Peter Kirn writing for Create Digital Media:
There are two common misunderstandings of the news. One reading (from Apple critics) assumes this locks you into proprietary Apple headphones. It doesn’t. The other (from Apple fans who don’t know that much about audio) assumes higher audio fidelity from “digital” headphones. It probably doesn’t mean that, either (there are some benefits to putting the digital-to-analog converters off the device, but no indication yet that will necessarily mean better sound). First, let’s consider why Apple would do such a thing.
I still don’t see the downside to making this change.
The only downsides are luddites hanging onto cheap analog headphones. The same principals of digital audio apply here. Digital bits are easy and cost effective to transform. Proprietary LOL that only matters if there are competing digital connections suitable for headphones and I can’t think of any.
Just based on what we know about the Lightning port we know it supports power in the iPad Pro and higher bit depths and sampling frequency. It should be able to do this will far less noise as well.
Moving more electronics into the can is where the market is headed (see Blue’s MoFi and other vendors). Soon you’ll have a bit of nand storage in each headphone so that you can just grab your headphones and go.
None of these future features are feasible with analog connections for price and technical reasons.
Mostly, it’s that people invested in $200+ headphones need to make another investment to continue to use them. It’s not a great long term reason, but it’s annoying in the short term.
You don’t see the downside? Don’t be obtuse. Now, I’m not a doomsayer about this change, but I enjoy being able to plug in my headphones to non Apple devices without needing an adapter.
This rumor just sounds like “Apple is making a TV” all over again. I don’t see why they’d get rid of something so ubiquitous for something proprietary. (Sony has taught us that trick never works.) The only reason that makes sense is a money grab – locking users into their ecosystem – and that just doesn’t seem like a good strategy.
They already improved the mini jack to accommodate playback controls on headphone cords while remaining compatible with non-remote headphones. A proprietary jack would be a step backwards, eliminating that backwards compatibility, automatically raising the price of entry.
Of course that’s what it really comes down to. If the price and functionality of the iPhone don’t change, no one will really care. Until they lose or break their EarPods.
If you’re a headphone vendor there’s nothing from preventing future designs from having a non-proprietary digital connection. It’s digital and bits are bits. Lightning cables are just the conduit.
It makes sense for many reasons. 24/96 DAC take up more power it makes sense to move this functionality away from antenna and cramped phone interiors and into the more spacious headphone.
Digital data lends to easier manipulation to enable noise cancellation, EQ and DSP.
All that needs to happen is for a bridge from analog headphones to Lightning and I’m sure something will be available. I think this will also spur more BT headphone sales which is fine. I’ve enjoyed the quality of the last couple of BT headphones i’ve tried.
People thought the same thing when Apple was rumored to remove optical drives. Today only one Mac ships with one installed. The world moves on.
Won’t someone think of the children?
What more spacious headphones? Headphone jack or lightning port your iPhone is coming with EarPods, not some giant Beats headphones.
You’re justifying sound coming out of a lightning port, but that’s already possible. That’s not a reason to get rid of the headphone jack.
Unless your ears can decode 1s and 0s, you’re going to convert that signal from digital to analog at some point. What is the advantage of doing that on the phone vs. the headphone?
Is Apple replacing the mini headphone jack with the lightning port or is it more likely they see wireless as the headphone jack replacement and lightning is the short-term workaround? Seems like it’s more the latter.
Rumors suggest they may solve some typical bugaboos about wireless headphones. If so, complaints will mostly fall on deaf ears (especially if an iPhone purchase includes wireless EarPods / AirPods).
I think they see BT being the dominate connection and Lightning becoming the high end choice.
interference. Moving the conversion away from the noisy transmitters in the phone and into the cans can only help the signal to noise ratio. It’s also more space to use larger/hotter DAC
Jim, I’m surprised. There are countless devices that interface through the 3.5mm jack. Your use case may not warrant it, but mine does. And, moving to “digital” doesn’t improve sound quality because ultimately it has to be converted back to analogue to be heard.
Nonsense. This interference is not audible.
Bluetooth isn’t proprietary.
Is interference a problem that anyone runs into? This looks like a solution in search of a problem.
Or people hanging onto expensive analogue headphones.
Reports suggest the conversion will likely happen in the connector, which is either inside the device or about a millimetre away from it. In other words,no difference.
It’s also not a jack.
How much will a notional adapter cost once Belkin or Other World Computing or Monoprice make one?
“Where’s the downside” is the wrong question. Any change needs to be justified with ‘where’s the upside”? What does this do that makes the iPhone better for customers?
For Apple, it slightly reduces BOM cost so it slightly helps margins but, please, it’s a tiny amount. Extra battery? Does the jack really take that much space? I mean, if I get 12 more minutes, whoopie.
