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

[swampfrog]

Taptic Engine

How exactly does the inclusion of this taptic engine require the removal of the headphone jack? Are they incompatible?

[Uncle Ted]

How exactly does the inclusion of this taptic engine require the removal of the headphone jack? Are they incompatible?

All this incredible new stuff (like dual 12mp cameras, new taptic engine, etc.) requires space in the phone. The 3.5mm headphone jack was providing very little benefit for all the space it required. Not to mention it is hard to water/dust proof a headphone jack.

[swampfrog]

Why Apple removed the headphone jack... The long answer:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/johnpaczkow...Jo9#.fupKLOyxz

There is only one argument in that long article for the removal of the jack, and that is space for other stuff. Everything else discusses the advantages of digital audio which is irrelevant. They also don't claim that it had to be one or the other, only that testing the removal of the jack made some things easier. Taptic engine, camera, larger battery. That's an engineering trade-off choice--if you believe their story. (Which I don't).

That means a product management team somewhere made a choice that making engineers' jobs easier is a valid trade-off for removing something that some end users want.

[Jeff Lebowski]

There is only one argument in that long article for the removal of the jack, and that is space for other stuff. Everything else discusses the advantages of digital audio which is irrelevant. They also don't claim that it had to be one or the other, only that testing the removal of the jack made some things easier. Taptic engine, camera, larger battery. That's an engineering trade-off choice--if you believe their story. (Which I don't).

That means a product management team somewhere made a choice that making engineers' jobs easier is a valid trade-off for removing something that some end users want.

The explanations have been all over the map. Terrible leadership.

http://bgr.com/2016/09/12/iphone-7-h...l-explanation/

Either way, the burden was decidedly on Apple to convince users that they wouldn’t miss the headphone jack. And now that we’re a few days removed from the event, we can calmly ask: did Apple adequately justify its decision to remove the headphone jack?

Unfortunately, the answer to that question is resounding no.

For many, Apple’s design decision with the iPhone 7 is alarming because it effectively abandons a universal, simple, reliable and durable technology for an entirely proprietary alternative. If you’re a headphone manufacturer who wants to make Lightning-based headphones, you’ll have to pay Apple for the privilege. If you own a pair of Lightning-based headphones, the only device in the world that can make use of them is the iPhone 7, unless, of course, you want to carry around an adapter with you everywhere you go.

This marks a huge shift in how Apple expects its users to listen to audio and Apple did a horrible job of justifying the rationale behind said shift. In this respect, Apple’s removal of the 3.5mm headphone jack is not at all comparable to previous instances of Apple abandoning legacy technologies.

As Chris Taylor of Mashable astutely observed: “This is in no way the equivalent of losing the CD drive or the 30-pin connector. There is no technological excuse for this. Music does not sound better over a Lightning cable. Nor does it sound better over Bluetooth, or the proprietary wireless technology Apple is using in its AirPods. There’s simply more audio information traveling over a wire than can travel over the air. Say it with me now: wired almost always sounds better than wireless.”

Rob Pegoraro of Yahoo, meanwhile, opined that “Apple killed a technology that’s worked fine for decades and left you with solutions that are costlier or more complex and work no better at the core function of delivering sound to your ears.”

[swampfrog]

The 3.5mm headphone jack was providing very little benefit for all the space it required.

And this is what it really boils down to, because as a consumer with my own set of preferences, this statement for me and many others is wrong. I'm a consumer that prefers choice over simplicity. I fully recognize there are others with different preferences.

[Uncle Ted]

The explanations have been all over the map. Terrible leadership.

http://bgr.com/2016/09/12/iphone-7-h...l-explanation/

There is a simple hack for y'all that can't live with 3.5mm hole in the bottom of your iPhone 7....

I am guessing it will make your iPhone 7 work as well as a Samsung Note 7.

[Uncle Ted]

And this is what it really boils down to, because as a consumer with my own set of preferences, this statement for me and many others is wrong. I'm a consumer that prefers choice over simplicity. I fully recognize there are others with different preferences.

It really boils down that it was time for it to go. The extra room gives me all those new great features and two more hours of battery life. I don't mine having to pay $5 for adaptor for my legacy headphones. The phone will set me back $650-$1000 so what is $5? Heck, I might even pick me up some kick*ss wireless, noise cancelling headphones with all kinds of cool DSP features and join the 21st century.

[Jeff Lebowski]

[falafel]

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

It really boils down that it was time for it to go. The extra room gives me all those new great features and two more hours of battery life. I don't mine having to pay $5 for adaptor for my legacy headphones. The phone will set me back $650-$1000 so what is $5? Heck, I might even pick me up some kick*ss wireless, noise cancelling headphones with all kinds of cool DSP features and join the 21st century.

This literally boils down all the responses to the worst possible one. "It was time to go" is the absence of no argument.

[Commando]

I don't know why I get such a kick out of the crying jordan meme. It's like cold pizza- always good.

[swampfrog]

It really boils down that it was time for it to go. The extra room gives me all those new great features and two more hours of battery life. I don't mine having to pay $5 for adaptor for my legacy headphones. The phone will set me back $650-$1000 so what is $5? Heck, I might even pick me up some kick*ss wireless, noise cancelling headphones with all kinds of cool DSP features and join the 21st century.

Yes, the extra room, according to Apple marketing, provided an easier solution for incorporating the new taptic engine, the new camera system, and a slightly larger battery. Calling those "all those new great features" is disingenuous, it's only 3, and they aren't new features. I don't care about any of those three and I would (and did) choose the headphone jack over all of them (Iphone 6s). I have already acknowledged that those 3 things may be more important to someone else, although claiming they could not have accomplished those things and included the jack is very suspect.

