
Bringing back the iPhone headphone jack, in China - userbinator
https://strangeparts.com/bringing-back-the-iphone-headphone-jack-in-china/
======
Kluny
> I went through a ton of iterations and debugging to get this to work. The
> hardest parts were the electrical design and getting everything to fit
> inside the phone.

Crikey! How many iphones did he drill holes in?

> I also ended up having to buy lots, and lots, and lots of spare parts. I
> went through 3 complete iPhone 7s, a handful of screens, and countless
> internal components (mostly bottom cable assemblies and taptic engines).

3\. Ok, that's dedication.

> I feel like I got extremely lucky about finding space inside the phone.
> There was inexplicably a lot of extra room in the lower left hand corner,
> right where I wanted to put the headphone jack.

Suspicious... almost like their engineers left room to change their minds
about the jack at the last second if they wanted to :)

~~~
fifnir
You should check his video on this, the guy also casually bought a dremmel, a
printer and a fucking microscope (stereoscope?) in the process of making
this....

~~~
theshrike79
But these are Shenzhen prices, not western retail prices.

I'm pretty sure that "Dremel" didn't cost him much over $10.

~~~
scottyallen
Scotty, the guy in the video here. Sorry I'm late to the party. It was 165
rmb, so about $25.

------
verroq
To be honest I expected the discussion to be more on the idea of customising
electronics, either functional or ideological.

The irony of owning the only iPhone 7 that has a headphone jack from a company
that has a slogan that says "think different" is just too rich to not be
pointed out. This is the embodiment of the hacker mentality, not satisfied
with the status quo and constantly pushing the evenlope.

I eagerly await the day when we can "compile" physical objects and electronics
like we can with software. Who will care if the next iPhone have a headphone
jack when you can make your own?

~~~
amrrs
Remember how Modular phones have terribly failed? Essential is now trying the
same but not sure where it'd get with that!

That said, Don't you think even now we've got wireless streaming with
bluetooth or wifi which Headphones can make use of to move forward with
headphone jack missing?

~~~
zeveb
Not really — wireless audio quality is significantly worse and less stable and
wireless electronics are significantly more expensive. It's a feature in
search of a purpose.

~~~
dawnerd
My air pods/air buds/ whatever Apple calls them, they cut out a lot. Sometimes
only one at a time, sometimes both. Sometimes they don't connect to the phone
at all despite being fully charged.

My older plug in headphones with the adapter? Works every time.

~~~
dkonofalski
That's funny because my AirPods work great for me and I barely notice them
most of the time yet I have piles of old headphones and earbuds that have
crimped cables or knots and they cut out all the time. I even have two sets of
great headphones (cans) and one of them needs a little bit of wiggling to get
it to play 100%.

Seems like a trade-off in either case and I'm willing to try the wireless
thing until it becomes a pain. So far, it's been a pleasure.

------
retSava
The best hypothesis, IMHO from those I've read, to why Apple ditched the jack,
was to get a share of the market for headphones - either through their own
headphones (Apple-branded and Beats), or through MFI.

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.

~~~
coldtea
> _The best hypothesis, IMHO from those I 've read, to why Apple ditched the
> jack, was to get a share of the market for headphones - either through their
> own headphones (Apple-branded and Beats), or through MFI._

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.

~~~
rusk
I don't get why I need a waterproof iPhone? I'm not in the habit of getting my
personal electronics wet? and if I had the choice between a waterproof iPhone
(rarely a concern) and being able to use my headphones without charging them
and/or a dongle the choice is clear for me.

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.

~~~
pgm8705
I didn't think I needed a waterproof iPhone either until I got it. I guess I
still don't "need" it, but it is really nice to have. I love not having to
worry about ruining my phone if I'm out in the rain, getting ready in the
morning, hanging out by the pool, using it for recipes in the kitchen, and
especially reading/web browsing in the hot tub.

~~~
rusk
I have to admit ... you do make it sound quite compelling, from a comfort
perspective. I suppose my overriding wish is that I could have this cake, and
the other cake as well.

------
ericfrederich
"There was inexplicably a lot of extra room in the lower left hand corner,
right where I wanted to put the headphone jack."

Funny... I thought they removed it to save space. Apparently they needed space
for that void?

