StrangeParts creates Internal iPhone 7 Headphone Jack Mod - despite Apples claims

[Drak3]

Just now, Jito463 said:

So, a PR word to sell phones.  Gotcha.

No, an over engineered solution to a problem few experience.

 

Gotta say, iPhone 7 haptic feedback, 10,000,000x better than every other phone I've used.

Not worth the tradeoff, but sooooooooooooooooooooo much better haptics.

[LAwLz]

45 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

They removed the headphone jack for the haptic feedback engine, because the engine's design occupies space that would otherwise used for the jack.

 

No, it doesn't. Again, read my previous post. Just because the vibration motor is roughly in the area where the headphone jack would have been, does NOT mean Apple chose between the two because of space constraints.

On 2017-09-08 at 10:14 PM, LAwLz said:

"there is not enough space" is such a BS excuse which shows a complete lack of understanding about how products are designed. 

They don't make a chassi and then go "what can we fit in here?" 

 

It's designed in tandem to make sure that they fit everything they want inside, without wasting space. 

 

 

You're thinking of this as if someone at Apple dropped the finished phone chassis on a table and went "fit as much stuff inside this as you can". That is not how phones are designed. You can never say "they didn't have enough space to fit it in" because the chassis is exactly the dimensions it is because of choices made by Apple.

 

In fact, this mod proves that you are wrong, because he did not have to remove the vibration motor to make it work. Not sure if he had to remove it for the final phone (I skipped the middle section of the video) but he made it work without removing the motor earlier in the video. On top of that, Apple would not have had to include that fairly large custom adapter in their design since they could just run some traces from the DAC to the headphone out.

 

 

Again, if you are trying to give any technical reason for why Apple could not have included a headphone jack then you are WRONG. Stop trying to make excuses.

[Drak3]

3 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Just because the vibration motor is roughly in the area where the headphone jack would have been, does NOT mean Apple chose between the two because of space constraints.

There is a difference between having enough space to cram something in, and having enough usable space to allow everything to work correctly. Apple's engineers have constraints to work in, the body used for the 6 and 6s. There is not enough usable space to accomodate the headphone jack and haptic feedback engine. They decided to use the engine. Not the choice we would make, but oh well.

 

And just because some random guy did a halfassed job of hacking one in, doesn't mean that a team of engineers could figure out how to implement one without sacrificing elsewere and come up with a compromise that everyone would be happy with.

[79wjd]

9 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

In fact, this mod proves that you are wrong, because he did not have to remove the vibration motor to make it work. Not sure if he had to remove it for the final phone (I skipped the middle section of the video) but he made it work without removing the motor earlier in the video. On top of that, Apple would not have had to include that fairly large custom adapter in their design since they could just run some traces from the DAC to the headphone out.

He had to shove the battery up and into the left corner (which considering what happened with the Note 7, doesn't sound like a particularly good idea for the masses), and he had to put the haptic engine at a pretty steep angle to make room for the jack. 

 

Of course Apple could have made the device bigger....but they could also make the phone the size of a brick and fit a battery that lasts literally a month. 

[LAwLz]

1 minute ago, Drak3 said:

There is a difference between having enough space to cram something in, and having enough usable space to allow everything to work correctly. Apple's engineers have constraints to work in, the body used for the 6 and 6s. There is not enough usable space to accomodate the headphone jack and haptic feedback engine. They decided to use the engine. Not the choice we would make, but oh well.

 

And just because some random guy did a halfassed job of hacking one in, doesn't mean that a team of engineers could figure out how to implement one without sacrificing elsewere and come up with a compromise that everyone would be happy with.

3

Which part of "Apple designed the chassis" do you not understand?

All the constraints Apple has to work with are set by themselves. And yes there is enough space to put in both the headphone jack and haptic feedback engine. Some random guy in China managed to do it, and you don't think Apple's engineers can do it? Do you think they are morons?

