Apple ditching 3.5mm headphone jack on iPhone 7

[beowulff]

@Little_Pig

Agreed Manduck.

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Apple includes one in the box.

[Gorsnak]

@beowulff

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Apple includes one in the box.

Yeah, like the way they thoughtfully included lightning to 30-pin adapters with iPhone 5’s so people could conveniently keep using old accessories.

[Omniscient]

@beowulff

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Apple includes one in the box.

I would. Nevermind the greed factor that Apple has down to an art form, but Apple doing this with the Lightning connector specifically to drive change and get people further locked in.

Including an adapter would be counterproductive.

[sparky_1]

Ugh. I’ve growing more and more unhappy with my Apple products. I just feel like their mission has more to do with design for design sake rather than usability.

I’d take a thinker iPhone if it meant better battery life.

I wish they’d instead turn their talents on making the Music App no longer suck. How they could screw something up like a music App is beyond me.

Anyway, my next laptop will not be an Apple. Most likely, neither will my next phone.

[Omniscient]

The more I think about this the more it stinks of one of the worst things about Apple design. Slavish minimalism at the expense of usability.

You can trot out any number of quotes from Steve Jobs over the years about this. His hate for things like buttons anywhere, the back button especially. The argument that task managers are a indication of bad software. I’m sure there are many others.

I bet this issue with the headphone jack, in addition to it being the only non-proprietary port on the device, has probably been a bugaboo for Jobs and the design team since the beginning. The lack of symmetry, it’s unchanging nature, its singular purpose all have probably had it on the backlog of things to eliminate when the time is right.

This may have nothing to do with thinness, waterproofing, greed, or new features, it’s probably just dogma from the designers.

[Omniscient]

@sparky_1

Ugh. I’ve growing more and more unhappy with my Apple products. I just feel like their mission has more to do with design for design sake rather than usability.

GMTA

I’d take a thinker iPhone if it meant better battery life.

Seems like universal consensus on this thought. I wonder if someone has some study that proves people act differently than they claim. My preference isn’t so much for battery life (very happy with battery life on my 6s+) but I want a phone that doesn’t require a case.

I wish they’d instead turn their talents on making the Music App no longer suck. How they could screw something up like a music App is beyond me.

Well, iTunes has been an atrocity for over a decade so maybe this shouldn’t be that shocking.

Anyway, my next laptop will not be an Apple. Most likely, neither will my next phone.

Android really, really bites in its own unique ways too. Kinda frustrating.

[That_Don_Guy]

@Manduck

I am sure some kind of adapter will be available, but it will probably cost 80 bucks.

Apple will sell it for 80. A company like Monoprice will sell one for 5.

[Guinastasia]

@TimeWinder

I’ll look at the phone’s full set of features when it ships and decide if I want it. I’m certainly not going to make my decision on something as trivial as whether I need an adaptor for the headset (particularly since I rarely use my phone as a music device, anyway).

I’m trying to understand the mindset that finds a phone that “plugs into an occasional use accessory differently than it used to” to be unacceptable, but a phone for which the vast majority of all software is malware–in which any personal information on the phone is almost certain to be compromised–to be the more desirable choice.

Why do hyoomans do things different from me?

[Jophiel]

@TimeWinder

I’m trying to understand the mindset that finds a phone that “plugs into an occasional use accessory differently than it used to” to be unacceptable, but a phone for which the vast majority of all software is malware–in which any personal information on the phone is almost certain to be compromised–to be the more desirable choice.

I’ve no idea what sort of apps you’re running…

[Dag_Otto]

@thirdname

It isn’t a paperweight. There are Bluetooth receivers that a designed just for that speaker (the Bose Sounddock).

Yeah, just search Amazon for 30 pin Bluetooth and you’ll see about a hundred of them, starting at about $10.

[Justin_Bailey]

I think dropping the headphone jack is a mistake, but why is everybody so down on Lightning? The 30-pin connector is clunky to use, while Lightning is so much easier to plug and unplug.

[sparky_1]

@Justin_Bailey

I think dropping the headphone jack is a mistake, but why is everybody so down on Lightning? The 30-pin connector is clunky to use, while Lightning is so much easier to plug and unplug.

Agreed.

It would also be nice if the change resulted in better waterproofing. Still seems silly that such an expensive phone can be wrecked by water.