~~~
dkonofalski
Or, you know, the components that he removed in order to put that jack in...

Seriously... he shows the pieces he had to remove in order to get this working
and he compromised the water-proofing of the phone. How is that, in any way,
an equivalence to "void" or "empty space"?

~~~
Neeek
It was a piece of plastic... You really believe that much teeth pulling
surrounding the removal of a jack was the rational alternative to a less
accurate altimeter?

~~~
dkonofalski
No. They clearly had reasons to remove the headphone jack. I'm only addressing
the mistaken assumption that there was just "extra" space left in the phone.
If you're removing the altimeter/barometer conduit, you're essentially
removing the capability for the altimeter/barometer to remove air and balance
pressure. Since the original phone was waterproof, this was a necessary piece.

The "new phone" no longer has a working altimeter, is not waterproof, and has
major structural issues now. Anyone saying that there was just extra space
there is being ignorant of the facts shown or is being intentionally
disingenuous for some reason.

------
y0ss
Regardless of the result and what people think of Apple's decision making
process, I find this video to be very inspiring and shows how even black-boxes
can be hacked and modified to fit one's needs.

As a developer I was always excited when someone found a better/different way
to use my code in a way that is different than I originally intended to,
hopefully manufacturers in the future will focus on making it easier to hack
and modify their products.

------
rusk
Here's a quick note on bluetooth/digital sound quality, from recent
experience.

I'd been playing music on my car stereo (Kenwood, nothing amazing) across
bluetooth. I finally got around to picking up a lightning cable to connect
directly for charging but thought I'd try playing music across it.

I was instantly struck by how much better the sound quality was.

I don't think the sound output in this case is digital am I right? Lightning
still supports analogue output equivalent to the headphones jack for these
usecases?

So we're being sold on this idea that digital/bluetooth is "better" but as
somebody else points out here that's purely down to the DACs that are in use,
but from my personal experience the DACs native to the iPhone are actually
pretty good.

I wonder, apart from other motives proposed here, is eventually eliminating
expensive analogue circuitry from the iPhone BOM a part of what's going on
here?

~~~
pls2halp
I'm pretty sure the lightning standard doesn't support an analogue signal at
all, hence the role of the adapter as a DAC. Around 23mins in the linked video
you see the part he's using inside the phone, and it seems more complex than
simply matching pins.

In terms of your car stereo, I'd say that'd be an internal DAC, and the
quality difference was simply down to a physical connection compared to
Bluetooth(probably a previous standard too, the jump from Bluetooth 4.0 to
Bluetooth 5.0/W1(as in AirPods) is pretty similar in magnitude to the jump
from USB 2 to USB 3/Lighting(Lightning was again Apple adding support for
modern features before the standard was finalised)). In the same way that
nobody would've seriously dropped a dedicated display port before USB 3, the
new Bluetooth standards are opening up audio to replace physical connections.

As I understand it, Apple ultimately ended up dropping the headphone jack due
to interference(the DAC was being interfered with) from some internal
components in the new design, as well as making waterproofing easier. I'm
fairly certain there's no DAC already at this point.

~~~
cr1895
>I'm fairly certain there's no DAC already at this point.

The iPhone still has a physical speaker, doesn't it? Therefore there must be
one.

~~~
djrogers
Doesn't mean it's connected to the lightning port - and in fact it's not.

~~~
rusk
what's that got to do with anything?

~~~
ahakki
It probably means that the iPhone 7 can't output analoge signals via the
Lightning port, so thre must be a DAC inside the 3.5-to-lightning adapter.

------
kbos87
Last weekend I paid $50 - yes, $50 - for a third party adapter at an airport
kiosk after realizing I had forgotten the cheap apple adapter and was staring
down a 10 hour flight with incompatible headphones.

It also allows charging while listening to audio, which has also been a hassle
to not be able to do, so I gritted my teeth and made the purchase.

The whole situation is comical. Apple getting rid of the headphone jack was a
ridiculous move that leaves me with a really bad taste in my mouth about a
company who I otherwise have a very positive impression of.

