
USB-C and Lightning headphones aren't great news for everyone - edward
https://www.engadget.com/2016/06/09/usb-c-and-lightning-headphones-arent-great-news-for-everyone/
======
kogepathic
I understand why manufacturers are keen to get rid of the 3.5mm jack. Phones
are constantly getting thinner, and the jack isn't. It's also another part on
the BOM that manufacturers have to allocate PCB space for and pay money for
the jack.

But here's the thing. 3.5mm jacks are analogue, and they're everywhere.
They're out dated by modern standards, but overall they just work. If the
industry actually cares about thickness, they'll put a 2.5mm jack on the
phone, or cut the 3.5mm jack in half (this was talked about a few years ago,
but I haven't seen any production phones implementing this).

As the article points out, the phone still needs a DAC and an amplifier to,
you know, be a phone. Phones will typically have an earpiece speaker and a
loud speaker, so you still need a DAC and amp to power those.

So, apart from reducing the port count (cheaper BOM, yay!) and making phones
thinner, what is this really about?

It's about DRM.

As soon as headphones are digital, manufacturers can start locking down
headphones.

Oh, you want HiFi audio? Well, the iPhone 9AB is only HiFi certified with
Beatz(TM) headphones, so those fancy Bose headphones you bought for $500 last
year, yeah, those are gonna give you ear-bud quality music.

~~~
jacquesm
Connectors are the #1 failure point in any electronics design. Substituting
one connector for another isn't going to be an improvement in this respect but
I can see why getting rid of a connector by itself could be a good thing (and
then they'd need a wireless replacement, none of the bluetooth headsets I've
used were good enough for day-to-day or prolonged use).

~~~
snovv_crash
I've never had a 3.5mm jack fail me. The wires die, the PCB dies, but the
connectors live forever.

~~~
Mithaldu
Anecdotal evidence. You got lucky. Due to the sheer length of a 3.5 plug, and
the sturdy design of most of these plugs, a small amount of lateral force can
easily wreck the socket in a split-second; and small amounts of damage over
time can easily accumulate.

I don't know if the lightning connectors are any better, but just by the fact
that they're shorter, i'd hope they'd get removed from the socket, or just
have the plug break, instead of the socket.

~~~
riprowan
Are you actually arguing that a USB-C / Lightning connector will be more
reliable than a 3.5mm analog connector?

You'll have to produce data to back that up.

~~~
Mithaldu
I was using the wrong word, s/jack/socket/, now it should make more sense.

As to your data: Basic physics. Any plug in a socket is a lever. Its length
determines to how much force any force impacting the part outside the device
is translated to, at the end of the lever; inside the device.

USB-C plugs are shorter than 3.5mm plugs.

Thus, they're less likely to wreck your phone, and more likely to wreck
themselves.

~~~
pritambaral
> Its length determines to how much force any force impacting the part outside
> the device is translated to, at the end of the lever; inside the device.

> Thus, they're less likely to wreck your phone, and more likely to wreck
> themselves

It's not about the force, since that goes both ways (because Newton's third
law). It's about how deep damage may happen or how sooner will a jack give in
before the socket does. 3.5mm plugs usually have more strength than lightning
plugs (but not more than the USB-C plugs I've seen), so it is understandable
if lightning plugs destroy themselves before dealing much damage to the
socket.

But a shorter lever (of considerable strength to not break first) will apply
the same amount of force over a smaller area than a longer lever. Less area =>
more pressure => more damage to socket.

This is exactly why I can (and have done so for the last three years, same
phone) pick my phone up with the earphones, but not with the end of its
microUSB cable: the shorter socket cannot handle the weight of the phone.

------
kylecordes
It's hard to see the upside of this, from a phone buyer end-user point of
view. By looking at a USB C and 3.5mm jack next to each other for a moment, it
is obvious this will enable only a minuscule additional thinning of devices.
But at what cost? Most likely:

Significantly more expensive headphones for at least the next several years
and possibly longer. If I were a headphone manufacturer I would be thrilled by
this development. As a headphone buyer, less so.

In most cases we will give up being able to charge and listen at the same
time, unless willing to add an additional external dongle. Meanwhile
manufacturers will continue their, uh, curious belief that cell phone battery
capacities are anywhere near good enough.

~~~
Eric_WVGG
It's not minuscule at all. The 3.5mm jack is deeper than even the old dock
connectors, and with a device as small as a phone every bit of space counts.

------
cesarb
Doesn't the USB-C standard already have a well-defined way of connecting an
analog headphone, using only a passive adapter? Download the standard and
scroll to the end, it's an appendix. IIRC, it can even be used while charging,
with the correct passive adapter.

The question then only becomes, is the phone's DAC connected to the USB-C
connector, or did the manufacturer omit it to save a few traces in the board?
Did anyone test that Moto-Z with a passive USB-C to 3.5mm socket adapter, to
see what happens?

~~~
unwind
Assuming you mean the sideband pins, the article says that Intel is working on
a standard to let those pins be used for analog audio.