I wonder if Apple will do a “two phase change”? Introduce the digital output with iPhone 7 and phase out the analog pin with the 7s.
^^This !!
“Not seeing a downside” is no reason for change. “Upsides” are.
When the lightning connector replaced the 30-pin one I was enthusiastic about it since the benefits were apparent and real (although it obsoleted all sorts of accessories I owned).
But this ?? I can see numerous annoyances (to put it mildly) coming with the change while the supposed benefits spinned around the web from Apple evangelists range from questionable to downright false.
Ever wondered why the humble 3.5mm jack has been so ubiquitous among audio equipment manufacturers for so long ?? It must have a lot going for it, right ?
Frankly, I am not convinced …
I really hope these rumors are just that — rumors. You don’t see the downside to the change? Not being able to use the headphones that people have collected over the last 30+ years without an adapter is a big one to me. I can just see myself misplacing or forgetting the adapter (and it’ll almost certainly cost extra). And you won’t be able to use Lightning-only headphones with older devices, either. I’m going to assume that they will figure out a way to charge and use headphones at the same time, but if not that’s another downside.
But the real question we should be asking is, what’s the upside? A device that’s 1mm thinner? An increase in audio quality that is extremely debatable (especially with the kinds of headphones that Apple would be including with the devices)? When Apple has ditched legacy connectors in the past, there’s always been some pretty easily quantifiable upside, but I’m not seeing it here.
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There is nothing worse than a guy who doesn’t know about audio telling other people they don’t know about audio.
Of course moving to digital headphones opens up the possibility for better sound!
I will give you multiple ways the sound will get better in the era of the digital headphone:
MORE EXPENSIVE DIGITAL-TO-ANALOG CONVERTER: most of the over-the-ear headphones (those that are made to sound good rather than be extremely small) that you can get at Apple Store right now are $300 or $400 — for that price, when they go digital, they can put a much better digital-to-analog converter in that headphone than what is found in the iPhone and dramatically improve the sound of the headphones
BIGGER DIGITAL-TO-ANALOG CONVERTER: the over-the-ear headphones at Apple Store are physically much larger than an iPhone — again that enables the headphone manufacturer to put in a better digital-to-analog converter than what is in the iPhone simply because the headphone doesn’t have the space constraints the tiny iPhone has
PROTECTING THE ANALOG SIGNAL CHAIN FROM THE CELL RADIOS: the headphones don’t have cell radios in them, so the analog part of the signal chain is protected from the cell radios by being in the headphone instead of in the iPhone
ADAPTIVE DIGITAL SIGNAL PROCESSING: once they are digital, the headphones will know what volume you are listening at, and can do things like add dynamics compression to the signal if you listen at a very low volume, which will be perceived as much better sound
AC POWER COMING THROUGH THE HEADPHONE CABLE ENABLES MUCH BETTER, MUCH MORE POWERFUL ANALOG AMPLIFIERS IN THE HEADPHONE: when your headphones are connected to the iPhone via 1/8-inch analog phone jack, the headphones don’t get any power, but when connected via Lightning, the headphones are supplied with power, which means the headphone can have an analog amplifier in there that is much more powerful (and therefore less noisy at any particular listening volume) and will provide much better sound (to get an idea of this, compare a passive headphone with no amp to an active headphone with an amp in it, which typically either recharges or has AAA batteries in there today)
CUSTOMIZE YOUR LISTENING EXPERIENCE WITH AN APP: it is sad that I would have to explain this to iPhone users, but consider if your new $400 digital headphones have a matching app with which you can tailor your listening experience based on the kind of music you like, or based on a sort of quiz the app gives you to figure out how much bass or treble you prefer, or based on your age (i.e. if you tell the headphones you are 16 or 60, the headphones can provide a different EQ curve so that your are getting the best perceived sound) and those settings would then be saved in the digital, AC-powered headphones
BETTER NOISE CANCELLATION: the noise cancellation part of your headphone can be all-digital, and it can do any kind of digital signal processing to improve the perceived sound based on the surrounding environment
SUPPORT FOR 24-bit AUDIO CONTENT: the digital-to-analog converter in the iPhone is only 16/44 like a CD from 1980 — a digital Lightning headphone can incorporate 24/96 digital-to-analog converters like a Mac or Blu-Ray player or pro audio interface — Apple already has lots of 24/96 audio masters that they have been collecting for years from music producers so that they can upgrade iTunes Store Music to 24/96 (this is called “Mastered for iTunes” as opposed to “mastered for CD” which is what you are listening to now, even if you listen to a file from the iTunes Store on your iPhone) so once you have a digital headphone with 24/96 support, you can listen to 24/96 content that was mastered in a way that is not just better-sounding because it has more bits, but is better-sounding because it is mastered in a modern way, without the legacy of compromise that is inherent in one-size-fits-all CD mastering
… all of this stuff opens up the possibility for headphone makers to compete on GREAT SOUND going forward, not just slightly better sound than the next guy.
