Here's What a Headphone Jack to Lightning Adapter Looks Like

[PortoMavericks]

Let's be honest: people will buy the new iPhone anyway. But I guess the only thing that will show to Apple if they went for the wrong route will be Apple Music usage metrics and attach rate to the new iPhone.

If they stay the same it's going to be a win for them, but my personal feeling tells me that they will have a hard time. It's not about replacing floppy drives to a standard CD Rom or standard USB. They will go for a proprietary port that nobody except Apple uses, and if they ditch it for the sake of better battery life, that'd a good point, but we all know it's for making the phone thinner.

 

[SvP]

It depends on what you think Apple is going to champion as the solution... personally, I think it will be Bluetooth.
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You guys haven't been around very long and/or have poor memories. The outrage after losing both floppy discs and ethernet ports was INCREDIBLE:

Go read some of the comments on this story: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/cr...ion-macbook-pro-drops-ethernet-optical-drive/

Notice how similar they are to the present whining?

People hate change. Hate. Everything else is just a narrative.

Imagine: you blindfold 1000 people and make them wear two sets of headphones. They don;t hear a difference, and afterwards you show them two pairs: a wireless and a wired pair. It get's obvious.
Now add some tech: let's say noice cancelling, maybe combined with your iphone. Maybe discrete tones for navigation.

It's not a huge deal, methinks.

 

[jmgregory1]

"No headphone port? This is what you do"

No, what you do is refuse to buy the phone (which you don't really need anyway - the iPhone 6 works fine) and if necessary switch to a manufacturer that doesn't completely screw over it's user base by removing ubiquitous ports for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

The thing is, whether you want it to be so or not, the 3.5mm jack is going to disappear. You can hold out for a period of time, maybe even a few years, but eventually, you'll have issues (such as your existing headphones breaking) and need to move on.

Once audio manufacturers start churning out new Lightning and USB-C headphones, which they will fully embrace because it gives them a new thing to promote to drive their sales forward, the number of 3.5mm port based headphones and speakers and other devices will drop precipitously. The same goes for device makers, where having new connections vs the old 3.5mm port provides a reason to sell new things.

As others have noted, these forward progress shifts have happened before and will continue to happen. Once you move on with the horrible thing that removing the 3.5mm port is, you'll end up complaining about the next thing Apple (or fill in the name of any other manufacturer) deletes because something better has taken its place.

Instead, you might as well embrace the potential for keeping headphones with any type of wired jack, because that is the next shift - going wireless. There are already great sounding BT headphones out there (with AptX codec) and going wire-free is such a huge positive shift, people will wonder how they ever lived with wired headphones.

 

[jblagden]

Poor example... those are truly wireless earbuds (i.e. no wire between them) those are still using very new technology that causes poor battery life.

BT headphones can last for many hours (My Beats Studio Wireless definitely last for 10 hours easily).
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It's about both. Read the article/comments again. Either way, it's the same thing... removing ethernet/cdrom/floppy/3.5mm... Apple is always quick to remove old technology and usher in the new.

I used Safari’s search feature to search for the word “floppy” but couldn’t find it.

 

[Freida]

Guys get on with it for crying out load. Headphone jack is OLD technology and HAS TO GO! Only Apple is in a position to make that shift.
OR, you still wanna use that stupid port in 100 years time? Technology progresses and this is the side effect. Something old has to die in other for the new to exist. Otherwise we would still be on VGA, Floppy, CDs etc.

Its called progress and its inevitable. So please accept it and move on. Transition period sucks but its time to move on. We will all be fine.
Next please

 

[PortoMavericks]

Guys get on with it for crying out load. Headphone jack is OLD technology and HAS TO GO! Only Apple is in a position to make that shift.
OR, you still wanna use that stupid port in 100 years time? Technology progresses and this is the side effect. Something old has to die in other for the new to exist. Otherwise we would still be on VGA, Floppy, CDs etc.

Its called progress and its inevitable. So please accept it and move on. Transition period sucks but its time to move on. We will all be fine.
Next please

Wait, what stops you from moving foward and going out right now and buy lightning enabled earbuds?

