1) Lightning is a great connector for audio.
2) The headphone jack takes a lot of space and they want to use that space for other stuff.
3) Apple has a "vision of how audio should work" on phones and they want to "get there as soon as possible." That was a lead-in to talking about Airpods
Note that they underscored that #3 was the "most important" reason they made the move.
#2 always made sense to me and I gave Apple a bit of a pass on removing the jack for that reason, but this thread's article shows that it was bogus, at least for the iphone 7.
That leaves #1 and #3, both of which involve Apple taking a a bigger cut of headphone sales. While #1 is true, it's not where the rest of the audio market is. And #3 (remember their "most important" reason) basically can be translated to "We want to sell you Airpods."
So it seems it really could have been all about Apple making more money, not about their users. Possible exception being long-term benefits created by moving the market in a particular direction.
(disclaimer: Android user, who prefers using bluetooth headphones anyway, but at least that means I don't have a horse in this particular race... :) )
"What about my legacy media/peripherals?"
On top of this, the author had to remove the "barometric vent". I don't find a lot of use in having an altimeter or barometer in my smartphone, but I do know that some apps take advantage of it (Dark Sky). Apple probably wants it to push some activity tracking feature, like the number of steps you've taken.
Apple itself would have had a lot more latitude in design since they specify the layout, and because of that, I think it is also fair to say that the article still provides strong evidence that if Apple were doing it, they probably could have included a headphone jack without compromises.
That being said, the iPhone 6/6s are the same size as the 7 from what I can see. The only obvious changes are waterproofing, headphone jack, taptic engine, and lack of physical home button.
The "best hypothesis"? That's the classic "lock-in" conspiracy theory. And Apple makes pennies on the headphones compared to what they make from the iPhones (and what they could lose in iPhone sales if the removal of the port proved unpopular) for that to be any great motive.
How about: making the phones waterproof with one less difficult to tackle port, less width/height needed for the new port hence thinner phones, envisioning a wireless future (what with AirPods and co).
The fact that there are pushing AirPods (which don't care for the jack at all) and that Apple gives a free conversion to mini-jack with each new iPhone, means that the theory "it's all about selling headphones/licenses for lighting headphones" is moot.
If some guy (he's obviously talented, but still a guy) can fit one inside an already manufactured iPhone 7, the company designing the phone obviously would have no problem fitting it in the dimensions it holds.
> The "best hypothesis"? That's the classic "lock-in" conspiracy theory. And Apple makes pennies on the headphones compared to what they make from the iPhones (and what they could lose in iPhone sales if the removal of the port proved unpopular) for that to be any great motive.
> The fact that there are pushing AirPods (which don't care for the jack at all) and that Apple gives a free conversion to mini-jack with each new iPhone, means that the theory "it's all about selling headphones/licenses for lighting headphones" is moot.
Doesn't the fact that Apple being the company selling the AirPods (for a mighty hefty fee I might add) at least suggest the opposite of "moot", since they're making a lot of money on new headphones by removing the jack?
You state and agree with all the factors needed to draw the conclusions of the "conspiracy theory" (or what I'd call market sense), yet you arrive at the opposite one, why is that?
The company is not forever planning on using the same dimensions of the current model -- but they can still plan ahead the removal.
Besides, the "some guy" doing a mod doesn't have to meet the same guarantees (re: waterproofness, air-circulation inside etc) for the device, as Apple has.
>Doesn't the fact that Apple being the company selling the AirPods (for a mighty hefty fee I might add) at least suggest the opposite of "moot", since they're making a lot of money on new headphones by removing the jack?
You can still use any old pair of wired headphones with the free provided adaptor. So the removal doesn't force anyone to buy AirPods -- or any other of the tons of bluetooth headphones.
While it may in a dry sense be true that the removal doesn't _force_ anyone to buy AirPods, I will strongly suggest that their customers aren't convinced that the adapter solution is sufficiently comparable [1].
[1] (Reviews) https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MMX62AM/A/lightning-to-35...
