So, likely no headphone port on the iphone 7, what do you think? (aka are you a sheep)

Since I am not stupid enough to use any apple products, I do not care.
Besides, I do not listen to music on my phone anyway, I have an mp3 player for that.
But oh ye appletards, you will continue to get shafted in the arse, and you will convince yourself that you love it.
Enjoy your overpriced shiny apple headphones and/or ultra expensive adaptors.

See the original iMac and floppy disks. Someone has to be first.

And you don’t really help your argument when you call people sheep.

Meh

I totally get where you are coming from. While I do really like most of Apple’s products, I don’t necessarily agree with all of their decisions. For example when they decided to stop manufacturing iMacs and MacBooks with optical drives. Which means you cannot play dvds or cds without purchasing an external accessory. This was a move justified by the claim that physical media is dying. Which it is to be fair. But Apple need to have a more globalised tv / movies library in iTunes, for that move to be justified. As it is we in Ireland have no TV show library in iTunes. Its great that we have had Netflix now for some time now. But Netflix doesn’t have everything. If Apple wants to encourage a digital media only, they need to actually provide digital media to those living outside the US.

This move to use a different jack for earphones is a little different. They are not exactly removing a feature, but rather improving it. So I can understand their mindset with that. Who is to say that the new jack will allow earphones to be more durable. I for one am fed up with earphones that eventually end up with short circuits. If it is Apple’s plan to reduce this problem, I support their decision. Apple has always strived to be the best of the best in the world of tech. So I’m curious to see how this new development turns out.

PS take it from someone who has been debating on the internet for a long time. Don’t use name calling tactics. Just state your points, disagreements. No need to make it personal. Trust me, it never ends well.

Wait, they got rid of optical drives too? Jesus.

@XOIO Yes, they did. I don’t agree with that particular decision. I am however using a Macbook Pro (from 2011). Which has the optical drive. So I can watch, listen to and burn dvds and cds.

While I do agree that digital wireless media is the way of the future. I just don’t think we are quite ready to totally ditch the dvd format. There are so many titles in many regions outside of the US that depend on dvd. So I think Apple got to ahead of themselves on that one. The only good thing that really came out of that, is that it apparently makes the computers run faster. But I got my hard drive upgraded to a SSD, and its faster than ever.

So, if you want to talk with headphones you can’t? Forget music and watching TV, you can’t have a phone call with headphones either? Will it still work with a blue tooth thingy? Is that why they think the headphone port is unnecessary?

@JLeslie You will still be able to connect headphones into your iPhone. It just means that the iPhone 7 will have a unique headphone jack (that will hopefully be an upgraded version of what we are all used to).

@JLeslie Either bluetooth, or use their proprietary adapter which will probably cost a good $30.

I mean I use bluetooth headphones, but jeeze, I’d still like analog compatibility without special adapters.

Actually I’ve done some digging on this matter. The earphone jack is being removed, but users will now be able to use the lighting port instead. So from now on on future iPhones, the lightning port is for charging and using earphones.

(read more here)

Yeah, so either a lightning adapter, which they will charge a premium for, or a pair of lightning only headphones, which they will charge a premium for.

@XOIIO iPhones have always come free with a lightening cable and earphones. I don’t see why this would change. When I got the iPhone 6, it came with a lightning cable, charger plug an the EarPods. You only need to pay a premium when you need them replaced. I have no idea what these new earphones are going to be like, so I don’t know how durable they are.

But judging on the advancement from the original apple earphones to the EarPods, it stands to reason they will be an improvement. I’ve used a lot of different earphones and I can tell you from experience that their design is excellent. They have been shaped in such a way that sound is much clearer. The sound actually comes out of the side of each ear bud, causing the sound to go directly into each hear hole. I’m not saying this just because its apple. They truly have been designed very well. So I look forward to seeing what these newer earphones are going to be like.

We’ll have to see if they also include the headphone adapter, I have a feeling it will be available as an extra and they will just provide earbuds terminated in a lightning connector.

Yeah, it pisses me off. I’m so sick of Apple only having compatability with Apple, and Apple groupies loving it. Lining up days ahead of a new product lunch basically signaling to Apple charge any price you want. It’s not like they are buying a limited quantity of numbered items like a special Lalique vase. It’s insanity.

Meanwhile, I do have an iPhone right now for a few reasons, but since the other phones basically joined Apple in pricing, because most people will pay anything if they can afford the monthly payment, there is little choice. Collusion at it’s best.

If they want to innovate themselves into a corner so be it. I still have a rootable phone with expandable memory, a removable battery and a headphone jack. I have used all of these options also. If I can’t adapt it to my needs I don’t want it.

This Apple user (in other words not a sheep or fanboi) has mixed feelings.

It has not been proposed but a more sophisticated connector would allow noise cancellation in earbuds powered by the device’s internal battery. This would mean no inelegant external power source. Very Apple.