 

[blackcrayon]

Wait, what stops you from moving foward and going out right now and buy lightning enabled earbuds?

Wait, what will stop him from having an automatic pair of lighting enabled earbuds when gets the iPhone 7?

 

[pat500000]

-barf- oh man what a dizzy moment.... -barf-

 

[frisken]

Here are my thoughts on the subject (and in reply to Gruber's thoughts): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4evgEG7Axas

TLDW: I doubt they'll kill it on the iPhone 7, I'm guessing the iPhone 8 or iPhone 8s. Also, I doubt the solution will be dongles/adapters, but wireless technology -- at least from Apple's standpoint. But in the end, all Apple want to do is sell more phones. That's their goal, so if they believe removing the headphone jack is worthwhile, then all we can do is disagree with our wallets.

 

[Mac 128]

Actually, Sandisk used the 30-pin connector for its Sansa Fuse MP3 players.

Also, I wouldn’t liken the 3.5mm headphone jack to optical drives in terms of usage because even though it’s very nice to have a MacBook with an optical drive, you really don’t need it anymore. On the other hand, the 3.5 headphone jack is still widely used, and it probably will be until something better is devised. And by better, I mean something which is still analog. With a digital audio connection, you need an external DAC and amplifier, which increases the cost of the audio gear and it makes it bulkier, as well as potentially making older wired headphones obsolete(bad environmentally).
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They could improve audio quality by putting better DACs and amplifiers in iOS devices.

Where do you get all this information? You realize they have wireless BT earbuds that have DACs & Amps, as well as batteries, radios and antennas, that aren't much larger than average wired earbuds. How then is this going to contribute any significant bulk to a headphone or an adapter? And why throw perfectly good headphones away when a tiny adapter could be added? That's like saying I would throw my 1/4" plug headphones away when I bought an iPod. This is FUD as its finest. The amp can only be so good because of the space and power constraints. Moreover, it means the headphone makers have to design for the iPhone sonic characteristics. And since the market is generally much bigger than the iPhone, they tend to homogenize the sound for many different devices. So even if Apple could put a better amp in the iPhone, it's not going to necessarily better for every headphone that is plugged into it.

"No headphone port? This is what you do"

No, what you do is refuse to buy the phone (which you don't really need anyway - the iPhone 6 works fine) and if necessary switch to a manufacturer that doesn't completely screw over it's user base by removing ubiquitous ports for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

Would you mind providing your factual data to support this FUD claim?

It’s not just about technology moving forward. It’s about it moving forward senselessly. There’s nothing wrong with the 3.5mm headphone jack. Lightning isn’t any better because it relies on the DAC and amplifier which is built into the speakers or headphones. This would make a lot of headphones obsolete. Now, if we were talking about USB-C, it wouldn’t be so bad because we might actually see that on devices which don’t run iOS. Besides, Lighting-equipped headphones won’t work with anything except the iPhone 5 and later devices. What if you have an older iOS device or a non-Apple device which you’d like to listen to?
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They could just live with a slightly lower profit margin, especially considering how popular iPhones are.

Why is it that Apple waited until they got a large customer base before they started soldering in RAM, using a proprietary NVMe connector and getting rid of the extremely common 3.5mm headphone jack?

You have no idea what you're talking about. New headphones will be platform agnostic. Old headphones can use adapters. You have no proof that Apple is making this move senselessly. Apple is not the only one getting rid of the headphone jack.

 

[Bubba Satori]

Moar dongles!!!

 

[Mr. Dee]

Since I bought my iPhone, I have not used the headphone jack. I don't know why to be honest.

 

[Freida]

Wait, what stops you from moving foward and going out right now and buy lightning enabled earbuds?

Nothing! But it takes major step to move on. If they kill it the industry will shift very quickly. These days there aren't that many leaders. Mostly followers

 

[macs4nw]

.....Losing the 3.5mm headphone jack will be a much bigger loss because everyone still uses it and it’s been in use for decades. As a result, the loss of the 3.5mm headphone jack could result in a lot of 3.5mm-equipped headphones being thrown away and replaced with Lightning-equipped ones (to avoid using an adapter).

