Expect iPhone 7 w/ Similar design and removed headphone jack this fall, Major changes next year for the 10th year Anniversary

[IG-88]

The other thing that many people are failing to point out (or maybe it doesn't matter to them)  is that without a 3.5mm jack you won't be able to charge your phone and use headphones at the same time. Unless they have some type of splitter. 

[suicidalfranco]

4 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

RCA as in AV/Composite Yellow/Red/White?

yeah, you could pick up a 30 pin cable, cut it off, check the data sheet for which cables where the AV ones, solder them to male AV connectors and voila, DIY TV adapter for your iOS device.  

[captain cactus]

The 30-pin connector had everything sandwiched into one plug. USB, FireWire, audio, video, charging, everything. If the other end was a FireWire port, the pins for USB would just be blanks. If the other end was USB, the FireWire pins would be blank.

 

Now that Apple has gotten rid of FireWire and USB can also process audio/video, the connector has slimmed down.

 

29 minutes ago, IG-88 said:

The other thing that many people are failing to point out (or maybe it doesn't matter to them)  is that without a 3.5mm jack you won't be able to charge your phone and use headphones at the same time. Unless they have some type of splitter. 

...which would be a super janky solution and not solve the cable problem. At all.

 

hey look another reason why removing the 3.5mm jack is a shit idea

[Curufinwe_wins]

2 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

Yes it does, but not power efficiency of chips and on board devices. The jaybird bluebuds X is as good as most wired headphones. But the simple fact is many people just use their mobile headphones which are at best average. If you want really good headphones, though get a lightning one and it will be better than every other analog set

"most headphones"=/= anything approaching half-way decent...

 

And again, you show a fundamental lack of understanding in how audio devices work.

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, dalekphalm said:

I looked up the Jaybird Bluebuds X ... these are $200 Earbuds. I have a pair of KICKASS Beyerdynamic MMX series earbuds, and I paid around $80 for them. They blow away any earbuds I've ever tried before.  You're saying I might as well scrap those and pick up some $200 earbuds that MAY sound as good, for over double the price? Also 4-8 hours is insufficient for many people for battery life on earbuds.

I looked up the Bluebuds X, and I see another big flaw with them. They use Bluetooth. I could not find any detailed specifications but what I did find is that it does not support aptX. Instead they use their "customized SBC codec", which I am pretty sure is just a good marketing way of saying it uses SBC (because you can't use a custom codec in a slave device, when it's the master that encodes the audio). SBC is a pretty bad codec.

At max settings it's comparable to ~192Kbps AAC, but you also have to factor in that you are encoding from one lossy codec to another (unless you got got lossless stored on your phone) so the end result will probably be worse.

It does support A2DP as well, but it does not mention any of the optional specifications in the standard (like support for AAC) so who knows what audio quality you will end up getting.

 

 

1 hour ago, klh2000 said:

Here is the reason this won't allow for more battery space:

 

With the jack, Just like the Iphone 6

<image>

 

Here is how people think the battery will be shaped

<image>

 

LIPO cells cannot be made into any shape, with current battery technology the have to be rectangular.

Well they could probably rearrange the components on the PCB so that it became thinner and longer, thus giving a bit of extra space for the battery.

 

 

 

Just going to repost my breakdown of the benefits/drawbacks of replacing/removing the 3.5mm headphone jack. I haven't had anyone comment on things that should be added/removed/edited so I think it is a fairly complete and unbiased overview:

Spoiler

On 4/28/2016 at 9:32 PM, LAwLz said:

So let's be completely unbiased here.

 

Benefits:

• Takes up less space in the phone/laptop/whatever.
• Consistency. One pair of headphones will sound the same no matter which phone you plug them into.
• No interference. It's digital so it either works perfectly, or not at all.
• Might enable extra functionality in the future (the only thing I can think of would be stereo mics but who knows).

 

Drawbacks:

• Breaks compatibility. You will need an adapter (which will need to be an active adapter, which will reduce quality) if you want to use your current headphones.
• Cost will increase since you now need a DAC/amp in each pair of headphones, plus the one inside your phone, instead of just having one in your phone. So cheap headphones/earbuds might be more expensive AND sound worse than they currently do. This also means there are more things that might break.
• Driver issues. Each pair of headphones will now need a driver to be installed, and that driver might not exist for certain platforms (Apple headphones no longer works on Android phones and vice versa). Drivers can also be buggy/outdated. Imagine buying a pair of 1000 dollar headphones back in 2005 and they worked great in Windows XP, but the manufacturer didn't make any drivers for Vista (maybe they went bankrupt) and above so now they they are just a 1000 dollar paperweight.
• Harder to plug in and position (going from circular to square).
• Possibility of DRM being introduced (again, Apple headphones only working on Apple devices, Samsung headphones only working on Samsung devices etc, or even things like certain songs only working with certain headphones, like a new Dr Dre album only working with Beats headphones for example).
• If your cable breaks slightly then you will not get any sound at all. The cable for my K702 broke fairly recently but I was managed to continue using them by holding the cable in a certain position with some tape. That would most likely not work with a digital connector.
• It takes up more space inside the peripheral. It will not be any issue for headphones, but for things like earbuds it might become a (small) problem. There are really small DACs which weigh next to nothing so it is not a big issue, but it is a drawback.

