iPhone 7

http://www.apple.com/iPhone7

by benigeri • 10 years ago

756 1728 10 years ago

apple.com

romanovcode• 10 years ago

Still no MacBook. What a shame.

dijit3• 10 years ago

Agreed, but the event isn't over yet I think.

I've been looking for over a year for a good (build quality) laptop which can run a unix-like environment. And I always end up circling back to macbooks, which have been comprised of very old hardware for quite some time now.

Hard to justify spending so much money for a 3/4 year old CPU.

The alternative is to have a machine that requires more maintenance than my 5/6 year old thinkpad running OpenBSD.

artmageddon4• 10 years ago

From MacRumors live stream:

11:59 am For those joining in late, there have been no announcements about the MacBook Pro or other Macs as expected.

kayoone7• 10 years ago

did you check the latest Dell XPS Developer Edition ? They are pretty high quality and come with Ubuntu preinstalled.

adamnemecek3• 10 years ago

Next month I believe.

dijit3• 10 years ago

what makes you think that?

andyfleming• 10 years ago

I didn't really expect any computer announcements during the iPhone event.

IMcD234• 10 years ago

It's not really an iPhone event. It's Apple's September event. They could have easily done it.

artmageddon4• 10 years ago

$160 for the AirPods? My goodness those are expensive.

riotdash• 10 years ago

Too early to say that. Depends solely on the sound quality.

duiker101• 10 years ago

I disagree because to the layman that can easily listen to anything on a 25$ pair of earphones that's a lot. And here we are talking about at least 80% of the population.

Yhippa2• 10 years ago

I had no idea they were that expensive. Regular old Bluetooth looks like a bargain now.

BurningFrog4• 10 years ago

They seem incredibly easy to lose.

adamnemecek3• 10 years ago

You are supposed to use it with the case. Still easy to lose but slightly harder.

ihuman6• 10 years ago

Especially if it falls out of your ear. I've always had trouble getting the EarPods to stay in my ear while running. I had to loop the wire above and around my ear; I can't do that with the AirPods.

alinspired• 10 years ago

here comes "find my airpods" app :)

twblalock5• 10 years ago

I'm sure some accessory makers will start selling lanyards and whatnot that can be attached to the earphones so they are harder to lose.

usaphp6• 10 years ago

I recently paid $350+ for Bose wireless noise cancelling headphones, the problem with over the ear headphones is that I can't wear them for a long time while I work for example, my head become hot and I want to hear what is around. I like the weight of the regular iphone headphones, I can wear them indefinitely, I am pretty sure case will be the same with AirPods, so I think the price is justified.

exhilaration• 10 years ago

I got the in-ear Bose noise earphones for that reason -- I didn't think I could wear headphones all day without my ears and head getting hot. The earphones are great, really makes it possible to work at home with toddlers screaming downstairs.

throwanem19• 10 years ago

If you want a really comfortable set of headphones (not earbuds) that sound good and don't block your hearing, consider the Sennheiser HD 558.

They're circumaural, so they sit comfortably on the sides of your head rather than mashing your pinnae flat, and their velour pads are nicely breathable; they also mass only a quarter kilogram (260g), and they're an open-back design so that ambient noise is merely reduced rather than totally occluded. (Also, unlike closed-back and especially noise-canceling headphones, they do not produce a constant pressure on your eardrums, which has been suggested to cause hearing loss and certainly plays a role in listening fatigue.) Their reproduction is quite good as well, with a surprisingly flat frequency response for the price range; if that suits you, you're good to go, and if you prefer otherwise, they won't interfere with you EQing your music to your heart's content.

Depending on where you find them, they run anywhere from $100 (Amazon Prime) to $180 (MSRP), so they're considerably less expensive than your QC15s, too. I really can't recommend them favorably enough.

mgkimsal3• 10 years ago

Did you get over the ear (couldn't tell by your post).

The QC20 have been amazing, and have longer than apple's 5 hours battery life. The wireless QC20 will be out soon, and they're rated at 10 hours I think (maybe 8, can't find the article now).

I don't suspect they'll be able to do wireless active noise cancelling, so the argument for the lightning port supporting active noise cancelling functionality is weird... do you want people to go wireless, or not? My first reaction is that that was a poor justification.

StillBored2• 10 years ago

Buy a better set of headphones (i'm not a Bose fan). I used to have problems with my ears sweating, or my head hurting after wearing a pair of closed headphones. About 20 years ago I sprung for a pair of HD545, which were light, open, and the foam/felt surfaces never resulted in discomfort. I could wear those headphones for 12 hours straight.

I've since moved on to other headphones, but I always consider if the headphone is to tight, heavy, or the ear cushions are cheap pleather that makes my head sweat.

sliverstorm• 10 years ago

Open back headphones are the solution to your ears getting hot.

It was a big discovery for me, as 16 hour days in the lab with studio headphones once resulted in a blocked ear canal, from ear wax melting & reflowing! Weird & gross, I know.

sbov• 10 years ago

Honest question: why would you buy noise cancelling headphones for situations when you want to hear what is around? Did you buy them for other use cases and also decide to use them at work?

tajen3• 10 years ago

As a side note, they're noise-canceling and also work as a (non-bluetooth) headset. I was expecting them to find a solution when you lose them, which is the first gripe people will have with them. Even if it's something along the lines of "come to the store, you'll get new ones for free, but we'll deactivate the old ones".

AceJohnny24• 10 years ago

The Airpods aren't actually noise cancelling. A pity, I was watching out for that. The noise-cancelling they do is for the microphones, which is what you expect for any headset device.

I currently have a pair of Bose QC20 (their in-ear noise-cancelling earbuds). I'm pretty happy with them, but they were really expensive at $250. If Apple's were noise-cancelling and able to compete with Bose's tech (they're rated the best [1]), they'd be a deal.

But as it is, they're not.

Maybe a firmware update, maybe they're negotiating tech/patents with Bose, maybe the next iteration...

[1] http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-noise-cancelling-in-ea...

donkeyd• 10 years ago

they're noise-canceling

Where'd you get that from? That would be awesome if true.

zyxley2• 10 years ago

The only other company putting up a serious effort in the same niche is aiming at $150 (and releasing a month later than the AirPods) [1], so there's probably some lower bound here set by the complications of the hardware/R&D to seamlessly connect two separate earbuds through your head and to the phone.

