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[XGRaViSmOrSX]

The area that used to be reserved for the headphone jack is NOT empty now. They have rearranged the circuitry or mechanicals to utilize that area. Perhaps driven by the larger camera size or addition of some other component. The useable space in an iPhone is clearly finite, so every little bit of space is valuable. And relatively speaking, the headphone jack does take up a significant amount, especially when it's function can potentially be addressed through another port. They didn't get rid of it for nothing.

Show me the actual internal shots, having worked on these phones for 4+ years now I can tell you apple does t just shift the whole internal design drastically anymore. For Christ's sake the 5 and se use almost all of the same components, even the same exact displays.

So until I see internal shots of this thing I refuse to believe they somehow made the lightning port more that 50% shallower because the lightning port is literally just as deep internally into the device as the 3.5 was. And again you also had the taptic vibrator which was sandwiched between the 3.5 and battery leaving even less room for "expansion" with the removal of the 3.5

 

[KHarvey16]

yeah and how much will those be

Probably similar to other expensive wireless earphones. If cost is a concern there are plenty of more affordable wired and bluetooth options for working out in.

 

[BoboBrazil]

Apple's GREED knows no bounds. They continue to find the courage to push new ways of grinding more money out of their loyal buyers. Being the wealthiest company in the world making billions in revenue each year just wasn't enough.

 

[Deception]

I thought Motorola owned the patents for Bluetooth and have been licensing it since it's creation? Or am I wrong?

 

[MThanded]

It adds an additional cost concern, takes away a function, all without any good justification.

It's a shit move. Purely based on corporate greed.

It was based on needing more space and trying to make a phone ridiculously small and still increasing featureset.

Greed but they give you an adapter and you can buy any Bluetooth headset on the market as opposed to the ridiculous looking airpods.

Come on.

 

[Tranqueris]

Like I said before, I think it would be much easier to adjust to this if they had figured out a way to let me charge my phone while using things like my headphones or accessories that let me play music in my car and take calls. The problem is not just that they took the headphone jack out, they also made it harder to multitask with different accessories without having to stop and let the phone charge.

 

[Futureman]

I'm not an audiophile so I don't really care. I just use the headphones that come with my phones. I loooove music though.

I've definitely had lost and broken headphones through the years which I replaced with ones lying around, so I'm sure in the long run this means more $$ for Apple.

The airpods look kinda dumb but the Beats headphones are cool.

 

[Jonm1010]

The area that used to be reserved for the headphone jack is NOT empty now. They have rearranged the circuitry or mechanicals to utilize that area. Perhaps driven by the larger camera size or addition of some other component. The useable space in an iPhone is clearly finite, so every little bit of space is valuable. And relatively speaking, the headphone jack does take up a significant amount, especially when it's function can potentially be addressed through another port. They didn't get rid of it for nothing.

The cellphone doesn't have to be .28 inches in depth.

Not sure you were aware of that.

People can be ok with this, it's not the end of the world for me, but let's not try and pretend this is anything but revenue driven.

 

[Burai]

I've never had earbuds that stay in my ear for any extended periods of time, especially when doing exercise and stuff. Those are just gonna fall out and get lost.

You're a fringe case. I can't get earbuds to stay comfortably in my ears either, but I wouldn't say they were a dumb idea when the majority of the world seems to get on with them just fine.

 

[RibMan]

The courageous messaging is "convince people what they have is useless". Not sure if this angle will stick -- a lot of people, both old and young, can see the value in the headphone jack.

Progress for profit is always a dangerous way to do business. The good news for Apple is they have websites (such as Buzzfeed) that are willing to go with their messaging in exchange for review units/better seating arrangement at their next Apple event. It's good that the opinions of these folks can be bought.

 

[Hierophant]

lol at the fact that you can't charge your phone while driving if you use an aux cord

 

[KingV]

Like I said before, I think it would be much easier to adjust to this if they had figured out a way to let me charge my phone while using things like my headphones or accessories that let me play music in my car and take calls. The problem is not just that they took the headphone jack out, they also made it harder to multitask with different accessories without having to stop and let the phone charge.