 

Unknowns or other things to think about:

• Which one is more durable?
• Which one uses more power?
• Headphones might share the connector you use for charging and file transfers (so you might not be able to listen to music and charge/transfer files at the same time). This is not inherently an issue of USB type C, but it is something I can see lots of phone manufacturers doing. It is less of an issue on desktops and laptops though.

 

Did I miss anything? I don't think it makes sense going to USB-C for audio. The benefits are very, very small compared to the drawbacks.

 

[Trixanity]

22 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Snip 

  Hide contents

 

Only thing I disagree with is drivers. If a USB-C audio standard is to succeed it needs a generic universal driver and I'm assuming that's where things are going with the spec including Intel's audio initiative. 

 

We already have USB audio drivers built-in (except for Audio 2.0 on Windows because Microsoft don't know wtf they are doing. Last I heard, the guy working on the driver quit at Microsoft and the whole thing was abandoned. That was like a decade ago.) 

[rattacko123]

4 hours ago, SurvivorNVL said:

I actually look forward to losing the 3.5mm.  Bring on the USB-C and Lightning standard for everything.

NO not lightning , usb ftw 

[terrytek]

5 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

Well there needs to be a start somewhere, its either there or not. We can't slowly transition it from being there to not being there. And since it's Apple, others will likely follow withing 1-2 years and by then all major headphone companies will have a plethora of wireless solutions for the market

yeah, but there are rumours swirling around that apple will still keep it. and besides, i'm probably gonna buy a 6s, and stay away from the 7, and probably wait for the 10 year anniversary edition, or, if imessage has made its way to android by then, whatever galaxy flagship comes out.

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, Trixanity said:

Only thing I disagree with is drivers. If a USB-C audio standard is to succeed it needs a generic universal driver and I'm assuming that's where things are going with the spec including Intel's audio initiative. 

 

We already have USB audio drivers built-in (except for Audio 2.0 on Windows because Microsoft don't know wtf they are doing. Last I heard, the guy working on the driver quit at Microsoft and the whole thing was abandoned. That was like a decade ago.) 

Well there is the possibility of generic drivers, but like you said we already have some issues with the existing standards on Windows (funny how people say Microsoft listens to the feedback, and yet we have a ~20 page thread here about implementing USB Audio 2.0). Good luck getting Apple on board on that as well. They couldn't even follow the simple signaling standard for controls using the ground pin of the 3.5mm headphone jack. I know they support it on OS X, but the iOS walled garden has much higher and thicker walls.

 

Also, one of the few benefits of using type-C or Lightning would be additional functionality. Those things would require drivers specific to your headphones. It would end up like with keyboards. I can use my K95 just fine without the Corsair drivers, but only regular typing works. If I want to use things like my macro buttons, or control lighting and stuff, I need the driver developed for my particular keyboard.

[Dabombinable]

6 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

I would actually like to believe otherwise, they dropped floppy disks, CD Drives, 30-pin port, SIM down to nano SIM and even starting to drop general ports for Type-C so headphone jack wouldn't be surprising especially when you consider how much of precious space it occupies

There is a reason they got dropped-better replacements were developed. To date there isn't an alternative to the headphone jack. Which is why manufacturers are retarded to try and remove it-USB connectors can't rotate can they?

[dalekphalm]

3 hours ago, suicidalfranco said:

yeah, you could pick up a 30 pin cable, cut it off, check the data sheet for which cables where the AV ones, solder them to male AV connectors and voila, DIY TV adapter for your iOS device.  

Hmm that's quite interesting. Must have been fun for those DIY folks who like splicing their own homemade adapters.

[Doobeedoo]

Screw lightning cable. Hopefully we transition to USB Type-C sooner.

[spartaman64]

inb4 iphone cuts instead of paper cuts

[Paragon_X]

The headphone jack takes a lot of space in the board and on top of that you have to have a Digital to Analog Converter (DAC) in order for it to function which ofcourse takes extra space. They might remove it.

