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The 19th Century plug that's still being used

bbc.com

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Re: The 19th Century plug that's still being used

#11

Post by entee »

brianwawok wrote: post #8
raverbashing wrote: post #3

"Thinner phone" is a stupid requirement. A thinner phone will be mechanically weaker. Yes, Apple retired Floppy disks and DVD readers, because those were replaced by something better. This is not the case here. A Bluetooth headphone will give you an inferior experience. A lightning converter will give you a worse experience because I can bet it doesn't stay plugged as firmly as a headphone in a high vibration situati…

> Just as a reminder it was the EU who ended the BS of every company having a stupid proprietary charger. Did they? How did Apple get away with it?

They ship the phones with a small adapter that goes from micro USB to lightning. You're allowed a proprietary port into the phone as long as you provide the adapter for free.

Re: The 19th Century plug that's still being used

#12

Post by tombrossman »

brianwawok wrote: post #8
raverbashing wrote: post #3

"Thinner phone" is a stupid requirement. A thinner phone will be mechanically weaker. Yes, Apple retired Floppy disks and DVD readers, because those were replaced by something better. This is not the case here. A Bluetooth headphone will give you an inferior experience. A lightning converter will give you a worse experience because I can bet it doesn't stay plugged as firmly as a headphone in a high vibration situati…

> Just as a reminder it was the EU who ended the BS of every company having a stupid proprietary charger. Did they? How did Apple get away with it?

The EU did, here's some background[0]. As for Apple, they didn't 'get away' with anything as far as I can tell. While iPhones are very popular, they make up well under 20% of the global smartphone market. It's a bit early to say standard headphone jacks are obsolete, but the notion sure does generate clicks and catchy headlines.

[0]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24726077

Re: The 19th Century plug that's still being used

#13

Post by lips »

"If you look at the previous generation of phones, things like Nokia phones, you had to have an adapter," he reasons. "If you want to connect headphones to professional equipment, you also need a professional adapter."

No, this was (for the most part) an anomaly. (Sony loved this crap.)

And the "adapter" you need for professional gear costs all of .25, unless you want to plug your headphones into BNC, then it's maybe 1$ in parts and 15 minutes at your bench.

Re: The 19th Century plug that's still being used

#14

Post by tombrossman »

Animats wrote: post #6

How is USB-C working out as a connector, from the ruggedness standpoint? It has a huge number of pins (24) in a small space. How many insertion cycles can it survive in the real world? Is connector wearout going to limit phone life?

Looks like the spec is 10,000 cycles: http://www.anandtech.com/show/8377/usb-typec-connector-speci...

That's over 13 cycles/day for two years. Probably fine for most users.

Edit: The official spec is only available via a zipped folder of PDFs, here's the particulars to save readers the effort.

  5.7.1.3
  Durability or Insertion/Extraction Cycles (EIA 364-09)
  The durability ratings listed in Table 5-16 are specified for the USB 3.1 connectors.
  Table 5-16. Durability Ratings
  Connector   Standard Durability Class               High Durability Class
  USB 3.1     Standard-A connector 1500 cycles min    5000 cycles min
  USB 3.1     Standard-B connector 1500 cycles min    5000 cycles min
  USB 3.1     Micro connector family                  10000 cycles min
  The durability test shall be done at a maximum rate of 200 cycles per hour and no physical damage to any part of the connector or cable assembly shall occur.

Re: The 19th Century plug that's still being used

#15

Post by onion2k »

hackaflocka wrote: post #5

And it works beautifully. When for some reason, my bluetooth headphone's connectivity is acting up (happens often), I can take my wired headphone and plug it in without even looking, knowing that it WILL work. One of my car's electric windows has stopped working. For my next car, I want something where there's a fallback to a mechanical crank (the way car windows used to be).

I'm just old enough to remember cars with mechanical hand cranks to open the windows. You couldn't open the passenger side window if you were driving. It was dangerous to open the driver's side window if there was a lot going on. The rear passenger windows often didn't open at all in cheaper cars. The number of times you'd leave a window open by mistake was far higher because cars didn't alert you about it.

I'd much rather have electric windows that are cheap and easy to repair than reintroduce hand cranked windows, even just as a back up.

Re: The 19th Century plug that's still being used

#16

Post by semi-extrinsic »

entee wrote: post #10
raverbashing wrote: post #3

"Thinner phone" is a stupid requirement. A thinner phone will be mechanically weaker. Yes, Apple retired Floppy disks and DVD readers, because those were replaced by something better. This is not the case here. A Bluetooth headphone will give you an inferior experience. A lightning converter will give you a worse experience because I can bet it doesn't stay plugged as firmly as a headphone in a high vibration situati…

I agree with the bluetooth being inferior, I hate that the standard headphone jack is going away. If it isn't broken, don't fix it. That said I've been told that the 3.5mm jack takes up a surprising amount of internal space, and that between freeing up that space and a few other tweaks, getting rid of the jack substantially boosts battery life. Still, I think it's not a great trade-off, now you have to babysit a new…

> getting rid of the jack substantially boosts battery life

Yes, as you say, by moving the power draw for the DAC to another device, which must be charged separately. This isn't a real gain in battery life in any way.

Re: The 19th Century plug that's still being used

#17

Post by raverbashing »

rayiner wrote: post #9
raverbashing wrote: post #3

"Thinner phone" is a stupid requirement. A thinner phone will be mechanically weaker. Yes, Apple retired Floppy disks and DVD readers, because those were replaced by something better. This is not the case here. A Bluetooth headphone will give you an inferior experience. A lightning converter will give you a worse experience because I can bet it doesn't stay plugged as firmly as a headphone in a high vibration situati…

I just got a pair of Bose noise-canceling bluetooth headphones. They work great. I'm looking forward to doing away with the headphone jack.

Good. However:

- You have to recharge it

- If you forget them at home you can't get a replacement for cheap

- Setting up bluetooth is an extra hassle as opposed to just plugging the thing

Re: The 19th Century plug that's still being used

#18

Post by swang »

I think Apple did this too late. If they had done this with an earlier release where smartphones were still "advancing" I think they would have gotten better conversion.

Now what can they possibly offer in the next iPhone that offsets the loss of the headphone jack? Wireless headphones are just not all the way there and I don't really want to have to think about charging another device and then get mad if I forget to charge it then have nothing to listen to for the day.

Unless they offer something substantial with the next iPhone and assuming the headphone thing is true, I probably won't buy another iPhone.

Re: The 19th Century plug that's still being used

#19

Post by zaroth »

For me the only thing that would make eliminating the headphone jack worth it is if they put a lightning jack on both ends and made the phone perfectly symmetrical. With literally no top or bottom, no right or wrong way to hold it, and finally a way for my phone to sit in the cup holder with a charge cable coming out the top and maps showing in the right orientation!

The trick in making all this work of course is what you do with the rest of the buttons. If Apple could come up with something truly better than what we have had all along for lock, volume, silent, and home, that would be really neat.

In other words, I can see justifying removal of the jack as part of a holistic redesign which really evolves how we interface with the device. Removing it to make the phone just a bit thinner would be disappointing.

Re: The 19th Century plug that's still being used

#20

Post by rogerbinns »

raverbashing wrote: post #17
rayiner wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just got a pair of Bose noise-canceling bluetooth headphones. They work great. I'm looking forward to doing away with the headphone jack.

Good. However: - You have to recharge it - If you forget them at home you can't get a replacement for cheap - Setting up bluetooth is an extra hassle as opposed to just plugging the thing

- Bluetooth audio codecs do lossy real-time re-encoding of the audio, affecting the quality
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