Basically how I feel. I'm not arguing that they didn't replace the space in the headphone jack with "stuff" just only that the stuff they replaced it with is stuff I don't care about very much.

 

[Stumpokapow]

Where is that air being used? To say the word courage? Doubt it's being used in the reworking of internal components to bring about any significant jump in performance to warrant it in the first place.

Their claim in the article is that the waterproofing was easier to achieve; the battery is larger; and they could fit more camera optics because of getting rid of the headphone jack. Maybe that's bullshit, maybe it's not a worthwhile tradeoff, I'm not saying don't hate on it, but the article linked literally walks through what they're telling the public the benefit of that extra space was.

 

[Dryk]

I'm pretty sure it is to sell that $160 Bluetooth headset of theirs.

Which will probably use the same shitty and fragile transducers that all earphones do meaning they'll break just as quickly

 

[Jonm1010]

It was based on needing more space and trying to make a phone ridiculously small and still increasing featureset.

Greed but they give you an adapter and you can buy any Bluetooth headset on the market as opposed to the ridiculous looking airpods.

Come on.

Cellphones aren't required to be .28 inches in depth.

Bluetooth price to performance is shit and all this does is take away a function without any direct benefit.

It's profit driven, pure and simple.

 

[MThanded]

lol at the fact that you can't charge your phone while driving if you use an aux cord

Or if you need to charge your phone but you want to listen to music at your desk. Also foolishly impossible right now.

Their claim in the article is that the waterproofing was easier to achieve; the battery is larger; and they could fit more camera optics because of getting rid of the headphone jack. Maybe that's bullshit, maybe it's not a worthwhile tradeoff, I'm not saying don't hate on it, but the article linked literally walks through what they're telling the public the benefit of that extra space was.

The article did a good job of articulating the benefits from the design perspective.

 

[Duxxy3]

I'm not an audiophile so I don't really care. I just use the headphones that come with my phones. I loooove music though.

I've definitely had lost and broken headphones through the years which I replaced with ones lying around, so I'm sure in the long run this means more $$ for Apple.

The airpods look kinda dumb but the Beats headphones are cool.

I don't understand this part. I hear something similar from a lot of people.

How can you love music so much and not care about the quality of it?

 

[GCX]

Man the headphone part in Apple's "Don't blink" recap of the show is cringe-worthy (from 0:58):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeoUELDgyM4

 

[AxelFoley]

Apple got some of ya'll fuming. LOL

 

[border]

I don't understand this part. I hear something similar from a lot of people.

How can you love music so much and not care about the quality of it?

Plenty of people love pizza, but still get delivery from Pizza Hut.

The bottleneck on quality for most people is probably going to be the limited bitrate of Spotify streams, rather than the connector on their headphones.

 

[Hierophant]

 

[XGRaViSmOrSX]

Their claim in the article is that the waterproofing was easier to achieve; the battery is larger; and they could fit more camera optics because of getting rid of the headphone jack. Maybe that's bullshit, maybe it's not a worthwhile tradeoff, I'm not saying don't hate on it, but the article linked literally walks through what they're telling the public the benefit of that extra space was.

telling and seeing are two different things. i havent see the internal shots yet so i cant say for certain but all thsose reasons can be achieved without having to remove the port.

the larger camera is at the total other end of the phone and to make that hole bigger would reguire lowering the connectors for the front camera/lcd/touch. then they could have moved down the camera connector to free up space at the top of the board.

the battery being larger again, has to do with space at the bottom of the device which with the 6 was taken up by the lightning connector, 3.5 and taptic, as well as the speaker to an extent. with the lightning port still being there guess what? there isnt any extra space regardless of what they do because that port is of similar internal depth to the aux port.

i obviously cant say for certain whether its all bulshit until i see the teardown pics but i cant see them changing the internals that drastically especialy after seeing the leaked board samples.