There is this expression “garbage-in, garbage-out.” What is coming out of the 1/8-inch headphone jack on your iPhone is garbage. Every analog headphone maker is doing a bunch of air fresheners to try to improve the smell of that garbage. If the iPhone instead just gives the headphone a Lightning connection with AC power and the digital waveform of your content, then the headphone maker is getting great-in and can provide great-out. Duh. And the work they do to improve the sound will actually dramatically improve the sound, not just apply an air freshener.
The thing that is most frustrating about someone saying that digital headphones won’t give you a better sound is that we are not talking about some foggy fantasy future. You can plug an accessory audio interface onto your iPhone Lightning today and plug your analog headphones into it and hear much better sound with the same content and headphones plugged onto the iPhone headphone jack because the accessory is bigger and more expensive and has better converters than the headphone jack in the iPhone. And that is true even if your accessory is only 16-bit. Even if your content is lossy-compressed AAC or MP3. If you then put the audio accessory and headphones into the same enclosure made by the same manufacturer and design them to work together, put in 24/96, and get 24/96 content, you are going to get sound that is in a whole other universe from what you have been hearing from the iPhone headphone jack.
Lightning is USB-compatible. Fundamentally, digital headphones are USB devices. The Lightning connector is simply the smallest and most-desired-by-the-user USB plug. Nothing prevents the headphones from plugging in with any USB plug.
Right now many headphones have 2 detachable cables in the box so you can use either the one with a microphone in it and 3 rings on the plug, or swap in the one without the microphone in it that has 2 rings on the plug. This is because not all devices will work with the 3-ring plug.
The digital version of that same headphone will almost certainly also have detachable cables, but instead of 2-ring and 3-ring 1874 analog phone plugs, you will have one with a Lightning end and one with a generic USB end, because not all devices will work with the Lightning plug.
The 3-ring analog cable could be called “Analog Lightning” because it was also done by Apple. Apple is just going to upgrade that 3-ring analog cable to digital Lightning, and the generic 2-ring analog cable is going to upgrade to a generic USB.
So any issues with cables or connectors are MOOT. You have 2 cables today for use with various devices, and you will have 2 cables tomorrow for use with various devices. The only difference is the newer cables will be digital and easier to use and provide AC power to the headphones and can easily provide much better sound.
Some of today’s headphones already have a generic USB cable in there which is solely used to recharge the headphone in a USB AC adapter like the one that comes with an iPhone.
It’s not rocket science to think that digital audio would flow over that recharging cable at some point in the near future and the analog cables that came with that headphone just go away.
EDGE is audible through the iPhone headphones. Not only is it audible, it is absurdly loud. Your iPhone can drop down to EDGE at any time, any location. If yours hasn’t bee dropping to EDGE at least once in a while, then you are just lucky is all.
That is not true. The converters will typically live in the relatively giant housing of the over-the-ear headphones (where there is already circuitry and AC power in many cases even today) and those are the headphones that are made primarily for audio quality.
And if the converters live in the cable, they can be on the headphone side of the cable, well away from the iPhone.
You can still hang on to them. All you will want is a new cable. Ideally from the manufacturer so that the new cable matches the quality and design of the headphone, or alternately from a 3rd party.
If someone has expensive analog headphones, they shouldn’t be complaining about getting an upgraded digital-to-analog converter to use with them instead of using the cheesy little analog headphone jack on a fricking iPod or iPhone.
If you have $200 for headphones, you have $29 or $49 to upgrade them to digital with a new cable or a tiny adapter. Dollar-for-dollar that will be a better improvement in the sound than your original $200 purchase. The overall cost of the headphone goes up by 20% or 25%, but the sound quality goes up by 100% or more.
the “money grab” notion is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Apple is already the most profitable, richest public company in the world. people literally line up to throw money at them. they don’t need your twenty bucks for an adapter, nor do they plan on getting rich that way. that’s just a silly, paranoid, moustsche-twirling caricature.
so? digital media aren’t pieces of plastic, but they’re replaced tapes and discs nonetheless. stop playing on symantecs.
“because legacy” doesn’t mean anything.
which is why you should figure you’re ignorant to the upsides. well know in time.
my family and I use either: 1) white EarPods, or 2) wireless BT headphones. we won’t care about the shift. I suspect we are not alone…and that we’re likely in the majority.
thus if there are device upsides to this (I must assume there are since Apple has never disappointed me in this regard), then the trade off is surely worth it.
There is no downside with the cables. It is you who are being obtuse.
You already need different cables or an adapter today to plug your headphones into non-Apple devices in many cases.