[1] http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/5/12798640/bragi-wireless-hea...

prawn2• 10 years ago

There's also these for around $200 from Samsung, though supposedly battery life is poor.

http://www.samsung.com/global/galaxy/gear-iconx/

tetraodonpuffer3• 10 years ago

did not see any mention of if they will have lossless audio or not (important if Apple really wants to have their technology replace wired for also higher end headphones)

Also no mention of standby time that I could hear, only 5 hours listening, but no idea if just having them on (in case of infrequent phone calls) would use up the battery as fast or not

glhaynes• 10 years ago

Their product page mentions "high-quality AAC audio", so I'm assuming all audio output is converted (if necessary) to AAC. http://www.apple.com/airpods/

kayoone7• 10 years ago

Any good pair of wireless earbuds is around that price point.

PacketPaul6• 10 years ago

Yea but can you really put a price on courage.

deanstag• 10 years ago

Burn!!

theshrike7913• 10 years ago

It's in the exact same price range as comparable wireless earbuds, like the Jaybird X2

You're just comparing them to shitty wired $5 chinese earbuds from Amazon in your head. $160 isn't even expensive for earbuds in general, more like lower mid-range.

Snowdax• 10 years ago

I don't want a Jaybird so that's not a winning argument for why I would want these.

I'm comparing them to my $90 noise cancelling over ear headphones that, while yes no exactly top tier, don't require their own charging infrastructure and have much better audio quality than stock apple.

I may as well have an entirely separate MP3 player that costs me a good bit less than $160 than deal with this BS.

sschueller• 10 years ago

But the Jaybird are attached to each other so you don't loose them that easily and they work on any phone. Do the Apple wireless AirPods work on any phone? or only devices that pay the W1 licensing fee?

baddox2• 10 years ago

Funny enough, I thought the exact opposite. I predicted they would be $200 at the absolute minimum.

askafriend• 10 years ago

It's a very reasonable price point and completely in line with the competition like Jaybird, Beats or similar. I was in the market for good wireless earbud-style headphones recently to use in the gym and all of the decent options were between $120 and $200.

I ended up going for the Jaybird X2 which is about $150.

shwash• 10 years ago

those went on sale recently and are in the $80 range now. I picked them up, they're great.

justinph• 10 years ago

I'm really curious about these. I wear hearing aids and these things seem damn close in a lot of respects, except about $5000 cheaper. The hearing aid industry has seen a lot of pressure from consumer electronics (which is great) and I hope this only increases that pressure.

I could totally envision v2 of these having better battery life and being able to "enhance" hearing the same way a hearing aid does. Also, more people using these will hopefully reduce the stigma some see with wearing hearing aids.

Yhippa2• 10 years ago

I'll give them credit for going deeper into features in he new phones. I question whether people will think to use them if they go into their phone for a specific task.

boodm2• 10 years ago

I question whether people will think to use them if they go into their phone for a specific task.

IMO, they will not. I know 8-10 people with 6S/6S+ iPhones and _none_ of those people use force touch.

slg4• 10 years ago

I still can't get over the headphone jack. Apple does have a good record of abandoning technologies at the right time (floppies, CDs, Flash, etc) but the biggest difference is that those technologies were all on the downward slope of their popularity when Apple made the move and all had solid replacements available at the time. The headphone jack is just as popular today as it has ever been and it is still more convenient and dependable than wireless headphones for most people in most situations. Maybe that changes soon or maybe AirPods solve this for iOS users (they by design can't be a universal solution) but I can't help but feel that Apple is jumping the gun on dropping the jack. Although as an iPhone user, I hope I'm wrong.

Side note, I think it is hilarious that Apple can't get the AirPods to ship at the same time as the iPhone. Anyone who buys the new phone on release is going to be stuck with the crappy lightning headphones for at least a month and a half.

apendleton2• 10 years ago

USB is a good counterexample, though. They started pushing USB for all peripherals before anybody else, and before there was a good market for peripherals that supported it. The market emerged soon thereafter, though, and other companies were ditching their parallel ports, etc., within a year or two.

slg4• 10 years ago

Except USB was a standard. Lightning isn't and it doesn't appear that the W1 chip is either.

strictnein11• 10 years ago

USB isn't a good counter example, unless they were switching to USB-C. But they're not, they're sticking with their proprietary port.

usaphp6• 10 years ago

"but the biggest difference is that those technologies were all on the downward"

Most of my friends are using bluetooth headphones nowadays.

csours• 10 years ago

I've tried a number of bluetooth headphones, none of them have had the sound quality of wired. Songs would skip, quality was not great. Are there bluetooth headphones that don't skip nowadays?

sotojuan2• 10 years ago

Oh, okay. Folks, most of usaphp's friends are buying bluetooth headphones. We can all stop worrying and complaining about this—disregard the large portion of the population that isn't or doesn't have them.

TazeTSchnitzel4• 10 years ago

I thought they might replace the headphone jack with a USB-C connector. Then they could do the same thing on the MacBook and it'd have two USB-C ports.

But instead they chose Lightning, so now we have iPhone headphones and Android headphones.

Why did it have to be this way?

serge2k6• 10 years ago

Because Apple.

I really don't want a shitty android phone. Might get a 6s I guess. I damaged my 6 recently.

usaphp6• 10 years ago

We have bluetooth headphones, which work on iPhones, Androids and computers.

jacquesm• 10 years ago

so now we have iPhone headphones and Android headphones.

I think you answered your own question there.

zanny4• 10 years ago

Why did it have to be this way?

We could have a world where Vulkan was the one stop shop graphics API anywhere. Instead, we are in this situation where everything but Apple products supports / will support it.

Why did it have to be this way?

cm21876• 10 years ago

iPhone headphones (ligtning), Android headphones (USB-C) and laptop/desktop or any old device (audio jack)

niftich13• 10 years ago

Apple gets a lot of (semi-rightful) flak for going their own way and developing their own tech, protocols, and connectors, but in many cases they were legitimately first and the 'standard' option came later.

-- Lightning pre-dates USB type-C, which fulfill the same usability goal

-- AirPlay pre-dates Miracast

-- Metal pre-dates Vulkan

In some cases, Apple's product was later adopted as the standard:

-- The mini-DisplayPort was their custom connector but later adopted as an official standard

-- the MOV format was adopted for the ISO base container format (MPEG-4 Part 12), which forms the base of MPEG-4 Part 14, commonly known as the 'MP4 container'.

