
Why Apple removed the headphone port from the iPhone 7 - davidhariri
https://dhariri.com/posts/57d558cdd1befa66e5b8e05b
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stephenr
Phil Schiller, Greg Joswiak and Dan Riccio explained the technical reasons
that triggered the removal.

[http://www.macrumors.com/2016/09/07/apple-explains-
headphone...](http://www.macrumors.com/2016/09/07/apple-explains-headphone-
jack-removal/)

But no, continue with the fucking conspiracy theories, just like how they
removed the floppy drive to because Job's neighbour was a floppy disk magnate
and had an annoying dog, and they removed optical drives because Jonny Ive
wants CD's to become worthless so he can make abstract art from used CDs.

I know, it's "cool" to bag on Apple - first it was because they were the
outsider, PC-using people would make fun of Mac users because we were
different - we didn't just buy a PC like everyone else; then Apple released
the iPhone and became a household name, and non-Apple users would make fun of
Apple-users because we were buying the 'popular' option.

Sure, I can see that the headphone jack removal will inconvenience some
people. I can also see the argument that USB-C _might_ have led to less
inconvenience. But that would then mean that no accessories from the last 4
years would work, and people would _still_ complain.

I've seen people posting images of Apple's old iPod/iTunes ad artwork with the
silhouette and white headphones, saying "remember when Apple's marketing was
all about white headphones". Do these people _seriously_ think the iPhone 7
has no ability to use wired headphones, whether Lightning or Analog?

Or is it just the same thing we always see. Find something vaguely
controversial. Take a single aspect and hyper-focus on it, without context,
and try to get your shit viral. I'm waiting for a less-tech-aware member of my
family to say they don't want an iPhone 7 because they won't be able to use
headphones with it.

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greg7mdp
Kind of odd that the article basically argues that the main reason Apple
dropped the headphone port was to make more money at the expense of its users
- and was dishonest by pretending it was to make the phone waterproof... but
then the author still orders the iPhone 7.

Apple's blatant marketing bullshit really rubs me the wrong way.

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davidhariri
Author here: I was actually trying to highlight that I think the reasons were
three-fold: Future-picking, Capitalism and Space-efficiency. Sorry if that
wasn't clear from my writing. Thanks for the comments and yes, Apple's
marketing sometimes rubs me the wrong way too.

~~~
greg7mdp
Fair enough! I was just surprised by the ending - I agree with most of what
you wrote though, and I enjoyed reading the article.

~~~
davidhariri
I'm glad! Thanks!

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bikamonki
Author forgot to list one of the _theories_ running around: DRM enforcement.
It is harder to control what plays through an analog plug in contrast with
controlling DRM with the closed source driver that will control the wireless
headphones (or the analog adapter).

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davidhariri
Can you link to that? I hadn't heard that theory... Would the connector act as
a filter for DRM content?

~~~
detaro
The idea is that something similar could happen as happened with video: With
digital connections replacing analogue ones, the interfaces could require
downstream devices to implement DRM protocols (HDCP in the video case),
limiting high-quality signals to licensed output devices.

But for video, the benefits of digital transmission were way greater, and
extracting signals from a output device is way easier with audio. Grabbing
decrypted video from a TV screen's internals is really difficult, analogue
audio from the cable between a audio DAC chip and a speaker is easy.

