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When Nintendo got rid of the headphone jack

arstechnica.com

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Re: When Nintendo got rid of the headphone jack

#121

Post by pmoleri »

nolok wrote: post #111
pmoleri wrote: post #108

Many mobile phone manufacturers did the same at some point. Sony used to cell phones with their own propietary sound output and their propietary memory sticks. LG did the same for sound. Then the industry matured with standarized chargers, memory and sound output. But Apple somehow got their own way, sound is just one more thing.

Mobile phone companies didn't "mature" into using the same micro USB charger. The European Union sat them all down at a table and said "you standardize on something you like, or we make a law to force a standard". They agreed, and renewed the agreement yearly. Few years down the line and Samsung says "I'm not signing this year, because Apple doesn't play ball and use their own cable", and the EU moved on their threat…

Yes, it's true, they needed some help. Although memory and sound was product of maturity, I always thought that Samsung has been a big pusher in this matter.

Re: When Nintendo got rid of the headphone jack

#122

Post by 20yrs_no_equity »

moogly wrote: post #110
lh7777 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt it's about price gouging -- Apple makes most of its money selling phones, tablets, and computers, not adapters and accessories. Sure, you could argue that they're trying to lock their customers in by getting them to invest in tons of adapters and accessories that would need to be replaced if they switch to another ecosystem, but I think iOS and the App Store ecosystem are much better at that. Besides, why wou…

So why did they buy Beats Audio?

For Apple Beats Audio was a talent acquisition (eg: they got the founders, Trent Reznor and the like) for Apple Music, and a technology Acquisition (Beats streaming service and content is powering Apple Music) as well as buying a profitable accessories business.

Apple has great gross margins on computers because they have such operational excellence in building them, but still a Mac makes much less margin than headphones- at any price point along the quality curve.

Accessories are just generally really profitable.

Re: When Nintendo got rid of the headphone jack

#123

Post by Endy »

arm wrote: post #11

I remember this as well (I still have mine in fact!). However, I didn’t really care that much considering how much better the Game Boy Advance SP was than all the previous Game Boys. It was the first Game Boy to have a backlit screen, which meant I could finally easily sneak and play on it in the night without alerting my parents (instead of trying to do the same with the much less effective wormlight accessory I had…

As someone who went from GBC to original purple GBA and then to DSLite (and I still haven't gone to DSi or 3DS), I don't see what all the fuss is about. I never really had problems with lighting - sure I couldn't play at night, but I had a lighted magnifier for GBC and a light for my GBA. The shift from real batteries to rechargeable on the DS was actually a stopping point for me. I guess it's just how I think, but I want control over my power source. I don't want something where I rely on Nintendo or any one company. On my GBC and GBA, I could use any brand of battery I wanted, change 'em around, etc. Sure, I had one of the recharge packs; but that got used very rarely, only for very long trips. Most of the time, I was on battery power only.

Re: When Nintendo got rid of the headphone jack

#124

Post by tetrep »

shasheene wrote: post #86
gambiting wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>While vendors (like Apple) can still get around it by bundling an adapter in European markets Apple most definitely does not bundle an adapter in European markets.

Hmm, apparently they don't have to start until 2017 (after looking into the (2014) EU directive, it's still unclear to me the timeline of events leading to MicroUSB adoption and how it is enforced)

Does that mean all type C phones will need an adapter too?

Re: When Nintendo got rid of the headphone jack

#125

Post by aboonaboo »

byuu wrote: post #79
djhworld wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Gamecube example is interesting. From the Wikipedia page: > The only cables that can output a 480p signal from the GameCube are the official Nintendo-brand YPBPR component cables, available in both RCA[note 1] and D-Terminal[note 2] variations. These cables are equipped with a unique digital-to-analog converter developed by Nintendo which has not been reproduced by any third party company. So the adapter is propr…

The real irony is that component is an analog standard; yet Nintendo chose to output it over their digital port by using a custom DAC. And yet they never released any true digital cable (eg HDMI) for said port. Although the image quality is said to be slightly worse; at this point your best bet is to buy one of the older, backward-compatible Wiis to get component output. Much cheaper.

Or just emulate it and get 1080p

Re: When Nintendo got rid of the headphone jack

#126

Post by jsmeaton »

chris_wot wrote: post #113
jsmeaton wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fear this thread is getting a little long already, but let me point you to the graph in your own link (looking at 18-29 year olds). SMS: 100% Internet: 97% Voice Calls: 93% Looking at those numbers, from an article you provided, could you imagine a fairly large portion of those users using 5 apps on their phone more than they use the phone app? That's the only argument being made here.

