Wrong! The cost of the dongle is almost irrelevant. It's the fact that you will never have it with you when you need it, and it's overall inelegance that offends me. It seems acceptable on paper, but in the real world it sucks. I had a win CE phone that required one and the end result was I could not use it to listen to music.
Once you connect the dongle, it becomes an extension of the existing headphone cable. There's no reason to separate it and leave it behind. I do that now with a 3.5 extension. Its not some complicated problem...
Except, of course, in the case where you may have more than one set of headphones. I know that's not the majority of people, but I'm guessing it's not a trivial number either. I'm also wondering if the adapter will work with Lightning ports of older iPhones, iPods, or iPads? If not, if I want to use the same headphone on multiple devices I will have to remove (and keep track of) the adapter. And whether it's the included earbuds (which based on past experience won't work for me) or if I buy an expensive new set of Lightning port headphones, am I going to now need to carry multiple sets of headphones if I'm traveling with both my iPhone and iPad?
I wonder if Apple needs to get rid of it for next year's major redesign and has decided to take the heat and lower sales this year so it doesn't detract from next year's phone.
I wonder how much in Lightning licensing fees Apple is going to collect from headphone manufactures. I'm sure Apple's accounting department already has a number in mind.
With what machine(s) did they ship this adapter? I ask because I don't recall Apple ever using a 4-pin FireWire.
Then they invented iGreed. [...] I have never found anything that took the 4 Pin Firewire.
It's greedy not to include an adapter in every sale that hardly anyone uses but that the customer is paying for?
My best guess is that some Windows laptops might have had such a port.
Sony created a 4-pin version of the IEEE 1394 standard known as i.LINK. The reduction to 4-pins removed the ability to power the peripheral. Later this port interface became an option for the IEEE 1394 standard. At the time, Sony was very popular in the "PC" business.
I think Apple could well afford to include, say with the Macbook Pro Retinas too thin for an ethernet port, a voucher redeemable for the thunderbolt-ethernet adapter. Then those who had a need for it could get one.
My opinion is that an adapter will not be included. Apple has never, to my knowledge, included any adapter when it switches ports. My iMac 14,2 did not include a Thunderbolt-> Firewire adapter when Apple got rid of Firewire. When the iPod went from Firewire to USB there was no adapter. Including a 3.5mm adapter would defeat the entire purpose of moving to a digital port. The idea is to firmly nudge user to the new port, not enable them to stay put. There will indeed be an adapter but it will not be included free. You will have to buy one separately. Only a few days before we find out who’s right.
First generation 15" MacBook Pro Retina came with the Thunderbolt to Ethernet adapter in the box.
I'm OK with the audio jack removal as a departure from old tech and so. However, using EarPods while charging seems like it'll be not possible at all. That's an important compromise in my use case: charging my phone while I listen to music/podcasts at the office.
I really doubt the bundled adapter will allow simultaneous charge and using the headphones, so I guess I'll have to wait for the phone to charge before I can listen to music at work. It's a rather small annoyance, but we use to resist change until we're 'forced' to.
I guess this shake in use habits will be worth it, with improvements such as better water resistance and sound quality (though I doubt the latter will be quite noticeable with Apple's earbuds).
I just don't buy this argument at all. There is no reason to charge and listen to music via wired earbuds at the same time. None. iPhone is rated for 24 hours of music playback.
Why are you not charging your phone at night and arriving to work with a fully charged phone?
There is an entire industry of portable battery pack manufacturers that would laugh as your assertion that people would never have a need to charge their device while on the go (including actually using it at the same time!).
You also conveniently limit your argument to music playback. There aren't too many silent movies made anymore so I'm fairly certain I might need headphones to listen to video soundtracks as well. Or game audio. How many hours of video or game play can you get? Ever been on a long flight or have kids in the back seat of your car on a long drive watching video?
It's greedy not to include an adapter in every sale that hardly anyone uses but that the customer is paying for?
Sony created a 4-pin version of the IEEE 1394 standard known as i.LINK. The reduction to 4-pins removed the ability to power the peripheral. Later this port interface became an option for the IEEE 1394 standard. At the time, Sony was very popular in the "PC" business.
I think Apple could well afford to include, say with the Macbook Pro Retinas too thin for an ethernet port, a voucher redeemable for the thunderbolt-ethernet adapter. Then those who had a need for it could get one.
I'm amazed that you don't realize that the price of the machine would include the value of the adapter. Nothing is free. No matter what, a company will maintain its profit margins if the market is there.