If there's no standard way to communicate that "yeah, the sideband pins are
now analog audio out from the host", I don't think you can buld USB-compliant
accessories that assume that.

This would mean that the adapter (and/or low-cost headphones, I guess) would
still need to include a CPU that can speak USB to negotiate with the host
about the sideband pins, would be my assumption. A bit like how max current
(used to) work.

~~~
gman99
> the article says that Intel is working on a standard to let those pins be
> used for analog audio

In that case, the article is wrong because the USB 3.1 spec already supports
analog audio via the Audio Adapter Accessory Mode. Whether this phone supports
this mode is unclear, but it's part of the existing spec explicitly to allow
passive USB-C to 3.5mm adapters

Official spec:
[http://www.usb.org/developers/docs/](http://www.usb.org/developers/docs/)

page 166 of the USB-C spec: [http://www.those.ch/designtechnik/wp-
content/uploads/2014/08...](http://www.those.ch/designtechnik/wp-
content/uploads/2014/08/USB-Type-C-Specification-Release-1.0.pdf)

------
Fej
The Moto Z looks like an awesome phone.

The lack of a headphone jack is a complete and utter deal-breaker. I'm not
carrying a dongle around so I can use my headphones. (A quality dongle will
need to have some size and heft; see the Schiit Fulla. It can't even run off
of Micro USB power alone as it stands, though it does work with some phones
with some work.)

~~~
mattvot
I think the point is that this is a step towards consumers purchasing
headphones with a digital usb/lightning/whatever connector, not to carry
around an adaptor.

I guess we'll see in time whether the idea takes off.

~~~
jschwartzi
Since it doesn't actually solve any problem that any consumer actually has, I
predict that it's going to go away in about 2021 and the 3.5mm jack will stick
around. Personally I don't care about USB-C because it doesn't actually solve
any problems for me. At least when we went to Micro-USB my device chargers
became interchangeable and I didn't have to go home to charge my phone
anymore.

I have USB-C on my laptop at work, and so far I'm pretty unimpressed with it.
I'd much rather just have a second DisplayPort.

------
tzs
> And here's the problem: The DAC and amp inside that $50 pair of digital
> headphones are not going to be of the same quality as those in a $500 pair.
> Nor will the sound they output be afforded the same time and effort. Instead
> of trusting in your phone's DAC and amp to output decent-quality audio at
> decent volumes, you'll now be contending with the choices of a company that
> has had to cut corners to put out headphones on a tight budget.

This sounds like a good reason for the change rather than an argument against
it.

Audio performance is determined by the quality of the DAC, the amp, the
speakers, and the enclosure. If the DAC and amp are part of the headphones,
then all factors affecting audio performance are independent of the phone. You
can decide what level of audio performance you want and then buy headphones
that provide that performance.

Also, many people use the same set of headphones with multiple devices. When
I'm buying devices I consider how they fit in with my other devices. If I have
a higher end tablet I might buy a lower end phone because many of the things I
would have done on the phone had I only had a phone will be done on the
tablet. Device makers tend to put the better DACs and amps in the higher end
devices, and so under the current approach if I want the best audio on all my
devices, all of them have to be higher end devices (and I have to get
expensive headphones too).

~~~
dingaling
> You can decide what level of audio performance you want and then buy
> headphones that provide that performance.

That's a great point. And for people like me who don't use audio on their
phones ( other than the occasional voice call ) it means I'm not paying for
other people's use-cases.

------
joesmo
Having a single non-standard, unsupported (usb c) port for everything isn't
progress, it's regress. No one wants this, especially for headphones but Apple
and another clueless follower are pushing it anyway because they have the
clout and they think people will buy it. Sounds like FireWire to me. That was
an amazing success. Or thunderbolt. Or thunderbolt 2. Yeah I think it's clear
by now Apple has an abysmal track record with such changes. Throw in something
any knowledgeable consumer is against like removing the headphone jack and now
you have a recipe for disaster. I hope so, not because I like others' pain but
because this change, along with others, marks an anti consumer shift in
policy. No longer does Apple even care what the consumer wants because it has
the zombie sheep factor of millions of clueless idiots who will buy products
that are clearly not in their best interests and require extra investment for
no reason. Then again, Apple is hardly alone in such markets.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
> Apple has an abysmal track record with such changes

Really?

Apple went all-USB, people complained. USB mice and keyboard became the
standard.

Apple dropped the floppy drive, people complained. No floppy drive became the
standard.

Apple dropped the CD drive, people complained. No CD drive (on laptops) became
the standard.

Apple dropped full-size display connectors, people complained. This, too,
became the standard on laptops.

~~~
c3833174
> Apple dropped the CD drive, people complained. No CD drive (on laptops)
> became the standard.

> Apple dropped full-size display connectors, people complained. This, too,
> became the standard on laptops.

You need to step out of that Apple reality distortion field, not every laptop
is an ultrabook.