We must be looking at different graphs. It shows that text messaging, voice/video calls and email rank amongst the most popular smartphone features. And sure, if you want to restrict yourself to 18-29 year olds, possibly there is a dropoff on phone calls (though I'm still doubtful). But the market is pretty much larger than that now. http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/04/01/us-smartphone-use-in-2... (kind of amusing to…

Are you being intentionally obtuse? http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/04/01/us-smartphone-use-in-2...

The 30-49 year olds have 1% greater use of phone over internet, but I'm (totally) guessing that would skew closer to the 49 side of the band rather than the 30 year old side of the band. Since we were considering 20-40 year olds, and your own quote spoke about 18-29 year olds, I think that distinction was fair.

Anyway, since you haven't answered my question, and instead want to restate the question differently over and over, I'm done speaking with you. For what it's worth I haven't downvoted you, but I can guess some likely reasons. Mainly, that you keep shifting the argument and avoiding direct questions.

Re: When Nintendo got rid of the headphone jack

#127

Post by chris_wot »

jsmeaton wrote: post #126
chris_wot wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We must be looking at different graphs. It shows that text messaging, voice/video calls and email rank amongst the most popular smartphone features. And sure, if you want to restrict yourself to 18-29 year olds, possibly there is a dropoff on phone calls (though I'm still doubtful). But the market is pretty much larger than that now. http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/04/01/us-smartphone-use-in-2... (kind of amusing to…

Are you being intentionally obtuse? http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/04/01/us-smartphone-use-in-2... The 30-49 year olds have 1% greater use of phone over internet, but I'm (totally) guessing that would skew closer to the 49 side of the band rather than the 30 year old side of the band. Since we were considering 20-40 year olds, and your own quote spoke about 18-29 year olds, I think that distinction was fair. Anyway,…

Since when did I mention only 20-40 year olds? That graph shows the percentage of each age group who used a particular feature once, the graph I showed provides the data in aggregate across all age ranges.

No need to get so annoyed, and no need to call me obtuse.

Re: When Nintendo got rid of the headphone jack

#128

Post by chris_wot »

Kiro wrote: post #119
chris_wot wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We must be looking at different graphs. It shows that text messaging, voice/video calls and email rank amongst the most popular smartphone features. And sure, if you want to restrict yourself to 18-29 year olds, possibly there is a dropoff on phone calls (though I'm still doubtful). But the market is pretty much larger than that now. http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/04/01/us-smartphone-use-in-2... (kind of amusing to…

I can't speak for the others but let me list some things I think we usually find in the top 5: Facebook, email, Messenger/WhatsApp/equivalent, Instagram, Snapchat, games, browser etc. The study lumps all those together which is not relevant to this discussion. The point is that people are mainly using their devices as computers, not phones. Do you disagree with this?

I do disagree. The study might lump all the Internet apps together, but it still shows that 92% of all users used voice/video calling at least once in the survey period, whilst it shows that 89% of all users used the Internet at least once. Hence placing voice and video calls in the top 5 most used features.

Re: When Nintendo got rid of the headphone jack

#129

Post by joemi »

chris_wot wrote: post #30
joemi wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mentioned in the article.

And downplayed by the following: On the other hand, the GBA SP existed before Bluetooth headphones were a relatively cheap and widespread alternative to the wired standard. And Apple includes both Lightning headphones and a Lightning-to-3.5mm adapter in the box with the iPhone, which ought to ease the transition for many.

That's not downplaying. That's putting it in context.

Re: When Nintendo got rid of the headphone jack

#130

Post by joemi »

byuu wrote: post #79
djhworld wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Gamecube example is interesting. From the Wikipedia page: > The only cables that can output a 480p signal from the GameCube are the official Nintendo-brand YPBPR component cables, available in both RCA[note 1] and D-Terminal[note 2] variations. These cables are equipped with a unique digital-to-analog converter developed by Nintendo which has not been reproduced by any third party company. So the adapter is propr…

The real irony is that component is an analog standard; yet Nintendo chose to output it over their digital port by using a custom DAC. And yet they never released any true digital cable (eg HDMI) for said port. Although the image quality is said to be slightly worse; at this point your best bet is to buy one of the older, backward-compatible Wiis to get component output. Much cheaper.

I might have my timelines confused a bit, but I could swear HDMI was not mass-adopted back when the Gamecube was out... I think DVI was the main digital video standard back then.
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