Since the industry doesn't appear to want to create a new digital standard for headphone connectors...
The earphone connection is analog, not digital. If indeed Apple is getting rid of this connector, it's not to make the phone thinner. The primary reason is to force people to buy Apple earphones, which at least initially, would be the only ones using the Lightning connector. And since I don't think the Lightning connector can support an analog signal, the D/A converter would have to be in the earphones, making them far more expensive and possibly more bulky.
If Apple gets rid of the standard headphone minijack, my current iPhone will most likely be my last. This thinness obsession is ridiculous. Apple has become like the sad, little anorexic girl. She's down to 70 pounds, but whenever she looks in the mirror, she still thinks she's too fat. I don't want an Android or Windows phone, but Apple is going to push me there and for no good reason.
The space that jack takes up would not be used for a bigger battery because the battery can't extend down that far due to other components.
If they make the phone thinner, that presumably means a thinner battery. People want longer battery life, not less. If they get rid of the earphone jack, it means you can't charge the phone and listen at the same time. And it also means a much greater number of insertions in the Lightning connector, which has been a failure point on previous iPhones of mine. Of course if they do have wireless charging, that would reduce the stress on that jack.
Double the battery size and make the iPhone twice as thick and I'd be far happier. Why does the iPhone have to be thinner? So it looks good in TV commercials? Just about everyone carries it in a case anyway, so the thinness is completely irrelevant. What's going to sell more phones? Making it thinner or doubling the battery life (at the cost of a thicker phone)?
Apple will advertise it as "water resistant". I highly doubt it will have wireless charging. Only a handful of phones have it now. iPhone won't have it until other phones have next generation of wireless charging.
Apple usually introduces new tech when they can really make a splash, and wireless power, regardless of where your phone is in the room is very cool, and would be the Apple way to do this -- not essentially the same thing as what Samsung is doing with their charging mats.
I agree that the analog headphone jack probably doesn't prevent a thinner design except it requires much more depth that uses valuable space that could be used for more battery capacity and other internal components. Personally I would love Apple to increase battery capacity.
The only standard (sort of) is Blue Tooth for wireless listening. The problem is that less expensive phones (read that cheap) don't often implement the full 4.0 standard so the result can be somewhat mixed. The cost of quality Blue Tooth headphones needs to come down to be more affordable.
If Apple decides to use the Lightning connector for headphones it sounds like the cost could be high. Will the new headphones be compatible with previous iPhone models? Apple isn't afraid to make radical port decisions on their products as seen on the iPhone, iPad, iPod, and especially the Macbook line.
It's not about necessarily making the iPhone thinner, but allowing it to be thin, so in this regard the language works. As you correctly asses, it's about freeing up space internally so new features can utilize it, and keep the phone as thin as possible.
The future of audio is wireless. And Bluetooth, or its successor is the new standard, not Lightning. There's no need for a digital audio connector. But there is a need to improve the way audio devices connect to hardware. There's no great demand for Bluetooth with the cheap ubiquitous 3.5mm headphone jack on every product. But take that jack away and you'll likely see great advances in Bluetooth reliability, and performance, as well as see the prices drop making it much more affordable. In the meantime, those who want to connect with the best quality and most reliable audio possible will have Lightning, with inexpensive adapters to use with their legacy equipment.
Of course Apple's Lightning headphones will have to be compatible with all Lightning products, and products like the Retina MacBook will get a much needed second multifunction port, that also serves as a dedicated headphone port.
The wireless charging thing sounds like pure fantasy to me. The reason being it's physically impossible to do it without making the phone at least a millimetre or more thicker.
If wireless charging were in the road map, Apple wouldn't have spent the last few years shaving fractions of millimetres off of the iPhone's thickness, knowing that they are going to have to add a full millimetre back for wireless charging. What component is there in the phone who's "thin-ification" this year could possibly give them the necessary space to add in wireless charging?
The way they talk about waterproofing being perhaps "pulled" is also highly suspicious. Waterproofing is something that affects every component and involves the whole integrated design, yet they talk about it being "pulled" as if there was a waterproofing chip or something that might be left out if time and money didn't permit.
I would file this whole report under "senseless guessing."
The Samsung S6 is thinner than the 6S and has wireless/inductive charging. OLED panels can be thinner than LCD so if they switched panel tech they might have more room. I am fairly sure that a solid aluminium back would act as a shield so it would have to be incorporated in a depression on the outer side of the back panel if they stuck with aluminium. They already made the 6S thicker when they added force touch.