Well, such a condition would rely on this being true and accurate. I'm not really confident there's any data that suggests how people are listening to music on their iPhone 7s at the moment, and really nothing to draw a conclusion from except "anecdata". The simpler explanation in my mind is that Apple wanted a thinner phone, and they did what they needed.
There was an article a few days ago from Xiaomi's Indian Product Manager who commented on the removal of the Headphone Jack on one of the Mi Phone releases. His insight was that despite what people say ("I don't care about thickness"), their surveys and testing overwhelmingly showed that consumers have a preference towards thinner phones.
With this in mind, to me it seems more reasonable that Apple just decided to ditch the jack less they be caught making the fat phone. Your personal preferences may differ, but I think the more reasonable and sustainable conclusion is simply that Apple is chasing the thin phone.
Whether at a sum that decision was lucrative or not is inconsequential, as that comes down to how the market responds to their decision, but what you can argue is whether they make more off headsets now than before.
Before they bundled regular corded buds, and you purchased new ones when your old ones broke. Now they sell $180 USD AirPods, and Beats, and bundle (IMO) clunky adapters. While I don't have data on this, I'm fairly confident in assuming their decision was made on this basis. The question is if this turned out as they hoped in sales.
> The simpler explanation in my mind is that Apple wanted a thinner phone, and they did what they needed.
How so, when there was obviously space enough for an end-user to fit a jack inside the final product?
Looking at the iFixIt teardowns[0], where is this space supposedly at? If you remove electronics, sure, maybe you could fit it, but there very definitely is components where he put the headphone jack.
They still do. The iPhone 7 comes with Lightning headphones AND a Lightning-to-analog-jack adaptor.
They also sell the bundled headphones separately, so you can replace them.
Not really, there was a little bit of space near the old jack, and he removed a critical part of the barometer to make the rest of the space. If you're removing parts you can't exactly claim that it was empty space.
And taking out the headphone jack doesn't do much for AirPods, the iPhone still has wired headphones either way.
So this point is not moot, much to the contrary, yours about waterproofing is: three years ago Samsung had a phone with: headphone jack, SD card, removable battery. Lots of other phones have headphone jacks and are waterproof. So that point is moot.
Lastly, I'm pretty sure the rationale for any company's decision is "to sell more stuff", not to "envision a future".
Just to play devil's advocate, those $169 AirPods are by far the cheapest fully wireless earbuds on the market, and at launch were ~$100 less than the only other competitor available. Most estimates peg Apples margin on them in the low single digits...
Any references for this. My gut feeling doesn't match up with this. I can't imagine the bill of materials being more than 1/3rd of the cost?
Unless those estimates are including the R&D cost, I imagine these are low volume, and that Apple spent a lot of money on developing them.
And these are really tiny computers and highly optimized batteries, so I'd be surprised if the BoM is that low, but determining that is definitely not my strong suit.
I don't see Apple getting rid of them, especially considering the acquisition of Beats, but the AirPods really feel like the Airport base stations - setting a standard of quality to try and guide the industry along.
Maybe read their financial statements then?
(And I'm pretty sure they lost more money still for buying Beats that they've made from selling Beats products at the moment -- even though both was spare change for them).
Why a "conspiracy theory"? Apple has a documented history of vendor lock-in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_lock-in
Noticed how all the link says is that Apple used to sell DRM music?
First, that was a demand from the record companies.
Second, Apple was actually the company whose's CEO took a public stand against DRM in music -- and eventually been able to remove it from their music store.
That's hardly a "documented history" of Apple being active on that front.
As another author writes (http://www.business-standard.com/article/management/apple-s-...):
> Apple has adopted the opposite stance creating proprietary hardware and platforms that firmly lock you into their ecosystem and this is one of the reasons why today, despite falling market share, it remains one of the world's most profitable companies.
Companies use vendor lock-in to maximize profits, it's something quite common among big players in the software industry - there is no need to pretend it doesn't exist or that Apple is avoiding it for some reason.
airpods cost $160 and beats headphones aren't cheap either. I doubt that's making pennies on headphones either way.
