With Apple pushing for a wireless audio future on their iPhones, one scenario holding them back for a (probably small) group of people is with their own Garageband app and similar apps. Garageband requires wired headphones to hear a track while recording a new track on top, in order to stay perfectly in sync. If you try with bluetooth headphones, the app will tell you to plug in wired headphones. I wonder what solution Apple will offer if any at all.
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How will a wireless future work with GarageBand?
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Same goes for iRig that in its current version requires headphone output.
The problem with wireless and music is the slight latency. I could never record with wireless headphones as they are today.
The problem with wireless and music is the slight latency. I could never record with wireless headphones as they are today.
How do we know this? I'll need to see some real world tests when the headphones are released.
With rumors of MacBooks losing the 3.5mm port too, this begins to raise an issue for professionals who use their macs to create precisely synchronized audio. If Apple is pushing iPhone, iPad, AND Mac toward wireless audio, and they expect these professionals to use their devices, they need to have an official response to the situation. W1 chip would need to eliminate latency COMPLETELY. Pretty close won't cut it.
I totally and completely agree. I'm a full-time photographer that also does a fair amount of video work and I know where you're coming from.
I was told by a friend who is an engineer at Apple that Apple was engineering their chip to solve this issue since wireless is the way of the future -- but I will preface this with the fact that he does not work in that particular department. It's not that I don't trust him, I do, but I want to quantify my statement and what I heard.
I'm with you. Apple better make darn sure they have any latency issues resolved well before they ever think about taking the audio jack out of the MBP.
Obviously the answer isn't to reduce wireless latency, it's to delay the playback tracks by the latency amount. This is just a software issue.
In video editing, to get the timing you want for a cut, you have to start and stop playback on a dime (up to 1/24th of a second in exactness for film), and sometimes the playback only lasts for a fraction of a second at a time. Your hands start and stop playback based completely on the timing you feel, almost like you're playing a musical instrument. That wouldn't work if you try to start playback and have to wait for software to compensate for latency.
Edit- I realized you were responding to my original post in which I only mentioned the Garageband track recording scenario, apologies. I branched out to talk about other audio sync applications, particularly on Mac. What you suggest sounds like it could work in theory, but I have doubts that it would work in practice simply because tempo precision is crucial and I don't know that latency stays perfetly consistent.
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I'm no engineer, but if you have a computer on the headphones, I bet it can work out the correct delay with your iPhone or iPad . And didn't Apple just create a new chip, "W1"? It's not just a Bluetooth receiver.
I understand the need to remove 3.5 on personal mobile devices but not a MacBook. I hope they don't do that soon.
This thread is more than a year old, and written before any W1 devices were actually on the market.