[dalekphalm]

8 minutes ago, Paragon_X said:

The headphone jack takes a lot of space in the board and on top of that you have to have a Digital to Analog Converter (DAC) in order for it to function which ofcourse takes extra space. They might remove it.

Even if they remove the Headphone Jack, you still need the DAC. Unless you intend on removing the speakers too? And forget about a simple Lightning to 3.5mm Adapter if you remove the DAC too.

[escape093]

1 hour ago, spartaman64 said:

inb4 iphone cuts instead of paper cuts

Leaked image of an iPhone 12 viewed directly from the side:

[Paragon_X]

19 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Even if they remove the Headphone Jack, you still need the DAC. Unless you intend on removing the speakers too? And forget about a simple Lightning to 3.5mm Adapter if you remove the DAC too.

That's a very good point about the speakers, but it might be there is no need for a good DAC it can be a really basic one since you dont need to drive good headphones. And as far as i know intel is looking to kill the Jack as well. So that means we might have Type C/Lighting Headphones soon with their own DACs.

[RedRound2]

15 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Want to know how to fit more battery into a phone? Make it thicker. Removing the headphone jack won't do jack shit in terms of how much battery they can fit.

I actually did the math on this (although quite rough estimates). Assuming you could remove the headphone jack and then fill all the space it uses with extra battery (which you most likely couldn't, because batteries aren't like Play-doh), which has the same energy density as the current iPhone battery, you would get an extra 70mAh. That's it.

It was just a mere suggestion, I don't know what Apple's going to do with the extra space. They can do some internal rearrangements and make sure there's a rectangular space for the battery. Or they could do something else. Anyway they're most definitely not going to put a completely empty cornor

Quote

It won't save a lot of space. The 3.5mm headphone jack is a lot smaller than some people seem to think. Even the microSIM slot takes up more space.

What do you mean speaker with onboard DAC? There is already a DAC in the phone.

Well, its about a centimeter long with 3.5mm depth. Pretty sure you can fit in alot silicon chips in that space. And anyways Apple is actually trying to get rid of SIM with eSIM (Apple SIM on iPads), but as usual carriers can be hard to convince

 

Sorry, I meant a better DAC or something. Just wanted to give examples on what it could be replaced with

 

Quote

Why do you think that a pair of lightning headphones will sound better than a pair of analog headphones?

 

 

Though it's an expensive headphones, the comparison is apples to apples and clearly lightning is much superior as people can actually notice the difference 

 

Again these are meant for audio enthusiasts, not general consumers 

 

Quote

I looked up the Jaybird Bluebuds X ... these are $200 Earbuds. I have a pair of KICKASS Beyerdynamic MMX series earbuds, and I paid around $80 for them. They blow away any earbuds I've ever tried before.  You're saying I might as well scrap those and pick up some $200 earbuds that MAY sound as good, for over double the price? Also 4-8 hours is insufficient for many people for battery life on earbuds.

Really, were you looking at some antique collection. The blue buds were around $80 before discontinuation with their X2's which are $100

https://www.amazon.com/Jaybird-Bluebuds-Bluetooth-Headphones-Discontinued/dp/B00B6ZGSVI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1466585375&sr=8-1&keywords=blubuds+X

 

https://www.amazon.com/Jaybird-Sport-Wireless-Bluetooth-Headphones/dp/B013HSW4SM/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1466585375&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=blubuds+X

 

And at some point you said Bluetooth earphones aren't really good,

 

X's review below and X2's below that

15 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

What else would replace the 3.5mm jack? Bluetooth? That's not a replacement, that's a sidegrade that is already available right now. Why should I have to give up my 3.5mm jack for a technology that I already have access to? I'm not getting anything out of that, I'm simply losing functionality. Plus going Bluetooth has many issues: More expensive by comparison, battery life issues, interference issues, the fact that the headphone now needs to have a DAC and AMP, etc.

Yes bluetooth buds have been available for a long time, except they stagnant. It's already proven that wireless earbuds can get better than most average buds and the only way to spread and accelerate the improvement is by taking a drastic step like this. This is what I've been saying form the start, to move the industry forward. Do you really picture everyone still having cables running around in front of the shirt 50 years from now

The only way to solve the above problems you mentioned is to develop and what accelerated development, demand

15 hours ago, klh2000 said:

Here is the reason this won't allow for more battery space:

With the jack, Just like the Iphone 6

 

Here is how people think the battery will be shaped

 

LIPO cells cannot be made into any shape, with current battery technology the have to be rectangular.

Rearrangement

[Thony]

I thought there wouild be usb-c earphones/headphones but no. They sell u an adapter.