If you buy a third party set of headphones that use the lightning port, and require mfi status, yeah, they might make only a small amount compared to profit on iphone.
However, I think enough people will just default to another pair of airpods that any potential losses are offset. I have to imagine that was Apple's thinking. They may sometimes be wrong about stuff, but they're not stupid. If it helps move the market towards wireless, it may also push more wireless beats headphones, which are going to be relatively profitable too.
The quick way to look at this might be: How much was Apple making from headphone sales before this move? How much are they making from headphone sales after?
Also, I'd buy into the whole "thinner is better" thing if they weren't actually making the screens bigger and the "wireless future" thing is a just a load of overdreamt baloney.
1.5m for up to 30 minutes; enough time to retrieve from a toilet.
Turn off immediately, disassemble as much as possible, rinse in clear water (tap for us, but it is not clorinated/flour), then dry in a bag of uncooked rice for a week or so. Boom. Instant Frankenstein phone.
Feels good to save the world a little (through less waste).
Don't actually do this. It's a myth.
You can only get rice dust inside your phone that way. That's the only thing you can possibly accomplish.
I revived a display on a camera that got wet during a rain on Hawai'i after two years when I read about the "rice method" - it was working the next day. Similarly I saved a phone that went off my pocket into toilet - immediately removed battery, washed in water and packed in a box of rice for a day. Works still like new.
Done the same thing, without removing the battery or using rice (and done similar things with all kinds of electronics that have gotten wet over the years, again, without a desiccant.) If it doesn't short anything out causing permanent damage, electronics that can get water in them can usually also dry out. Magic rice or anti-bear talismans are not required. A dessicant near the device may help trivially by reducing the surrounding humidity and accelerating evaporation from the device, but just arranging proper ventilation probably works better than using a closed container with a desiccant in most environments.
To me, the science sounds plausible. Power it down, dry it up, introduce a desiccant to mop up what atmospheric moisture there is. Rice may not be the "best" desiccant available but it's commonly available and easily understood by most people.
I'd appreciate it if you and your friend could demonstrate that this is false rather than throwing around snarky rhetoric.
I've read the original Gazelle article [1] too, and their methods are far from being clear or rigorous.
I'd need to see more replication before I'd consider this "myth" debunked.
[0] https://smartphones.gadgethacks.com/how-to/myth-debunked-unc...
[1] https://www.gazelle.com/thehorn/2014/05/06/gazelles-guide-wa...
EDIT: Watch this rant from a guy who works in the repair shop.
No need to watch the whole video, you can see the "results" of the rice "cleaning" in the first couple of minutes.
and it's not controversial if everybody agrees it works.
you are in the minority here and you must support your position with facts.
EDIT
In fairness, I think in the last year we've moved beyond accepting a ranting guy on youtube as evidence.
I've actually seen this guy and he's great on many topics. I can see, and appreciate where he's coming from but I don't think it disproves anything.
Possible conflict of interest that should be declared is this guys fixes devices for a living and charges for the service.
Well, people agree in all kinds of crap like homeopathy.
Many (most?) agreeing doesn't make something "scientific". Proof does. And it's those proposing a mechanism that must bring that proof.
Did this just happen. Did you just strawman me?
You're wrong. Stop trying to wash it away and just admit it.
You can watch the video muted btw. PCB condition shows clearly the level of corrosion from just a little bit of moisture.
Source: http://www.kcomfg.com/_docs/pdfs/principles_of_rice_drying.p...
I leaned forward while typing an sms and dropped the phone in the bucket and saw the screen during the fraction of a second before I snagged it back. It showed a message along the lines of
"This accessory is not supported"
Then it died. Only to be revived through a bath in rice. Nokia, whaddayaknow.
I moved back to Asia last year. And since then the combination of driving a scooter + rain season means my phone is soaked wet a couple times a year (sometimes it just rains and you really have no choice). If it is not waterproof, I have to always bring a backpack with me.