An adapter would certainly be available. Awww, the adapter isn’t $3! Whaaaa!! I hate quality! Everything should cost two dollars fifty. Is it because adapters and connectors are small? Your fiancee’s ring is even smaller. How cheap should that be? When friends are riding in my car or listening to my HiFi, I just can’t wait to tell them how little I paid.

I mentioned mixed feelings. So what do I find potentially alarming?

I was in total shock when it was announced that Apple had bought Beats. The philosophy of the two companies could possibly be more polar. I don’t know much time the rest of you have spent on the NYC subway, but trust me. Beats ‘phones are worn by The Douche. He or she has no appreciation for quality. Image is priority number one.

Would only Beats products have an iPhone 7 connector? This possibility boggles my mind. Beats is concerned about one thing and one thing only. A near obsessive focus on easy (cheap) manufacturing processes.

Beats phones have been designed to whenever possible snap together. Beats headphones use off the shelf drivers. Beats actually adds a non functional ring of metal in them to give heft. An illusion of quality. This is in total contrast to how Apple, for example, builds the aluminum chassis for their laptops.

So who really is the sucker, the sheep?

The snide color of my answer? You can thank the OP. With their trollesque inclusion of the word sheep in their question.

I can pretty much guarantee that the actual value of a lighting to 3.5mm connector will be a fraction of the cost that they charge the end user for it, there is reasonable profit margin, and then there is apple profit margin.

It won’t affect me since I don’t volunteer for robbery, but it will rip off a massive amount of people who are convinced that it is somehow an improvement.

^ Let’s speak for a moment about Apple’s markup:

Apple is rich, but they use this power for good.

I had an iPhone 5S with a screen that had gone bad after the Apple Care program had expired. But I wasn’t fucked. Apple had the means to absorb the cost of replacing my phone even though contractually speaking they had NO obligation to do so.

But it get’s better:

Shortly after buying my first iPhone (3GS) I was disenchanted with the included earbuds so I invested in Apple’s high end set. Silicone spheres that hold the units securely in my ears that filter out outside noise and deliver consistent bass response. Inside? Two way drivers A separate woofer and tweeter for fidelity.

The problem? These ‘phones are easily overdriven. In time they begin to click and buzz.

Did Apple refuse to acknowledge there was a problem like the Soviet space program did? No. They owned up to the blunder and as a result I have been able to exchange these earbuds for a fresh set ten times now.

Apple has handed me $900 (retail) worth of earbuds over the years. No questions asked.

In other words, if you buy into Apple, yes you will pay more up front. But you will not be hung up to dry afterwards.

What about error 53, where apple purposefully bricks your phone if it’s not repaired in an apple shop? That seems pretty lousy to me, especially considering they had no warning of this whatsoever.

They are consistently closing off what the end user can do, and now what the end user can even use with their phone. I wouldn’t be surprised if third party unauthorized lightning adapters started bricking their phones.

There’s also the fact that those headphones cost $90, which is ludicrous, especially considering the manufacturing conditions and wages they pay, it likely costs them $5 to produce them at the end of the day, that’s why they swap them out so easily.

I hate to see what they charge for co-branded apple and beats headphones.

^ Did you miss my point regarding markup?

How Apple keeps is production costs down in not relevant to this debate. That is unless you simply must politicize it. That said, a shitty job is better than no job at all.

Regarding Apple’s user limitations:

Two of my previous iPhones were jailbroken by me. I had my fun. I enjoyed my control. As Apple has improved various aspects of it’s iOS I have found jailbreaking to be less and less necessary unless I continue to want to do so as a matter of principle.

Regarding cost:

The price of admission is the price of admission. The audio quality of the high end buds was worth it. Period. I could have chosen to buy a US or German product for three times as much. I probably would consider the increased audio quality worth it.

Will a Beats/Apple product be good or not? The proof is in the hearing, pure and simple. My standards are very high. No earphone or speaker is going to undo the mangling of music quality that is done by the digitizing of music as far as I am concerned.

Cynic moar.

My car is 16 years old. I listen to music in my car via an FM transmitter that plugs into my phone’s headphone jack. This doohicky has improved my driving experience and my phone user experience immensely, and cost me a whopping $5.

My only other alternative is the cassette deck. I am not fond of the local FM radio stations.

So… Lack of a headphone jack would be a deal breaker for me.

@Seek It might be illegal to drive in FL with headphones. It certainly is unsafe, or let’s say negatively impacts safety.

I’m not sure if you are listening with headphones. or are just using the jack and listening through a regular speaker? Because, I am fairly tech ignorant.

Um, I did not say I drive with headphones. I said I drive using an FM TRANSMITTER that connects to the phone via the headphone jack.

That’s what I just wrote before I saw your answer. That I wasn’t sure if you were just using the headphone jack.

Well, an FM transmitter transmits the audio via radio waves on the FM spectrum, so it is picked up by the car’s FM receiver. It would be absolutely silly to then connect headphones to the car stereo.