In some cases, they did develop custom tech where open ones existed:

-- ALAC is fairly close in implementation details to FLAC, which pre-dates it.

-- Apple's 'HTTP Live Streaming' came well-after MPEG standard ways of doing HTTP streaming, and is roughly contemporaneous with Adobe's and Microsoft's proprietary ways of adaptive streaming. Later, DASH was developed as a vendor-neutral alternative, and is now the preferred way of doing adaptive streaming via HTTP.

I don't believe that Apple is any more proprietary than a lot of other companies. It's just that they're a tempting target, because they dictate their ecosystem so strongly, and it certainly doesn't help that they ship a lot of locked-down, premium devices.

But blatantly user-hostile changes like removing the headphone jack won't earn them any goodwill.

guelo3• 10 years ago

Lock-in. When you buy any apple accessory it is not usable on anything else adding more friction for people considering a switch.

seanalltogether• 10 years ago

Now we have iPhone headphones and MacBook headphones, even worse.

theshrike7913• 10 years ago

We already have Android and iPhone headphones with the jack. The 4-pole connector uses a different standard for the control signals for both.

You can't do anything beyond play/pause or answer calls on iOS with Samsung headphones or vice versa.

strictnein11• 10 years ago

And to say it was about "Courage". No, we all understand that it's a way for them to make more money selling their horrible headphones and licensing lightning to headphone makers.

sodafountan• 10 years ago

While from a financial standpoint this would make sense, most of the guys making the executive decisions at Apple are design focused and oriented. Dropping the headphone jack differentiates Apple even more from its competition, makes the phone sleeker, helps with water proofing, makes the wireless headphones more appealing (which not only act as headphones but also communication devices). This was much more than just a financial move for Apple, and in my opinion it looks to be a smart one.

vhost-• 10 years ago

Why would they include a 3.5 mm adapter then?

j28xfc5qsc• 10 years ago

I guess some people will buy lightning headphones instead of bluetooth, but it should be a small minority.

coryfklein6• 10 years ago

I saw it more as a push to eliminate the cord from headphones entirely. I personally hate the cord, but I hate charging bluetooth headphones even more. I hope eliminating the jack will result in better wireless headphones, but I'm not super confident that it will.

snom3802• 10 years ago

The future is bluetooth, and they're not making licensing fees off that.

wmeredith• 10 years ago

That "courage" bit may be the most pretentious and ridiculous thing I've heard Apple say to date, and that's clearing some high bars. They're a consumer electronics company, not doctors without borders.

kartD• 10 years ago

The iPhone ships with lighting to 3.5mm adapter so Apple has heard users... Kinda

ForFreedom4• 10 years ago

right now can one charge and hear music?

eli• 10 years ago

At the time it really did feel like they were jumping the gun with floppies and optical drives too.

cm21876• 10 years ago

I wasn't but I still was annoyed that many MacOS drivers were only available on floppies.

mikeash19• 10 years ago

Maybe, but it wasn't at all to the same degree. Floppies were verging on uselessness in 1998. Capacities hadn't increased in a decade, while code and data sizes were growing exponentially. Floppies could barely fit anything useful anymore. A wide variety of replacements were available, with Zip, Jazz, Bernoulli, CD-RW, and others all competing. There was no standardization, so the replacements kind of sucked. Removable data storage was just a complete mess at the time, so eliminating the most standardized but vastly least capable option wasn't that big of a deal.

With audio connectors, it's not like that at all. For wired connections, there's one universal standard that works great. There's no analogous situation to being unable to fit your massive bloated Word documents onto a 1.44MB floppy disk. Moving past the floppy disk solved a bunch of serious problems, while moving past the headphone jack isn't solving any problems.

xer• 10 years ago

The thing about 3.5mm jack is economy. Can you afford wireless? Apple is all premium.

ProAm2• 10 years ago

Usually premium means better though.

ceejayoz4• 10 years ago

the biggest difference is that those technologies were all on the downward slope of their popularity when Apple made the move and all had solid replacements available at the time

Was that downward slope clear at the time Apple made the changes, though? I remember "no Flash on iPhone" being a major complaint of many pundits.

k-mcgrady7• 10 years ago

Dropping the DVD drive was also a pretty big thing at the time as there wasn't even a 'similar' alternative (another type of removable media the industry had switched to. In the past it seems when they drop technology it real does make the changeover period quicker. This time I'm not so sure it will but at the end of the day I don't think it matters. Most people use the headphones that come with their iPhone and they will continue to. Not to mention Beats has 60-80% of the headphone market share depending on who you believe so with Beats + EarPods + AirPods most people are covered.

esolyt5• 10 years ago

Flash never worked well on mobile devices. So Apple never tried to implement it. Headphones worked fine with every mobile device in the world.

berberous3• 10 years ago

I think they are really shooting themselves in the foot if they don't open up and license the W1 chip to any manufacturer that wants it. If the only way forward is to buy poor quality AirPods (I'm assuming that they audio quality, like with the EarPods, is 'okay', but not great considering the price) or even more overpriced Beats, then this is a really user hostile move.

Yes, you could use Bluetooth, but I'm guessing (hoping...) Apple has done some work to make the stream quality sound better and the connection process more stable. If they were to freely license that technology, people could buy great sounding headphones, with an improved UX, from any company they chose too. Now, it just seems like Apple's "courageous" way forward is all about pushing you to high margin Beats and EarPods.

k-mcgrady7• 10 years ago

> "poor quality AirPods"

...you haven't even used them yet...

irunbackwards• 10 years ago

I don't understand, aren't there tons of companies doing bluetooth/wireless earbuds right now?

sosborn5• 10 years ago

If the only way forward is to buy poor quality AirPods

Bluetooth is still an option

acomjean2• 10 years ago

I can't get over the headphone jack either.

Another dongle to loose. Tons of headphones obsoleted. Can't charge while listening. Laggy audio. more batteries in the world. They're ok with a bulge for the camera but not headphones? I work in a lab and a phone with headphones is standard equipment on the commute and work (for at least part of the day).

I would seriously move off iOS if I was making music with it. If only iOS devices were made by other manufacturers... (I know I know....)

on the plus side minimum memory had been bumped.

FigBug• 10 years ago

I would seriously move off iOS if I was making music with it.

Can you explain this?

tajen3• 10 years ago

Tons of headphones obsoleted.