 

Where are you even getting this (false) idea from that they had to choose between the vibration motor and the headphone jack anyway? Do you have any evidence to support that theory at all? Or is it just something you came up with because it just so happens that it is vaguely located in the same areas? Again, this random guy in China managed to fit both a headphone jack and the motor in at the same time. You must not have very high thoughts of Apple if you don't think they could have fit them both in there (which again is an argument entirely founded on the incorrect assumption that Apple has no control over the internal layout or the iPhone chassis, which they do).

 

1 minute ago, djdwosk97 said:

He had to shove the battery up and into the left corner (which considering what happened with the Note 7, doesn't sound like a particularly good idea for the masses), and he had to put the haptic engine at a pretty steep angle to make room for the jack. 

You have a complete misunderstanding of the Note 7 battery issues if you think shoving the battery into the corner could cause anything even remotely similar to that.

You might as well be saying "he had to shove the battery into the corner, and considering what happened with Hurricane Harvey that sounds like a bad idea" because it makes about as much sense.

[Bouzoo]

16 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

He had to shove the battery up and into the left corner (which considering what happened with the Note 7, doesn't sound like a particularly good idea for the masses)

That... has to be the worst reasoning I have seen in a long time. In case you missed it, Samsung gave a full explanation. 

[79wjd]

5 minutes ago, Bouzoo said:

That... has to be the worst reasoning I have seen in a long time. In case you missed it, Samsung gave a full explanation. 

Hmmm.....sharp things puncturing the cells (albeit from within).....Now, could shoving something into a corner where it doesn't really fit possibly cause that to happen....no, certainly not. 

[Bouzoo]

14 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

Hmmm.....sharp things puncturing the cells (albeit from within).....Now, could shoving something into a corner where it doesn't really fit possibly cause that to happen....no, certainly not. 

Well for starters, the Note 7 batteryy was not really pushed to the corner. Unless you don't mean about this? That is the insulation case, no puncturing there. 

 

 

https://d3nevzfk7ii3be.cloudfront.net/igi/pHmgEwFNoQTnKyOY.medium

 

Note 5 for comparison

 

 

 

 

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, djdwosk97 said:

Hmmm.....sharp things puncturing the cells (albeit from within).....Now, could shoving something into a corner where it doesn't really fit possibly cause that to happen....no, certainly not. 

Again, completely unrelated to pushing a battery into a corner.

Samsung's own batteries had these issues:

 

1) The pouch around the electrodes was not large enough, which caused it to put pressure on the electrodes inside the battery once they expanded/contracted during charging.

2) Not enough insulation between the electrodes, which coupled with the lack of room for expansion caused them to touch and short circuit.

 

 

The Amperex batteries just had poor welding as well as some of them missing insulation at one of the electrode tabs.

 

 

It had nothing to do with the battery being pushed against a corner, nor would putting a battery in the corner cause anything like that to happen. Having it in the corner like that is not really any different from how the battery is held in place in "normal" iPhones. They are held in place, unable to move, too.

 

 

 

By the way, there is another thing I want to mention when it comes to internal layouts of devices like phones.

They are intentionally crammed really tightly. In fact, I would not be surprised if some components in phones like the iPhone and Galaxy series are intentionally made larger than needed. For example, they sometimes add walls around components (at least Samsung does) in order to make sure they do not have room to move around in case the phone gets thrown around. You do not want a phone full of air pockets. It is better to fill those pockets up with something (such as a slightly larger outer chasing for a module, or a bracket for holding something in place).

If you open up a device and find it full of air pockets then it is poorly made. For structural reasons, it is far better to fill those gaps up with something, even if that something serves no other purpose than to take up space.

 

I would not be surprised if this was the case with the (very large) taptic engine in the iPhone 7. Just look at the difference in size. I can't find the volume for the iPhone 7's taptic engine, but there is a considerable size difference of them inside the 6S and 6S+.

iPhone 6S+ - 588mm³ taptic engine

iPhone 6S - 672mm³ taptic engine (yes it is larger in the smaller phone).

 

I have no way of knowing this since I don't have my own iPhone 7 to disassemble, but I wouldn't be surprised if the one inside it is close to 900mm³. Maybe even more.

Gee... It's almost as if Apple is designing the components to fit really snuggly inside the case.