[Mr.Miskatonic]

@scr4

What are you referring to? If you mean the adoption of USB-C, I don’t yet see very many devices available for it.

I think he is talking about the original iMac, which, while it probably wasn’t the very first computer to have USB ports, was the first one where that actually meant something.

[dracoi]

@scr4

What are you referring to? If you mean the adoption of USB-C, I don’t yet see very many devices available for it.

I’m talking about 20 years ago (plus or minus) when Apple ditched their old keyboard and mouse connectors and went USB exclusively. While USB had been around for a while before that move, the average user wasn’t exactly rushing out to switch. Apple’s move meant manufacturers had to make the switch for the Mac share of the market, but also meant that USB devices benefited from much simpler Mac/PC compatibility.

[dracoi]

@thirdname

It isn’t a paperweight. There are Bluetooth receivers that a designed just for that speaker (the Bose Sounddock).

I’ll have to look into that. I couldn’t find anything like that at the time I made the iPhone upgrade, but I wasn’t looking for bluetooth and maybe that’s where I went wrong.

[Doug_K]

@dracoi

I’m talking about 20 years ago (plus or minus) when Apple ditched their old keyboard and mouse connectors and went USB exclusively. While USB had been around for a while before that move, the average user wasn’t exactly rushing out to switch. Apple’s move meant manufacturers had to make the switch for the Mac share of the market, but also meant that USB devices benefited from much simpler Mac/PC compatibility.

Except that was the opposite of what they appear to be doing now. By switching to USB manufactures no longer had to make a special mouse for Macs. After the switch you could even use a Windows keyboard on Mac. This time it’s going from a universal connector to a proprietary one, which means devices will suffer from a lack of compatibility.

[pidgeon92]

Sounds good to me. I remember when Macs started shipping without a floppy drive. Everybody was up in arms then. Then they started shipping without optical drives. Now many computers don’t have those either.

My headphones are already bluetooth. As that technology improves, why anyone would want a cable connected to their device is beyond me.

[Princhester]

@Justin_Bailey

I think dropping the headphone jack is a mistake, but why is everybody so down on Lightning? The 30-pin connector is clunky to use, while Lightning is so much easier to plug and unplug.

Because if they wanted small and easy they could have gone to USB micro but instead went to their own proprietary standard.

I would be OK with them dropping the 3.5mm jack (which I use continually) if they went to USB, so that they were participating in useful convergence. I could suffer through having to change all the hardware I currently use to go from my iPhone to audio output devices if the end result was ending up with good standardisation.

If they drop the 3.5mm so that I have to have one set of audio connectors for iPhone and one set for everything else, then I’m going Android.

[dracoi]

@Doug_K

Except that was the opposite of what they appear to be doing now. By switching to USB manufactures no longer had to make a special mouse for Macs. After the switch you could even use a Windows keyboard on Mac. This time it’s going from a universal connector to a proprietary one, which means devices will suffer from a lack of compatibility.

The similarity I was pointing to is that the move was generally unpopular with users at the time - at least with the users who pay attention to this kind of stuff. Anytime there’s a major shift without some offsetting immediate benefit, you get some push back from users.

I agree with you that part of what made that switch so successful was the move to a universal standard rather than setting up a new proprietary option, but that advantage was not as obvious at the time as it is hindsight.

[Driver8]

@Princhester

Because if they wanted small and easy they could have gone to USB micro but instead went to their own proprietary standard.

Do you really prefer USB micro? I’m really glad they didn’t go that route. I’ve alternated between Android and Apple devices and the small USB connections suck ass. Finicky, non-reservable, prone to collecting lint. I find them incredibly tedious. I’d prefer non-proprietary where possible, but in this case I can’t object to them going their own way because the existing standards are so awful.

I think the up coming USB standards deal with these issues, so it would be nice if they standardized. I won’t hold my breath.

I’m not sure I’m ready for the removal of the headphone jack. I use simple wired Bose earbuds. I don’t care for buying yet another thing I have to remember to charge. That said, I tend to chew through those things pretty quickly so maybe my earbud and phone upgrades will coincide anyway. I’m assuming Bose will quickly target any new format.

I sympathize with wanting to remove the jack though. A horrible connection format.