The APPLE-MADE 3-ring analog cable with the microphone in it doesn’t work everywhere. That is why headphones have an additional GENERIC 2-ring analog cable that works everywhere, or a tiny adapter. In both cables, the audio travels via the first 2 rings.
If I update the above paragraph to digital:
“The APPLE-MADE Lightning digital cable doesn’t work everywhere. That is why headphones have an additional GENERIC USB digital cable that works everywhere, or a tiny adapter. In both cables, the audio travels via USB protocol.”
So nothing changes with the cables except they go digital.
Maybe you weren’t an early iPhone/iPod user and can’t remember the time when the 3-ring analog cable only worked with iPhones. A few years from now, iPhone users may not remember a time when their Lightning cable only worked with iPhones.
Converting something from analog to digital is the most obvious and banal kind of progress. It is a fundamental feature of the digital age. You might as well complain about the rotation of the Earth.
Nothing changes except the cables go digital. We have multiple analog cables now for different devices and will have multiple digital cables for different devices in the future.
There is no downside to this.
The Lightning plug is not proprietary:
1) Apple licenses it to other manufacturers, it is available from hundreds of other companies right now
2) the digital signal that travels over the Lightning cable is USB
Further, the headphone jack in iPhone is already proprietary. The third ring was put on by Apple for the microphone and/or remote and the 3-ring cables don’t work in many generic devices. That is why there are additional generic 2-ring cables and adapters.
But it will change. iPhones will get thinner and cheaper to make when the headphone jack and its relatively large mountings are removed. Also cheaper to replace and repair because there are fewer parts and no 19th century parts.
I see two fallacies here:
1) Having the money to purchase a specific luxury item does not imply having an endless supply of money to keep reinvesting in it. People that have money don’t get that way by spending needlessly. And.. perhaps the headphones were a gift?
2) There’s no evidence to suggest that pushing the DAC from the phone into the cable adapter is going to have any kind of impact to the sound quality.
I think the end result is that by moving to the next phone, you need to make an additional investment just to keep the sound quality you currently have. It isn’t an insurmountable problem.. one solution is just to avoid upgrading until you’re ready for new headphones or until the price drops enough that you can get the adapter for free.. and there will never be a “good” time to make this kind of change. But that does not mean that people won’t have legitimate complaints.
It’s not well publicized.., but audio over lightening already works on 6 & 6s.
This is more like retiring the floppy drive, and then retiring the optical drive. It will always be “too soon”. I’m going to be personally annoyed that my EarPod collection won’t work everywhere conveniently like it used to. But legacy needs to be retired at some point,
A bridge from analog headphones to Lightning is already available from dozens if not hundreds of made-for-iPhone manufacturers.
Here is a great one:
Apogee Groove
http://www.apogeedigital.com/products/groove
You just proved that Bluetooth earbuds don’t exist. And yet they do exist. They have a lot more circuitry in them that Apple’s analog EarPods.
The point about size is that headphones that are made primarily for higher audio quality are larger, and they can contain more and better circuitry than what is in the iPhone headphone jack, leading to better sound and additional features.
Consider that today, you could sit down on a bus between 2 iPhone users who are listening to music. One could have the Apple EarPods on, and one could have a $400 set of over-the-ear headphones on, and yet they are both using the same tiny, antique, 16-bit converters headphone jack in their iPhones. The one with the $400 headphones should have a much better digital-to-analog converter via Lightning, and the one with the EarPods should have Bluetooth wireless.
The headphone jack is superfluous. If you care about audio quality, you should be connected via Lightning, and if you care about portability, you should be connected via Bluetooth. Both of which the iPhone already has, in addition to its antique headphone jack.
Headphone jack is an audio output. Bluetooth 4 is an audio output. Lightning is an audio output.
One of the above is going away. It is not going to be all-digital wireless 21st century Bluetooth or all-digital wired 21st century Lightning. It is the analog wired 19th century phone jack that is going to go away. It can’t be helped.
Well, it is thinking of the children when you remove 19th century technology from all iPhones going forward.
You need both a wireless audio output and a wired. They are complementary, not competitive.
You can’t run GarageBand, for example, over a wireless headphone because the latency is too much. You also can’t run a wireless headphone in some environments because of interference.
Generally speaking, the wireless audio output is for earbud users who value portability above all else.and the wired audio output is for over-the-ear headphone users who value sound quality above all else.
Bluetooth 4 is fine as-is. It is wired-digital Lightning that replaces the wired-analog headphone jack is all.
If your use case warrants a 19th century headphone jack, you can attach one to the Lightning port.
