
The 19th Century plug that's still being used - doener
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35253398
======
raverbashing
"Thinner phone" is a stupid requirement. A thinner phone _will be_
mechanically weaker.

Yes, Apple retired Floppy disks and DVD readers, because those were replaced
by something better. This is not the case here.

A Bluetooth headphone will give you an inferior experience. A lightning
converter will give you a worse experience because I can bet it doesn't stay
plugged as firmly as a headphone in a high vibration situation (e.g. people
exercising) and you can't have the charger plugged while you listen to music

Just as a reminder it was the EU who ended the BS of every company having a
stupid proprietary charger.

~~~
Camillo
> "Thinner phone" is a stupid requirement.

You may think that the current iPhones are thin enough, but almost nobody
actually uses the phone on its own. You need to take into account the
thickness of the case, and now that people are playing Pokemon Go, it really
needs to be a battery case, which is even thicker. So the base phone needs to
be thinner.

(They can't just make the phone a little thicker and put the extra battery
inside it because reasons.)

~~~
xkcd-sucks
Oh oh and the battery case can have a built-in bluetooth audio module with a
headphone jack on it!

------
lips
"If you look at the previous generation of phones, things like Nokia phones,
you had to have an adapter," he reasons. "If you want to connect headphones to
professional equipment, you also need a professional adapter."

No, this was (for the most part) an anomaly. (Sony loved this crap.)

And the "adapter" you need for professional gear costs all of .25, unless you
want to plug your headphones into BNC, then it's maybe 1$ in parts and 15
minutes at your bench.

~~~
e12e
Funny thing. My old sony-ericcson phone was the first that came with a hands-
free that had a separate minijack above the mic, so you could use any headset
with the (wired) handsfree (and it also had a standard "long" minijack for
control+mic+output).

Sony made a couple of brilliant mp3 players with proper line out for a while -
until Sony Music got upset about "piracy", and apparently the ensuing battle
within Sony killed a lot of great products. Which turned out to be a net loss,
as was obvious to anyone - it happened that Apple took the marked with the
iPod, but it was obvious _someone_ would).

------
jurassic
If they are moving to a paradigm where I can't listen and charge at the same
time, the 6 will be my last iPhone.

I wish they would stop trying to shave millimeters off my phone thickness and
address actual user needs like battery life. When was the last time any of you
said, "Damn, I wish this phone was thinner!"? Probably never. But many of us
regularly bemoan the battery life of our devices.

~~~
vidarh
In fact recent phone models have gotten less comfortable to hold for me
because of thinness.

~~~
Daneel_
This. I drop my 6S all the time, whereas my previous 5S was a dream and never
slipped. I shouldn't have up^H^Hdowngraded..

------
zaroth
For me the only thing that would make eliminating the headphone jack worth it
is if they put a lightning jack on both ends and made the phone perfectly
symmetrical. With literally no top or bottom, no right or wrong way to hold
it, and finally a way for my phone to sit in the cup holder with a charge
cable coming out the top and maps showing in the right orientation!

The trick in making all this work of course is what you do with the rest of
the buttons. If Apple could come up with something truly better than what we
have had all along for lock, volume, silent, and home, that would be really
neat.

In other words, I can see justifying removal of the jack as part of a holistic
redesign which really evolves how we interface with the device. Removing it to
make the phone just a bit thinner would be disappointing.

~~~
1anh2kqowg
I agree that two ports would make me a lot less annoyed by the change,
especially when you can keep an adapter around for one of the ports.