 

Apple = Adapters for everywhere

[Tech_Dreamer]

Thread title should be  : "Apple Jacking Off"

[LAwLz]

21 minutes ago, RedRound2 said:

 

<The Perfect iPhone 7 Headphones>

<Lightning Headphones: Are They Better or Just an Inconvenience?>

 

Though it's an expensive headphones, the comparison is Apple's to Apple's and clearly lightning is much superior as people can actually notice the difference 

 

Again these are meant for audio enthusiasts, not general consumers

Oh boy, it's the deaf leading the deaf right now.

1) That did not prove your point that a pair of headphones with a lightning connector will sound better than all other analog headphones (remember that this was your original claim).

2) That only "proves" that the particular pair of headphones used in those videos might be better when using the Lightning cable, but that in and of itself does not prove that the Lightning connector is better than 3.5mm.

 

 

The reason why I put "proves" in quotations is because those videos does not prove anything. They are completely useless. The reason why I say that is because they did not do any type of blind test. Nobody who knows the first thing about scientific tests will take that video as real evidence.

 

He even says that you need to bump up the volume to max to get a decent volume in the MacRumors video. That means the headphones are very hard to drive, but if you used an external AMP (such as the one already built in to the headphones) then they would most likely sound a lot better (possibly as good as with the Lightning cable plugged in). Audeze could have made it so that the built in AMP was used regardless of whether or not you used Lightning or 3.5mm, but for some reason they made it so that it's only used with Lightning.

[RedRound2]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

Oh boy, it's the deaf leading the deaf right now.

1) That did not prove your point that a pair of headphones with a lightning connector will sound better than all other analog headphones (remember that this was your original claim).

2) That only "proves" that the particular pair of headphones used in those videos might be better when using the Lightning cable, but that in and of itself does not prove that the Lightning connector is better than 3.5mm.

 

 

The reason why I put "proves" in quotations is because those videos does not prove anything. They are completely useless. The reason why I say that is because they did not do any type of blind test. Nobody who knows the first thing about scientific tests will take that video as real evidence.

 

He even says that you need to bump up the volume to max to get a decent volume in the MacRumors video. That means the headphones are very hard to drive, but if you used an external AMP (such as the one already built in to the headphones) then they would most likely sound a lot better (possibly as good as with the Lightning cable plugged in). Audeze could have made it so that the built in AMP was used regardless of whether or not you used Lightning or 3.5mm, but for some reason they made it so that it's only used with Lightning.

What I said is you would likely get better quality from lightning connected headphones than 3.5mm jack connected.

Oh yeah I guess the manufacture liked apple, so he intentionally botched 3.5mm audio quality /s

 

Give me $700 and I'll show you a scientific test. All those links I posted are not my material rather someone else's and I have no control with what they do, so live with the evidence I give you or show me a better one, rather than expecting to somehow make 'scientific analysis' of something I don't have or that's not available. 

 

There are two separate videos with three people trying it. Also I don't see any reason that they should've been biased. Sure I may be basing this claim on one headphones, but there's only one headphone that I'm aware of with both 3.5mm and lightning connector with videos about it

 

Yes, you probably will get the same audio quality if you use an external DAC, but how many people use external DACs with their phones! 

 

There may be plenty of reasons why analog output can't drive the onboard DAC. Also here's a look at another video detailing about one of their other headphone including the advantages of having lightning connector

 

[LAwLz]

22 minutes ago, RedRound2 said:

What I said is you would likely get better quality from lightning connected headphones than 3.5mm jack connected.

No, that's not what you said. This is what you said:

16 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

If you want really good headphones, though get a lightning one and it will be better than every other analog set

My guess is that you said that because you did not know the first thing about audio and assumed that "since it is digital it will sound better than analog", which would show a lack of understanding of how audio works (something you have hinted at all throughout the thread).

 

 

24 minutes ago, RedRound2 said:

Oh yeah I guess the manufacture liked apple, so he intentionally botched 3.5mm audio quality /s

Not intentionally botched it, but it's safe to say that those headphones are not suitable to use with the iPhone's built in amp because they are fairly hard to drive. If they were connected to a more powerful amp then they would most likely sound just as good as with the Lighting cable.

It might even be possible to make them sound better than with the Lighting cable. I don't know what characteristics the built in amp has, but since it appears to be completely circumvented when using analog you will be able to use your own amp without risking having the signal altered before it reaches the drivers.

 

 

33 minutes ago, RedRound2 said:

Give me $700 and I'll show you a scientific test. All those links I posted are not my material rather someone else's and I have no control with what they do, so live with the evidence I give you or show me a better one, rather than expecting to somehow make 'scientific analysis' of something I don't have or that's not available. 