 

[Schlorgan]

Uhhh, I think people are actually pretty perturbed about that. And Moto actually removed the headphone jack from one of their latest phones, and people were pretty pissed.

Stupid decisions are stupid decisions regardless of who made them.

The lack of the headphone jack is what pushed me to get the Turbo 2 instead of the Moto Z.

 

[Zaventem]

I don't understand this part. I hear something similar from a lot of people.

How can you love music so much and not care about the quality of it?

People who tell me they'll never pay so and so for headphones but rebuy the same shitty 10 - 20 dollar ones over and over make me laugh. Like dude sometimes it's ok to invest in something more.

 

[Space Wanderer]

You're a fringe case. I can't get earbuds to stay comfortably in my ears either, but I wouldn't say they were a dumb idea when the majority of the world seems to get on with them just fine.

I guarantee stories of lost AirPods will be rampant when these come out. Nobody asked for these things.

 

[MThanded]

telling and seeing are two different things. i havent see the internal shots yet so i cant say for certain but all thsose reasons can be achieved without having to remove the port.

the larger camera is at the total other end of the phone and to make that hole bigger would reguire lowering the connectors for the front camera/lcd/touch. then they could have moved down the camera connector to free up space at the top of the board.

the battery being larger again, has to do with space at the bottom of the device which with the 6 was taken up by the lightning connector, 3.5 and taptic, as well as the speaker to an extent. with the lightning port still being there guess what? there isnt any extra space regardless of what they do because that port is of similar internal depth to the aux port.

i obviously cant say for certain whether its all bulshit until i see the teardown pics but i cant see them changing the internals that drastically especialy after seeing the leaked board samples.

So you are just making things up.

 

[panty]

“We do understand that this might be a difficult transition for some people who love their wired headphones,” says Schiller. “But the transition is inevitable. You’ve got to do it at some point. Sooner or later the headphone jack is going away. There are just too many reasons aligned against it sticking around any longer. There’s a little bit of pain in every transition, but we can’t let that stop us from making it. If we did, we’d never make any progress at all. The question we ask ourselves when making transitions like these is, have we done all the right things to mitigate it and to explain it and to make what’s on the other side so good that everyone is happy with the change? We think we’ve done that.”

Wow, that's so bullshit. Fuck off with that.

 

[D6AMIA6N]

People sure are serious about cell phones

 

[XGRaViSmOrSX]

So you are just making things up.

with regards to the 7? sure?

but like i said going on what apple has had from literally all their lightning connector phones there is no way they could keep the same design of the phone and change things so drastically to achieve those things and have to remove the port.

still waiting on those alleged internal shots that were shown today....but lets ignore that.

 

[border]

The teardown pictures don't matter. Even if there's something occupying the space that the 3.5mm jack took up, plenty of people will just (fairly) say, "Well why didn't they just make the phone xx mm thicker or xx mm longer?"

 

[toohectic]

Cellphones aren't required to be .28 inches in depth.

Bluetooth price to performance is shit and all this does is take away a function without any direct benefit.

It's profit driven, pure and simple.

Cell phones aren't required to have headphone jacks either. Apple clearly knows that they could increase thickness to add internal volume. Their design goals are important to them, and they believe people's perception of quality is based on those designs, so they don't opt to increase thickness in order to add features to the phone.

 

[XGRaViSmOrSX]

The teardown pictures don't matter. Even if there's something occupying the space that the 3.5mm jack took up, plenty of people will just (fairly) say, "Well why didn't they just make the phone xx mm thicker or xx mm longer?"

sure it helps. if they atleast changed the internal design to warrant it then who cares? just dont buy the phone. i just want to see why they did it and for what actual benefit from a design standpoint.

i repair these devices for a living so this stuff interests me since ill have to be fixing it in the near future.

 

[Jonm1010]

The teardown pictures don't matter. Even if there's something occupying the space that the 3.5mm jack took up, plenty of people will just (fairly) say, "Well why didn't they just make the phone xx mm thicker or xx mm longer?"