But from experience, designs where the charging and audio ports are on
opposing ends are pretty annoying in practice, because the two cords restrict
how you can move the phone when it is charging and headphones are in use.
Apple stopped doing it that way several years ago.

~~~
zaroth
Your only other choice is a single port on one side. There's no way you get
two ports side-by-side on one side. So your point is well taken, but the
existing setup of charge and audio together on the same side would be gone no
matter what.

I think the choice is eliminate the port and don't allow simple charging while
listening without a weird adapter, or else you need two lightning ports.

What will be funny is the power cords which have a 3.5mm jack embedded in
them. Take the jack off the phone, move it a couple inches away. It can be
made very streamlined, doesn't have to be bulky. The possibility of a good
power/jack cable makes me think they won't actually pull off a radical
redesign, but I'd be so glad to be proven wrong, just to see something
different from Apple.

------
jeffbush
While working on mobile phones, I've found a number of problems with the TRS
style jack.

One is they trap lint internally, which can often result in the internal
switch that detects insertion permanently thinking there is a headphone in it
(Google "phone thinks headphones are in"). The external speaker is usually
muted when a jack is inserted, so when this happens, the phone doesn't make
any sounds. Lint is very difficult to remove from the outside the connector.

The other problem--which the original inventors couldn't have anticipated--
involves the hook switch (hangup button) on wired phone earbuds. The switch
usually works by shorting the microphone to ground. The problem is that,
because of the geometry of the plug, the microphone is also shorted to ground
while the plug is inserted or removed. To avoid erroneously interpreting
insertion/removal as a hangup, the software must wait for the button to be
held for around a second. This precludes doing other interesting things with
the button, like having double clicks, or clicks with different durations
perform other functions. It also feels a bit awkward to have to hold it for so
long.

~~~
lmm
The inline remote on on my galaxy's wired headphones lets me double tap to
skip forward, triple tap to skip back.

~~~
jeffbush
It's mainly a problem with phone calls: user is on a call, decides to unplug
headset, call ends (if you didn't have delay). An edge case, to be sure.

------
swang
I think Apple did this too late. If they had done this with an earlier release
where smartphones were still "advancing" I think they would have gotten better
conversion.

Now what can they possibly offer in the next iPhone that offsets the loss of
the headphone jack? Wireless headphones are just not all the way there and I
don't really want to have to think about charging another device and then get
mad if I forget to charge it then have nothing to listen to for the day.

Unless they offer something substantial with the next iPhone and assuming the
headphone thing is true, I probably won't buy another iPhone.

~~~
gcb0
Nokia did it before the iPhone. everyone hated them. Apple is smarter. they
first get the monopoly, then they screw the users

------
velox_io
The BBC failed to mention that there is also a 2.5mm jack available. Quite a
bit smaller, but I haven't seen one for a while (~5 years).

After replacing so many headphones because of cables breaking, I'm really
happy Bluetooth headphones. Although when I want to enjoy music, you can't
beat decent headphones with a half decent soundcard/ DAC.

------
Zigurd
It's not quite 19th c. technology. It was .25 inches, but it had only two
conductors, the tip, and the ring, separated by an insulator. Hence the "tip"
and "ring" nomenclature for analog telephone wiring. Analog phone technology
is remarkably back-compatible. You can use an 80 year old phone today. Not
many, if any technology products could claim that level of compatibility.

But, so what? Analog phones are going away. They just lasted longer than most
other technologies. So should codecs and amps inside of mobile devices. Those
things belong with the transducer, so they can be tuned to the characteristics
of the transducer.

~~~
iliis
One of the most backwards compatible technology I know of is railway signaling
infrastructure - altough it's not a consumer product like a telephone:

There are still fully mechanical control centres where you have to switch the
switches by hand and turn a crank (to generate a bit of AC) to signal another
control centre the current state of your tracks. Doesn't matter if the next
station uses relais-logic or computers, it works.

~~~
Sanddancer
Speaking of railways, and connectors, the railway couplings in the US are
another thing that's withstood the dest of time. The Janney railway coupler is
compatible with couplers built 100+ years ago, and of a design dating back to
the 1860s, with the refinements pretty much all been making individual
components more and more standardized.

------
callesgg
I like that the 3.5 mm connector is fairly simple and is does not break
easily.

I have seen many broken micro-usb connectors, and a couple of broken lightning
connectors. I cant remember ever seeing a broken 3.5mm connector, the cables
break before the connector.

Do i want a thinner phone? No, i want a phone with better battery life. Like
phones had back in the day(2005) a week or two was not uncommon.

------
hackaflocka
And it works beautifully.

When for some reason, my bluetooth headphone's connectivity is acting up
(happens often), I can take my wired headphone and plug it in without even
looking, knowing that it WILL work.

One of my car's electric windows has stopped working. For my next car, I want
something where there's a fallback to a mechanical crank (the way car windows
used to be).

~~~
onion2k
I'm just old enough to remember cars with mechanical hand cranks to open the
windows. You couldn't open the passenger side window if you were driving. It
was dangerous to open the driver's side window if there was a lot going on.
The rear passenger windows often didn't open at all in cheaper cars. The
number of times you'd leave a window open by mistake was far higher because
cars didn't alert you about it.

I'd much rather have electric windows that are cheap and easy to repair than
reintroduce hand cranked windows, even just as a back up.