Waterproofing can be accomplished with a hydrophobic fluid that coats all parts so it's a feature that probably could be just pulled if it were the intended method rather than mechanical sealing.
Thinness as an excuse for removing the headphone port is not credible when there is an Android phone a full 2.6mm thinner than the 6s that still manages to have one.
We have been over this and over this. Wireless Charging is not currently, has not ever been and is not close to being deployed in a consumer product. The technology you are referring to is inductivecharging - as Apple correctly states in their Apple Watch materials. It does not eliminate the wire. At best, it could be said to be "contactless."
Give me a break. Both inductive and contactless are forms of wireless charging.
Apple will advertise it as "water resistant". I highly doubt it will have wireless charging. Only a handful of phones have it now. iPhone won't have it until other phones have next generation of wireless charging.
It is not so much that there aren't too many phones that have that feature, but rather that the feature is useless.
It is much more efficient to charge your phone with a normal cable. Not only that, but it is also convenient as I can at least move my phone around 1m radius zone without slowing the charging process down.
Water resistance is high on my list. Too many times that I'm outside and worried about pulling my phone out in the rain,
You simply shouldn't worry .... unless it is iPhone 3g. A few drops on the surface will not damage your phone (it will only make it harder to use the touch screen). Mic and speaker are protected by the metal mesh.
If it is included at all, of course the wireless charging will be proprietary. And it will be better than what's out there now.
The features I want are a front flash/movie light so I can Facetime in a dark setting, an optical zoom lens, and a password protected power-off switch - paired with a SIM lock and remote photo taking - so I can find the bastard who just stole my phone.
Password protected power off & remote photos. Definitely! Kind of unbelievable Find My iPhone doesn't have the option to take a photo when in lost status and an unlock attempt is made.
Apple will advertise it as "water resistant". I highly doubt it will have wireless charging. Only a handful of phones have it now. iPhone won't have it until other phones have next generation of wireless charging.
What makes you think Apple isn't ready with wireless charging? They've already done it with the Apple Watch. What if they have a model of the iPhone 7 that implemented wireless charging, removed the mini headphone jack, and implemented waterproof speakers, mics, and Lightning port. Or even removed the Lightning port and used Blue Tooth for wireless headsets.
The new iPhone will be faster, probably thinner, have a better camera, water resistance, and high definition audio. Wireless charging, too. I seriously doubt it. I wish it would, but... Every year there are tons of rumors going around about sapphire screens, oled, waterproof, wireless charging, and on and on. We hope they skip the "s" version and release a completely new design. They never do. We can hope for one big change. That's it.
Apple will advertise it as "water resistant". I highly doubt it will have wireless charging. Only a handful of phones have it now. iPhone won't have it until other phones have next generation of wireless charging.
Apple usually introduces new tech when they can really make a splash, and wireless power, regardless of where your phone is in the room is very cool, and would be the Apple way to do this -- not essentially the same thing as what Samsung is doing with their charging mats.
I agree. Wireless (thru the air) charging is too new. Which is why the next iPhone won't have it.
Nice additions to the iPhone 7, but the one thing I want most is a larger battery for longer life. While the Plus has excellent battery life, it's too big for my pockets and besides, I prefer the smaller form factor. There's no reason that Apple can't focus as much on battery life as it does on aesthetics.
More nonsense about making the phone thinner. Hey media get a clue. There are existing phones plus iPod touch that are thinner than the iPhone 6/S but still use the headphone jack.
This is true, but they may want the screen to go edge to edge, and the head phone jack might too thick to allow the to happen. As it is now, it sits under the bezel.
The feature I really want to see is smaller top and bottom bezel's.
Could care less about water resistance and wireless charging.
talk about cart before the horse. water resistance solves a real problem for normal people on the street. bezel size is something only phone nerds contemplate online.
You're kidding, right? A larger screen, or smaller overall handset size; only appeals to phone nerds. That's clueless?
We have been over this and over this. Wireless Charging is not currently, has not ever been and is not close to being deployed in a consumer product. The technology you are referring to is inductivecharging - as Apple correctly states in their Apple Watch materials. It does not eliminate the wire. At best, it could be said to be "contactless."
Give me a break. Both inductive and contactless are forms of wireless charging.