Nobody has denied that digital audio is converted to analog to be heard. However, it does improve sound quality to put that conversion right at the end of the signal chain, in the headphones or speakers. Not only is the cabling better and even has AC power in it, but the quality of the converters can match the quality of the headphones or speakers, rather than, for example, using the same earbud-quality iPhone headphone jack with every set of $400 headphones on the planet.
We already went through this with computer displays and TV’s. The first LCD digital displays had analog inputs (like a CRT display) because the computers still had analog display outputs designed for CRT displays. The digital image in the computer was converted to analog to go over an analog cable to an analog input on the display, where the display converted the analog signal into a digital image and rendered it on the digital screen. This made the picture fuzzy, but it was still clearer than what people were used to seeing on analog CRT displays. And PC makers just stopped there, saying that the analog display output on their computers was better than a digital output because the user had the choice to use either an analog or digital display. But Apple pulled all the analog stuff and made all-digital displays that were sharper and clearer than anything else on the market.
If you like, you can compare the Apple 15-inch LCD Studio Display that came with the PowerMac G3 blue-and-white to the Apple 15-inch LCD Studio Display that came with the PowerMac G4. The displays look the same from a distance, but the G3 one was analog and the G4 one was digital, and the G4 one had a much better picture quality, even though it was the same exact glass. Many people freaked out about the analog going away at the time, for all the same crazy reasons we are hearing people fret about losing analog audio cabling and a truly awful 16-bit headphone jack that is no longer required now that iPhones have both wired and wireless digital audio outputs (Lightning and Bluetooth, respectively.)
Yeah, that’s why is said it doesn’t seem like a good strategy. Try to keep up. If the only reason to do it is a money grab, Apple won’t do it.
I said “proprietary jack,” meaning Lightning, and he countered with “Bluetooth isn’t proprietary.” If I’m playing on semantics, it’s because he did understand what I said.
Apple isn’t forcing anyone to have a bigger, more expensive iPhone. Every time they introduce a new iPhone it’s thinner and costs the same as the previous model. If they do remove the headphone jack, it’s not to make it thinner. The iPod touch and iPod nano are already thinner and they use the same jack. And if they remove the jack, the phone won’t be any cheaper for consumers, it will be the same price as the model it replaces.
Any price that you want to pay.
To get one that has the quality of the built-in headphone jack on iPhone 6, you are talking about $20 or less. To get one that has pro studio quality, you are talking $200 or more.
These are not new devices. They exist today already, and have for many years. USB audio is very old. However, the cheaper ones don’t tend to have Lightning yet because there is already a cheap audio converter built into all iPhones. Removing that would create demand for cheap audio converters with Lightning, but mainly for headphones with Lightning.
Here is $12 USB audio interface that would probably cost $10 more with Lightning, but would also be smaller and easier to use:
Audio Technical ATR2
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/889723-REG/Audio_Technica_ATR2USB_3_5mm_to_USB.html
Here is a studio quality Lightning/USB audio interface for $295:
Apogee Groove
http://www.apogeedigital.com/products/groove
A key thing to understand is that the headphone jack in your iPhone is already an adapter, and you already pay for it. You are not going to get a new part. The part is just moving outside the case and becoming optional (you can use Bluetooth headphones for example, and never need a Lightning-based audio output.)
So if you have to pay $20 for an audio interface to go with your iPhone 7, and assuming that iPhones continue to sell for the same price points, then you will get $20 more stuff inside the iPhone 7. Maybe a new feature similar to the fingerprint reader, or maybe a higher-quality screen than you would get otherwise. Or maybe there is a Lightning audio adapter inside the box with iPhone 7.
But later, you save money because by the time we get to iPhone 8 you don’t have to pay for the built-in headphone jack or an external analog headphone jack. Everything is just connecting digitally via Bluetooth or Lightning.
It’s more like ditching ADB for USB, or FireWire for Thunderbolt since floppies and opticals weren’t replaced with something better, they were just eliminated.
The headphone jack is one of the biggest parts inside an iPhone. There is a mounting in there to keep it from moving throughout the life of the iPhone. The headphone jack is much bigger, for example, than the SoC that contains the CPU and GPU and RAM.
There are many upsides, but if you only want one: the user will switch over from analog audio output to digital audio output. That is all the upside that is needed because it enables dozens, if not hundreds of practical improvements to take place both immediately and going forward a few years.
It is the same as switching from analog screens to digital screens. If we were still using analog screens, there would be no flat panels and no Retina Display -sharpness and no reliable color gamut, all of which we take for granted today. Well, no iPhones also. But in 2000, Apple took a bunch of flak for dropping support for analog displays and going all-digital.
In a few years you will be listening to sound like you have never heard before, with 24/96 HD audio from iTunes Music Store playing through a set of digital headphones out of the Lightning port on your iPhone. And the headphones will cost $100 but they will sound better than a set of $400 headphones today. This is the same kind of progress that put a phone and a Mac into your iPod.