I guess there's a cohort of iPhone users that never use the jack but in the early days at least it was a compelling feature for many. (remember all those proprietary connectors we had back in 200x?)
Well, it's not like the world revolves around what some particular individual does. Other people might be more clumsy. Or might live in places with frequent rains (from London to the tropics and India), do all kinds of stuff outdoors, etc.
Many people approve of a waterproof phone. And in any case, it's a nice feature to have even when you don't need it. It gives piece of mind for using it to call in the rain for one -- and if you have ever been outside in London or tons of other places you'd have seen the utility.
Or why can't we just have both.
Wires are a definite downside to me and many others. I see this problematic description pop up a lot around here and other sites. What is problematic for you may not be problematic for others or even the majority. This is how we ended up here.
In my own use case, I love the AirPods, I don't think they "blow", and I only have to charge them occasionally since the case keeps them charged. I have yet to experience these downsides that you claim and yet I still have the benefit of not needing wires. You can continue to dislike wireless and say wires aren't a downside but you can't just state it as some kind of universal fact. People are different. Some people will like things that others don't.
My Bluetooth Sony MDX-1000X headphones are amazing, the best headphones I've ever owned. If they're the future of wireless audio, then bring it on.
How is increasing customer retention rates a "conspiracy theory" and not a common business strategy?
prices of their BT headsets are around $200. i think apple makes quite a few pennies on the headphones.
If everyone who actually cared about it bought e.g. the S8 from Samsung instead, I'm sure Apple would get the message - and bring it back. Since people are still buying it in droves it must not be a real clincher to most people.
The S8+ has a great DAC (as tested on my range of Audio Technica headphones), still supports Bluetooth audio - latest spec, and is a fantastic phone overall, with a design far surpassing the headphone-less iPhone 7.
IMO, Apple engineers have gotten lazy. They removed the port without adding value.
That's not a reasonable assumption.
If they had manufactured an alternative iPhone 7 (that was thicker than the regular one, or whatever was their rationalizing for removing it) then we could say that anyone buying the alternative one was communicating their want/need of the jack.
There is significant platform lock-in between iOS and Android, and while you can always switch, there are a lot more factors than the headphone jack, making it - without a gradient - impossible to draw any such conclusions from the data points available.
I've had an iPhone since the 4, at first because it was the best phone by a long way imo. Now? I imagine switching and would rather pay the premium not to go through that hassle.
I'm super sad that I'll have to use a shitty adapter to have semi decent ear buds (I use sennheiser cx-500 most of the time) - but again not enough to motivate switching. [I've not looked but assume Sennh don't make compatible headphones]
I own the 7S without the headphone jack and while most of the time I'm fine without it, there are a few instances (mostly on planes or long car) where it really pisses me off. But switching to an alternative device that has a headphone jack would piss me off even more due to other things.
I look at it the same way about the removal of the physical home button from the iPhone 7S - 'train' users/press prior about the potential negatives so you can control more of the conversation when the 'next big phone' comes out that you want make sure makes a good, big impact.
Seems reasonable, but if the next iPhone is the massive redesign everyone is expecting, wouldn't have been easier to remove the jack and play it off as a requirement of the new design? "This is the iPhone of the future," etc.
Or you know, they have rather good reasons for it.
Like better waterproofing (Samsung always fails behind iPhone in waterproof tests, and doesn't support fully even the nominal waterproof levels they say they do), thinner feature phones in the roadmap, smarter headphones, etc.
In that video, both phones are subjected to ever-increasing water depths until the S7 dies (very respectably) after five minutes at 35 feet, while the iPhone 7 continues to operate.
That suggests to me that both phones probably should have been rated IP68.
That said, while you may be right they should be rated the same, that doesn't really help OPs point. Even if they should be rated the same, the S7 has a headphone jack and the iPhone 7 doesn't. If the headphone jack is really the problem then the iPhone 7 should be way better at handling water then the S7, and yet even in the video you linked the iPhone 7 was suffering damage from the same depths the S7 did. I would argue that even if the video is legitimate it's entirely possible he just got a "lucky" iPhone 7 that didn't end-up getting fried from the little water that got in, and the S7 wasn't quite as lucky. From one test you really just can't know.
