Too soon? Apple's new iPhone 7 ruffles feathers with Lightning audio, Home button changes

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  • Reply 81 of 125
    Sorry but I don't understand the claim that Apple had to ditch the 3.5mm socket so that they could make the phone waterproof.

    Don't the latest Galaxy phones have waterproof headphone sockets (that do not require a rubber bung)?
    singularity
  • Reply 82 of 125
    "Rather than quitting an app and then being asked about what documents you'd like to save, and waiting around as the app finished up various tasks it wanted to complete before giving you control over your own computer again, the original iPhone introduced a radical new user-first model featuring the equivalent of the similarly round "Go Home" control from the Gong Show."

    Am I missing something? Isn't this the same as hitting the windows key for the start menu or WIN+D for the desktop?

    "After nearly a decade of wild experimentation, Samsung's latest flagship has settled on a copy of what Apple introduced ten generations ago."

    And yet many other Android devices don't have a physical home button, which no doubt, is the way that Apple will eventually go.
    I think you're missing that we're talking about a phone, not a computer that does full multi tasking and can have an arbitrary number of apps up and running at the same time. With the iPhone, Apple introduced the idea that when the user wants to initiate a new task, requiring the old task to be ended immediately, the task at hand must abort gracefully and immediately surrender the phone to the user without asking them to wait or interact with the old app.

    Android may already have no physical button, but is it absolutely effective 100% of the time or is it less reliable than the home button on the iPhone? For example, the home button, in conjunction with the sleep/wake button, is utterly reliable for rebooting the iPhone no matter how it's crashed. I suspect there are times when an Android user with no physical button must resort to removing the battery. Others often do things first, but as shown in the article Apple do them right, whether first or not. 
    No I'm not missing that, the article makes the comparison between the iphone home button and software on a computer. Here's the four paragraphs. Regarding Android, there's no home button but there are wake/power and volume buttons on the side. My phone has never crashed but to restart it, holding in the wake/power works. I'm not sure why a home button would be any more reliable. 

    "Just as with Lightning Audio, reaching the current Home button design required lots of developments in parallel. Everyone may have forgotten, but the original iPhone's Home button was an incredible simplification of how software would work on a computer. Everyone may have forgotten, but the original iPhone's Home button was an incredible simplification of how software would work on a computer.

    Rather than quitting an app and then being asked about what documents you'd like to save, and waiting around as the app finished up various tasks it wanted to complete before giving you control over your own computer again, the original iPhone introduced a radical new user-first model featuring the equivalent of the similarly round "Go Home" control from the Gong Show.

    When users hit the Home button, iOS yanked the rug out from under the current app and took the user to a familiar place to start something new. Developers were given guidelines for how to wrap up their act immediately, rather than being given the opportunity to ignore what the user wanted to do.

    That was a sea change from the experience of Windows products, which wouldn't even power down without a lengthy display of "shutting down" that made users feel like they were in line at the DMV waiting to be recognized by a clerk who was busy on an amusing personal phone call."
  • Reply 83 of 125
    revenant said:
    if Apple did not make the changes people would complain it was old tech. 
    I think that I can safely say that I do not recall seeing a single iPhone user complain about the inclusion of the headphone socket until rumours that Apple might be ditching it emerged.

    Doubtless if the current rumours of apple ditching the port on their Macs is true I don't doubt that we have retrospective suggestions that it was well over due. Given that Macs don't have lightning ports, I expect that a few people will even hail the need to have a USB to 3.5mm adaptor to go with their iphone lightning to 3.5mm port is a "courageous" step forward.
  • Reply 84 of 125
    FFIW, I am one of those people who regularly charge their device while listening to it at the same time. Every night I sleep with an earbud in one ear (the one that's not on the pillow) and listen to lectures from TTC, *every* night. They go into my dreams which is fun and interesting. I use a nice little organically shaped charging 'stone' that will fully charge my iPod twice. Would I be bothered if I didn't have an analog jack? Not really because I'd use a little adapter, I'm sure better ones than those currently available will be along soon. I already carry one or two of these little charging stones with me on long journey's and I can't see that having a small adapter would make much difference. I agree with earlier comments that this is just whingeing for the sake of it.

