Potential Mega Rumor - Apple to ditch headphone jack & require Lightning for iPhone7

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Honestly I'm surprised that headphone jacks have lasted this long, you'd think that we'd have something better, smaller and more future looking instead by now.
 
Apple giving a shit when no one else does is a pretty big part of why they're so successful.
I just don't understand the thin thing. I don't get what a thinner phone achieves.

I'd love for the next phone to actually be thicker with a bigger battery in it tbh.
 
Why do we need thinner phones. Shit already bends in your pocket. I'm sticking with the 6 or getting some fancy chinese phone if true.
 
I wouldn't mind if it coincided with a switch from lightning to usb type-c. We could really benefit from a universal standard. Unlikely, though.
 
Moving forward in this case is making a 7mm thick phone a 6mm thick phone. If this happens the only reason would be Apple wanting to reap the enormous profits of people buying overpriced adapters to use their standard 3.5mm headphones, and manufactures paying apple to put lightning connectors on their new headphones.

Has there been precedent of Apple arbitrarily introducing any kind of connector for the sheer sake of going proprietary?

They introduced lightning because USB-C hadn't been around and MicroUSB is a shit connector.
And thunderbolt is more capable in some ways than USB 3.0 / type-C afaik.

If the standard connector serves their requirements, they're fine with adopting the standard, see USB-C on the new MacBook, HDMI and USB 3.0 on Macbook Pros.

I don't see this happening, it'd be in no way a good business idea for Apple. The "3rd party headphone" market isn't as big as it'd be profitable for Apple to do that kind of split, like they did with the "accessories" market.
 
Definitely a change that would get me to switch from ios back to android.
I have no interest in owning separate headphones for my phone from everything else.
 
1) I'd be fine with this if they also shipped a lightning-3.5mm adapter with the phone
2) stop with the thinness already. 6S is plenty thin enough. If you have power savings such that you can get 6S battery life from a 1mm thinner phone, make it 6S size with better battery - you're behind the competition with battery life on the smaller 6/6S.

Let form follow function in this case.
 
Honestly I'm surprised that headphone jacks have lasted this long, you'd think that we'd have something better, smaller and more future looking instead by now.

Is this sarcasm?

In any case, most audio listening hardware out there, headphones, earphones, in ear monitors etc, all use the regular unified 3.5mm jack, so I hate the idea of Apple breaking that up. I'd need an adapter to use my IEM's and that's just stupid.

Side note, phones really don't need to be thinner than a 3.5mm jack.
 
Definitely a change that would get me to switch from ios back to android.
I have no interest in owning separate headphones for my phone from everything else.

you wouldn't need separate headphones, but merely something like this:
MD820
 
Why go all fancy and use the Lightning port? If they really want to do this, why not just reengineer the 3.5mm socket into a flatter one, or use the existing 2.5mm one?


I think the iPhone 7 will be a 4 style change, so wouldn't actually be surprised for this to happen.

Wireless earbuds as standard and it won't be as big a deal as if it happened when this rumour first surfaced, if anything it will be seen as ahead of the curve.

People will complain but Apple tend to ditch things at the right time, it never hurts them.


The problem with something like this, is that it assumes everyone has one pair of headphones they use all the time. If I'm sitting on the sofa browsing GAF on my phone, and see a youtube clip - I can just grab the nearest pair of headphones to listen. It would be a real PITA to be limited to BT headphones and to have to pair them constantly.
 
Little easily lost adapters are not really a more elegant solution.

it's not an elegant solution, just saying you wouldn't have to buy new headphones.


What i'd be much more into would be wireless earbuds that charge via the lightning port (a similar model to how the apple pencil charges)

My main issue with everything wireless is the fact that it's yet another thing i need to remember to keep charged before going on a longer trip.
 
If they kill the headphone jack for the sake of making it fully-waterproof, then I am in.

But you don't need to lose the headphone socket to make it waterproof. Xperia has open headphone and USB sockets and is IP67.

If you wear headphones then moving to BT isn't too bad. They are large enough for decent battery life and the loss of a wire is a benefit, but most people use earbuds, and those will still need a wire between each ear, so all you're saving is the cable down to the phone, and they are small so battery life will be limited.

A removable cable so you can charge them from the phone would help mitigate the shorter battery life, but then you're carrying another cable around with you anyway.

It just feels like limited benefit and too many disadvantages.
 
I would imagine Apple is attempting to remove corded headphones altogether. Goes off the trademarks of AirPods two months ago: http://www.macrumors.com/2015/10/01/airpods-trademark/

Good riddance I say. I cannot stand corded headphones and if it weren't for spotty transmission in wireless sets, I would have dumped normal headphones a long time ago.