[themctipers]

i just think that apple did it as a PR stunt + extra $ from adapters.

every 'number' model from them had something to go for, because its new design, new shit, etc etc

3g - look i shoved 3g into a 2g phone

4 - shit man my display retina

5 - LTE AND LARGER

6 - LARGER

7 - ??? nothing that is 'revolutionary', to get PR let's just kill off the headphone jack

[Soonercoop]

On 9/8/2017 at 1:33 PM, DildorTheDecent said:

 

Lets not include the part about moving some of the internal components though. 

 

>Shaving the headphone jack case

 

So Apple was right. They could not get a full size, 3.5mm jack in the iPhone. 

 

But sure since we're here lets just rag away. "hur hur Apple is evil".

well let's be honest, his homemade flex pcb design is still way bigger than apple's own integration into the logic board would actually be.

[bobhays]

14 hours ago, DildorTheDecent said:

"keep telling yourself that" must think I'm some sort of fanboy in denial. 

 

7 plus and 6S plus are the same size. But 7 plus has the taptic engine which is quite large and also has a bigger battery. Maybe some other things meant the jack had to go.

 

Or maybe Apple is just testing the water. Some if the Lightning headphones are actually quite excellent like the Audeze EL-8. 

Bluetooth man. Just about every aftermarket head unit has Bluetooth. Every new car pretty much has Bluetooth as well. There's your charge and play sorted. Genius. 

Kek. Leddit/Imgur at it again. 

I don't think it was implying fanboyism but I can understand why you thought that.

 

Bluetooth is pretty common but it's just not as seamless as using an aux cable, especially for switching or being turned on and off. 

 

It also removes a lot of legacy support for older systems and cars (yea I know aftermarket units and adapters). 

 

I'd be far more accepting of the removal if they went with a USB C port so that you could at least use the same headphones on iPhones, Androids, and PCs and anything else that might eventually support it. 

[mr moose]

17 hours ago, Pohernori said:

Just in the other intel thread we were giving a free pass to intel engineers because "they know better" but whys that not happening here?

A free pass?  that implies we know better or can't prove anything and just wanted to let them off the hook.

 

These two situations are Identical in as far as both companies made an intentional decision to manufacture their product in a certain way.  Intel decided not to solder and apple decided not to put in a 3.5 jack. The only real difference is that Intel don't make any money selling aftermarket soldering kits or cooling solutions while apple make money selling lightning adapters (royalties).     Oh, and soldering hasn't been proven to be possible/superior for that CPU yet, while the inclusion of a 3.5mm jack a has at least been shown possible (it may not be perfect, but it shows it's not unreasonable that apple could have added 1.5-2mm to the case to make it all fit had they wanted).

[snowComet]

 

Scott appeared in a video from a youtuber called Serpentza, whose videos aimed at life and difficulties as foreigners in China.

[Linus_torvalds]

On 9/8/2017 at 10:08 PM, PCGuy_5960 said:

Better late than never, I guess. The Galaxy S6 from 2015 had wireless charging

If Apple claims that they want a "Wireless Future", their phones have to support wireless charging

My nexus 4 from 2012 has wireless charging as well as my nexus 5 from 2013

[Commodus]

15 hours ago, themctipers said:

i just think that apple did it as a PR stunt + extra $ from adapters.

every 'number' model from them had something to go for, because its new design, new shit, etc etc

3g - look i shoved 3g into a 2g phone

4 - shit man my display retina

5 - LTE AND LARGER

6 - LARGER

7 - ??? nothing that is 'revolutionary', to get PR let's just kill off the headphone jack

No, it wasn't for PR (why would Apple go for negative press?), and Apple bundles the headphone adapter with the 7 without charging more than it did for the 6S.  The remaining adapters you might need are for relatively niche purposes... they're not significant money makers.

 

The 7 was undoubtedly a stopgap, but there were plenty of things it was happy to market: the much improved camera, and the dual camera on the Plus.  Water resistance.  Stereo speakers.  The new haptics.  The faster processor.  You get the idea.  It may have been a bread-and-butter update, but that still meant plenty to sell without having to stir up controversy.