I don't want an adapter because it introduces one more failure mode, is prone to get lost, and is of questionable quality.

And please stop bringing up digital capable headphones, removing the jack did not all of the sudden make that possible. Noise cancelling and cool DSP features do not make for better sounding audio, they are by definition the opposite of high fidelity.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Yes, the extra room, according to Apple marketing, provided an easier solution for incorporating the new taptic engine, the new camera system, and a slightly larger battery. Calling those "all those new great features" is disingenuous, it's only 3, and they aren't new features. I don't care about any of those three and I would (and did) choose the headphone jack over all of them (Iphone 6s). I have already acknowledged that those 3 things may be more important to someone else, although claiming they could not have accomplished those things and included the jack is very suspect.

I don't want an adapter because it introduces one more failure mode, is prone to get lost, and is of questionable quality.

And please stop bringing up digital capable headphones, removing the jack did not all of the sudden make that possible. Noise cancelling and cool DSP features do not make for better sounding audio, they are by definition the opposite of high fidelity.

This guy agrees:

http://toucharcade.com/2016/09/09/wh...carter-crater/

Look, I accept that there are potential benefits to digital connections for headphones, but I am not for intellectually dishonest arguments. And when it comes to removing the headphone jack, there's a lot of garbage being spewed. When Phil Schiller says that it took "courage" to remove the headphone jack, maybe that should have been the thing that convinced you that it was stupid. Or maybe it was the fact that his brain didn't immediately escape his body from having said something so stupid. It's because I think too many people misunderstand the nature of how headphones and digital audio work, making it easy for companies like Apple to claim that removing the headphone jack is somehow better for people. And I don't think that people, even tech journalists that you hope would know better, are idiots. Understanding digital audio and headphones are difficult unless you dive deep into the topics like I have been doing the past year or so, and even audiophiles have plenty of debates over sound-related topics to where getting a clear answer on anything is nigh-impossible. But it's because of this confusion that nobody but mad geeks like me understand why people are getting screwed over, and that Apple can get away with it. Removing the headphone jack isn't all bad, there are some benefits and if you don't mind the drawbacks of Bluetooth audio, it's okay, but people ought to be mad about this.

[swampfrog]

This guy agrees:

http://toucharcade.com/2016/09/09/wh...carter-crater/

I liked this part too:

All the 3.5mm jack does is transmit power to headphones in such a way that the drivers generate the sound waves at the volume (which is just power) that you want to listen at. It's not magical. All that Lightning audio is doing is offloading the digital-to-analog conversion and headphone amplification to offboard components. That's it. There's always going to be the digital-to-analog converter (or DAC) that turns digital data into physical sound waves, and the amplifier that provides power to the transducers that create sound on the other end. Lightning audio is no magical advance in technology, it's just rearranging where the audio components are. And the analog jack itself has no inherent quality bottleneck. You can buy what well-respected headphone expert Tyll Hertsens calls the world's best headphone for $4000 in the Focal Utopia. Not only will it work with a 3.5mm headphone jack (like many high-end headphones, they come with a 6.3mm plug, but 6.3mm to 3.5mm connectors are easy to find), but an iPhone can drive them to great volume. Sure, you'd want to use high-quality DACs and amplifiers with them to provide more accurate and/or more pleasing sound, but you don't have to. You could plug $4000 headphones into your current iPhone and have a great time, because the most important part of great sound is the device that's providing the sound. The 3.5mm connection has nothing to do with audio quality, and there's no reason why it couldn't be used for another hundred years.

[Jeff Lebowski]

I liked this part too:

Yep. So we can throw out all the arguments about the audio jack being outdated or superior quality via the lightning connector as complete and utter BS. The only defensible justification is "we needed the space for other stuff", which from an engineering viewpoint is pretty weak. The other unspoken reason is that now Apple can get a fee for all of the lightning port devices and Uncle Dongle's Apple stock will go up. And they can sell you those overpriced Airpod things in case you want to walk around looking like a huge dork.

If you don't mind looking like a dork, you might want to add on a pair of these babies to catch your Airpods when they inevitably fall out:

[Jeff Lebowski]

I have a high-end 15" MacBook Pro. I love it, but it is almost four years old so I am due for a new model at work. I have been waiting for the new MBP to be released by Apple. Today was the day. You can find all the deets here:

http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/

Overall, I am impressed. I like the new color option and the touch bar looks like it will be great. Lots of nice advancements.

However, the funny/interesting thing is the ports. My current MBP has:

1 audio jack
2 USB ports
2 Thunderbolt ports
1 mag-safe charge port
1 HDMI port
1 SC-card slot

New MBP has the following:

Four Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports
1 audio jack

This will be an adjustment because the Thunderbolt 3 is new so I will need to purchase a ton of dongles for the time being to get things connected. However, the USB-C standard is a great move for the future and (for a change) it is being adopted industry-wide, so those bastards at Apple won't be able to monopolize it. It works either side up (hooray!), it provides enough power to double as the charge port, and both ends of the cable will (or can) have the same connector. It should be the standard everything converges to, replacing mag-safe, old thunderbolt, usb, HDMI, etc. The switch is worth the pain.

Here is the funny part:

1) New laptop keeps the old audio jack. I guess Apple is not quite as courageous as they claim.
2) You will not be able to connect your new iPhone 7 to the new MBP without buying a dongle.