Apple Jan. 27 launch event... what will it be?

[old_gregg]

My Audio Technica and Grado headphones (which are good by an standard) disagree. They work fine on my iPhone.

literally wearing a pair of ath-m50x plugged into an iphone right now. amp makes a big difference.

[Shaka]

literally wearing a pair of ath-m50x plugged into an iphone right now. amp makes a big difference.

Not big enough for me to buy a decent headphone amplifier for my phone. You're talking to a guy that has a recording studio in his house complete with pro level headphone amplifiers capable of driving headphones with much higher impedance than your ATH M50x. At 38 ohms the ATH-M50x are very efficient for a quality headphone and in most cases do not require a separate amplifier.

[falafel]

It means you can no longer pick up $5 earbuds from the check out line at Walmart.

That's true for now, but in about 3 months there will be tons of crappy headphones in the checkout line with lightening connectors.

[Shaka]

Headphones via lightning connector is a terrible idea. That connector gets really dirty causing charging problems. It's tough to clean as well. Things will only get worse with people jamming headphones into it on a regular basis.

[creekster]

No.

just so I know you're still "batting .1000" on apple rpoduct info, can you tell me why that is the case?

[falafel]

These things are pretty ugly.

[old_gregg]

These things are pretty ugly.

the apple earbuds or whatever they're called are amazingly uncomfortable. those look terrible. i am interested in the bluetooth replacement tech though. bluetooth is old and sucky

[MartyFunkhouser]

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[Uncle Ted]

just so I know you're still "batting .1000" on apple rpoduct info, can you tell me why that is the case?

Lightning, unlike USB, is a "daisy-chain" technology, like firewire. USB requires a hub. In short, it would be easy to build something that allows a charger and headphones to be plugged in. While the following is not really a good implementation, it gives the idea:



Note the female lightning the port on the end that allows daisy-changing. Only one thing to plug your iPhone into so you can quickly hardwire into your car (for the folks that hate bluetooth).


Also, the iPhone 7 has two more hours of battery life thanks, in part, to freeing up space for more battery by removing that obsolete headphone jack. So you may not even need to charge your iPhone while using the headphones.

[falafel]

Lightning, unlike USB, is a "daisy-chain" technology, like firewire. USB requires a hub. In short, it would be easy to build something that allows a charger and headphones to be plugged in. While the following is not really a good implementation, it gives the idea:



Note the female lightning the port on the end that allows daisy-changing. Only one thing to plug your iPhone into so you can quickly hardwire into your car (for the folks that hate bluetooth).


Also, the iPhone 7 has two more hours of battery life thanks, in part, to freeing up space for more battery by removing that obsolete headphone jack. So you may not even need to charge your iPhone while using the headphones.

Really easy to build, but hasn't been built.

[old_gregg]

I was about to say, old_gregg arguing with you about this is like him trying to argue with me about craft beer.

actually, it is exactly like that

[Uncle Ted]

Square readers and other credit card readers also use a headphone jack.

Analog "swipe" readers are quickly becoming obsolete due to the new "chip and pin" (ok, at least, chip) regulations for credit cards. "chip and pin" readers are available for the lightning port only.

[Northwestcoug]

I am interested to see what happens here. I am, for now, in agreement with everyone here, and the lack of headphone jack is one reason that I will not be upgrading to the 7 right away.

Having said that, Apple has shown the ability to push things like this through that people are initially upset about, and then shortly decide they don't care about, such as taking out floppy drives or not having Flash support. I don't think anyone thinks they made bad decisions in those cases.On the other hand, they also tend to stick to their own ideas even when it is clear that no one is buying into them, like that old one button mouse.

It will be interesting to see if three years from now everyone will have ditched the headphone jack, and no one will have cared.

I thought the same thing. Everyone was mad that the OS didn't support Flash. But after a small temper tantrum, everyone started building mobile website without Flash (engineers please correct me if I'm wrong; I don't bat .1000 all the time). But I wonder if Apple's dominance of the market now is as absolute as it was when the Flash issue came up. The headphone jack seems like a more ubiquitous thing than Flash.

Then again, Apple really has not made a huge strategic error for years now. Maybe we're seeing the last of wired headphones.

[Northwestcoug]

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[Color Me Badd Fan]

I thought the same thing. Everyone was mad that the OS didn't support Flash. But after a small temper tantrum, everyone started building mobile website without Flash (engineers please correct me if I'm wrong; I don't bat .1000 all the time). But I wonder if Apple's dominance of the market now is as absolute as it was when the Flash issue came up. The headphone jack seems like a more ubiquitous thing than Flash.

Then again, Apple really has not made a huge strategic error for years now. Maybe we're seeing the last of wired headphones.

Flash was problematic software, still is. A headphone jack doesn't cause problems for anyone.