple is for them to replace lightning with USB-C. I’d love to see the ability to choose to externalize the DAC+amplifier without buying either a lightning-only accessory or a camera adapter. Oh, and also be able to charge the phone while we’re at it.
I'd think Apple's trick isn't really Bluetooth which remains often “not great”. It's the W1 chip:
“As well as making pairing and switching devices a lot easier, the W1 chip also increases the range of the Bluetooth connection and gives headphones a better battery life. For example, the Beats Solo3 has a battery life that lasts 40 hours and a range of up to 150 feet. Those numbers are just insane for Bluetooth.”[1]
1. https://www.howtogeek.com/340290/what-is-apple’s-w1-chip/
It happened long ago, with Apt-X, especially Apt-X HD and Apt-X LL.
> The latency of the aptX-HD codec can be scaled to as low as 1 ms for 48 kHz sampled audio
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AptX#aptX-HD
Not to mention Apple’s beef with Qualcomm means we’ll probably never see apt-X support in an iPhone.
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Please be consistent. USB-C everywhere in all your devices. You’re a trillion dollar company now, get your shit together!