Not sure what the lifespan of headphones is, but I suspect that for the lower-priced variety, most pairs will be replaced in well under ten years, and probably closer to five years. Adapters, while a bit of a nuisance, are part of a transitionary process. Inconvenience like that, has never stopped technological progress.

Why not just put a better DAC in the iPhone so all headphones can benefit from it?

That seems like a logical question, and it would certainly solve the problem. I don't have the answer to that one but until recently, improved audio quality has not been a priority in cell phones, or computers for that matter. In fact sound quality seems to have been a bit of an afterthought, so competitive pressures amongst manufacturers have forced audiophiles, or anyone interested in better sound quality from their handsets, iDevices or computers, to seek third party solutions to that end.

I believe the time is ripe for replacing the ancient 3.5mm jack, designed for analogue audio, with something more versatile, and more adaptable to high-quality digital audio, whether that be Lightning, USB-C or something else. Short-term pain for long-term gain, really.

 

[PortoMavericks]

Nothing! But it takes major step to move on. If they kill it the industry will shift very quickly. These days there aren't that many leaders. Mostly followers

I agree with you with the shift, and there's not a company in the world in a better position to do this shift than Apple. What makes me uncertain is that, unlike other times they moved foward with technology, they're going for a port only used by Apple. Or is Apple opening the lightning standard to other manufactures? <- that would solve the problem, but we all know this is never going to happen.

 

[MaloCS]

The thing is, whether you want it to be so or not, the 3.5mm jack is going to disappear. You can hold out for a period of time, maybe even a few years, but eventually, you'll have issues (such as your existing headphones breaking) and need to move on.

Once audio manufacturers start churning out new Lightning and USB-C headphones, which they will fully embrace because it gives them a new thing to promote to drive their sales forward, the number of 3.5mm port based headphones and speakers and other devices will drop precipitously. The same goes for device makers, where having new connections vs the old 3.5mm port provides a reason to sell new things.

As others have noted, these forward progress shifts have happened before and will continue to happen. Once you move on with the horrible thing that removing the 3.5mm port is, you'll end up complaining about the next thing Apple (or fill in the name of any other manufacturer) deletes because something better has taken its place.

Instead, you might as well embrace the potential for keeping headphones with any type of wired jack, because that is the next shift - going wireless. There are already great sounding BT headphones out there (with AptX codec) and going wire-free is such a huge positive shift, people will wonder how they ever lived with wired headphones.

NOPE! You're rationalizing a dick move by Apple. If lightning/wireless is better the consumer would naturally adopt it but what we've seen is the exact opposite. People like their 3.5 mm connectors. PERIOD!

Lightning is not better than 3.5 mm, if it was the consumer would have spoken by now. Bluetooth is not better than 3.5 mm, if it was the consumer would have spoken by now. What we do know is that billions of people use 3.5 mm devices all day, ever day without any issues. The only problems with the 3.5 mm connector is it's old and Apple can't monetize it.

It shouldn't matter if it's old tech, if it works and we use it then leave it the freak alone. Old tech only matters to Apple because they lose money by not selling useless new tech like lightning headphones.

 

[robeddie]

You guys haven't been around very long and/or have poor memories. The outrage after losing both floppy discs and ethernet ports was INCREDIBLE:

Go read some of the comments on this story: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/cr...ion-macbook-pro-drops-ethernet-optical-drive/

Notice how similar they are to the present whining?

Here's the one logical flaw you and many others are making, and it's an understandable one: 1) A couple times in the past Apple has been at the forefront of throwing out 'old' technologies. 2) Apple ended up doing well. 3) Therefore EVERY time Apple throws out an 'old' technology, it's a brilliiant move.

I get it. It worked before ... so it's GOTTA work this time, right?

Maybe or maybe not with the audio jack ... but one of these days, IMO, Apple's manical quest for ever more (and unecessary) thinness will catch up with them and the general population will move away from them ... and their 'dominiance' will fade. You already see that on these forums, the dissatisfaction with the direction Apple is headed is higher than it's ever been, that I can assure you. I've been a regular reader of this site for more than 13 years, and was never as negative about Apple as I've become in the past few years, and the number of other posters who share the same sentiment is astonishing.