A fundamental feature of the computer age is that analog (electrical) things turn digital (computerized.) There were not only analog displays in the past that turned digital, but also analog sound recordings that turned digital, analog cell phones that turned digital, and so on and so on. There is no stopping it.
The TRRS standard existed before Apple. The reason why Apple’s sometimes don’t work is that they flipped the pinout location of ground and microphone from the older standard set by Nokia,
Just because they license it doesn’t mean Lightning isn’t proprietary.
The three ring phone jack is not proprietary, that’s why Apple is able to do whatever they want with the the third ring.
“Cheaper to make” is a change to the cost, not the price.
There are no 19th century parts in any iPhone.
Because they know nothing about computers or the computer age. Hence, the success of the iPod and the almost total obliteration of the home stereo industry. For all intents and purposes, Apple is the consumer audio industry.
USB digital audio has also been ubiquitous for a long time, and FireWire digital audio before that. Consumer music has been 16/44 digital since 1980. Music studios have been 24/96 digital (or better) for the entire 21st century.
Here’s the thing though, even though the sound quality in music studios has been going up throughout the 21st century, the quality of consumer audio has been going down because we prioritized tiny music players and portability over sound quality. Well, we are 15 years into the iPod and it is time to congratulate ourselves for the portability we have, and now improve the sound quality.
And not just the sound quality but the ease of use. A digital connection can self-configure for better sound, even with the same content and the same headphones. The digital connection provides power over the cable so you don’t have to plug-in your headphones to the wall to charge.
The abandonment of the analog headphone jack which is 19th century technology is not the beginning of something, it is the end of something. Every other part of the chain has already gone digital. Now consumer audio is going HD, so it is a perfect time to go to all-digital HD instead of carrying the headphone jack forward.
In short, CD audio is about to change to HD audio, and the analog headphone jack is about to change to a digital headphone jack. The idea that we would carry the analog headphone jack forward yet again to another generation is absurd when your iPhone is downloading 24/96 HD audio content over 4G.
Almost certainly not, because they use a very similar housing for each generation, and removing the headphone jack is a dramatic change to the inside of the iPhone and how everything mounts inside. In iPhone terms, the headphone jack is a giant part.
The reason you are not seeing the upside is that you are used to all the downsides of analog audio and you don’t question them or even see them anymore, and then you are looking at the one or two tiny transitional issues when going to digital and thinking they are gigantic, and you don’t yet understand the dozens or hundreds of benefits you will get from all-digital audio signal chain.
It is the same as the way most people saw the Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X transition in 1998. But by 2002 we were no longer rebooting our Macs or resetting the PRAM or diagnosing extension conflicts and everybody recognized that we couldn’t have gone on with Mac OS 9 indefinitely.
The fact that you don’t seem to believe that an increase in audio quality is possible is because you have been using devices that no matter what their quality, ultimately, they emulate the audio stream from a CD player and the headphone jack on a Walkman. That limitation is there as a kind of compatibility, but that is replaced today with digital compatibility in the form of USB protocol cables, which can handle not only CD audio but also HD audio, and not only stereo or 5.1, but 24 discrete audio channels.
A few years from now you will look back and say holy shit I can’t believe I wanted my iPhone to continue to pretend it is a Walkman so I can use Walkman headphones. I can’t believe I wanted my iPhone to continue to pretend it is a CD player when now I understand how much better HD audio is.
It’s important to understand that this is what is going on in music studios today:
1) record 24 channels of high-dynamic range ultra-realistic pristine 24/96 audio that has bass that can make you nauseous under some circumstances, and treble that makes it sound like you are in the room with real cymbals
2) audition the master output through a processor that makes it sound like 256 kbits AAC so that you can hear what the music will sound like when encoded in AAC
3) remove or alter any instruments that don’t survive the simulated AAC encoding, for example, replacing real acoustic strings with a much simpler synthesizer pad
4) crush the dynamic range down to what fits on a CD
5) mix the 24 channels down to stereo that fits on a CD
6) dither and rate-reduce the 24/96 down to the 16/44 that fits on a CD (introducing distortion and dithering noise)
7) put the high-quality 21st century audio in your archives for a later time when you can hopefully publish the real audio presentation for the listener.
8) encode as AAC, dramatically reducing the audio quality, even though you already swapped out some instruments you didn’t want to in order to minimize the damage to your audio quality
9) publish your simulated CD
10) try not to act surprised when listeners tell you that there is no such thing as better audio quality than CD audio, because they have simply never heard anything but CD audio or simulated CD audio
Only step 1 in the above is about great audio quality. The rest are about reducing the quality so that you can listen to the song with the simulated CD player and simulated Walkman in your iPhone. In other words, 21st century music is being converted to 1980 music because the music player in your iPhone is a simulated 1980 music player.
