mnbob1

metrix said:

Can someone explain to me why Microsoft continues to employ 4 or 5 people in their stores when no one visits and they are certainly not buying anything there. I understand giving it a try but if you are going to throw this much money down the drain do it for a good cause.

I live in Minnesota and the nearest Apple Store to me is in the Mall of America. Microsoft opened their store across the hallway from Apple's. I hate going to the mall but love the Apple Store. The service is great and the employees are friendly. The techs at the Genius Bar always solve my problems. I went into the Microsoft store a couple of times just to check it out. I wasn't greeted at the door. The four employees were hanging out around the Xbox display and didn't even notice me. There were two other customers in the store wandering around that appeared to have been ignored as well. We were all dressed in suits so Xbox was not on my list and it looked like the other two weren't either. The displays were messy and the Windows phone had empty spaces. It wasn't until I was walking out that an employee approached me. The stores have to be a loss for MS. I don't see any more opening in the Twin Cities. They seem to be happy with the mini stores inside Best Buy.

rogifan_old said:

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.

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 current mini analog headphone jack was based on the 1/4 inch jack on audio components going back decades (the original 1/4 inch phone connector dates back to the late 19th century). The mini jack in it's mono form for consumers goes back to transistor radios that we carried around to listen to the ball games on AM radio. (many of you are too young to know what a transistor radio is, made in Japan, and why we would listen to AM radio. FM hadn't been created yet.) The Sony Walkman made stereo connectors and mini headphones popular. The only change over the years was to add additional connectors within the jack in order to add features like power and microphone.

Since the industry doesn't appear to want to create a new digital standard for headphone connectors that could be used as public domain it looks like each vendor is on their own. 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.