John Gruber explores a tree of possibilities:
The question is, what will Apple ship in the box with the new iPhones? I see the following options:
- Wireless ear buds.
- Wireless ear buds and this adapter.
- Lightning ear buds.
- Lightning ear buds and this adapter.
- The existing 3.5mm ear buds and this adapter.
At the bottom of the piece:
The bottom line: this move should be about moving away from wired headphones period, not moving from one wired jack to another. The best way to achieve that is for Apple to ship wireless ear buds in the box.
Great stuff.
Great analysis by Gruber, as usual. But … great stuff? All this hype over earpods? I hope there’s more. Otherwise, it will be a painful year waiting for iPhone 7s or iPhone 8, with Samsung and other Android makers mocking Apple to no end.
Gruber really thinks it might be something other than Bluetooth? If Apple creates a proprietary wireless headphone standard to use for this, it will go over like a lead balloon.
I’m no longer confident Apple is willing to make such bold moves as this.
It appears we have entered into the age of Apple Stagnation.
Besides, its a mute point no matter what they do. I’m perfectly happy with my cheap $23 SoundPeats from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/SoundPEATS-Bluetooth-Headphones-Earphones-Sweatproof/dp/B00LP6CFEC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1470058411&sr=8-1&keywords=soundpeats
So tired of hearing about the headphone jack. Can we go back to talking about whether Han shot first?
how on earth do you know? we dont know anything until the product is released and learn whats new.
even still, i think weve long come to the conclusion that iphone/smartphones are maturing and the improvements will continue to be iterative, yielding amazing cumulative gains over time. this doesnt bother me in the slightest. why should it?
just like 30-pin or Lightning, huh?
doom, blah blah
A charger that works with one device (or family of devices) is less than ideal, but workable. However, people use headphones for multiple devices. Headphones that work with you new iPhone and not your older iPad, your laptop, etc. is pretty user hostile. Also, headphones are primarily 3rd party devices and manufacturers would have to make single iPhone specific models.
If they were going to create a proprietary wireless protocol, it would make much more sense to do it with the watch, which does not need to communicate with other devices nearly as much as headphones do.
It doesn’t appear the battery tech is there to support all-day wireless ear buds. I have the Dash and it’s great, but has to be recharged after about 2.5 hours. If Apple were to make wireless ear buds their standard and they can’t make it through the day, it will be a fiasco. I’m sure they/Beats are working towards that, but I’ll be happily amazed if wireless ear buds are shipped with the next iPhone. I’m expecting to see Lightning ear buds.
Thanks for typing that. I thought it was obvious but apparently some people have to have their logic fed to them in bite sized pieces.
Of course he did. Greedo never shot. 🙂
A lightning plug on the headset that recharges them in a minute or two (ala the Pencil) might work. But yeah, it would be a PITA.
That’s why I said, “I hope there’s more.” I didn’t say if there would be more or not.
I hope it some wireless solution, not dealing with tangled earpods/buds/phones would be innovation enough. 😛