~~~
c22
I drive a car with hand-cranked windows and I don't have any of those
problems, maybe just cause I'm used to it? Did you know you could go out today
and buy a 2016 model car with manual window cranks? It's still an option on a
lot of vehicles.

~~~
hackaflocka
Good to hear!

Elon Musk: if you're reading this: if you put a manual window crank option in
your cars (especially as a fallback in case the electric window fails), that's
what I'll buy.

~~~
modfodder
Maybe the hand crank could charge the battery as well. On long road trips just
have your passengers crank through the night....

~~~
unexistance
the rise of professional hand-cranker

------
Animats
How is USB-C working out as a connector, from the ruggedness standpoint? It
has a huge number of pins (24) in a small space. How many insertion cycles can
it survive in the real world? Is connector wearout going to limit phone life?

~~~
tombrossman
Looks like the spec is 10,000 cycles: [http://www.anandtech.com/show/8377/usb-
typec-connector-speci...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/8377/usb-typec-
connector-specifications-finalized)

That's over 13 cycles/day for two years. Probably fine for most users.

Edit: The official spec is only available via a zipped folder of PDFs, here's
the particulars to save readers the effort.

    
    
      5.7.1.3
      Durability or Insertion/Extraction Cycles (EIA 364-09)
      The durability ratings listed in Table 5-16 are specified for the USB 3.1 connectors.
      Table 5-16. Durability Ratings
      Connector   Standard Durability Class               High Durability Class
      USB 3.1     Standard-A connector 1500 cycles min    5000 cycles min
      USB 3.1     Standard-B connector 1500 cycles min    5000 cycles min
      USB 3.1     Micro connector family                  10000 cycles min
      The durability test shall be done at a maximum rate of 200 cycles per hour and no physical damage to any part of the connector or cable assembly shall occur.

~~~
userbinator
That's what the spec says. It remains to be seen how connectors perform in the
real world, with all its dust and dirt.

~~~
PhantomGremlin
Dust and dirt are a bitch.

The original 30 pin Apple connector wasn't bad, but when I looked at the new
lightning connector I thought it would be a clear improvement. But now I'm not
sure.

Lightning pins are quite small. I find my devices don't always make good
contact. I find black stuff (oxidation?) building up on both pins and sockets.

Compared to lightning, USB-C just "feels" like it will be much worse. I
predict it will be a disappointment in the real world (as most connectors turn
out to be).

~~~
razed_in_blecch
It _is_ much worse. I've had a 2015 MacBook, a Razer Blade Stealth and a
OnePlus 3. The cables are fragile and prone to breakage, the Razer's USB-C
connector literally comes apart and all three of them have had pairing issues
forcing you to pull the cable out and swap it around hoping it will actually
connect.

I've not been surprised to see how slow the adoption of USB-C has been because
I think it's obvious to insiders that the reliability issues are real. The
shame is that when it works, it's great.

------
perilunar
If they want thinner, just go from 3.5 mm audio to 2.5 mm audio. Already an
existing standard.

If thinness is just a cover for wanting digital, then go TOSLINK and have
digital with analog fall-back. They already have it in the MacBook Pros.

~~~
xkcd-sucks
But the 2.5mm jack was used on TI graphing calculators and flipphones from the
90s... It doesn't seem very innovative.

------
userbinator
Note that there is a 2.5mm variant of the connector, which I'm surprised
hasn't gotten more common as a result of the whole thinness trend.

~~~
dublinben
The reason why this obvious option isn't part of the discussion is because
thinness is just the smokescreen. The real reason Apple et. al. want to move
towards digital connections for headphones is DRM. They want to control the
entire signal chain of their valuable (Beats = $3b) music content.

~~~
zwily
I'll believe you if they don't provide a simple analog adapter.

------
cm2187
What would be funny is if the audience started booing Tim Cook when he
announces this new "feature" when presenting the iPhone 7...