~~~
nightcracker
Yet you still bought the phone. What message does this send to Apple?

~~~
verroq
That the missing headphone jack, while unfortunate, was outweighed by other
merits of the phone?

~~~
kbutler
Unfortunately the "vote with $" is very imprecise.

With respect to the headphone jack, a purchase of the phone could be anywhere
from "I enthusiastically agree" to "I disagree strongly enough that it almost
prevented my purchase" or even "I thought it would be OK, but realized after
purchase that I will not buy another phone without a headphone jack."

~~~
TeMPOraL
"Voting with your wallet" is such an imprecise message that I wish people
would stop bringing it up. It doesn't work. Customers choose out of the
available options, so the real choice is with those who decide what options
are available.

~~~
mi100hael
In theory if there's a choice missing that consumers would prefer, some other
company will step in and fill the void knowing customers will prefer their new
offering.

~~~
TeMPOraL
In theory, yes. And it works for the easy things. But one does not simply walk
into expensive electronics sector. Between capital requirements for product
development and for marketing, it's really hard to make a viable product.
People do try - there have been some bottom-up efforts for creating
smartphones with features missing from the mainstream (ranging from security
to customizability to openness), but they mostly failed.

What I'm saying is - voting with your wallet works for products where it's
easy for a random entrepreneur to design a release a new, unique model
focusing on unmet market needs. But smartphones are not such a product.
Customers _always_ choose out of available options, the difference is in how
easy is for the market to iterate on different variants for different market
subsegments.

------
exikyut
I added the following comment to the blog post. (So the "you" is addressed to
the blog OP.) My comment is currently awaiting moderation, so I'm posting it
here too _just in case_ it never shows up on the blog.

\---

 _In case you are not aware of[https://ramtin-
amin.fr/#tristar](https://ramtin-amin.fr/#tristar), I’ll just leave this here.
No affiliation, I discovered it via Hacker News a while back (by the way, your
post is at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15190199](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15190199))._

 _One of this person’s other projects (the iPhone NVMe exploit) required a
custom FPGA board for PCIe sniffing. This guy clearly likes digging into
protocols. Would be very very interesting to see what you could collaborate on
together._

 _PS. You might want to adjust the theme so the textbox font color is black /
#000. It’s_ very _hard to type with the very light shade of grey it is right
now._

------
ramzyo
> The PCB has a switching chip that switches between connecting the headphone
> adapter to the phone by default, and then disconnecting it and connecting
> the lightning jack when something is plugged into it.

Ah but this means you can't listen through the jack and charge your phone at
the same time. That's my most missed feature since Apple did away with the
headphone jack (I think technically you can still do this with a dongle?).
Cool project overall though, kudos to the author.

------
AndrewKemendo
The most striking thing here to me were the casual hardware labs in random
apartments, that have really great equipment but mostly great operators.

Shenzhen seem to be a hacker's wonderland.

~~~
damnfine
I know people in most cities with a similar setup, if often a bit more
specific to their hobby. I have a similar setup for old deadbug 'tronics and
audio gear. Between making geek friends and hackerspaces, most people in the
industrialized world have access to this stuff on a reasonable budget with a
bit of effort.

------
dm319
He may have recovered the convenience, but maybe not the quality [1]. Whenever
I google this I'm amazed at the sheer delusion of the apple fanboy's
publishing empire[2] with so many pseudo-technical articles explaining, for
example, how a digital output is better than an analogue output and that it
does away with a DAC. Hmmm. Disappointed to hear that google will follow with
the pixel 2.

[1] [http://bgr.com/2016/09/20/iphone-7-headphones-jack-sound-
tes...](http://bgr.com/2016/09/20/iphone-7-headphones-jack-sound-test/)

[2] [http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/no-stereo-jack-no-problem-
iphon...](http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/no-stereo-jack-no-problem-
iphone-7-sounds-great/)

~~~
amiga-workbench
Somehow I don't trust most headphone manufacturers to include a decent DAC.

The price of a pair of Beats headphones in no way corresponds with the quality
of the drivers inside or the build quality of the unit itself, since they tend
to blow most of the profits on fancy marketing and packaging I can't be sure
they're not going to cheap out on the DAC too.