My opinion is that an adapter will not be included. Apple has never, to my knowledge, included any adapter when it switches ports. My iMac 14,2 did not include a Thunderbolt-> Firewire adapter when Apple got rid of Firewire. When the iPod went from Firewire to USB there was no adapter. Including a 3.5mm adapter would defeat the entire purpose of moving to a digital port. The idea is to firmly nudge user to the new port, not enable them to stay put. There will indeed be an adapter but it will not be included free. You will have to buy one separately. Only a few days before we find out who’s right.
They have included an adapter:
6 pin to 4 pin Firewire adapter.
With what machine(s) did they ship this adapter? I ask because I don't recall Apple ever using a 4-pin FireWire.
3rd Gen iPod. They also included a set of earbuds, power adapter, a dock, a soft draw string bag, a well made clip on holster/case, 30 pin - firewire cable, and a really good wired remote / headphone cable extender. Then they invented iGreed.
I have never found anything that took the 4 Pin Firewire. My best guess is that some Windows laptops might have had such a port.
Yes, some Windows laptops had the unpowered, data-only, 4-pin FW port. I believe it was to allow connecting video cameras back when FW was the standard for transferring video from cameras to your computer.
My opinion is that an adapter will not be included. Apple has never, to my knowledge, included any adapter when it switches ports. My iMac 14,2 did not include a Thunderbolt-> Firewire adapter when Apple got rid of Firewire. When the iPod went from Firewire to USB there was no adapter. Including a 3.5mm adapter would defeat the entire purpose of moving to a digital port. The idea is to firmly nudge user to the new port, not enable them to stay put. There will indeed be an adapter but it will not be included free. You will have to buy one separately. Only a few days before we find out who’s right.
First generation 15" MacBook Pro Retina came with the Thunderbolt to Ethernet adapter in the box.
My opinion is that an adapter will not be included. Apple has never, to my knowledge, included any adapter when it switches ports. My iMac 14,2 did not include a Thunderbolt-> Firewire adapter when Apple got rid of Firewire. When the iPod went from Firewire to USB there was no adapter. Including a 3.5mm adapter would defeat the entire purpose of moving to a digital port. The idea is to firmly nudge user to the new port, not enable them to stay put. There will indeed be an adapter but it will not be included free. You will have to buy one separately. Only a few days before we find out who’s right.
First generation 15" MacBook Pro Retina came with the Thunderbolt to Ethernet adapter in the box.
I hope there isn't an adaptor in the box, I hate getting extra peripheral junk that I don't need. So wasteful.
At this point, I'd prefer they didn't include a PSU or headphones, but I'm definitely in the minority, especially with the headphones that never get used.
I hope there isn't an adaptor in the box, I hate getting extra peripheral junk that I don't need. So wasteful.
At this point, I'd prefer they didn't include a PSU or headphones, but I'm definitely in the minority, especially with the headphones that never get used.
I don't mind those so much, since I'll just package them up with my old iPhone when I give it to a family member or sell it. Lightning-headphone adaptor though? I don't see that heading anywhere except the bin.
Completely fake connector. Look at how off-centered the Lightning connection is to actual plastic shrouding.
Look again. Looks like the shrouding just moved a bit. Which is entirely possible if the shrouding isn't tight.
The connector isn't even finished in that pic. You can clearly see it's just an empty housing with the Lightning plug in it. When it's finished, it'll have a fill inside to center the connector. Just look at any Lightning cable you have. It's a two part housing.
The picture isn't even of a confirmed part, just something someone knocked together to look like a 3.5mm-Lightning adapter.
Really, the people complaining that this adapter is ugly need to wait and see what they actually announce on Wednesday, as opposed to mock-ups posted to rumour sites over a month ago.
I'm seeing posts on Twitter pretty much confirming this rumor. Lightning earbuds and an adapter in the box. Boy Apple sure does love it's adapters. I'm surprised they're throwing it in the box and not charging extra for it. They better have a good marketing pitch for why proprietary lightning headphones are better than the current ones. I'm not sure making the phone more water resistant is good enough ( if that's even why they're doing it).
My opinion is that an adapter will not be included. Apple has never, to my knowledge, included any adapter when it switches ports. My iMac 14,2 did not include a Thunderbolt-> Firewire adapter when Apple got rid of Firewire. When the iPod went from Firewire to USB there was no adapter. Including a 3.5mm adapter would defeat the entire purpose of moving to a digital port. The idea is to firmly nudge user to the new port, not enable them to stay put. There will indeed be an adapter but it will not be included free. You will have to buy one separately. Only a few days before we find out who’s right.
Well then, let me update your knowledge...I have received adapters with my Apple purchase on at least three occasions. When I purchased my first MacBook Pro it came with a video adaptor to allow the DVI-I port to connect to a VGA monitor. My second Mac mini also came with a video adaptor (although I forget the exact conversion it was making). Also, when I purchased Apple's sport case for the very first iPod shuffle it came with a headphone jack adapter to allow non-Apple headphones to connect to the shuffle through the case.
