# iPhone 7 removal of headphone jack: hate it or love it **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 7, 2016, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iphone-7-removal-of-headphone-jack-hate-it-or-love-it/765273 "2016-09-07T15:22:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iphone-7-removal-of-headphone-jack-hate-it-or-love-it/765273/261 "2016-10-07T04:10:08Z")
> [@TimeWinder](#): > > Nonsense. Bluetooth is a digital connection. The ones and zeros don’t know they were flying through the air. The sound is exactly, precisely what you’d get through any other connection, barring actual communication failures. You’re pretty sure of yourself. But “digital” is not some kind of magic state of information in which there can be no imperfection. Bluetooth is a narrow bandwidth system, designed for voice conversations not music reproduction. Exact results depend on details of the setup–devices, files, and codecs–but in practice lots of Bluetooth headphones are delivering objectively (compressed to a lower resolution) and audibly worse sound than MP3 standard–worse still compared to a high-fidelity audio source. And of course, you _do_ sometimes have the dropouts of connection interruption, as well. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iphone-7-removal-of-headphone-jack-hate-it-or-love-it/765273/262 "2016-10-07T04:17:00Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > You’re pretty sure of yourself. But “digital” is not some kind of magic state of information in which there can be no imperfection. > > **Bluetooth is** a narrow bandwidth system, **designed for voice conversations not music reproduction**. Exact results depend on details of the setup–devices, files, and codecs–but in practice lots of Bluetooth headphones are delivering objectively (compressed to a lower resolution) and audibly worse sound than MP3 standard–worse still compared to a high-fidelity audio source. > > And of course, you _do_ sometimes have the dropouts of connection interruption, as well. (bolding mine) Do you have a cite for that? It conflicts with my understanding of the development of Bluetooth. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iphone-7-removal-of-headphone-jack-hate-it-or-love-it/765273/263 "2016-10-07T05:14:20Z")
> [@TimeWinder](#): > > Nonsense. Bluetooth is a digital connection. The ones and zeros don’t know they were flying through the air. The sound is exactly, precisely what you’d get through any other connection, barring actual communication failures. Er, Bluetooth headphones can be surprisingly wonky. If my phone is on the nightstand, and I roll over and sleep on my right side (i.e., with my back to the headphone), the headphones I use when falling asleep get crackly and sometimes don’t work at all. When I was shopping for them, a lot of headsets had reviews that said you had to have the phone on the same side of your body as the bluetooth receiver part of the headset. Anything that can be bollixed by a human body being in the way isn’t robust enough for me. I actually don’t have this issue when using my large over-the-head headset (for phone calls etc.) so I think it’s an artifact of the miniaturization required for the tiny sets. Bottom line, the technology isn’t there yet for them to be as good as wired headsets in as compact a package. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iphone-7-removal-of-headphone-jack-hate-it-or-love-it/765273/264 "2016-10-07T14:25:41Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > It’s not a matter of hostility. It’s a matter of knowing that their strong position in the phone market gives them a position to make more money in the headphone market via their non-proprietary lightning port, with no concern for what people want. > > Bluetooth is shit. It’s fussy, the sound is poor and it means one more thing to charge. That’s why Apple are going to clean up on their lightning port headphones. I, and many people I know, use Bluetooth all the time. Somehow I’ve never had a problem with it. ---
**Author:** ![Kiros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/439d5e/32.png) [@Kiros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kiros)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iphone-7-removal-of-headphone-jack-hate-it-or-love-it/765273/265 "2016-10-07T16:40:20Z")
Bluetooth has always been just crappy enough to frustrate me, in my personal/anecdotal experience. Most of the issues are on the pairing/connection side. It’s at the point where I have an aux cable plugged into one of my speakers that also has bluetooth, just because I know the aux cable will work instantly 100% of the time, while bluetooth will work instantly 75% of the time, work after a short annoying delay 20% of the time, and frustratingly refuse to work at all unless I reset everything involved 5% of the time. I’ve got another speaker where I know it will always work as long as I turn everything on in the correct order, but god forbid I do things out of order. Trying to connect to the rental car I had earlier this year with BT was a train wreck (though thankfully not a car crash). It obviously works awesome for a lot of people, but I’m going to continue to be skeptical of BT as a primary mode until I see it work flawlessly 100% of the time. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iphone-7-removal-of-headphone-jack-hate-it-or-love-it/765273/266 "2016-10-07T17:41:41Z")