They do provide the lightening-to-jack adapter in the box for free.

nsxwolf4• 10 years ago

Attach your headphones to the dongle and leave it there. If you have more than one set, I'm sure Anker will make these for $4.99 a piece and you can buy a bunch.

BurningFrog4• 10 years ago

I expect iPads will still have the headphone jack. It doesn't have the space issues of the phone.

robinson7d• 10 years ago

Can't charge while listening.

If you shell out for the AirPods, you can.

Though I definitely agree - I'm pretty sad to see the headphone jack go.

eeeeeeeeeeeee3• 10 years ago

The lag is what I'm curious about. Given the lag I experience while streaming Bluetooth from my iPhone to my car, I'm expecting to see about the same amount of lag. Which is annoying because it's definitely a worse experience than a cable.

yock• 10 years ago

They're ok with a bulge for the camera but not headphones?

This confuses me too. The camera wart is ridiculous, and I bet if they made the device just that slight bit thicker they'd have room to retain the 3.5mm jack.

The other possibility is that the headphone jack makes water resistance that much more difficult. Maybe they think it's worth it?

coryfklein6• 10 years ago

if I was making music with it

Is iOS used as a platform in professional music making? Is that really a thing?

citrik• 10 years ago

Anyone serious about making music on iOS already has an external audio interface. Not to say dropping the port is well timed, but it's not a major issue for most pro iOS musicians.

ivan_gammel2• 10 years ago

The difference between camera and headphones is that the latter consume useful space inside and extra lenses for camera do not. Probably it also has to do something with new waterproof feature (different design of case, more holes to secure etc).

rimantas4• 10 years ago

  > I would seriously move off iOS

Where to? Take a look at what earphones are people with iPhones using. 99% those will be the ones found it the box.

i2shar• 10 years ago

One word: "Courage".

johnward3• 10 years ago

The camera bulge bothers me on every phone. The lens always ends up wearing after some daily use. Why would you want that to be the contact point on any device?

ptaffs• 10 years ago

Bulging camera -> broken glass. For two years I've been using a Galaxy S5 with bulging camera and twice I have broken the camera glass needing replacing, it's the first thing to hit the surface when i rest the phone on a table and takes a lot of stress. Of course I could be more careful. It has also scratched and so there's more lens flare, but I'm tired of replacing it. My wife's iPhone with flush camera is much less of a problem.

vadym9092• 10 years ago

Making the phone thin is a wasted goal. Everyone I know has a thick iphone cover.

chetanahuja9• 10 years ago

"If only iOS devices were made by other manufacturers"

This seems backwards. Only reason to buy Apple phones is the superior hardware. As far as the OS goes, Android (and the google services backing it... especially Google Now) have completely surpassed it and continue to increase the gap every day. Increasingly, Google is treating the mobile devices as just a conduit to access their cloud services (including their far superior machine intelligence backing it). While Apple continues to treat the iPhone as a beautiful device with mediocre cloud services backing the hardware.

Don't believe me? Imagine if you Google stopped creating apps for the iPhone. How big a catastrophe would that be for Apple management? Now imagine Apple ceased to exist. Would the Android ecosystem be affected in any way?

taigeair• 10 years ago

Don't feel it's a problem because I have my iPhone charger to charge it up and have my iPhone head phones to listen to music. What's the difference?

Many people have the micro usb cable for charging, and iPhone users use the lightning charger.

Only issue for me is you can't listen to music via headphone and charge at the same time.

byebyetech2• 10 years ago

>Can't charge while listening.

This is huge.

whatevs_people2• 10 years ago

Don't you think this move isn't anything other than Apple now has another set of accessories to sell at a premium? Dongle lost: buy another one. Tons of headphones obsolete: no problem, Apple and Beats are going to be rolling out dozens that are compatible. $$$

dogmatix• 10 years ago

Would a dongle be that bad? Back in the Walkman days there was a dongle that acted as a remote control. It made it very easy to skip songs, change volume, etc. Another improvement to this functionality would be a likely movement away from the current situation with non-standard signalling sent across the analogue connection. Right now you can get headphones with integrated remotes to pause/resume and control the volume, but the signals are not shared between android/iphone let alone desktop operating systems.

stormbeta3• 10 years ago

I've switched entirely to Bluetooth headphones, but I'm with you - there are plenty of downsides to wireless headsets even with lossless audio protocols like aptx. And water resistance is still possible - my Z5C can be used in pouring rain and it still has a 3.5mm jack.

I'm also worried about the potential for consumer-hostile DRM on audio playback, especially since it looks like they're introducing their own proprietary wireless protocol.

jshevek2• 10 years ago

Can't charge while listening. [ using a standard cable]

This is a complete deal breaker for me. I was confident that apple was going to unveil two models, one which had the headphone jack and one which didn't.

Lenovo at least had the good sense to offer at least one model that still had the headphone jack, as they were introducing a similar model which did not.

I'm so disappointed in apple.

Hondor• 10 years ago

Why worry about obsoleting tons of headphones when this (and every new phone) obsoletes a whole phone? Isn't that a much greater cost?

abalone3• 10 years ago

Another dongle to loose. Tons of headphones obsoleted. Can't charge while listening.

You're conflating the switch to a proprietary jack with the introduction of wireless AirPods. Those are separate things. You can still use 100% of existing wired headphones with the iPhone 7, just with an adapter, which is a tradeoff that gets you some great other features like the new camera system.[1] The bundled wired headphones and any wireless headphones don't require an adapter. If you don't like wireless headphones, you don't have to use them.

I would seriously move off iOS if I was making music with it.

Why? That comment seems unsupported by your reaction to this headphone jack change.

[1] https://www.buzzfeed.com/johnpaczkowski/inside-iphone-7-why-...

anexprogrammer• 10 years ago

It's an accounting decision. Apple can make millions replacing lost and broken genuine Apple Lightning to 3.5 adaptors. Probably at £30 a time. They probably reckon on selling a ton of airpods too.

Memories of all the feature phones I had with adaptors tells me they will break all the damn time. Kids have a happy habit of losing small things - adaptors and bluetooth earbuds.

So that's 3 sales lost here - not buying 7's for the kids. They can put up with the iPhones they have, buy themselves (slim chance), or switch to Android. That's my popularity shot for a few days.

deepinthewoods• 10 years ago

I would seriously move off iOS if I was making music with it.