One difference for some of these cases is that the adapter was to allow you to connect an essential component to your Apple device, without which major functionality would be lost. Your example of not including a Thunderbolt-FW is not the same because there really weren't that many people who needed FW connectivity. And even those who had FW devices, in most cases those devices were hard drives which also had USB ports so the impact was minimized.
One could argue that when Apple switched the iPod from FW to USB that they did include an adapter but it was built into the iPod...you could still use an old FW-dock cable/device to charge the iPod which was probably the more important function. It wasn't until later generations of iPods that FW support was dropped completely. So Apple provided a transition period before completely abandoning FW so you didn't instantly lose all of your investment in accessories. (Besides, to the best of my knowledge, there is no such thing as a FW-USB adapter, so Apple couldn't have included one if they wanted to.)
Finally, as far as "Including a 3.5mm adapter would defeat the entire purpose of moving to a digital port"... Consider that the vast majority of headphones people own are analog, including some fairly expensive ones, you aren't "nudging" them to a new port, you are shoving them into having to purchase all new, and likely more expensive, headphones because a digital-only option is completely useless to them without an adapter. Including a 25-cent part in the box to address this is pretty much a no-brainer. Then you drop the adapter from future versions of the iPhone after consumers and headphone manufactures have had time to adapt (no pun intended).
My Mac Mini came with a Mini-Display Port to HDMI adapter.
As for "defeating the purpose of moving to a digital port", the seeming purpose of moving to a digital port is to remove internal components to make way for new internal components. Putting the removed component in an external adapter means you've successfully off-boarded the component you want to remove.
This sure does have the stink of plausibility on it.
It sure does seem that Apple is creating a significant marketing challenge for themselves.
Including the adapter would pretty much extinguish the complaints.
Wrong! The cost of the dongle is almost irrelevant. It's the fact that you will never have it with you when you need it, and it's overall inelegance that offends me. It seems acceptable on paper, but in the real world it sucks. I had a win CE phone that required one and the end result was I could not use it to listen to music.
Once you connect the dongle, it becomes an extension of the existing headphone cable. There's no reason to separate it and leave it behind. I do that now with a 3.5 extension. Its not some complicated problem...
Yet, you can't charge your phone if you are using it to listen to music, which is the entire reason any complaints exist.
Like if I was Apple and going to pull this off, I'd put a second lightning connector on it (eg on the other side of the phone) because Nintendo long ago already proved that people will not accept having to trade off charging for headphones. What are you expected to do when you forget or lose the lightning headphones? Listen to your music on the included speaker? Hell no. Apple may assume people will accept bluetooth headphones, but I don't want yet another thing to charge. Is Apple going to waste space in the phone on a wireless charging standard? No. Not before Apple adopts a wireless charging standard for the phone itself.
Hence my point. If the 3.5mm jack goes away, that means either Apple is going to adopt wireless charging for the phone, or is going to force people to use third-party headphones which are heavier, need charging too, and far easier to lose.
I'm OK with the audio jack removal as a departure from old tech and so. However, using EarPods while charging seems like it'll be not possible at all. That's an important compromise in my use case: charging my phone while I listen to music/podcasts at the office.
I really doubt the bundled adapter will allow simultaneous charge and using the headphones, so I guess I'll have to wait for the phone to charge before I can listen to music at work. It's a rather small annoyance, but we use to resist change until we're 'forced' to.
I guess this shake in use habits will be worth it, with improvements such as better water resistance and sound quality (though I doubt the latter will be quite noticeable with Apple's earbuds).
I just don't buy this argument at all. There is no reason to charge and listen to music via wired earbuds at the same time. None. iPhone is rated for 24 hours of music playback.
Why are you not charging your phone at night and arriving to work with a fully charged phone?
When you're iPhone is 1 1/2 years old and its battery won't hold a charge for longer than 30 minutes, you'll understand.
That is absurd and no excuse. THAT in itself is a problem that needs solving, if its even true. You need to understand that you have a problem that needs solving, and its has no bearing on what Apple should do with future products.
When you're iPhone is 1 1/2 years old and its battery won't hold a charge for longer than 30 minutes, you'll understand.
That is absurd and no excuse. THAT in itself is a problem that needs solving, if its even true. You need to understand that you have a problem that needs solving, and its has no bearing on what Apple should do with future products.
And that's it an atypical issue, if it's even true.
Once you connect the dongle, it becomes an extension of the existing headphone cable. There's no reason to separate it and leave it behind. I do that now with a 3.5 extension. Its not some complicated problem...
Yet, you can't charge your phone if you are using it to listen to music, which is the entire reason any complaints exist.