> [@TimeWinder](#): > > Nonsense. Bluetooth is a digital connection. The ones and zeros don’t know they were flying through the air. The sound is exactly, precisely what you’d get through any other connection, barring actual communication failures. Ha ha ha. You do not know what you’re talking about. Bluetooth audio is terrible because the bitrate is low and the connection is super flaky. That said, lots of people don’t care that much about sound quality from their phones. I listen to things on my phone with cheap headphones in noisy environments. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iphone-7-removal-of-headphone-jack-hate-it-or-love-it/765273/267 "2016-10-07T18:13:22Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > Ha ha ha. You do not know what you’re talking about. Bluetooth audio is terrible because the bitrate is low and the connection is super flaky. Quick research shows that the bitrate for BT exceeds the norm for mp3 file encoding so it will sound the same no matter if you use BT or wires. Where are you getting your information from? ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iphone-7-removal-of-headphone-jack-hate-it-or-love-it/765273/268 "2016-10-07T18:58:48Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > Quick research shows that the bitrate for BT exceeds the norm for mp3 file encoding so it will sound the same no matter if you use BT or wires. Where are you getting your information from? From my ears. Have you used wireless Bluetooth headphones? Every pair I’ve used has been immediately noticeably inferior, and in ways that are clearly due to signal problems, not audio response. They do things like stutter and lag. Note that the nominal bitrate for BT can’t be compared directly to an mp3 file, because you have noise and transmission losses to consider. It’s fairly rare that you’re in a noisy enough electrical environment for analog audio signals over a wire to be noticeably distorted. Not the case for short-range low-power radio transmissions at 2.4GHz. I bet Bluetooth works reasonably well in a Faraday cage lab somewhere. But standing in my kitchen where I can see a half-dozen wifi networks and the microwave is sometimes running, it’s shit. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iphone-7-removal-of-headphone-jack-hate-it-or-love-it/765273/269 "2016-10-07T19:01:46Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > From my ears. Have you used wireless Bluetooth headphones? Every pair I’ve used has been immediately noticeably inferior, and in ways that are clearly due to signal problems, not audio response. They do things like stutter and lag. > > Note that the nominal bitrate for BT can’t be compared directly to an mp3 file, because you have noise and transmission losses to consider. It’s fairly rare that you’re in a noisy enough electrical environment for analog audio signals over a wire to be noticeably distorted. Not the case for short-range low-power radio transmissions at 2.4GHz. > > I bet Bluetooth works reasonably well in a Faraday cage lab somewhere. But standing in my kitchen where I can see a half-dozen wifi networks and the microwave is sometimes running, it’s shit. So you have no cites, no science and no data, just a bunch of assertions about your personal experiences? :dubious: And yet you felt it was proper to begin your post with “Ha ha ha. You do not know what you’re talking about.” :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iphone-7-removal-of-headphone-jack-hate-it-or-love-it/765273/270 "2016-10-07T20:24:51Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > So you have no cites, no science and no data, just a bunch of assertions about your personal experiences? :dubious: Have _you_ ever used Bluetooth headphones? The terribleness of Bluetooth audio is a widely known and acknowledged quantity. This isn’t a cite, but if you “I’m Feeling Lucky” Google search the phrase “Bluetooth audio quality”, it takes you to a page titled “Does Bluetooth Audio Still Suck”. (Spoiler alert: the answer is pretty much yes). > [@](#): > > And yet you felt it was proper to begin your post with “Ha ha ha. You do not know what you’re talking about.” :rolleyes: The post I responded to was hilariously incorrect, and demonstrated a lack of basic understanding of the issue. My lack of at-hand cites isn’t particularly relevant to how incorrect that post was. Are you objecting to my tone (which I’ll admit was coarse), or do you actually think I am incorrect about this? Do you think that because Bluetooth is a digital connection it’s just as good as a wired connection (the thing I laughed at)? Do you think that the nominal bandwidth specs for 2.4GHz radios are illustrative of real-world performance (the cite you responded with)? ---
**Author:** ![thirdname](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@thirdname](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thirdname)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iphone-7-removal-of-headphone-jack-hate-it-or-love-it/765273/271 "2016-10-07T20:31:10Z")
There are different levels of quality for Bluetooth. I have a Bluetooth receiver for my home stereo that uses the Apt-X lossless codec. I don’t know if that’s available for headphones, though. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iphone-7-removal-of-headphone-jack-hate-it-or-love-it/765273/272 "2016-10-07T20:34:48Z")
I decided to try measuring the signal strength of a bluetooth connection right now, and paired my phone to my laptop. It says its connected, but then when I try to do anything, I get an error message and the phone’s status changes to “Not Connected”. These are both Apple devices updated to the latest OS in each case. So… ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iphone-7-removal-of-headphone-jack-hate-it-or-love-it/765273/273 "2016-10-07T20:41:13Z")
> [@thirdname](#): > > There are different levels of quality for Bluetooth. I have a Bluetooth receiver for my home stereo that uses the Apt-X lossless codec. I don’t know if that’s available for headphones, though. It’s not used by the iPhone 7. ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iphone-7-removal-of-headphone-jack-hate-it-or-love-it/765273/274 "2016-10-27T17:46:59Z")
It seems that the [airpods](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/10/apple-earpods-indefinitely-delayed-beyond-original-late-october-window/) are not quite ready for prime time. [QUOTE=FTA] “The early response to AirPods has been incredible,” the Apple statement reads. “We don’t believe in shipping a product before it’s ready.” [/QUOTE] Oops. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iphone-7-removal-of-headphone-jack-hate-it-or-love-it/765273.md?page=13)