------
dingo_bat
This is the sort of thing the market will sort out anyways. If there is enough
of a market for people who don't care about the 3.5mm port, apple will be
fine. People like me will buy something else. Just because apple doesn't have
expandable storage hasn't made samsung discontinue it either. Same deal with
the headphone jack.

~~~
mdip
While I'm with you and won't be buying one for reasons beyond the 3.5mm jack
(but that would be a deal breaker if I was on the fence), I'll be _more_
surprised if the removal of that feature stops scores of people lining up to
get the latest phone (along with a new set of over-priced headphones).

At the end of the day, it's "give up the 3.5mm jack" or "don't get _the latest
iPhone_ " and I'll wager that they'll have no problem generating lines filled
with people that just have to have the iPhone 7 because...Apple! Apple has a
near-religious following. I got a kick out of a friend of mine who upgraded on
release when they ditched the 30-pin connector. He'd recently purchased an
alarm clock, an add-on for his home stereo and had already owned several other
30-pin reliant bits. They were on eBay the following week. Out of the non-
techies I know that purchased the iPhone 6, none of them could tell what,
specifically, they were getting over their existing iPhone 5S (that's a grand-
anecdotal-total of 3 folks, though).

If there is resistance on this release due to there not being enough
compelling features, that resistance will eventually give way. Many people are
so wired in to Apple's products that lock-in will win. Maybe they'll wait
until the 8. But eventually Apple will be making money on sales of ear buds
with Apple-only connections and will benefit from yet another component that
locks them into their platform. And the folks who spend $200 on _supposedly_
high-end ear phones[0] will now feel even more compelled to stick with Apple's
product line.

I'm biased and this is a little overly cynical. I've never owned an iPhone and
the two Apple devices I've ever owned: an iPad that belongs to my wife and an
iMac that I use as a display (target display mode) because, at the time, it
was a little less than a comparable "screen only" device with similar
specifications (and it was physically prettier, to boot). I've not logged into
it, directly, in two years and don't really get the appeal of OSX.

[0] I've never understood this. I have a pair of 25 year old studio headphones
(AKG, 1/4" jack, big, over-the-ear with a very long cord). I needed them due
to equipment and was sicked that they ran 10 times the price of a pair of
solid headphones, but I was _amazed_ by the quality they produced. I didn't
_want_ to buy these, but after 25 years of heavy use (and the manufacturer
_still makes the model I purchased_ ), I can't say I feel bad about the price.
The Beats/Bose headphones? I can't tell the difference between them and a pair
of $30 active noise cancelling headphones I purchased from Big Lots. Granted,
I can't plug my AKGs into a phone even with an adapter -- they're too quiet.

~~~
cm2187
The worst is that the apple-issued headphones are and have always been
absolutely crap. If fact in public transports when you hear the loud music of
a fellow passenger, it is almost always the crappy, leaky headphones that come
with the iphone.

If I ever buy an audio jack free iphone (god save), the last company I will
purchase headphones from is Apple.

~~~
theshrike79
Head-fi begs to differ with its four star review: [http://www.head-
fi.org/products/apple-earpods-with-remote-an...](http://www.head-
fi.org/products/apple-earpods-with-remote-and-mic)

The users on head-fi aren't your normal users, these are actual audiophiles.

~~~
morsch
I'm sure they are fine for $15 headphones and the reviews judge them
accordingly. And then go back to using IEMs that go for 10x the money. Most of
the reviews specifically mention the fact that they lack isolation, making
them a pretty bad choice in public, for your own and everybody else's benefit.

------
usefulcat
"If you're using £1,000 headphones with your iPhone at the moment, you're
going to be slightly cross."

So.. maybe just don't buy this hypothetical new iPhone?

------
chiph
> it received complaints that the headphone jack was sunk into the casing.

I had forgotten that. I paid $12.99 for an adapter that shouldn't have been
necessary. I expect with modern times, the Lightning-to-3.5mm adapter will be
twice the price, and just as unnecessary.

------
copperx
"Studying Moore's Law and the history of technology, it's clear we're not
going to stick around with something analogue for long"

Dediu didn't study the basics of sound reproduction, which are all analogue.
All the fancy ones and zeros end up in a stupidly innacurate shaking paper
cone. Ignoring a few esoteric exceptions, that's the best that we've got.

------
jmspring
When I use my iPhones for music (currently have a 6), I use one of two
headphones:

\- Plantronic BackBeat Pros \- Westone UM4r

The BackBeat's are great wireless, noise reducing over the ear headphones. I
need to remember to charge them.

The Westone's are in ear monitors that, depending on type of bud you put on
them, have noise reducing capabilities. They are wired. They are also some of
the most amazing monitors I've owned over the years. (It hurts the time I lost
a pair).