Audio latency used to be a HUGE advantage for IOS vs Android. It was their biggest USP in my opinion. Android has been improving but it's still not there yet. If the next ipad has this it will be the end for musicians using IOS.

roryisok2• 10 years ago

Can't charge while listening.

That didn't even occur to me! Holy crap, what a design flaw. I'm glad I'm not an iUser today

wayfarer2s2• 10 years ago

Honestly I'm glad they're moving towards wireless. I replace way more headphones than I care to admit just from them wearing out with normal use. It's usually just the wire itself that is worn out, the earpieces are almost always in good condition. The only thing I worry about is losing the AirPods, but they seem like a step in the right direction.

majewsky2• 10 years ago

But wireless is an option already. That's not a reason to eliminate the 3.5 jack at all cost.

yRetsyM• 10 years ago

Unfortunately now we're going to wear out the battery. I don't know which is better.

username223• 10 years ago

I use earbuds for hours a day, and replace them at least once a year at a cost of $10 or less. So earPods cost about a decade's worth of wired earbuds.

Besides, wireless earbuds that only last for 5 hours would be completely useless to me, since I often listen to music all day while hiking. I can't imagine I'm the only one who dislikes having ever more things that need to be frequently charged: wireless mice, "smart" watches, now earbuds. I'm pretty happy with my digital watch that lasts several years on a battery, and my cheap headphones that don't need to charge, and won't get lost when they fall out of my ears. Sorry, but not everything can or should be wireless.

andruby• 10 years ago

I've had the same Sennheiser HD25 for 12 years and use them almost every day. I've replaced the ear pads twice, but I've never had to replace the cable (which is easily replaced).

It's a bad move from Apple to remove the jack. I dislike wireless headphones as you can't quickly move them from iphone to macbook, they need charging and they'll always have some form of lag.

nicky014• 10 years ago

The AirPods do look incredibly easy to lose.

Perhaps Apple could sell some kind of wire to attach to the AirPods to keep them safe. The other end of the safety wire could plug into the phone's lightning port, for extra safety.

Anderkent• 10 years ago

It's so easy to replace cables for headphones though? Even if the cables aren't detachable (and they are in many good headsets), it's a trivial soldering job.

kayoone7• 10 years ago

There is still the adapter so i don't really get the hate. Moving to digital has a lot of potential in the long run and personally i am very happy with my bluetooth headphones.

tebruno996• 10 years ago

The adapter doesn't allow you to charge. So older cars can't Music+GPS+Charge which means you just have a dead phone when you get where you are going.

TillE• 10 years ago

And the adapter is digital, right? Phil said the Lightning port was great for "digital audio". They have to cram a DAC in each one?

I could just about tolerate a very simple small analog adapter, but this is going too far.

throwanem19• 10 years ago

Every Lightning connector is already active. Adding a DAC probably doesn't increase the cost per each by much.

lowmagnet• 10 years ago

A DAC with an amplifier good enough to power those little headphones fits into the control box on the cord.

matznerd• 10 years ago

You can complain about this, but I have recently bought two pairs of headphones, LG tones and JayBirds, and they are both bluetooth. I really do not see myself going back to wired headphones ever again, so this move is pretty timely.

bashinator• 10 years ago

I myself have about a thousand dollars invested in high-end headphones and earbuds (Sony DJ cans, Extreme Isolation EX-29 for the open office, Sennheiser earbuds for the commute) that I have no intention of replacing or buying a dongle for.

danso• 10 years ago

Well, for anyone else who like me can't get the Apple earbuds to stay in my fucked up ear (cauliflower ear, from wrestling), I bought these Bluetooth earbuds a month ago and now use them all the time: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01GDIUA8Y/

At $45 they're not the cheapest but they've got pretty good sound quality and work well from a physical standpoint

Esau4• 10 years ago

To me, the biggest problem with this move is that you can't charge the device and listen to music with corded headphones at the same time. Unless there is some option I am unaware of.

In any case, I just decided to replace my iPhone 5 with an iPhone 6s, which I should be able to find on sale.

tarcon• 10 years ago

The iPhone Lightning Dock offers a traditional headphone port for that use case.

jpalomaki• 10 years ago

This is a problem also for phone conferences.

Bluetooth is ok in general, but I hate to have one more battery to keep an eye on.

Macbook, iPhone, Apple Watch, AirPods. That's already three different charging mechanisms for the devices you are likely to carry when traveling.

I would be very happy if they could even just add one extra USB port to Macbook USB-C charger so that you could charge the laptop and phone with the same charger.

simonh2• 10 years ago

Given that you get a lightning to audio jack converter right in the box it's pretty much the only significant objection IMHO. Converter cables aren't ideal, but hardly a ragequit issue. I wonder if third party charge/jack splitter cables are possible?

troncheadle• 10 years ago

Bluetooth headphones outsold standard audio jack headphones in the US last month for the first time. This is perfectly timed.

joakleaf2• 10 years ago

Does the survey account for the number of phones that are sold with audio jack headphones?

It could be that the only reason bluetooths outsells jacks, is because people get jacks anyway for free.

seiferteric2• 10 years ago

How many headphones are people even buying? I have a drawer full of headphones I have collected over the years. Not at all surprising people would only be buying wireless headphones, but it does not mean they are more commonly used.

melling3• 10 years ago

PS/2 keyboards weren't on the way out. Apple led the way and pushed USB for a few years before it caught on.

gyey• 10 years ago

But the lightening port is a closed standard, as opposed to USB. It would have made much more sense here if Apple had used USB-C instead of lightening.

slantedview2• 10 years ago

Pros for wireless: no wires.

Pros for wired: better fidelity, no batteries to charge, lighter weight, more headphones to choose from, cheaper headphone options, no adapters to lose, can listen to music while charging.

Be bold.

wayfarer2s2• 10 years ago

Another pro for wireless is that you get more space inside the phone, which means more room for chips, batteries, etc. And you have to consider things like headphone jack make it harder for your phone to be waterproof since that's one more place you have to figure out how to seal.

kirykl• 10 years ago

One of Apple's core tenents is 'to hell with legacy'

Lightning headphones are a stop gap. The future is wireless.

jjawssd2• 10 years ago

That would make sense if wired wasn't far superior to wireless from a reliability and throughput standpoint

thebaer• 10 years ago

I might be convinced of that when they improve the battery technology. No company on the planet except for Apple can say "wireless is the future" and charge $159 for buds that last 5 hours.

jonknee6• 10 years ago

My issue with this is there are wireless headphones today, you don't need to remove the headphone jack to support them. It's a step back for no compelling reason.

fnj2• 10 years ago

Another of Apple's core tenets is "milk those cows [customers] for all they've got". They couldn't care less about any other market segment than the pure luxury status-seeker segment.

rsync2• 10 years ago

I never got to the point you are at because I could never get over the USB jack.

