No problem at all Garth! You're welcome! I enjoy doing it and it interests
me too!
Ms Dominique.
From: vip_students-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:vip_students-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Garth Long
Sent: 15 July 2016 6:24 am
To: vip_students@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [vip_students] Re: Opinion: Why the Death of the headphone jack may
not be Such a Bad Thing
Hello Dominic,
Bravo!
I so enjoy all of your 'Newsy' tit-bits.
Do keep it up
And it saves me a host of time and effort surfing
For similar topical subjects.
However, I do like 'Apple' as it works
But I am heavily influenced by 'MS and the windows counter part.
Kind regards,
Garth Long
Cobh
From: vip_students-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:vip_students-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
[mailto:vip_students-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Dominique Farrell
Sent: Thursday, July 14, 2016 10:33 PM
To: vip_students@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:vip_students@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [vip_students] Opinion: Why the Death of the headphone jack may not
be Such a Bad Thing
The Big Deal
For a while now, rumors have been piling up that suggest the venerable,
reliable, universal 3.5mm headphone jack could vanish from future Apple
products as soon as the iPhone 7. While we don't know whether this will
definitely happen, there is mounting evidence that it might; a prominent
Android phone maker released a phone sans headphone jack
<http://www.macrumors.com/2016/04/20/leecos-removing-headphone-jack/> , and
Apple's audio supplier just released tools for developing Lightning-based
audio accessories. Naturally, such a fundamental change raises a lot of
questions, and makes a lot of people very nervous and upset. The reasons for
this anxiety are sound, and I'm right there with those hoping Apple doesn't
do this. However, if they do, I don't think things will be as bad as many
imagine. I'll first outline the negative consequences of removing the
headphone jack, then address each one, explaining why it might not be so
terrible after all. At the very least, it will be manageable, just as all
other changes in technology have been. But first, the negatives.
They Say.
We've Always Done It This Way
Normally, "because it's always been this way" isn't much of a reason. In the
case of the headphone jack, though, it makes sense. You find it on music
amps, computers, radios, smartphones, tablets, Raspberry Pi computers,
speakers, stereos, dedicated MP3 players, and plenty of other products.
Therefore, most any microphones, headphones, or speakers you buy will offer
this as an option. In other words, it's not just a computer thing, like
serial ports, but is a common standard across many product categories like
few other things are. The 3.5mm audio jack has been around for so long, and
is used in so many products, that everyone has cables, speakers, headphones,
and other accessories made for it. Plus, mass adoption like that makes
manufacturing costs low, and practices well-established and dependable. This
isn't like the floppy disk, which was around for a few years before being
replaced; this is a much older and more widely-used standard that works well
and doesn't need upgrading.
The Next Audio Interface Shouldn't Be Proprietary
Even if technology replaces the headphone jack, it shouldn't do so with
something controlled by one company. Imagine the confusion if Microsoft
owned USB; either you'd have Macs and Linux machines lacking something that
many accessories rely on, or companies would have to pay licensing fees to
Microsoft to use USB, thus driving up those other companies' product prices.
The same thing could happen now: Apple owns Lightning, so will Android phone
makers have to pay Apple just to support this new standard? If so, how many
actually will? It's one thing for Apple to start forcing everyone to use
USB-C, but it's something else entirely to force everyone to use something
owned exclusively by Apple.
Other Options Aren't As Good
The most obvious replacement for the audio jack is wireless audio, which
means bluetooth. Support for bluetooth speakers and headphones is very good
nowadays; you'd be hard-pressed to find a laptop or smartphone that lacks a
bluetooth chip and the software to handle a wireless connection for audio
output. Yet, for all its advancements and adoption, bluetooth audio still
suffers from lag and a slight loss in overall quality. Plus, unlike wired
audio devices, wireless ones need to draw power to work. This means worrying
about the battery in your headphones or speakers on top of the batteries in
all the other devices you have.
An adapter isn't a Great Idea
The common response to all this is that Apple will simply start including an
adapter with every iPhone. Connect it to your Lightning port, and there you
go--instant 3.5mm jack. The problem is that, to be as streamlined and
Apple-like as such an adapter would probably be, it would have to be small.
That means something which is easy to lose, and, undoubtedly, will be more
than a few bucks to replace. Eventually, the third-party accessory market
would start cranking out alternative adapters, but even then, it's one more
thing to keep track of. Phones are supposed to be self-contained, convenient
items, not make you bother with tiny little adapters and extra connections.
No Rocking Out While You Charge Up
If Apple does go the adapter route, prepare to lose the ability to charge
your phone while playing music to wired headphones/speakers. After all, if
your adapter is hogging the single Lightning port, how do you charge your
phone? There could be yet another adapter, certainly, but why bother with
all that when the current jack lets you charge and jam at the same time, no
extra bits required?
Hearing Aid Users Will be Affected Most... For the worse
Those who use hearing aids with iOS will be impacted the most by this
change. Essentially, while bluetooth can work with hearing aids to stream
audio to the user from an iPhone, doing so takes up more battery in the
hearing aids, and usually cuts off the first part of the audio. Experienced
VoiceOver users know how much information can be contained in even a second
of fast speech. For more on this, and a good summary of the other potential
problems with Apple dropping the 3.5mm standard, please read Jonathan
Mosen's blog post from last November
<http://mosen.org/an-iphone-without-a-headphone-jack-the-accessibility-ramif
ications/> .
How Is This Good?
I'm not saying that we should be celebrating the death of the 3.5mm jack.