Sitting in a quiet space, the Westones will blow the Plantronics out of the
water. In a plane, if I am not trying to comfortably sleep, the Plantronics
are great. If I want to lay my head to the side -- IEMs rule the day.

Apple has yet to produce a set of headphones that feel comfortable for me or
deliver decent quality. I can't bike/run w/ Apple's headphones, they fall out
(or hurt).

If they go the route of no 3.5mm jack, I'll likely insist on one of those
stupid converters.

I've yet to see anything from Apple or Beats that compares to upper end IEMs
for quality, or upper end over the ear phones for noise reduction.

------
ajnin
> "Studying Moore's Law and the history of technology, it's clear we're not
> going to stick around with something analogue for long," he says.

The real world is still analogue, and as long as we have biological brains
there will need to be a digital to analogue conversion somewhere to interface
with it.

Phone manufacturers might want to move that conversion out of their devices,
which is understandable because analogue electronics is expensive and good
quality even more so, and that change would make it someone else's
responsibility.

In the end if this does go through it might not be totally a bad thing if the
new digital connector is also a standard (and provides power, I might add).
That way it would be possible to get a good quality DAC and reuse it
everywhere.

------
kristopolous
In 1997 they had a proprietary Apple plaintak 3.5mm connector that was longer.
In 2009 they moved controls from the shuffle to the headphone to force their
thing again. And this is just on one plug.

They are the company of proprietary hardware and this is how they play.

~~~
kagamine
that gen of Shuffle was a disaster and then they redesigned the little square
one to make it better. Imo the Shuffle as it is now is one of the best devices
ever designed.

------
touristtam
What I've read: Apple, Apple, Apple.

What it should have read: Phone manufacturer (among which Apple with its
popular iPhone) are starting to bring mobile devices without the omnipresent
3.5mm audio jack.

------
achairapart
Also, no more IR remote control: [https://www.amazon.com/M-Way-Universal-
Appliances-Controller...](https://www.amazon.com/M-Way-Universal-Appliances-
Controller-Dust-proof/dp/B01HGNFQQG/)

------
sxcurry
I don't understand the angst. Have an existing iPhone - keep it! Apple isn't
going to send the earbud police to your house to confiscate it. Buying a new
phone - buy an Android phone! Am I missing something here?

------
niccaluim
This is a lot of fuss over nothing. Of course there will be an adapter. Maybe
not the most elegant thing in the world, but it's not as though millions of
headphones are suddenly going to become useless.

------
inputjoker
2 most common phone companies before the iphone era were nokia and sony
ericsson.

Before making 3.5 jack mandatory by the GSM association, sony ericsson used
proprietary connector for their headphone jack and nokia used 1.5mm jack.

We weren't using 3.5mm jack all the way from the first smartphone and we
shouldn't stick to it for the future smartphones.

------
jacobsladder
Criticizing Apple for deciding to remove another port, is really shallow and
superficial way to spread FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) against this large
corporation.

Just so we are on this page, you will _still_ be able to connect 3.5mm
headphones to your iPhone. You will just have to use an adapter.

There are benefits for removing this port:

1\. It frees up internal space.

2\. It makes outer design more robust, simpler and cheaper for production.

3\. It makes the phone lighter.

4\. It allows you to make iPhone thinner.

5\. You have one less limitation to account for when designing new iPhone.

6\. You waste less materials on cables and oversized jacks made out of metal.
I really like how article says that there will be lots of cables wasted from
this. Well, so what? Should we stop all innovation and keep all standards
forever the same so there is no waste? Ideally we should move on to smallest
possible ports and most efficient standards. We can get there with tiny steps,
and that will include throwing away legacy things.

7\. It's easier to make phone waterproof when you have less openings.

In addition to that, lightning jack is superior to microUSB and other jacks,
because you can insert it either way. It also has magnetic functionality that
the other jacks lack.

Finally, for me as a customer, this change does not bring any problems either.
I may have to spend $20 more for adapter. But if the phone costs $500, this
change is insignificant.

Companies in the audio industry might have bigger problems from this, but it's
their problems, not mine.

I am seriously surprised that BBC would be posting useless crap like this.
Could it be because there is a lot of money to be made from shorting Apple
stock and then releasing anti-Apple propaganda?