It took 30 fucking years and a lot of blood sweat and tears but finally finally there is a global, universal, cheap and simple charging standard that just works. You can find a USB port anywhere and there are extra cables everywhere and life is just slightly better all around.

Except for Apple.

cm21876• 10 years ago

Well, mini USB, then micro USB, then USB-C, then...

I have to change my cables every 5 years, not exactly "a" global standard.

prodmerc• 10 years ago

Apple - Be exceptional. Or the exception. Whatever, just pay us :D

ropiku2• 10 years ago

Apple already had their standard before there was USB-C. Do you think yet another port migration would be well received ?

ubernostrum7• 10 years ago

So your phone has a USB type A socket in it? Or are you misrepresenting how you have one eternal ageless never-deprecated never-changing way to connect your phone to things?

rajacombinator• 10 years ago

Apple headphones are super poor quality as well. I can get some Chinese ones off Amazon for $10 that absolutely destroy the Apple ones.

jclarkcom• 10 years ago

Can you point me to one? I've tried nearly a dozen of Chinese clones and they all suck compared to apple's. I hate to pay $30 for headphones but ended up going back to apple.

theshrike7913• 10 years ago

Please provide links to these absolute destroyers.

daxelrod• 10 years ago

Which ones?

r00fus11• 10 years ago

Pray tell, which ones? My experience is the opposite.

phatbyte2• 10 years ago

Please let us know where we can buy it?

dr_• 10 years ago

It really depends on how one primarily listens to music on their phone. There are a LOT of people who listen to music on their phone while working out. Having a cable dangling, disconnecting or having the phone fall while you are working out is pretty annoying as well. Bluetooth headphones were never a perfect option, but the new phone and wireless chip very well could be.

aquark• 10 years ago

I switched back to wired headphones after going through several (different) pairs of bluetooth headphones that could seem to cope with the sweat overload for more than a month or two before dying.

The cord is a bit of a pain, but the cost of the bluetooth headphones was more so!

kilroy123• 10 years ago

I just don't get the supports of this. I have a pair of bluetooth headphone and of course normal corded. Bluetooth sucks! It's buggy as hell. You have to constantly get it to re-sync with your device. Interference constantly makes the signal get crappy.

Ever been on a call with your fancy blue tooth headset while someone turned on a microwave near by? I have, that shit stops working!

I'm all for moving forward with an all digital solution, but blue tooth just doesn't cut it 100% of the time.

exclusiv2• 10 years ago

They're pricey (~ 450 USD), but I recommend the Sennheiser Momentum bluetooth wireless [1]. Great sound for music (aptX) and phone calls, comfortable, solid noise cancellation. You can still use them corded if you want too.

[1] https://en-us.sennheiser.com/momentum-wireless-headphones-wi...

eagsalazar2• 10 years ago

This. Bluetooth just sucks. I recently tried out 3 of the top rated bluetooth headsets on Amazon after giving up a couple years ago. It still just sucks and is not reliable. Battery life is terrible if you want headphones you can use all day while at work or commuting (won't even come close to making it through the day with smaller headphones).

This is just a terrible decision IMO. OTOH I'm a diehard Nexus guy so I guess I really don't care :)

doctorshady• 10 years ago

Given that headphones are purely analog devices, I'm not sure an all-digital solution really makes sense. You have to put the DAC+amplifier somewhere, and it seems just wasteful to incorporate it into each and every pair of headphones.

That, and you'll wind up with at best, something that performs equally well to the traditional analog output jack. Is that really worth mangling years of standards and backwards compatibility for?

losvedir• 10 years ago

But they're not bluetooth, right?

lifeisstillgood• 10 years ago

For me the awesome / scary / new best practise was the Tim Cook must have asked "how many people use headphones, whilst charging" and they could tell him, to the user, to the minute, to the location.

Yeah, we can lose 4% of Abba lovers. Go for it

specialp• 10 years ago

I am not sure if I agree with the floppy being abandoned at the right time. This was at a time where the cloud would be emailing something to yourself, no USB drives, and CD writers that were expensive, and burnt a coaster half the time.

Also back then Apple had a minuscule market share, so they did not really kill it. It just made most people have to buy an external floppy drive. Yes the floppy did have to go, but USB sticks needed to come first, and they were not there yet. There really wasn't any other alternative for say saving your work at school and going home.

DavideNL• 10 years ago

I still can't get over the headphone jack

People can't handle change. Reminds me of Steve Jobs ditching Flash in 2010... https://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/

baby• 10 years ago

On the website it's written that the iPhone comes with a jack to lightning adapter.

codemogul• 10 years ago

Forced adoption is a factor to be considered in their strategy. In the United States, 13 states and DC have standing laws forbidding the use of cell phones in "hand-held" mode while driving. [1] In other words, you can talk with it, but not on your ear.

To ensure compliance, most manufacturers include cheapy bud and microphone wired headset kits in their boxes.

By virtue of their control of 12% or so of the phone market, Apple is putting a lot of Lightning headsets into the stream, and making a bet that a lot of those people in the ecosystem will upgrade to the pods.

[1] http://www.ncsl.org/research/transportation/cellular-phone-u...

kennell2• 10 years ago

As for the AirPods: $159 for something that i will most likely lose within the first 3 months? Nope, not buying it. Also, the battery life will be probably be cut in half after 2 years usage or so.

j454• 10 years ago

Does anyone know if aptX support has arrived in the iPhone for bluetooth devices? I have been increasingly using devices like the Sony SBH80, or SBH54 and they work seamlessly for the most part already between my phone and laptop. I don't think the headphone thing has been thought thru but their wireless jump to the W1 seems to be at least in part bluetooth 4.x based which itself is a far superior technology to even BT 3.0 that many devices today have.

The other problem I've run into is having a phone and headset with the same version of bluetooth.