All I'm saying is that, if Apple does indeed pull the trigger on this idea,
it might not turn out to be as bad as we fear. The upsides are there, after
all--better audio, thinner devices (or more room for other components), and
more. This post isn't meant to shout about why Lightning audio would be
awesome, because I'm not convinced it would be worth the trade. Again, all I
want to do is try to assure you that things might not be so bad. I'll take
each of the above negatives in order.
We've Always Done It This Way... Kind Of
To say that we've "always done it this way" is a bit of a misnomer. The
modern headphone jack we all know and love has been around for about thirty
years. A long time, to be sure, but that doesn't mean that a more modern
solution can't do it better. After all, thirty years ago, you couldn't get
life-like quality audio on a device you can fit in a pocket, so people
weren't worried about crystal clarity and perfect sound reproduction.
Nowadays, our audio needs are changing as encoding gets better and storage
gets larger. We watch movies, listen to music and podcasts, read audio
books, and enjoy game soundtracks on our iPhones, and we want all those
things to sound good. It's like any other advance in computing peripherals:
the current standard works well, until changing needs mean it suddenly
doesn't work as well as something better. Floppy to CD to thumb drive,
serial to USB, spinning hard drive to solid state. It was just a matter of
time before someone went after the old audio standard.
The Next Audio Interface Shouldn't Be Proprietary
I agree completely--anything that replaces an open standard should itself be
an open standard. This assumes, though, that (A) Apple uses the Lightning
port, instead of something else; and (B) Apple doesn't make public whatever
it ends up using, so anyone else can use it, too. As with some other points,
this is simply based on too many assumptions to analyze well. After all,
Apple has open-sourced software, like its Live Photos, or the entire Swift
programming language it created. It wouldn't be impossible for them to give
their audio connecting technology to the rest of the world in hopes of
seeing it more widely adopted.
Other Options Aren't As Good
No, they aren't. However, this assumes that bluetooth will stay still, never
upgrading the software standards that define it or the hardware that
implements it. We all know that, today, that simply isn't the case. For
instance, not two weeks before the time this was written, bluetooth 5 was
announced. Who's to say that Apple doesn't think this new audio adapter will
be the last hardware-based solution the world will need, with all audio
expected to go wireless in the near future? Consider the use of wired
ethernet; a few people use it, but the vast majority seem to prefer
wireless. Direct connection options still exist for those who need them, but
the ease and convenience of wifi have beaten out the advantages of wired
connections, and most people are fine with that. If Apple expects bluetooth
to do for audio what wifi did for the web, this move makes perfect sense.
An adapter isn't a Great Idea
If wireless audio does get better, just as wifi did, then this won't matter
for very long. I don't love the idea of an adapter, but I also see why it
could be viewed by Apple as a stopgap measure until bluetooth catches up. In
that context, it makes more sense. Besides, this wouldn't be the only thing
Apple provides once and then charges for; earbuds and charging cables are
both free with every iPhone, but must be replaced at cost if you lose or
break them. An audio adapter is different, though, since not everyone will
need one. There are people who are happy with bluetooth and Airplay options
for audio output, or who don't use anything other than their device's
built-in speaker. These people wouldn't use an adapter, and wouldn't care if
they got one for free or not. Everyone needs a charging cable, but like
Apple's EarPods, not everyone needs to use wired audio.
No Rocking Out While You Charge Up
When I had my iPhone 5, charging it while using wired headphones would have
been a real concern. With my 6s Plus, though, I charge my phone at night,
and that's it. Even if I didn't use bluetooth audio the vast majority of the
time, I would almost never have a conflict between audio output and power
input. Remember that this change isn't retroactive; if it comes to the
iPhone 7, it'll come to a phone with even better battery management than the
6s, making it even less likely that people will need to use wired audio and
power together. Not to mention, all this assumes Apple doesn't include
wireless charging. If they do that, then this problem is moot.
Hearing Aid Users Will be Affected Most... For the worse
Not being such a user myself, I can't comment in much detail. All I can say
is what I said before: Apple may be readying us all for drastically better
wireless audio. What if this is exactly the kick the hearing aid industry
needs to implement improved bluetooth support, eliminating the problems that
exist today? What if the thing making all those users nervous is the very
thing that fixes the problem it makes worse?
Conclusion
As is usually the case with these rumor-based pieces, I've made some
speculations and guesses which are, I hope, at least somewhat well-founded.
The adapters no one likes may be temporary, while the tech industry finally
gets serious about making wireless audio as good as wired is now, including
hearing aid makers. Apple could be preparing wireless charging, a perfect
fit to unveil alongside the removal of a jack that will suddenly make the
Lightning port even more heavily used. Technology will advance, and a
revision of audio output is long overdue. One day, we may all look back on
this transition and shrug, unable to remember what the big deal was, just
like cheap flash storage and reliable, fast wifi have made us forget our
floppies and wired internet.
Even if I'm wrong about Apple's intensions, the worst thing that happens is
those who need wired audio use an adapter. I won't like it, and I won't be
happy that I have to use one just so my phone can be even thinner and harder
to hold than it is now, but I'll get used to it. I got used to a touch
screen instead of buttons, to dealing with wearing a watch again, to the lag
in current bluetooth audio, and to many other changes during my journey with
Apple. I'll get used to this, too, and I'll keep hoping that wireless audio
gets so good we never have to physically connect headphones or speakers
again. Finally, the option is there to go with an older iPhone; if history
is any guide, and if the iPhone 7 gets rid of the headphone jack in fall
2016, there will be very good iPhones still on the market that have the
3.5mm jack for at least two more years. Whether you'll adapt to the adapter
with me, or stick to the 6s and se for their audio ports, there will be
options for everyone. Now, let's see what happens this fall!
Submitted by mehgcap in AppleVis
Website:
www.applevis.com <http://www.applevis.com>