And the answer is the same, because this is about money, and Apple is banking that they will pull it off without much desertion.

Next up they just have to figure out how to bully their way out of all those back taxes they owe.

 

[Jeffrey]

I'm honestly curious if some kind of delays was the reason the actual form upgrade was pushed back to 2017, in the end they had to cram stuff into the old iphone 6 shell, and were having issues and had to cut something.

 

[Uno Venova]

It happened. We've known for months. Headphones that work with it are included. The people that don't like it won't buy it. The iPhone 7 sells gangbusters. The world moves on.

 

[Jonm1010]

Cell phones aren't required to have headphone jacks either. Apple clearly knows that they could increase thickness to add internal volume. Their design goals are important to them, and they believe people's perception of quality is based on those designs, so they don't opt to increase thickness in order to add features to the phone.

Speculate and knight all you want, it's a hard sell that a pesky .02 inch increase in depth or a bit more length on the phone would be the breaking point for Apple. In fact that depth is their closest competitor and most people use cases anyways.

I doubt you find too many people in a survey saying that if the trade off was .02 inches in depth or losing the headphone jack, few would take the latter.

 

[border]

Cellphones aren't required to be .28 inches in depth.

Bluetooth price to performance is shit and all this does is take away a function without any direct benefit.

It's profit driven, pure and simple.

If it's profit driven, then why include a dongle? Why include Lightning headphones? They've given people every option available to avoid using Air Pods.

 

[Syncytia]

I don't understand this part. I hear something similar from a lot of people.

How can you love music so much and not care about the quality of it?

If you care enough you probably have an external dac and run out the lighting port, not the built in dac.

I do care, but I also never listen to music from my phone in situations where it matters too much. My real set up isn't mobile.

 

[toohectic]

And the answer is the same, because this is about money, and Apple is banking that they will pull it off without much desertion.

Next up they just have to figure out how to bully their way out of all those back taxes they owe.

What percentage of their revenue comes from Lightning licensing fees? Does anyone have that info? I bet it's insignificant.

 

[XGRaViSmOrSX]

What percentage of their revenue comes from Lightning licensing fees? Does anyone have that info? I bet it's insignificant.

im wondering how they expect to get the lightning connector on anything more than apple devices. Everything else will likely go usb-c so i still dont really get it even as a long term play. never thought we would be on the verge of a damn headphone connector standard war no one needed.

 

[collige]

Plenty of people love pizza, but still get delivery from Pizza Hut.

The bottleneck on quality for most people is probably going to be the limited bitrate of Spotify streams, rather than the connector on their headphones.

This is patently untrue. Spotify can stream at up to 320kbps which is indistinguishable from lossless to most people, even on high end gear. And that's discounting the people who have their music downloaded to begin with.

 

[riotous]

I think the reason some are more annoyed is that iOS / Apple devices are an ecosystem you buy into.

I personally don't use a lot of Apple specific services despite having an iPhone for 8 years (6 models) so I'm not really "upset" but merely disappointed and will likely switch to Android over this.

But if someone had embedded their digital habits in Apples ecosystem they might have a harder time simply switching if the removal doesn't jive with their usage patterns. Maybe people upset will end up being fine using adapters too, but the knee jerk reaction isn't surprising. It's one of the most used ports around and people don't love adapters.

 

[excelsiorlef]

If it's profit driven, then why include a dongle? Why include Lightning headphones? They've given people every option available to avoid using Air Pods.

Because people now can't listen to music and charge their phone without a wireless headphone set anymore.

So now they can sell a lightning to 3.5mm audio jack (with a charger port attached) adapters or really heavily encourage air pods as the solution to a problem they just created

 

[Jonm1010]

If it's profit driven, then why include a dongle? Why include Lightning headphones? They've given people every option available to avoid using Air Pods.

You have to be kidding right?

It opens up a ton of new revenue streams for the company with a short term, minor up front cost they will make up several fold on the back end with replacements, accessories, headphones etc.