    I remember when OS X came out I hated it compared to the spartan b/w simplicity of OS9. Back to the article though, I still have my mac set to normal reverse scrolling because because that's works for my brain, somehow it makes sense when using non touch devices. I never, get confused with scrolling directions when switching from iOS to MacOS.
    ration al
  • Reply 85 of 125
    Andy1984 said:
    I think the Airpods were developed/thought of before the EarPods. Like remember in the iPhone 5 announcement how much time they spent talking about how they 3-D scanned hundreds of ears to find the perfect shape for a headphone? I think this was for the ultimate goal of developing/designing the Airpods, but the other technologies weren't viable yet, so they made them wired. This makes sense, for there are people (Tim Cook and others) who have said that the Airpods do not fall out due to their shape. But the wired ones do because of the wires. So I think Apple went about redesigning headphones in 2012 with the intention of making them wireless but had to make wired ones since wireless and battery technologies hadn't caught up yet. This is purely speculation, but it makes sense. 
    There is no perfect shape, just like there is no longer a "perfect" phone screen size.

    If you want ear "buds" that fit your ear canal properly, you may need to buy custom made ones. such as these

    http://www.etymotic.com/consumer/custom-fit/

    They ain't cheap though.
  • Reply 86 of 125
    eriamjheriamjh Posts: 1,630member
    Greta article.   It could have been 6 articles.  

    It shows how Apple has evolved the iPhone itself rather than just trying to copy the PC/desktop experience.   Gradual advancement.   
    ration al
  • Reply 87 of 125
    "Apple wasn't an early pioneer in NFC tap-payments or in wireless home automation but is now a leader in both" 

    Since when did Apple become the leader in home automation? What metrics are you using for that? 
    He didn't say the leader, he said a leader.
    anantksundaramnolamacguy
  • Reply 88 of 125
    tele1234 said:
    evilution said:
    If you are one of the 30 people who have genuinely charged and listened to music at the same time, buy the dongle.
    This honestly sounds like you are saying "Well, I don't PERSONALLY do it, therefor NO ONE does"

    Have you ever travelled? Ever taking a multi-leg flight or a long car journey? Of course you'll have one end in the charger, one end plugged into headphones. Heck even just driving to work I oftentimes put the charger and the audio jack in. It's a pretty major inconvenience. And wireless headphones, whilst cool and all, are the biggest pain in the butt going. it's just one more thing that needs charged unnecessarily.
    Okay, 31 people do it.  Apple gathers all these analytics, such as...  what percentage of our current iPhone customers charge their device while listening to music through the jack?  They have a number and it's much nearer to 1% than it is to 100%, thus, they're not going to stall evolution of the device to appease a small minority of customers.  

    Holy Cow!  I'm glad there wasn't this much gnashing of teeth when the Sumerians switched from clay tablets to papyrus.  The one thing I'm not hearing (except for Woz) is complaints about the relatively poor audio quality blue tooth bandwidth provides.  That is legit 
    radarthekatanantksundaramration al
  • Reply 89 of 125
    tele1234 said:
    evilution said:
    If you are one of the 30 people who have genuinely charged and listened to music at the same time, buy the dongle.
    This honestly sounds like you are saying "Well, I don't PERSONALLY do it, therefor NO ONE does"

    Have you ever travelled? Ever taking a multi-leg flight or a long car journey? Of course you'll have one end in the charger, one end plugged into headphones. Heck even just driving to work I oftentimes put the charger and the audio jack in. It's a pretty major inconvenience. And wireless headphones, whilst cool and all, are the biggest pain in the butt going. it's just one more thing that needs charged unnecessarily.
    You can't even use radio equipment on some airlines.... atleast you have to keep it shutdown during takeoff, and even then no radio is allowed.
  • Reply 90 of 125
    To a person who is afraid of change, every change is unnecessary or comes too soon. 
  • Reply 91 of 125
    This sounds like report from North Korea about the dear leader.
    franklinjackconhungover
  • Reply 92 of 125
    radarthekatradarthekat Posts: 3,842moderator
    Soli said:
    Soli said:
    normm said:
    Too soon?


    This is chart is either poorly made or is designed to trick the reader. It's market share by revenue, not units, that have exceeding 50%. Market share by unit sales, which is the important decider when it comes to the end user, is just over 15%.
    Not sure that's correct.  People vote with their wallets.  If Bluetooth is capturing half the amount of money spent on listening, and that amount is growing while the amount spent on wired is shrinking, what more evidence does one need?  Early adopters usually pay a premium, but they also very often indicate a trend that trickles down along with prices.  I was in Target earlier today, saw many wireless sets in the $59-99 range, whereas a year ago $99 was the more prevalent starting price.  Unit market share will soon enough follow revenue market share.
    No, I'm correct. The chart makes an ambiguous statement that refers to revenue.
    Okay, so we can agree the chart is ambiguous, but I didn't argue with that point.  I actually agreed with you on that score.  My argument was against your other point, where you suggested Unit share is the more important indicator.   It's not.
    You're wrong. Your whole point, implied by the graph, was that BT headphones had surpassed wired ones and at 15% it's not the case at all. Apple provides connectivity for a minority of headphone users. I would argue that the graph might look different for iphone users though, maybe it's more than 15%, but the graph you posted is irrelevant, revenue is important for the manufacturers and retailers not the end user
    Um, try to pay attention. I didn't post the graph. Someone else did. And I made my point very clear about market share by revenue is a key indicator. You seem not to have read that, or you wouldn't be myopically focused on unit market share, as meaningless as it is in the realm of Smartphones.
    ai46
  • Reply 93 of 125
    mac_128mac_128 Posts: 3,454member
    paxman said:
    Soli said:
    mac_128 said:
    paxman said:. 