No, they're actually both forms of wired charging. Just requiring more extraneous hardware than than the "typical" wired charging. You still have to plug a "thing" into the wall. (and I am doing that already) yawn. It's nothing more than a Rube Goldberg method of charging.
We have been over this and over this. Wireless Charging is not currently, has not ever been and is not close to being deployed in a consumer product. The technology you are referring to is inductivecharging - as Apple correctly states in their Apple Watch materials. It does not eliminate the wire. At best, it could be said to be "contactless."
Give me a break. Both inductive and contactless are forms of wireless charging.
Not so. "Wireless charging" as popularly used right now is a meaningless buzzword that actually refers to inductive charging, which for practical purposes would be more accurately described as "contactless", because in terms of use case impact the component it eliminates is the metal contact and not the wire. If your headphones had to run a wire to your phone, but not plug into it - just rest against it, would you consider that "wireless"? No. This is no different.
There is a more correct general term which is the one I believe you are thinking of: "wireless power" (also wireless energy transmission or wireless power transfer), which encompasses near field wireless power transfer (such as the use of inductive coupling) along with other technologies including the more impressive far field technologies. That term is accurate because it is more specific, the transfer from point to point is wireless. But "wireless charging" isn't wireless, because the wire is not the part of the "charging" process that was eliminated. The connector/socket and the relevant contacts were. Wi-Fi is wireless because the wire connecting the device to the network was eliminated. Unless you eliminate the wire that connects the device being charged to the power source, the charging is not wireless even if a wireless power transfer is involved.
This distinction does matter. Actual wireless charging using medium range or far field wireless energy transmission is an active area of research. Once actually wireless charging is available it's going to sound mighty stupid calling a useless inconvenience like a Qi pad "wireless", despite the obvious wire trailing away from it while the phone rests inert and impractical atop it. It's an area of confusion which is both needless and avoidable.
Apple will advertise it as "water resistant". I highly doubt it will have wireless charging. Only a handful of phones have it now. iPhone won't have it until other phones have next generation of wireless charging.
Apple usually introduces new tech when they can really make a splash, and wireless power, regardless of where your phone is in the room is very cool, and would be the Apple way to do this -- not essentially the same thing as what Samsung is doing with their charging mats.
That would be nice. I don't know if that tech is on the horizon though.
More nonsense about making the phone thinner. Hey media get a clue. There are existing phones plus iPod touch that are thinner than the iPhone 6/S but still use the headphone jack.
The wireless charging thing sounds like pure fantasy to me. The reason being it's physically impossible to do it without making the phone at least a millimetre or more thicker.
If wireless charging were in the road map, Apple wouldn't have spent the last few years shaving fractions of millimetres off of the iPhone's thickness, knowing that they are going to have to add a full millimetre back for wireless charging. What component is there in the phone who's "thin-ification" this year could possibly give them the necessary space to add in wireless charging?
If a present a scenario of "no thicker than it currently is" and "includes inductive charging" there is no way you can see it happening within the physics of this universe?
Since the industry doesn't appear to want to create a new digital standard for headphone connectors...
The earphone connection is analog, not digital. If indeed Apple is getting rid of this connector, it's not to make the phone thinner. The primary reason is to force people to buy Apple earphones, which at least initially, would be the only ones using the Lightning connector. And since I don't think the Lightning connector can support an analog signal, the D/A converter would have to be in the earphones, making them far more expensive and possibly more bulky.
1) Why can't the future option of going thinner be one of the reasons for it?
2) If this is only about the greed of getting people to buy Apple headphones then why a) include any Apple headphones with each iPhone and b) not move to Lightning many years earlier.
3) Why don't you think Lightning can support analog? It seems to me that this move I've been waiting years for is happening at the same time Apple will make the iPhone support USB 3.0, which also doubles the pins on each female Lightning connector from 8 to 16. Why can't they offer analog audio over some of those pins? One reason might be interference from other pins, which could mean that charging and listening via headphones is impossible. Another reason that comes to mind is the chip for switching between digital and analog pins with a DAC built into a Lightnjng chipset may be too complex.
4) What is the cost and size of the DAC that would be used for Apple's EarPods?