Since you were the one making the claim, the burden of proof is on you. If you don't have a scientific test to prove your claim then it is a good idea to not make the claim to begin with. I could make a video with the exact opposite results as the video you linked, and since there is absolutely objectivity in their testing methodology it is impossible to say who is right or wrong.

 

 

42 minutes ago, RedRound2 said:

There are two separate videos with three people trying it. Also I don't see any reason that they should've been biased. Sure I may be basing this claim on one headphones, but there's only one headphone that I'm aware of with both 3.5mm and lightning connector with videos about it

I am not saying that they are biased either. I am saying that their testing methodology is fundamentally flawed. Watch from 1:00 to 3:20. It will explain why your videos are useless. The people in the videos are fooling themselves.

 

 

55 minutes ago, RedRound2 said:

Yes, you probably will get the same audio quality if you use an external DAC, but how many people use external DACs with their phones! 

I didn't say external DAC. I said external amp, and the headphones you keep linking has an amp built in. It could be used even with the 3.5mm connection (which would fix the problem of the iPhone's amp not being powerful enough to drive the headphones), but for some reason the manufacturer did not design the headphones to allow for that. They probably did it because if you plug it into your iPhone then you can just use the Lightning cable, and if you plug it into your computer you want to uses your own amp, instead of the built in one.

[RedRound2]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

No, that's not what you said. This is what you said:

Context. 3.5mm (below) set compared to lightning set on iPhones specifically. 

 

The reason why I said "Really good" is because I was talking about Bluetooth alternative which for some reason everyone thinks is shit

 

Now suppose you are an audiophile and can't stand Bluetooth then get lightning pairs which would be better than the 3.5mm one (ok, I guess I called 3.5mm as analog set which is an unintentional mistake)

 

Guess I called it analog because 3.5mm is analog connection while lightning is digital

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

My guess is that you said that because you did not knowitw the first thing about audio and assumed that "since it is digital it will sound better than analog", which would show a lack of understanding of how audio works (something you have hinted at all throughout the thread).

Nope, im not that stupid, I know sound is a longitudinal wave and I know well difference between analog and digital signals (VGA vs HDMI).

I made a mistake referring to onboard DAC (Digital to Analog Converter) somewhere where what I meant was better DAC or something

 

And yes I'm not very well versed in audio equipment as I personally find it uninteresting, but I know the fundamentals

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

 

 

Not intentionally botched it, but it's safe to say that those headphones are not suitable to use with the iPhone's built in amp because they are fairly hard to drive. If they were connected to a more powerful amp then they would most likely sound just as good as with the Lighting cable.

It might even be possible to make them sound better than with the Lighting cable. I don't know what characteristics the built in amp has, but since it appears to be completely circumvented when using analog you will be able to use your own amp without risking having the signal altered before it reaches the drivers.

Yes and hence the advantage. Higher grade headphones working better with lightning (or type c) than 3.5mm jack

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

 

Since you were the one making the claim, the burden of proof is on you. If you don't have a scientific test to prove your claim then it is a good idea to not make the claim to begin with. I could make a video with the exact opposite results as the video you linked, and since there is absolutely objectivity in their testing methodology it is impossible to say who is right or wrong.

You could make, but you aren't reputed nor you are multiple people with no influence on each other. They're listening and theyre judging independently and theyre reporting it, exactly what they do with all their videos including Linus

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

 

 

I am not saying that they are biased either. I am saying that their testing methodology is fundamentally flawed. Watch from 1:00 to 3:20. It will explain why your videos are useless. The people in the videos are fooling themselves.

 

Will watch later, on data

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

 

I didn't say external DAC. I said external amp, and the headphones you keep linking has an amp built in. It could be used even with the 3.5mm connection (which would fix the problem of the iPhone's amp not being powerful enough to drive the headphones), but for some reason the manufacturer did not design the headphones to allow for that. They probably did it because if you plug it into your iPhone then you can just use the Lightning cable, and if you plug it into your computer you want to uses your own amp, instead of the built in one.

Maybe, maybe not but my original point still stands, phone amps can't drive high end headphones but digital outputs like lightning and type c can

 

Also this is getting old and boring so let's shift topic on something else rather than complaining about something that's inevitable IMO

 

[Rodinski]

21 hours ago, ThinkWithPortals said:

And they've removed the 3.5mm jack... why, again?

Just make the phone a bit thicker with the audio jack and more battery, for Christ's sake. Making it thinner doesn't add any functionality or usefulness.

The only positive I can see coming from this is that the audio world will push better tech on Bluetooth and start selling nice USB amps for phones.