They haven't added value for their customers but they will be reducing costs for the business going forward and are helping provide a platform for future revenue.
Bluetooth audio is an open standard isn't it? I use Bluetooth speakers not made by Apple and not certified for Apple.
And doesn't the iPhone include a headphone adapter? So they don't get any extra share that way either.
Sorry, but - lol :D
not if you care about quality, non crappy codecs require aptX with patent fees owed to Qualcomm.
I'm not exactly mad at Apple, but I'm starting to think that maybe Android will be the way to go for my next upgrade cycle. It's been a while since I played around with a new OS!
Why??? Why on earth would Apple do that, and why should they need to? The iPhone 7 works just as well or better with regular BT headsets as any other phone does (iow it mostly works, most of the time, but sometimes BT is just kinda crappy).
What possible reason would Apple have to develop a clearly superior BT chipset and then just give it away?
I dunno, maybe for the benefit it would bring to their consumers?
Or do they really need to add a few more billions to their existing pile of money?
- smaller devices reduce shipping costs en masse
- marketting "thinner" devices (though screen is larger?)
- DRM
- No need to provide expensive native DAC
- Owning the headphones market, similar to how google ended up owning "search"
I'm sure there's a bunch more. It makes good business sense for them regardless of what customers (ahem, "consumers") want and with other manufacturers following suit they'll pretty much have no choice.
I'm looking forward to a portable DAC being among the collection of crap I have to put in my pocket in the morning.
(the cost to ship a medium size box is about $10. $10,000 of iPhones easily fit in a medium size box. Shaving some of 0.1% is pretty irrelevant.)
And if they did it in service of "owning the headphones market", that's a really dickish reason.
Indeed it is. I and many others would agree. But capturing a market and "lock-in" are common, and often-lauded business practices.
The rest sounds about right, unfortunately.
If this were their goal removing the headphone jack is the last thing I'd expect they'd look towards. For starters there's the packaging itself which is way larger than the couple millimeters they could maybe shave off the phone itself.
I now just carry two pairs of headphones everywhere, one for my Apple laptop and one for my Apple iPhone.
Even tried the Beats X, W1 chip was all hype it's barely any different from regular bluetooth and juggling with then UI to turn headphones on and off is more tedious than just plugging something in and living with a cable, so those are collecting dust now.
Didn't want to buy another dongle because that would just prove to Apple that people are happy with the dongle.
Now, is the iPhone "8" going to be like that? Clearly not. iPhone 9? Maybe not. iPhone 10? 11?
That's what Apple are pushing towards. Thank god somebody is, or we'd all be carrying around 7mm thick phones for the rest of eternity.
Edit: I'm not saying you have to like this, just that to say that Apple did it to make a few more bucks on a dongle is cynical to the point of absurdity.
So in 2017, when they actually need to remove the headphone jack (probably because the phone is more thin than is actually useful), it won't be as big of a deal.
They're not going to say that in their keynote.
I don't ever intend to own a phone without a headphone jack. If enough people agreed with me their plan would backfire, but I suspect that's not the case.
Removing the jack was a good decision and now, a few months only later, I do appreciate it.
Apple also doesn't have a monopoly share, I have many friends who actually prefer Android and don't care that iPhones no longer have a headphone jack.
They have less than 50% of market share, so no.
MS had almost 98% of desktop/work OS share (Linux was in its infancy then -- and is not used much for desktop even now--, and OS 8/9 had dropped to insignificant share).
In any case, now without the jack, they now get a share of any accessory you connect. The adapter, and any 3rd party adapters and headphones, need to be certified as MFI, which includes buying and incorporating the Apple MFI chip (forgot the name) into the design.
Which is entirely in their right of course, but it is a consumer hostile move.