You all are acting like the company that just got hit with allegations of mischievous tax dodging is some sort of altruistic entity. I assure you, they are not.

 

[CraigerGamer]

They're flat out full of shit on this. The water resistance one is particularly insulting. They're hoping the sheep don't pay attention enough to the competition.

Am I a sheep though I only use wireless head sets and I'd like a new iPhone? I like that I'll get 2 hours more battery life. I don't care what reason they had to remove the 3.5 jack. It's useless to me and I haven't used one in about a year.

 

[border]

Because people now can't listen to music and charge their phone without a wireless headphone set anymore.

So now they can sell a lightning to 3.5mm audio jack (with a charger port attached) adapters or really heavily encourage air pods as the solution to a problem they just created

They don't currently sell a split adapter that allows charging while listening. I suspect that this market/use-case is small enough that they don't see the point in servicing those users. Similarly, I have to think that they know that nobody is going to buy $160 AirPods to solve an issue that can be alleviated by buying some $30-40 Bluetooth headset.

It opens up a ton of new revenue streams for the company with a short term, minor up front cost they will make up several fold on the back end with replacements, accessories, headphones etc.

You all are acting like the company that just got hit with allegations of mischievous tax dodging is some sort of altruistic entity. I assure you, they are not.

I don't consider them altruistic. I just don't think the financial benefits of eliminating the port are all that great, when they're including a dongle and selling replacements at a relatively low cost. By comparison, the elimination of the 30-pin Dock Connector was far more nefarious.

 

[n0razi]

im wondering how they expect to get the lightning connector on anything more than apple devices. Everything else will likely go usb-c so i still dont really get it even as a long term play. never thought we would be on the verge of a damn headphone connector standard war no one needed.

Yup even their own Macbook has only USB-C and no lightning port.... so you need an adapter to use peripherals between both Apple products

 

[RoKKeR]

Yup even their own Macbook has only USB-C and no lightning port.... so you need an adapter to use peripherals between both Apple products

Yeah, I was thinking about this earlier and it makes no sense. I just hate how limiting and segmented it will make things, especially when the "replacement" for the headphone jack is a proprietary solution.

 

[Jonm1010]

They don't currently sell a split adapter that allows charging while listening. I suspect that this market/use-case is small enough that they don't see the point in servicing those users. Similarly, I have to think that they know that nobody is going to buy $160 AirPods to solve an issue that can be alleviated by buying some $30-40 Bluetooth headset.



I don't consider them altruistic. I just don't think the financial benefits of eliminating the port are all that great, when they're including a dongle and selling replacements at a relatively low cost. By comparison, the elimination of the 30-pin Dock Connector was far more nefarious.

That dongle is probably marked up well over a 100%. It's the tv cable strategy applied to phones. Sell a 10 cent product for 10 bucks.

Think like a bean counter. The smartphone market is sort of flat lining right now. The levers of WOW changes to a phone are drying up. You still need to make shareholders happy. After all, that is your primary responsibility as a company. You have fairly resilient brand loyalty. So what do you do? What Apple is choosing to do makes a hell of a lot of sense.

Demand is likely projected to remain relatively flat so you seek new revenue in other ways. In this case, you create new revenue streams through the removal of a headphone jack that scarcely benefited you and create a new ecosystem of dependency that you control and also allows you to introduce new products and peripherals with likely good margins that will improve over time.

 

[excelsiorlef]

They don't currently sell a split adapter that allows charging while listening. I suspect that this market/use-case is small enough that they don't see the point in servicing those users. Similarly, I have to think that they know that nobody is going to buy $160 AirPods to solve an issue that can be alleviated by buying some $30-40 Bluetooth headset.

You literally can't charge your phone and connect music to your car system while driving anymore unless your car is bluetooth enabled.

Apple has good marketing. Easily enough people will be convinced to buy their likely shitty air pods when they but their new phone from the Apple Store. Probably via a sales pitch like you want to be able to charge your phone and listen to music at the same time don't you?