~~~
acdha
Next time you go to a coffee shop, airport or train station, etc. look at the
laptops you see and count how many have an optical drive.

Yes, some people do still have the older corporate IT bricks but even there
the trend has clearly been to optimize for size and battery life. Display
connectors are a bit of a confound since e.g. an HDMI connector is already a
huge improvement over a VGA/DVI port but are clearly on a similar trajectory.

~~~
riprowan
Yeah but it isn't like Apple invented the idea of the ultrabook.

~~~
bryanlarsen
The ultrabook was almost entirely a reaction to the MacBook Air. Read initial
press reports about the ultrabook, they make that obvious. Like
[http://www.pcworld.com/article/246691/ultrabooks_laptops_as_...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/246691/ultrabooks_laptops_as_light_as_air.html)

~~~
Tiksi
The MacBook Air was almost entirely a reaction to the eeePC. Probably not
really, but just as much as ultrabooks were to the macbook air.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Yes, the MacBook Air was a reaction to netbooks. But it was a different
category of device, a high-end ultraportable. The same category of device that
Ultrabooks fit into.

------
UnoriginalGuy
I don't want a thinner phone.

Cellphone thinness reached the "good enough" stage a very long time ago. Then
all making them thinner did was start to make compromises for that thinness.
For one example, while components and software continue to get more and more
power efficient, they're removing more raw battery capacity within the phone
so they can shave 1mm.

No 3.5mm is a deal breaker for me. I don't want to have to remember to charge
my headphones, or add extra weight to my IEMs, plus now I cannot charge and
listen at the same time (or use the port for anything else).

All this move will result in is more people sitting on public transport
blasting audio through the front speakers because their headphones died or
they cannot afford $100 IEMs or $150 headphones. I think it will be extremely
telling if the iPhone continues to ship with free IEMs, if not then that is
proof enough that even Apple cannot make the economics work.

Overall this is a horrible step backwards.

~~~
kalleboo
> Cellphone thinness reached the "good enough" stage a very long time ago.
> Then all making them thinner did was start to make compromises for that
> thinness

100% agree. Instead of my phone being 1.5mm thicker, I'm carrying around a
huge silicon case with a battery and a bunch of circuitry included.

Although I'm sure that's all based on studies that 85% of users don't need
more battery life on 90% of the days out of the year, and 96% of users when
confronted with a prototype phone that was 0.5mm thicker replied "oooh I would
buy this". The tyranny of the market.

That said...

> No 3.5mm is a deal breaker for me

I switched to using bluetooth headphones in 2006 (was that really a decade
ago?), so the disappearance of the 3.5mm jack in particular doesn't affect me
at all.

------
zaroth
I assume the switch away from 3.5mm will come along with the elimination of
the physical home button (replaced with a purely force-touch version) and the
extension of the screen to more fully cover the full face of the phone.

I do hope they put a lightning connector on both ends. That way we're not
losing a port but at least trading it for something which is arguably better.
I frequently could use a top-side power port, e.g when the phone is sitting in
a cup-holder showing GPS but needs a charge, and the app won't rotate 180'.

For backward compatibility, could the lightning port drive an analog output
that would just require an analog adaptor to allow connecting existing
headphones?

------
jjuel
I must be one of the few who is actually not against this move. I am all for
not having a 3.5mm anymore. I really see no need. Things should start becoming
more wireless. Heck get rid of the usb-c/lightning and just use wireless
charging.

------
rcarmo
I've been using a SonyEricsson MW600 Bluetooth adapter for my headphones for a
couple of years - it pairs with up to three devices, the audio quality is
pretty good (audiophile colleagues tried it with their hideously expensive
headphones and said it was "surprisingly decent"), the battery lasts me around
a week depending on use, and it charges via a standard micro-USB connector.

Love it so much that when the tieclip-style clip broke, I ordered a new clip
off eBay instead (Sony has a couple of successors to it, but I'll pass until
this one completely dies on me).

I think this is a more interesting solution than changing physical connectors.

------
mordant
The elephant in the room is Bluetooth - Bluetooth 5.0 spec is coming out this
week, I think. And there are the codecs like AptX, etc.

I'm shocked at how good the sound quality is on my Sennheiser Momentum 2.0
Bluetooth headphones. If anyone had told me that I could get that kind of
dynamic range and nuance in the audio over Bluetooth, I wouldn't have believed
him. And that's with Bluetooth 4.x.

------
amelius
One downside to the 3.5mm jack is that you hear a glitch whenever you plug-in
or unplug a device. It would be nice if they could fix that.

~~~
kalleboo
I'm expecting with a digital connection, you'll instead have a long delay when
it negotiates, and then if you have any lint in your port you can look forward
to it disconnecting when you jostle the cable with a "this accessory is not
supported by apple" error message like with chargers

~~~
elcapitan
Or you buy cheap ransomware earphones and hear a "to unlock your iPhone,
please pay $xxx dollars to..".

