OK, the fallout begins.
Here is a story from VOX about why apple abolished the headphone jack:
How badly is this written? The arguments are if I briefly list them:
(a) Apple has done this before. Initially with the iMac and Floppy + proprietary ports in favour of USB, and then with first Air, and last year with Macbook.
OK. The first time they did it was to move from a proprietary port to what became an industry standard. No one could be that deluded to think that the (proprietary) lightning port will become standard on e.g. Android phones. The first Air probably did not sell all that well, especially after Thinkpad x300 was unveiled. If it sold that well, there would have been no reason for the comprehensively redesigned next gen Air. And Macbook might have sold well, bit there is nothing to compare it to. There is no fanless, light, Macbook with several USB ports and thunderbolt. So, it might have sold well (if), but one that wasn’t as hobbled might have sold better. A surface 4 PRO is similar but it is an actual computer, not a toy. My point here is that Apple is now switching to proprietary technology that locks people in not to an industry standard.
(b) Second reason is water resistance. If we ignore for a moment that there are android phones that are water resistant with an audio jack included, we should look more closely at what water resistance here means. Apple said that this is their most water-resistant phone yet. This is not saying much if the previous generation was a water resistant as a sheet of paper. A business card is more water resistant than the previous iPhone. So the new one is all that (less than 1m for less than 30minutes), but you still cannot drop it in your toilet, because it is not resistant enough. So let’s not include this as an advantage.
(c) Lightning headphones can produce better sound than regular ones. Yah, I bet that Audeze Titanium EL-8 sound better than apple headphones included with iPhone 6S. I am not so sure they sound better than a regular non-lightning pair of $800 headphones. Yes, this is how much the Audeze cost. How would they fare compared to Shures or Beyer Dynamics or Sennheisers in that price range? Apples to oranges much?
(d) The integrated DAC is crap anyway, as it is small. Well if you look at the tests, these DAC’s are actually pretty good. And if you were pinning for a very expensive headphone amp and DAC, you could buy it even before the i7 and combine it with high quality IEM’s and still pay less. I notice even Vox is not insane enough to push Beats as a serious solution.
(e) Apple is “betting that however much you might hate having to buy new headphones, you’re going to love the sleeker look of the new iPhone 7 so much that you’ll buy one anyway”. Are you kidding me? I have thousands of pounds invested in headphones. Why would I switch from my current daily-driver Shure SE535’s to another solution that will potentially cost me more for inferior quality just so I can pad Apple’s bottom line (they charge license fees)? And my IEM’s tend to outlast my phones. I am not happy to buy a product that I cannot use on my iPod Classic, Surface, rMacBook Pro, or desktop, and find out that Apple has decided to junk the port when the fancy strikes them.
(f) Apple can make the new phone sleeker, with better battery life and lower the cost if they cut out the headphone jack. Really? There is only one iPhone storage option (128Gb) that can be compared across 6S and 7. The price in the UK for the iPhone 7 is £699 and for iPhone 6S it was £619 at launch. Thus the same capacity iPhone costs £80 more. Consumers generally like it when lowering the cost of production reflects on their bottom line, not just increase the profits for the company. Yes, yes, Brexit. So, perhaps don’t make the same prices across generations the selling point, Apple.
(g) Why not go wireless? The airpods will only cost £159.
Of course most of us who care will use the included adapter if we decide to go for the new iPhone. You can currently buy almost two Sennheiser ie7’s for that price. And Shure SE425 are also about there. We’ll see how they compare in audio quality. I am betting the airpods are about as good as the regular earpods (which is not very, indeed). And my IEM’s don’t only work a few hours at a time. And have at least twice as many speakers inside each bud.
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