Bluetooth audio, once high quality enough through codecs like aptX will become like wifi, we will wonder why we were tethered with wires to begin with. Bluetooth 5.0 appears to have taken a big step towards the audio quality issue resolution. I've previously owned the Sony MW600 and SBH52 bluetooth receivers for the past 5-7 years. As the tech improves it's going to become more viable and is in line with Apple's generally wireless strategy between Macbook, iPad, iPhone, etc.

morganw• 10 years ago

aptX support ... iPhone

Nope, but "iOS devices support the non-mandatory codec MPEG-2/4 AAC, as defined in Section 4.5 of the A2DP specification, Version 1.2.Accessories should use the AAC codec in addition to SBC, because it provides higher audio quality for a given bit rate. " source http://theheadphonelist.theheadphonelist.netdna-cdn.com/wp-c... via http://theheadphonelist.com/wireless-fidelity-making-sense-b...

yborg• 10 years ago

Very good question. It's basically incomprehensible why Apple doesn't support the codec in iOS, especially since the other issue that replacing wired headphones with Bt is that the sound quality is inferior - even with aptX support.

I'm very surprised that I have seen almost no mention of the fact that Apple didn't just remove an "outdated" interface and inconvenience their customers, they also simultaneously reduced the quality of their audio experience.

DCKing2• 10 years ago

To be fair to Apple, I think they have a good point. Digital connectors are superior in almost every way (space use, port flexibility, sound quality, even cable integrity). I admire them for ripping off the bandaid, like they did previously with disk drives and parrallel ports. Someone needs to lead the way to abandon legacy, and Apple can do that far more effectively than others (e.g. Motorola has also abandoned headphone jacks with their Moto Z line).

One thing I cannot get over though, is that they chose their own propietary, you-have-to-pay-Apple-for-a-license, cannot-use-them-with-anything-else Lightning 'standard'. USB Type C is the standard for this stuff now, and any trivial technical merits Lightning might have over USB Type C don't weigh up against the universal nature of USB Type C. The sheer arrogance.

Digital connectors the future? I'm on board with that. Propietary connectors? Fuck that.

jonknee6• 10 years ago

Digital connectors are superior in almost every way (space use, port flexibility, sound quality, even cable integrity).

Then why has almost no one decided to use Lightning headphones when given a choice?

SCdF4• 10 years ago

(space use, port flexibility,

Except they only gave you one port, so you can't even do something as benign as charge your phone and listen to fucking music at the same time.

sound quality,

I challenge you to prove that one, I'm sure sound quality is indistinguishable. If it's good enough for every sound engineer ever it's good enough for me.

even cable integrity)

Again, is that even true? You can knock out a cheap headphone cable that works perfectly, whereas lightning devices are always crazy expensive.

mark-r3• 10 years ago

I just bought a Moto X, and I'm glad I did because the Moto Z looks like its replacement. A standard headphone jack is a basic requirement for me, anybody who doesn't have one won't get my money.

xeonoex• 10 years ago

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I think that the audio jack is one of the few cases where an analog port is good because if the signal in not already analog it must be converted to analog via a DAC. If the DAC isn't in the phone, it has to be in the headphones. So, not only do you need to worry about the quality of the headphones, you have to worry about the quality of the DAC, and the DAC needs power. Seems like a few good reasons to not ditch the audio jack for now, especially if you care about audio quality. Also, those that care about audio quality probably have several expensive sets of headphones that are now incompatible with new Apple phones.

BinaryIdiot• 10 years ago

I completely agree. If they're going to get on their high horse about being brave they should have done this with USB-C. Now their phones will either never go USB-C or it will take 5 years before they do it otherwise all of those lightning headphones you just bought are now useless.

deckard12• 10 years ago

The thing is, we already have a lightning port. It's a thing that exists. We could already have lightning headphones and the current headphone jack. Together.

Digital doesn't make up for the fact that we're moving from a near-universal standard headphone jack to a proprietary port. One that, mind you, is flat vs. round. The design of the headphone jack is superior. You can plug it in at any angle, and rotate it while plugged in. Now people are stuck with a flat cable that will just twist up during movement.

jshevek2• 10 years ago

USB Type C is the standard for this stuff now

Exactly. I felt that Lenovo was being a bit premature and dropping the headphone jack but at least they're using a standard USB C connector.

easytiger• 10 years ago

Digital connectors are superior in almost every way

You don't know the first thing about noise or the transmogrification of noise at all do you?

don't weigh up against the universal nature of USB Type C. The sheer arrogance.

Agreed. History is just coming to the downward part of a sine wave again... rejection of standards (see messagaing/storage/networking) and aggressive attempts at monopoly despite lack of convergence on singular solutions.

ch4s3• 10 years ago

My hope is that this will help push towards a better bluetooth. If a lot more people are paring headphones daily the market will demand better pairing. (I hope)

lnanek2• 10 years ago

Yeah, but Apple isn't using Bluetooth for the AirPods (they've already been quoted in the press as saying their technology is more battery efficient than Bluetooth). Do we really want everyone moving away from a wireless standard and implementing their own custom pairing solutions like Apple did, that will only work when the producing companies for the accessory and the host match?

pbreit• 10 years ago

If you have to include an adapter in the box...

But seriously, how hard would it have been to do a generation of keeping the jack with the Lightning headphones (and putting Lightning on Macs)?

winkle• 10 years ago

I purchased a bluetooth receiver for my car last year since I already had a headphone size cord to plugin to my phone. The same thing could be used for your now obsolete headphones. Although all I could find was the refurbished version. https://www.amazon.com/Etekcity-Bluetooth-NFC-Enabled-Certif...

Now you just have to carry your phone plus a bluetooth receiver to plug into!

georgespencer5• 10 years ago

the biggest difference is that those technologies were all on the downward slope of their popularity when Apple made the move

Were any of them? MacBook Air released in 2008. DVD media sales rose YOY 2005 => 2009. Flash video did not decrease in popularity pre-iPhone, it decreased because of the iPhone.

The headphone jack is just as popular today as it has ever been

"DVDs are as popular today as they have ever been" - someone in 2008

they by design can't be a universal solution

They've been explicitly designed to be as close to a universal solution as is possible. Pair them with one of your Apple devices and that pairing is synced to all others. Instead of unplugging your cable from your phone to your Mac you simply start doing something on your Mac and the audio source switches.