Now here is an HD audio workflow:
1) record 24 channels of high-dynamic range ultra-realistic pristine 24/96 audio that has bass that can make you nauseous under some circumstances, and treble that makes it sound like you are in the room with real cymbals
2) mix to stereo
3) encode as lossless ALAC with no reduction in audio quality
4) publish your full-fidelity 21st century audio recording
5) blow the listener’s mind
We have been doing the HD workflow for the past few years and giving the 24/96 masters to Apple so that they can flip a switch one day soon and the iTunes Music Store will go to HD audio.
Now comes the part where we have to get HD-capable consumer audio gear into the hands of listeners. It could be done with the headphone jack staying in the iPhone, but the jack circuitry might have to get bigger and better-shielded and even then would not sound as good as if the circuitry is in the headphones. And for what? To continue to emulate a Walkman when we have ubiquitous USB cabling that can self-configure, provide AC power to the headphones, and ultimately provide many other benefits, and also enable new features like a GoPro style camera in your headphones?
Charging is said to be going wireless. You place your iPhone on a little pad and it charges with no wires to plug in.
Actually the worst part will be the whiny questions from Brian Williams.
Really? Because its existed for so long, it must be for good reason? Umm, I can’t think of any. The only reason I see that its stuck around for so long is because no single manufacturer has been willing to bite the bullet, take the heat, and force this kind of change onto the market. Or those that have tried have been unsuccessful due to not enough influence.
Combustible engines have been in automobiles for a century. They must have a lot going for them too, right? Eh, wrong. Companies are risk-averse, and unwilling to disrupt product lines or established industries. Why risk the cash flow? It seems Apple is the only big company with enough cojones to do these sorts of things.
As others have already said, this is pure BS. I hate Apple already for this move, just because it means Mac blogs full of this kind of discussion for the next 9 months until everyone gets their pants in a bunch over the next god damned rumour.
Anyway, as it happens, the DAC in the newer iPhones is among the best in class. I’m not sure many cheaply produced headphones would actually improve on that. So your digital headphones will, mostly likely, be a step back. Some won’t, but certainly cheaper ‘phones will.
Ken Rockwell did some analysis: http://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/iphone-5/audio-quality.htm. I seem to remember iPhone 6 did even better, but a quick search brought this iPhone 5 page back first. Anyway, it’s worth reading.
Would the DAC live in the headphone shell? I’m no electrical engineer, but I have my doubts that’d work so well — I’m sure sending digital data over 3 meters or more of cable might actually be a bit much for thin (and straight) headphone wires. Analog is far more tolerant of that stuff.
yes, you are playing word games. you complained that the elimination of 3.5mm meant a proprietary audio interface. HisShadow said BT isn’t proprietary and its an obvious replacement audio interface, which is correct. now you’re dancing around saying its not a physical interface. which is irrelevant.
I don’t have any headphones with a separate analog or USB plug. All I know is that my EarPods work with my Apple Devices, PS4, 3DS and the occasional airplane inflight entertainment system. Bluetooth is great and I’ve been moving away from cables because I saw this change coming but that doesn’t help me since for some reason the PS4 doesn’t support my Beats via BT, the 3DS has no Bluetooth and hell will freeze over before headphone jacks on planes are replaced. I’m prepared for this change, but it’ll still be pretty inconvenient.
no, you’re suggesting it won’t happen because “The only reason that makes sense is a money grab” (which you agree would be poor business) — but that assertion is false. there very well may be other reasons that make sense. many have been suggested here already. other reasons may be unknown to us.
your assertion that the only reason for removing 3.5mm is for a money grab is simply bunk.
if you mean parts that were conceived and designed in the 19th century, there sure are. the headphone jack. the speaker.
No, I meant hundred year old parts, not hundred year old technology. But I like that that’s all you could find wrong with my comment. I think we’re making progress.
The fact that many people are upset and bothered by this is downside enough. The reasons can be debated, but the bottom line is that a bunch of people are going to hate this move if Apple makes it. Not seeing a downside is not being empathetic. At all.
Some of the reasons I’ve heard are:
1) “Lightning or Bluetooth offer better sound/user experience/whatever.” That’s a good reason to use Lightning or Bluetooth, which are already in the iPhone. It’s not a reason to get rid of the headphone jack. You already have better sound options if you want those options. Removing the headphone jack wouldn’t change that.
2) “They can make the phone thinner” There are already thinner devices with the exact same headphone jack, the iPod touch and the iPod nano, so it’s not the headphone jack holding them back.
3) “It’s old tech that they should abandon so they can innovate.” They just came out with the new MacBook that eliminated every port they possibly could to make it as thin as possible. But they kept the headphone jack! They must think it’s still with supporting.