I really don’t understand the complaint about people being forced to pay higher prices for Apple branded accessories.
There has ALWAYS been a robust aftermarket lineup of companies producing Apple-compatible accessories.
Even when they went to USB only for their computers (and history has proven them correct) There were numerous companies producing external floppy drives for $50–100 for anyone who simply couldn’t live without a floppy drive.
When my charger for my Macbook gave up the ghost, I chose not to pay Apple’s price but got one from another vendor for less. And this was at a business that only sold and repaired Apple stuff (not an official Apple store).
Nobody is held hostage to Apple for peripherals.
There are tons of companies producing everything from chargers to adapters to headphones all designed to work with Apple phones and computers. If anyone doesn’t know where to find/buy them, they’re living under a rock.
That being said , I did read the recent article about people with unusable phones following repair by third party sources. I do find that upsetting but I don’t think Apple planned it that way.
My understanding was that if the repair involved the home button containing the fingerprint authorization, all bets are off.
How happy would you be if your phone were stolen and critical info you had on it were accessible to the thief just by replacing the screen, thus bypassing the fingerprint ID?
Anyhow, I’m not overly concerned about them changing the headphone connector because there will be at least a dozen or more companies marketing adapters for $5–10. I’d be amazed if that were not the case.
It’s just not that big a deal. But for those who have a lifelong hatred of anything Apple, any excuse will do.
(And for the record, I have bought and used both Apple and Android phones and tablets so I’m hardly a sheep.) When you’re paying the same amount per month for a phone regardless of whether it’s Apple or Android (due to the hefty subsidies paid by the carriers) the whole argument of Apple overpricing kind of goes out the window, at least for phones.
If Apple is changing the earphone connector, it’s because they have a sound reason for doing so, and not just because they’re looking to rip you off. Don’t you think they’re well aware of how many other companies there are out there producing Apple compatible connectors and adapters?
(And yes, I’m aware that their official party line is that they can’t guarantee that peripherals made by other companies will work with their products. What do you expect them to say? I know what warnings to ignore. I wasn’t born yesterday.)

@Seek

Apparentky, according to what Keith wrote, they aren’t eliminating the headphone jack but merely changing the connector.

And as in the past, when Apple changed connector methods, there are umpty dozen companies going to come out with an adapter (probably in the $5–10 range I’m guessing)

I would be flat out amazed if that did not happen. After all, if there’s a buck to be made supplying what people with old need, someone will be there making it :)

@Buttonstc

“But for those who have a lifelong hatred of anything Apple, any excuse will do.”

Ba BOOM. Have a GA.

Regarding the lightning connector:

It is a work of genius. Ever wonder how such a small connector can replace the huge previous 30 pin one that could only be attached in one orientation?

Your iPhone knows which way it’s attached. The phone switches the connectivity of the Lightning jack to comply.

Ingenuity. Discreet and seemingly simple.

Total Apple.

The connector is pretty good, but changing it to be the only audio output aside from bluetooth is ludicrous.

A headphone jack is universally characterized by a 3.5mm barrel connection.

It’s like if their new laptops still had “USB” connectors, but you needed to buy a proprietary 10 pin adapter to use them with any usb device, rendering anything that had a standard USB A type connector useless without something in between.

Change for change’s sake isn’t always a good thing. They are “innovating” away from multi decade standards all to try and be different.

The good news is with the phone being thinner they can put a smaller battery in it too though, which means you get to use the fancy lightning connector even more.

edit: Another example would be if they used a double ended lightning cable, and made it so that you could only charge your phone from a wall adapter with a lightning socket, or a lightning socket in your phone. Would that also be an incredibly innovative advancement?

I used to love apple stuff too, but when they started limiting the ability to jailbreak your phones, and then copy-pasting additions which people had worked hard on into the next update of IOS, acting like it’s some new great thing they just figured out to do, when it had been around for years previous and in a more functional form, I just grew tired of it.

As much as I like the UI of iphones, if I can’t change things to suit how I want to use them and I am forced to use their cookie cutter “think different” setup, I want no part of it. I’m still on a 4th gen iphone and I’m glad I didn’t pay a cent for it directly.

I have a mix of apple and android/pc stuff. Here is what is good about apple: consistency of quality. You know what you are getting. While the options from apple are limiting their stuff works and works well. I had an iphone 4 and thought it was one of the best examples of consumer electronics ever built. I don’t care for IOS but the hardware was exceptional at the time. While android and PC manufacturers have stuff with the same level of quality it’s not always easy to tell. As for the company…their 40% profit margin is gouging Even the so called evil oil companies have margins around 10% which is completely fair. It only took a year for android phones to catchup and surpass the iphone in my opinion. I hate that manufacturers like samsung are starting to limit options and take the greedy approach also but since it’s an open platform someone will cater to the needs of the consumer.