[Jito463]

30 minutes ago, Commodus said:

Apple bundles the headphone adapter with the 7 without charging more than it did for the 6S

Maybe so, but you and I (and Apple) knows that people will lose them and/or they'll break, and customers will need to replace them.  They give you the first one for free, to get you hooked.

[Commodus]

1 minute ago, Jito463 said:

Maybe so, but you and I (and Apple) knows that people will lose them and/or they'll break, and customers will need to replace them.  They give you the first one for free, to get you hooked.

Yeah, but that's not exactly a viable business model.  It's like a car manufacturer counting on people breaking the fuel cap by screwing it on the wrong way... if you want to boost profit, there are far better ways to do it.

[79wjd]

2 hours ago, Commodus said:

No, it wasn't for PR (why would Apple go for negative press?), and Apple bundles the headphone adapter with the 7 without charging more than it did for the 6S.  The remaining adapters you might need are for relatively niche purposes... they're not significant money makers.

Any publicity is good publicity. If you get people talking then you get people looking, and when they look they may decide to buy. 

2 hours ago, Jito463 said:

Maybe so, but you and I (and Apple) knows that people will lose them and/or they'll break, and customers will need to replace them.  They give you the first one for free, to get you hooked.

The problem I have with that as a reason is that a lot of users use (and re-buy) the stock Apple Earpods. So the losing and re-buying the adapter only comes from people who have third party headphones (which certainly exists, but there are better ways to make money than that). They could just raise the price of the phones across the board by $20 and make more money and it wouldn't sway most people. In fact they did raise the price of the 7+ from $750 to $770 and it still sold better than previous iPhones (and the 8 is rumored to be about $100 more expensive than its comparable 7+ and I'm sure it will also sell quite well). iPhones tend to be fairly inelastic. 

 

Apple does have a history of dropping old standards -- they dropped Floppy in 1997~, VGA in 2006~, DVI in 2009~, Firewire in 2009~, and 5.25" in 2012~ (2008 if you count that MBA, but I wouldn't count that as it was netbook-y). And none of those moves benefited Apple, but they did inconvenience the consumer. So Apple has a history of getting rid of things before they're truly dead in order to force the market to move forward and not necessarily with the intention of their bottom line. 

[Jito463]

31 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

they dropped ... 5.25" in 2012~ (2008 if you count that MBA, but I wouldn't count that as it was netbook-y).

Huh?  What do you mean by 5.25"?

[79wjd]

11 minutes ago, Jito463 said:

Huh?  What do you mean by 5.25"?

Whoops, meant ODD.

[Kobathor]

22 hours ago, Jito463 said:

So, a PR word to sell phones.  Gotcha.

I don't have an iPhone and would never buy one, but from experience with both the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, it makes a big difference. There is no moving home button, but when you press on the capacitive home button, there's a very distinct *click*. It's hard to notice that it's not a real button. If you have keyboard taps enabled, it feels REALLY nice. It's actually far different from a regular vibrating motor, not just marketing jargon. 

[Drak3]

16 hours ago, Kobathor said:

It's hard to notice that it's not a real button.

No, it's not. It's better than nothing or anything every other OEM offers, but it is extremely easy to tell the difference.

[79wjd]

8 hours ago, Drak3 said:

No, it's not. It's better than nothing or anything every other OEM offers, but it is extremely easy to tell the difference.

I disagree with that. I have a 6s+ and frequently use a 7 and while I notice a difference it stills feels satisfyingly like a real button most of the time (except when I touch at an odd angle and it doesn't get enough skin contact to register). 

[Drak3]

Just now, djdwosk97 said:

I disagree with that. I have a 6s+ and frequently use a 7 and while I notice a difference it stills feels like a real button most of the time (except when I touch at an odd angle and it doesn't get enough skin contact to register). 

Having used both sidreby side, after using an S6, Note 4, and S4, extremely easy to tell the difference between the 7's capative and the 6s' physical. So much so, that I will call anyone stupid if they say that it feels the same.