The only advantage to Apple would be to reduce the cost to manufacture by eliminating components. Maybe money grab was a poor choice of words, but the bottom line will drive this decision more than anything else.
The only word games I’m playing are trying to communicate clearly. I said “proprietary jack” because I meant jack, not interface. If you want to know what I meant, read what I wrote.
some downsides:
– charging your iphone and listening music at the same time.
– using your old headphones with an adapter while the iphone is in your pocket (nice thing if you damage your lighting port because of leverage).
– different headphones for different devices (i dont take my iphone to gym, so for my ipod mini i’d need another headphone).
if apple kills audio jack, than bye bye iphone. my daily used apps exist also for android.
I didnt realize it was that large internally. Thanks for that.
People can get digital audio out of the lightning port now, right? Actually… I need to try that since my system’s DAC takes USB as an input.
“A fundamental feature of the computer age is that analog (electrical) things turn digital (computerized.)”
You need to convert the signal to analog at some point to listen to it and unless that digital signal is converted by a high quality DAC, I dont see it being of better quality just because it’s done outside the phone and who good of a DAC are you going to get in a pair of headphones?
AS for 24/96 – I’m down for that. Others here seem to ridicule the idea.
Welcome to the block list Kyron.
” However, it does improve sound quality to put that conversion right at the end of the signal chain, in the headphones or speakers.”
That’s a very slight quality difference unless that conversion is of high quality. Oh, OK, it does SLIGHTLY because you keep the signal in the digital domain, but the only situations where that even might matter is if the phone is used as a primary source in a home system. It won’t matter at all in the headphone case where there’s not a long chain of components affecting the signal..
One downside for me is that I frequently use my iPhone’s headphones on my computer for WebEx, GoToMeeting and FaceTime. The switch away from the analog headphones would mean that I’d have to carry around a second headset just to use with my computer. Not a huge loss, I suppose, but another inconvenience with very little gain. I don’t use my phone for critical listening — that purpose is served by my home theater setup (Anthem/B&W Nautilus)
More problematically for me, though, is on the charging front. Unless Apple has discovered a way to quickly charge inductively (or other wireless method), the loss of quick charging represents a much bigger loss. Further, I travel a lot and use portable batteries/charging stations to quickly charge up between and during flights (all while listening to music or watching a movie). The inability to do both at the same time is equally as problematic
The converters can’t live “well away from the iPhone” for people using analog headphones and a dongle.
Hate Apple for this? So we’ve moved from rumor to fact?
Am I crazy or is this the earliest the mainstream Apple pundit nation has adopted an iPhone feature rumor as fact? Typically, we are closer to August before agreeing that certain rumors are most likely factual. What has made this more credible? Has Apple leaked something to their favorite pundits?
USB was far better than ADB.
Still is. ;^)
And yet, even back then, there was wailing about the change.
If they do ditch the headphone jack (I say they won’t), as long as they include compatible earphones in the box with the next iPhone, most users won’t care. As long as they can use the device out of the box. It’s really just a small minority of users that are concerned about their existing headphones.
The dumb comments are real, and that was my beef.
Then I submit that a great portion of the caterwauling in these comments about losing 3.5mm was time wasted for everyone.
Something else occurred to me. The people who complained about losing ADB to USB were at least upset about something that actually happened. Losing the headphone jack is just a rumor for the next 9-12 months that may end up never happening. It’s a little crazy how worked up people are getting.
Many tech enthusiasts—and by extension, their friends who pretend to be tech enthusiasts—are largely just as infantilized as the rest of the middle class, and react just as strongly to talk of perceived threats to their dogma.
ADB, like serial and SCSI, was fragile and worrisome. The only reason to miss it: that great Apple aircraft-carrier keyboard.
Floppies were replaced by email and networks.
Not really a fair comparison since we’re talking about hardware specs. Also, email and networks were available at the time so getting rid of the floppy drive didn’t open the door to introduce new features. If you were to say they were replaced with thumb drives that would be a closer analogy, but still not quite the same since Apple didn’t make thumb drives in the wake of removing the floppy.
There’s a difference between removing a bit of fast moving and constantly in flux modern tech like Optical drives that has had its few years use and something that is completely universal and been around for a hundred years.
Apple connectors are truly awful and fragile enough as it is. A 3.5mm to lightning adaptor is really not a good idea for something that gets a lot of manhandling like headphone leads do. Apple power cables which tend to be used statically constantly break. I imagine the phone lightning port will get damaged and I’ve had a lightning connector bend, despite treating apple leads with kid gloves.
Ken Rockwell is a troll blogger who posts a lot of contentious rubbish to get hits. He even admits that he makes stuff up.
“..so remember, this is a personal website, and never presented as fact. I enjoy making things up for fun”