Give me headphones that you don't have to fuck about, charging and syncing any day.
 
Existing headphones won't just suddenly become useless. They'll have adapters and converter cables.

Extremely expensive and probably bulky and inconvenient seeing as it would need to house a DAC.

Has there been precedent of Apple arbitrarily introducing any kind of connector for the sheer sake of going proprietary?

They introduced lightning because USB-C hadn't been around and MicroUSB is a shit connector.
And thunderbolt is more capable in some ways than USB 3.0 / type-C afaik.

If the standard connector serves their requirements, they're fine with adopting the standard, see USB-C on the new MacBook, HDMI and USB 3.0 on Macbook Pros.

I don't see this happening, it'd be in no way a good business idea for Apple. The "3rd party headphone" market isn't as big as it'd be profitable for Apple to do that kind of split, like they did with the "accessories" market.

Yeh I don't see this happening either. I'm just surprised some people seem supportive of the idea.
 
Apple pushing out the 3.5mm would mean a whole lot more headphones will be made with removable cables to people can use audio to Lightning cables without needing adapters. And more headphones with removable cables is a very good thing, because they're always the first thing to go.

even thinner?
So you can bend it even more?

These posts annoy me, considering the 6S is actually 0.2mm thicker than the 6 and far harder to bend. Not like the bending problem with the 6 was as widespread as the hysteria.
 
The way the new Mac accessories from Apple automatically pair when you plug them in is pretty sweet. It'd be cool to have the same thing with new standardized Bluetooth headphones.
 
Gruber reporting this as rumor on Daring Fireball for the first time today makes me wonder if there's a little more truth to this report than similar ones in the past.
 
Would be incredibly dumb.

I don't see it happening. Even Apple can't be this ridiculous. Surely.

Apple doesn't give a fuck about legacy stuff. They've proven that time and time again.

Just give me an adaptor. I do think the current headphone jacks are woefully outdated. Aren't they over 40 years old?
 
Apple doesn't give a fuck about legacy stuff. They've proven that time and time again.

Just give me an adaptor. I do think the current headphone jacks are woefully outdated. Aren't they over 40 years old?

Amen. Interface that has been around for over a century and people are complaining about it being sunseted in favor of something better, with an adapter available for legacy users.

Sheesh.
 
Apple doesn't give a fuck about legacy stuff. They've proven that time and time again.

Just give me an adaptor. I do think the current headphone jacks are woefully outdated. Aren't they over 40 years old?

CU2Iec1UwAEhBNB.jpg


Daring Fireball made a good point that the depth is a sticking point too, not just width.
 
i don't believe this. the phone is already thin enough. being any thinner won't do anything great for the phone look or feel wise.
 
As someone who uses Bluetooth headphones a lot while walking/errands/housework an underlooked problem is just how much extra drain on the battery running the bluetooth radio for hours on end. I get twice the battery life if I plug in wired phones.
 
Amen. Interface that has been around for over a century and people are complaining about it being sunseted in favor of something better, with an adapter available for legacy users.

Sheesh.

Except that the reason it would be replaced isn't for higher quality or more features really, it's to shave a completely unnoticeable bit off the phone yet again just so they can claim it's thinner. I'm personally sick of the thinness bullshit because at this point I want more battery.
 
Why are they so pathologically obsessed with making everything thinner anyway? The iPhone 6 is thin enough
 
Except that the reason it would be replaced isn't for higher quality or more features really, it's to shave a completely unnoticeable bit off the phone yet again just so they can claim it's thinner. I'm personally sick of the thinness bullshit because at this point I want more battery.

That's an assumed reason, there's more benefits than just thinness. Which is kind of funny as their latest phone is thicker than the last one anyway.
 
yeah, while I'm okay with this move, I need to clarify that I'd want it to be only for improved waterproofing/dustproofing and more room internally for battery, not for the sake of thinness.
 
Why are they so pathologically obsessed with making everything thinner anyway? The iPhone 6 is thin enough

Because the way Apple sees technology is that it is superior when it's invisible and you're only concious of what you're doing, not the device you're doing it with. And a thinner phone is on that pathway.
 
Could phone companies just fucking stop with the thinness bullshit? Seriously, it doesn't need to be any thinner. It just fucking doesn't. Give me more battery, not a more thin phone. It's perfectly fine as it is. Taking out useful ports just to try and make things thinner is well beyond insanity at this point.
But that's the idea that drives smaller and smaller computers. They do this and make it the standard and over time everyone accepts it and moves on. And in the long run it allows more stuff to be crammed into the tiny space.
 
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