~~~
rusk
I foresee a thriving secondary market in high quality DACs that people can
just connect their extant headphones to. I hope this can work just by way way
of plugging directly into the lightning port otherise it's another thing for
me to charge _sigh_

~~~
amiga-workbench
Remember the awesome inline-controls Sony used to have on their minidisc
players? I wouldn't mind seeing those come back with an integrated DAC and a
small OLED display for track info.

~~~
rusk
This should in theory be possible with current generation technology. I can
get this info on my car stereo whether playing across bluetooth or usb, and I
could get it on my pebble watch, but frustratingly it's very hard otherwise to
find standalone devices that do this. As far as I can make out it's all down
to differing bluetooth application profiles and licencing.

Again from a customer point of view very frustrating.

------
edent
If you need to make the text readable:

.item-content { color: #000000; }

~~~
Raphmedia
Some facts:

The contrast ratio between that gray (#8e8e8e) and the white background is
_3.3_. At this text size (16px) it fails WCAG AA and WCAG AAA. This means that
people with sight issues (and even regular people) will have issues reading
the body of the website. You usually want at least _4.5_.

This kind of low contrast should only be seen at a minimum of 18px and ideally
on bold text.

------
sheeshkebab
I haven’t upgraded my iPhone 6 or my wife’s iPhone to latest because of the
lack of headphone jack and my disgust with dealing with dongles. Perhaps once
wireless headphones are available, I’ll upgrade.

Apple MacBooks are kind of underpowered and not too attractive relative to
what’s becoming available in windows land - perhaps it’s time to start
switching back from all this Apple stuff I’ve bought into over the years.

~~~
chrisseaton
> Perhaps once wireless headphones are available, I’ll upgrade.

They are available - there's lots on the market.

------
nkrisc
> There was inexplicably a lot of extra room in the lower left hand corner,
> right where I wanted to put the headphone jack.

Maybe there was room because they removed the headphone jack?

~~~
Ajedi32
Yeah, I think that was the joke.

Allegedly, one of the big reasons why Apple decided to remove the headphone
jack in the iPhone was to save space for other components, so its pretty funny
that it actually just resulted in a bunch of extra, unused space right where
the headphone jack used to be.

~~~
tribby
presumably they made the final decision later in the process than design
modifications would allow - I bet the space is fully utilized in the 8.

------
Tistel
We need to vote with our soldering irons!

[http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~mellis/cellphone/index.html](http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~mellis/cellphone/index.html)

make our own damn free software/hardware phones! Those port stealing bastards!

------
limeblack
I have no studies to back this up but my Lightening Apple headphones last
longer(don't break) then the 3.5mm headphone jack equivalent. I plan the
volume quite loud and listen to the over half the day. I have gone through
roughtly 4 pairs of headphones in the last year.

------
csomar
I don't miss the headphone jack. At first, I was a bit pissed. Two reasons: I
can only use my headphones with the iPhone, so I need to bring two. I can't
use any other headphone with the iPhone, so I need to bring the iPhone one.

Why I don't miss it? The old headphone jack is not good. First, it has more
risk of either breaking (itself) or putting another force on the entry of the
device. Second, the audio transmission sucks. The old jack, for some reason,
has lots of interference. I'm having this problem with the iPad and Macbook.

My only issue: I want the iPhone jack to be USB-C compatible, or the
iPhone/Macbook Pro standard to be compatible.

Good riddance old jack.