Comments
The earphone connection is analog, not digital. If indeed Apple is getting rid of this connector, it's not to make the phone thinner. The primary reason is to force people to buy Apple earphones, which at least initially, would be the only ones using the Lightning connector. And since I don't think the Lightning connector can support an analog signal, the D/A converter would have to be in the earphones, making them far more expensive and possibly more bulky.
If Apple gets rid of the standard headphone minijack, my current iPhone will most likely be my last. This thinness obsession is ridiculous. Apple has become like the sad, little anorexic girl. She's down to 70 pounds, but whenever she looks in the mirror, she still thinks she's too fat. I don't want an Android or Windows phone, but Apple is going to push me there and for no good reason.
The space that jack takes up would not be used for a bigger battery because the battery can't extend down that far due to other components.
If they make the phone thinner, that presumably means a thinner battery. People want longer battery life, not less. If they get rid of the earphone jack, it means you can't charge the phone and listen at the same time. And it also means a much greater number of insertions in the Lightning connector, which has been a failure point on previous iPhones of mine. Of course if they do have wireless charging, that would reduce the stress on that jack.
Double the battery size and make the iPhone twice as thick and I'd be far happier. Why does the iPhone have to be thinner? So it looks good in TV commercials? Just about everyone carries it in a case anyway, so the thinness is completely irrelevant. What's going to sell more phones? Making it thinner or doubling the battery life (at the cost of a thicker phone)?
The future of audio is wireless. And Bluetooth, or its successor is the new standard, not Lightning. There's no need for a digital audio connector. But there is a need to improve the way audio devices connect to hardware. There's no great demand for Bluetooth with the cheap ubiquitous 3.5mm headphone jack on every product. But take that jack away and you'll likely see great advances in Bluetooth reliability, and performance, as well as see the prices drop making it much more affordable. In the meantime, those who want to connect with the best quality and most reliable audio possible will have Lightning, with inexpensive adapters to use with their legacy equipment.
Of course Apple's Lightning headphones will have to be compatible with all Lightning products, and products like the Retina MacBook will get a much needed second multifunction port, that also serves as a dedicated headphone port.
Waterproofing can be accomplished with a hydrophobic fluid that coats all parts so it's a feature that probably could be just pulled if it were the intended method rather than mechanical sealing.
Thinness as an excuse for removing the headphone port is not credible when there is an Android phone a full 2.6mm thinner than the 6s that still manages to have one.
You simply shouldn't worry .... unless it is iPhone 3g. A few drops on the surface will not damage your phone (it will only make it harder to use the touch screen). Mic and speaker are protected by the metal mesh.
This is true, but they may want the screen to go edge to edge, and the head phone jack might too thick to allow the to happen. As it is now, it sits under the bezel.
A larger screen, or smaller overall handset size; only appeals to phone nerds. That's clueless?
It's nothing more than a Rube Goldberg method of charging.
There is a more correct general term which is the one I believe you are thinking of: "wireless power" (also wireless energy transmission or wireless power transfer), which encompasses near field wireless power transfer (such as the use of inductive coupling) along with other technologies including the more impressive far field technologies. That term is accurate because it is more specific, the transfer from point to point is wireless. But "wireless charging" isn't wireless, because the wire is not the part of the "charging" process that was eliminated. The connector/socket and the relevant contacts were. Wi-Fi is wireless because the wire connecting the device to the network was eliminated. Unless you eliminate the wire that connects the device being charged to the power source, the charging is not wireless even if a wireless power transfer is involved.
This distinction does matter. Actual wireless charging using medium range or far field wireless energy transmission is an active area of research. Once actually wireless charging is available it's going to sound mighty stupid calling a useless inconvenience like a Qi pad "wireless", despite the obvious wire trailing away from it while the phone rests inert and impractical atop it. It's an area of confusion which is both needless and avoidable.
2) If this is only about the greed of getting people to buy Apple headphones then why a) include any Apple headphones with each iPhone and b) not move to Lightning many years earlier.
3) Why don't you think Lightning can support analog? It seems to me that this move I've been waiting years for is happening at the same time Apple will make the iPhone support USB 3.0, which also doubles the pins on each female Lightning connector from 8 to 16. Why can't they offer analog audio over some of those pins? One reason might be interference from other pins, which could mean that charging and listening via headphones is impossible. Another reason that comes to mind is the chip for switching between digital and analog pins with a DAC built into a Lightnjng chipset may be too complex.
4) What is the cost and size of the DAC that would be used for Apple's EarPods?