Like if I was Apple and going to pull this off, I'd put a second lightning connector on it (eg on the other side of the phone) because Nintendo long ago already proved that people will not accept having to trade off charging for headphones. What are you expected to do when you forget or lose the lightning headphones? Listen to your music on the included speaker? Hell no. Apple may assume people will accept bluetooth headphones, but I don't want yet another thing to charge. Is Apple going to waste space in the phone on a wireless charging standard? No. Not before Apple adopts a wireless charging standard for the phone itself.
Hence my point. If the 3.5mm jack goes away, that means either Apple is going to adopt wireless charging for the phone, or is going to force people to use third-party headphones which are heavier, need charging too, and far easier to lose.
Please explain why you won't be able to charge your iPhone at the same time that you listen to music?
Logic dictates that adding a simple Lightning pass through port to the charging cable included int eh box will easily solve this problem for you.
They may introduce wireless charging, but that's far from the only solution here.
As for having to recharge wireless headphones, all I will say to that is I would much prefer to recharge my headphones once a day, rather than go through an entire day of wrapping and untangling headphone wires, plugging and unplugging them, and stuffing them in my pocket and pulling them out along with whatever they've gotten tangled up with in my pocket.
By the way, why are third party headphones far easier to lose than Apple headphones?
Yet, you can't charge your phone if you are using it to listen to music, which is the entire reason any complaints exist.
Like if I was Apple and going to pull this off, I'd put a second lightning connector on it (eg on the other side of the phone) because Nintendo long ago already proved that people will not accept having to trade off charging for headphones. What are you expected to do when you forget or lose the lightning headphones? Listen to your music on the included speaker? Hell no. Apple may assume people will accept bluetooth headphones, but I don't want yet another thing to charge. Is Apple going to waste space in the phone on a wireless charging standard? No. Not before Apple adopts a wireless charging standard for the phone itself.
Hence my point. If the 3.5mm jack goes away, that means either Apple is going to adopt wireless charging for the phone, or is going to force people to use third-party headphones which are heavier, need charging too, and far easier to lose.
Please explain why you won't be able to charge your iPhone at the same time that you listen to music?
Logic dictates that adding a simple Lightning pass through port to the charging cable included int eh box will easily solve this problem for you.
They may introduce wireless charging, but that's far from the only solution here.
As for having to recharge wireless headphones, all I will say to that is I would much prefer to recharge my headphones once a day, rather than go through an entire day of wrapping and untangling headphone wires, plugging and unplugging them, and stuffing them in my pocket and pulling them out along with whatever they've gotten tangled up with in my pocket.
By the way, why are third party headphones far easier to lose than Apple headphones?
Comments
First generation 15" MacBook Pro Retina came with the Thunderbolt to Ethernet adapter in the box.
You also conveniently limit your argument to music playback. There aren't too many silent movies made anymore so I'm fairly certain I might need headphones to listen to video soundtracks as well. Or game audio. How many hours of video or game play can you get? Ever been on a long flight or have kids in the back seat of your car on a long drive watching video?
The picture isn't even of a confirmed part, just something someone knocked together to look like a 3.5mm-Lightning adapter.
Really, the people complaining that this adapter is ugly need to wait and see what they actually announce on Wednesday, as opposed to mock-ups posted to rumour sites over a month ago.
My Mac Mini came with a Mini-Display Port to HDMI adapter.
As for "defeating the purpose of moving to a digital port", the seeming purpose of moving to a digital port is to remove internal components to make way for new internal components. Putting the removed component in an external adapter means you've successfully off-boarded the component you want to remove.
Like if I was Apple and going to pull this off, I'd put a second lightning connector on it (eg on the other side of the phone) because Nintendo long ago already proved that people will not accept having to trade off charging for headphones. What are you expected to do when you forget or lose the lightning headphones? Listen to your music on the included speaker? Hell no. Apple may assume people will accept bluetooth headphones, but I don't want yet another thing to charge. Is Apple going to waste space in the phone on a wireless charging standard? No. Not before Apple adopts a wireless charging standard for the phone itself.
Hence my point. If the 3.5mm jack goes away, that means either Apple is going to adopt wireless charging for the phone, or is going to force people to use third-party headphones which are heavier, need charging too, and far easier to lose.
Logic dictates that adding a simple Lightning pass through port to the charging cable included int eh box will easily solve this problem for you.
They may introduce wireless charging, but that's far from the only solution here.
As for having to recharge wireless headphones, all I will say to that is I would much prefer to recharge my headphones once a day, rather than go through an entire day of wrapping and untangling headphone wires, plugging and unplugging them, and stuffing them in my pocket and pulling them out along with whatever they've gotten tangled up with in my pocket.
By the way, why are third party headphones far easier to lose than Apple headphones?