------
arrty88
Apple changed the game when they released a phone without a physical keyboard.
They are doing it again pushing for wireless audio.

~~~
limeblack
Wireless headphones/audio has been around for years. Yes the AirPods design is
different but not really the same when comparing an iPhone(without physical
keyborad) vs a old Windows Mobile phone(or blackberry).

------
visarga
Removing the headphone jack and putting a proprietary connector instead was a
dick move, but the reason I don't buy Apple phones is because a phone costs
almost as much as a Macbook Air. I think it's absurd to be this expensive, and
I don't want to give Apple my money.

------
thinkMOAR
People prefer to have a headphone jack over water-resistance?

It is pretty save to assume it's no longer water-resistance as it was coming
from the factory after the drilling?

~~~
TeMPOraL
Definitely. Water resistance is almost irrelevant to normal use, as evidenced
by the fact that the world has been using non-waterproof mobile phones for
close to two decades and people didn't complain that much.

Also, it's not a real trade-off, as currently, everyone _except_ Apple somehow
manages to make a waterproof smartphone with a headphone jack.

~~~
thinkMOAR
I guess you don't live in the same country as me where it _always_ rains.

Also plenty of people have have water damaged phones, from using them in bath,
dropping then in the toilet or simply forgot to take them out of their pockets
before plunging into the ocean. That you don't know these people or don't do
it yourself, doesn't mean there are few water damaged phones.

Also please read:
[http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prEMEA42146116](http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prEMEA42146116)

------
emodendroket
Personally I haven't used the headphone jack on my phone in years and welcome
them getting rid of it in new phones if it makes them lighter or thinner.

------
chrisallick
That website needs to adjust its ux. If on an iPhone, swiping down, the thumb
or finger does change on the y axis, but also a little on the x axis.

While trying to read this it kept opening some gutter menu. Really annoying.

------
hanselot
How does it feel spending so much time doing something so fucking pointless?

~~~
moolcool
Not exactly pointless. He released his PCB layouts with the MIT license so it
wouldn't be surprising if Chinese vendors started releasing DIY kits. It also
proves that Apple totally could have fit a headphone jack into the phone and
that the current design is purely for vendor lockin.

~~~
eli
"Purely for vendor lockin" seems very uncharitable.

------
exabrial
Apple has $261.5 billion of cash and can't figure out how to add a headphone
jack to their phone... SMH

~~~
pgwhalen
I don't think those things are related.

------
cooper12
It's funny how this is just an electrical engineering video disguised as
consumer electronics (not complaining though). In a simple sense, all he did
was put the headphone adapter _inside_ of the iPhone (of course he printed his
own circuit board and added a switcher). Anyone coming in to the video
thinking it's a solution would be misled since it's really only possible if
you're willing to fuck with the inside of your phone, obtain the necessary
precision tools, learn soldering and other engineering, and then implement
(which in itself takes a lot of skill and this guy went through countless
parts and broken screens; not to mention he has Shenzen at his disposal and
even a factory willing to do small runs for him). Anyway it was fun to watch
the process, and maybe cathartic for those lamenting the headphone jack, but
certainly not brought back for the average person.

Edit: For those curious I looked through
[https://github.com/strangeparts/niubi-
headphones](https://github.com/strangeparts/niubi-headphones) and I think this
is the what the design of the final board is supposed to look like, assuming I
got the right file:
[http://i.imgur.com/fWPQNZf.png](http://i.imgur.com/fWPQNZf.png).

~~~
ainiriand
Why this comment is so dismissive? Please, for the sake of the conversation,
lets try to add only constructive comments to personal projects.

~~~
cooper12
What? I wasn't being dismissive at all. I said "not complaining though", "of
course he printed his own circuit board and added a switcher" meaning no shit
it was actually much more complicated and impressive, "which in itself takes a
lot of skill", "it was fun to watch the process", and I even edited it later
to include a screenshot of the circuit board which I found, indicating my
interest in the area. The only way you could construe my comment as dismissive
is if you willfully ignored everything I quoted. I understand sentiment is
hard to read on the internet, but maybe you read over my comment too fast?

The main point of my comment was bemusement at how the title makes it seem
different than what it is, which is a nice application of electrical
engineering. It's like me saying that "wow, these snacks for children are
actually really healthy vegetables, how clever!" My tone was mainly of being
impressed rather than dismissive.