 

[McCool71]

Nothing! But it takes major step to move on. If they kill it the industry will shift very quickly.

This has nothing to do with the headphone industry and everything to do with Apple wanting to make more money by forcing everyone to buy new stuff.

There are tons of wireless headsets out there right now, have been for years. This is nothing new at all and certainly nothing Apple can take credit for. Lots of people (including myself) have been using wireless stereo headsets with our phones for quite some time.

Yet lots of people prefer the wired ones for a number of reasons.

 

[friedmud]

The difference is neither the optical drive or Ethernet port were replaced by a proprietary port. If Apple would chose to ditch lightning in favor of USB C I would argue this is a good thing. But to replace it with a proprietary port? This reeks of the garbage Nokia used to do. I'm so happy I will never have to deal with Nokia ever again.

They're replacing it with Bluetooth... or an adapter to an open port.... and offerring the option to use a Lightning connector with added benefits (possibly better DAC, maybe charging).

 

[JeffyTheQuik]

I'm still reeling from not having an RJ-11 on my iPhone...

 

[johnnygee]

You can't use bluetooth headphones on an airliner. It would make more sense for Apple to put an adapter in the box with a new phone, since most users already have headphones.

 

[zahuh]

so how to you charge and use your phone if its restricted to being wireless charged on a flat surface?

Maybe it's a magnetic cable that can stick to the back? I have no idea. But you're right, they need to solve that.

 

[TsMkLg068426]

YEAH! More wires because Tim Cook thinks it is cool without a headphone jack and probably thinks everyone has a CarPlay in their cars or the latest Bluetooth 4.1. How about just giving us wireless Apple Headphones that come with a purchase of a iPhone instead of trying to force to get those crappy Beats headphones.


Headphone Jack could simply have been kept and the volume controls on the side could have easily been removed since you can control the volume on the iPhone since touch screen has been around well since iPod Touch.

 

[jblagden]

Guys get on with it for crying out load. Headphone jack is OLD technology and HAS TO GO! Only Apple is in a position to make that shift.
OR, you still wanna use that stupid port in 100 years time? Technology progresses and this is the side effect. Something old has to die in other for the new to exist. Otherwise we would still be on VGA, Floppy, CDs etc.

Its called progress and its inevitable. So please accept it and move on. Transition period sucks but its time to move on. We will all be fine.
Next please

But you’re talking about change just for the sake of change, not because the change needs to happen. The only functional reason for Lighting headphones is that the Lightning headphones could have a better amplifier than the iPhone. While that’s true, Apple could just put a better amplifier in the iPhone. Apple sells enough iPhones that it wouldn’t be a big deal(financially) for them to just put a better amplifier in the iPhone.

 

[friedmud]

I used Safari’s search feature to search for the word “floppy” but couldn’t find it.

Since you seem to lack reading comprehension... it is about both losing Ethernet and CDROM drives. Here is a relevant comment from http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/cr...ion-macbook-pro-drops-ethernet-optical-drive/ that is similar to the ranting here...

"We STILL need Ethernet because it's a lot more stable (at least where I live) than WiFi connectivity, and we somehow manage to get up to 3mbps than WiFi which promises only 1mbps. They shouldn't be eliminating Ethernet just yet when only a few countries have satisfactory wireless services. This is too early a move and it's unfair to us users who can't do anything about it."

Since you can't pick up on much let me make it easy for you by changing a few things:

"We STILL need 3.5mm because it's a lot higher quality than bluetooth. They shouldn't be eliminating 3.5mm just yet when only a few lightning headphones exist. This is too early a move and it's unfair to us users who can't do anything about it."

Man people have absolutely no vision... why do you want everything to stay the SAME all the time? You realize that we only got here by progressively CHANGING things constantly, right?

It's a good thing that all of these luddites aren't in charge of Apple... or any technology company. You would fall behind immediately and go out of business within a year...