    As far as removing the jack I could not care less. The iPhone headphones will not be compatible with other devices going forward, but what other devices do people use their headphones for these days? I do occasionally use headphones while watching movies on my Mac or iPad but I have many headsets lying around. Usually I share the screen with my wife so we need two headsets and yet there is only one jack. So I use a splitter. Not a problem. My guess is that people will rapidly turn to wireless headphones. For the ones among us that want the wires there are still about a million options. For people like me who want more than one headset to be connected to the same device there is another interesting question - will Apple facilitate multiple headset link-up over Bluetooth?
    That's right. There is not currently a Lightning audio splitter, and though the forthcoming Belkin adapter appears as though it might solve this problem, the website suggests it won't, and only supports one headphone and one charger. 
    You've been informed several times that you can split the fucking audio.
    Belkin charger / splitter cable.
    http://www.belkin.com/us/p/P-F8J198/?clickid=WZU0mcTpVUU1yciyOO2I00b2Ukk1CnxWIwswT00&utm_campaign=Online Tracking Link&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=impactradius&irgwc=1
    From the webpage:

    "Supports one Lightning Audio device and one charger only"

  • Reply 94 of 125
    I know a fair number of professional musicians and audio people and they nearly all use iPhones and Macs.  I don't think I've seen a roadie that didn't have an iPhone in the last 4 years and the same for the musicians.  The biggest complaints I've heard so far are about the inability to charge and listen without buying yet another dongle.  When flying all over the world, they often need to be able to charge and listen concurrently for well over 12 hours straight. And since they are sometime composing or editing while on the plane, wireless just doesn't cut it.  The latency issues as well as recharging make it a show stopper.  This is also going to be an issue if Apple removes the headphone jack from the MacBook Pros.

      
  • Reply 95 of 125
    SoliSoli Posts: 10,035member
    hungover said:
    Sorry but I don't understand the claim that Apple had to ditch the 3.5mm socket so that they could make the phone waterproof.

    Don't the latest Galaxy phones have waterproof headphone sockets (that do not require a rubber bung)?
    1) Removing points of ingress does make it easier to waterproof. Apple even talked about this with the Apple Watch and microphone and speaker ports.

    2) Apple talked about what the internals space and edge "real estate" savings allowed their engineers to do, and this only the beginning. Think of how removing the ODD made way for a truly modern notebook.

    3) Samsung can claim anything they want. A statement of waterproof is a lie. As statement of water-resistance is possible, but it doesn't mean your device will not be affected. An IPx7 rating only means they had a device tested that met that qualification, which in the case of a '7' for water-resistance means it can withstand being submerged In fresh water for 30 minutes at a depth of 1M, but it doesn't mean your device will not be affected.

    This goes the same for any product by Apple. Keep in mind that any statement of water-proof, water-resistance, or an IP rating is to appeal to the customer (i.e.: marketing), but it doesn't mean the device can handle it. The company could have used an adhesive that will be 95% effective for about 6 months of use and then start to drop at a rate of about 10% per month. They may have also figured out that their customer-based isn't likely to go swimming with the device they're marketing so their risk is low. It's all about the numbers. We see something similar in battery capacity and fast charging, when many vendors use poor batteries that don't hold up well over time. Even Apple has a disclaimer that water damage isn't covered under their warranty, but I doubt they would forego replacing a defective device that was used in the proper way; it's more or less to legally protect themselves from the potential of pushing well past the limits of the device.
    dangermouse2ration al
  • Reply 96 of 125
    SoliSoli Posts: 10,035member

    sog35 said:
    The iPhone7 is a transition to the iPhoneX (ten) next year:


    How do I know where the Home button is by touch alone?
  • Reply 97 of 125
    You're wrong. Your whole point, implied by the graph, was that BT headphones had surpassed wired ones and at 15% it's not the case at all. Apple provides connectivity for a minority of headphone users. I would argue that the graph might look different for iphone users though, maybe it's more than 15%, but the graph you posted is irrelevant, revenue is important for the manufacturers and retailers not the end user
    Um, try to pay attention. I didn't post the graph. Someone else did. And I made my point very clear about market share by revenue is a key indicator. You seem not to have read that, or you wouldn't be myopically focused on unit market share, as meaningless as it is in the realm of Smartphones.
    This is absolutely correct. The point that the graph showing the 2 lines crossing is irrelevant in a birds eye view. The point should be that the trend for wired headphones is dropping and wireless is increasing. Sit behind the trend and you can make your money for a short period of time, and then die off. If you want to be on the forward edge of trends, you know and use graphs like this showing the future.

    At some point, CRT TVs vs flat screen had this exact same graph. Would you poo-pooers be defending the CRTs? The trend is obvious.
    radarthekatai46ration al
  • Reply 98 of 125
    mrr said:
    Apple Pencil on iPhone? Absolutely! You say it wouldn't work on a small screen? I used a pen for years on a Newton and Palm Pilot. Great for text input and bet the shit out of a finger for drawing. The technology has already been perfected for the iPad Pro and would be cheaper to implement for a smaller screen there are really no technical constraints for producing and marketing this now. Plus there's the added incentive that Apple gets to sell a $100 pencil add on. There is also no reason that a smaller thinner and could not be created if the current one is too big for your tastes. In any case, I'm going to buy the first one that comes out because it something I can use every single day. I would have jumped to Samsung just for this feature if I wasn't tied into the iOS universe. Please Apple, listen to me and not Appleinsider.
    mrr said:
    Apple Pencil on iPhone? Absolutely! You say it wouldn't work on a small screen? I used a pen for years on a Newton and Palm Pilot. Great for text input and bet the shit out of a finger for drawing. The technology has already been perfected for the iPad Pro and would be cheaper to implement for a smaller screen there are really no technical constraints for producing and marketing this now. Plus there's the added incentive that Apple gets to sell a $100 pencil add on. There is also no reason that a smaller thinner and could not be created if the current one is too big for your tastes. In any case, I'm going to buy the first one that comes out because it something I can use every single day. I would have jumped to Samsung just for this feature if I wasn't tied into the iOS universe. Please Apple, listen to me and not Appleinsider.
    Go to Walgreens and get a $.99 conductive pen that you can use on any touch device for what you want to do. You don't need an Apple Pencil that adds cost for all of us and size and weight as well. An Apple Pencil is an artist and design tool . It also would reduce your battery life. You could even spend a little more and get a 2 in one pen that also can be used as a regular ink pen. My bank gave away these last year at Christmas. Never used it though because who's want to carry it around unless you might have a pocket protector. 
    radarthekatDan Andersenration al
  • Reply 99 of 125
    kiowavt said:
    mactodd said:
    You didn't mention charging while listening.

    Yeah, that's a monster deal breaker, for like about 1:1,000,000 people.  Seriously, how often are you walking around, listening to youriPhone while its plugged into a charger?
    Not walking around.  I use my iPhone 6plus as a work phone.  Work calls are directed to it, so I have it on a charging stand with a headset plugged in all day.  Bluetooth not yet ideal for me, and batteries not lasting enough.  The phone can't go without the charge that long and be ready when I need it late day.  Some workdays last 8am to 8pm and longer.  So for now I stick with what I have, and specifically that missing jack is why I can't even consider it.  There will be cases and stands with headphone jacks I am sure, and the measly iPhone dock works but is not sturdy enough for me.  So long term, no, but too many of you are judging from your angle, your own use patterns.  Me, I don't see that the phones need to be quite so slim, but I know beefing it up to have the jack and a larger battery, that getting larger or thicker is never an option for any phone maker.  Anyway, when enough options to use an iPhone 7 are out so I can use it as I do today, well, I will be considering it.  
    Beats makes BT headphones with 40 hours of battery - not enough?

    the AirPods get 5 hours w/ 15 mins recharge for 3 more hours. you can do this several more times until the 24-hour case battery is depleted. and I'm betting you can wear one at a time to have the other charging, so i have a hard time believing it won't suffice for office call jockeys like me.
    edited September 2016 ration al
  • Reply 100 of 125
    SoliSoli Posts: 10,035member
    and I'm betting you can wear one at a time to have the other charging, so i have a hard time believing it won't suffice for office call jockeys like me.
    That's been confirmed. It also starts and stops audio when you place in your ear and take it out. If you use it only for phone calls you can go 50+ hours straight between both without ever having to charging the holding case.
    ration al
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