If the Airpods did not require power and were simply completely wireless they'd be the perfect solution. Apple is betting that battery advances will mean that the utility of these headphones (no wire, built in sensors) massively outweighs the cons (require power). Right now they only benefit "a lot" of people.

theli0nheart2• 10 years ago

> the biggest difference is that those technologies were all on the downward slope of their popularity when Apple made the move
Were any of them? MacBook Air released in 2008. DVD media sales rose YOY 2005 => 2009. Flash video did not decrease in popularity pre-iPhone, it decreased because of the iPhone.

And yet most people still need to buy external DVD/Blu-Ray drives. It's been 7 years, and not having DVD drives built into Mac hardware is still incredibly inconvenient.

> The headphone jack is just as popular today as it has ever been
"DVDs are as popular today as they have ever been" - someone in 2008

I'm sure someone said that, but I think most people were already moving on to Blu-Ray.

DiThi• 10 years ago

as close to a universal solution as is possible

As long as you only use Apple hardware, of course.

jmtorresg2• 10 years ago

Even if the headphone jack were dying out (which IMO is not the case, but anyway), one has to admit that replacing it by a proprietary system like Lightning is a bad idea. Now, I get their goal is pushing toward the use of wireless, but they'll have to explain themselves as to how they're planning on pulling that off when the only official wireless alternative they offer is a $159 pair of earphones as opposed to their wired alternative which is literally more than 4x cheaper.

unprepare3• 10 years ago

"DVDs are as popular today as they have ever been" - someone in 2008

What percentage of motor vehicles had a DVD player in 2008, vs what percentage of motor vehicles have an aux port today?

A car is not something you can just go out and upgrade. Try getting a dealership to install a factory bluetooth system in your 2010 chevy - let me know how it goes. Keep in mind Apple is decidedly against, on a cultural level, aftermarket customization, so some off the shelf, bestbuy radio head unit is not an acceptable apple-like solution.

They've been explicitly designed to be as close to a universal solution as is possible.

Oh thats great news, then they must have covered these extremely common cases, right?

How about all my friends cars? Will i be able to play a song after my friend by virtue of this magical universal airpod system? (oh right, as long as i remember to carry my handy-dandy headphone dongle in my pocket at all times everywhere i go, ill be able to do what ive done for years without carrying anything!)

When i get into my car and bluetooth doesnt connect before i take it out of park, how will this system magically connect my phone so i can listen to music on my drive? (again, as long as ive got my trusty headphone dongle on me, all things are solved. It Just Works TM)

And those lightning headphones i just bought for my new iphone, how do i plug them into my mac, which doesnt have a lightning port? How about my PC? my android tablet? my ipod nano from years ago i use for working out? (yet another dongle of course! any true minimalist would swoon over the idea of having to keep track of several dongles with their mobile device - minimalism is apple design cue of choice afterall)

Besides all that, what is the latency on these airpods headphones? Movies are largely unwatchable over bluetooth because of the audio lag - has this been fixed? How about battery life? I use bluetooth headphones all day in my office, i generally connect them to my mac, because otherwise i end up with a dead phone battery near the end of the day - how does airpods resolve this issue?

Basically, what about this system is BETTER than what i currently have access to. To defend the removing of the headphone jack, surely you can come up with at least one feature that wasnt possible on phones with the headphone jack? I mean its not even any thinner....

camelNotation• 10 years ago

I think your analogy to DVDs doesn't work because DVDs were never really about software. They were and, to the extent they still exist, are about multimedia in your living room. They began to decline because of Blu-ray, not because software suddenly became digitally packaged.

Second, DVDs were and are an inferior technology with a better alternative in every category of use. Yet when it comes to headphones, I own a pair of very expensive monitors that I use with lots of different devices. Am I supposed to just ignore that investment in the name of an Apple branded phone? There's nothing wrong with them at all and they far outperform a $150 pair of bluetooth "AirPods".

Regarding your statement about the Bluetooth being a universal solution, you're offering a red herring. Bluetooth was always available, so if someone wanted that, they'd have used it already. The issue here is the port itself and in this case, that means adapting all hardware not just to a new plug, but to a PROPRIETARY plug that won't work on my PC, digital piano, stereo amplifier, car auxillary port, or any of the other music producing devices I own. That's insanity.

totalZero• 10 years ago

They probably deleted the jack so they can sell more airpods and beats wireless headphones. This technology delete doesn't strike me as an improvement, but rather a a way of coercing clients to spend more on accessories sold by Apple and subsidiaries.

CodeWriter23• 10 years ago

The telling thing for me was Phil had to defend the headphone idea with three different arguments, along with an inflammatory photo of a switchboard. When Steve Jobs deleted the floppy drive, he simply declared that floppies had no future.

clashmoore• 10 years ago

I believe that Apple collected anonymous usage data of how often the headphone jacks were used on their iPhones and determined that it would be safe to remove - even with a vocal group that would complain.

Whenever you install or upgrade to a new OS, Apple prompts users if they'd like to send the anonymous usage data and I feel the headphone jack would be an important data point they've been researching.

twblalock5• 10 years ago

Side note, I think it is hilarious that Apple can't get the AirPods to ship at the same time as the iPhone. Anyone who buys the new phone on release is going to be stuck with the crappy lightning headphones for at least a month and a half.

Why? The phone comes with an adapter. Any headphones that worked with previous iPhones will work with the iPhone 7 via the adapter. People will just continue to use the headphones they already have.

2muchcoffeeman• 10 years ago

Because ditching the 3.5 mm jack is a fairly big deal and you'd think they would show you how well it works to encourage people to buy in to their idea and included them as standard.

calsy• 10 years ago

I don't think Apple jumped the gun, they hold the gun. Being a tech giant has its advantages, one being that you can push people into modifying their behaviour to adapt to your new products.

There will always be initial 'outrage' but that is nothing new. Apple have no doubt made a calculated decision, weighed up the pros and cons and determine this is the best course of action moving forward.

The iPhone6S series isn't going anywhere anytime soon and it's certainly still serviceable as a device, it didn't die today with the release of the iPhone7. If people are concerned, hold off on the purchase, do the research and make an informed decision for your own needs.

panglott• 10 years ago

Floppy drives were still going strong when Apple killed them, as were CDs. Apple briefly made a candy iMac that had neither a floppy drive nor a CD drive nor any other kind of removable drive...I always wondered what you were supposed to do if you had hard drive problems...Target Disk Mode, I guess, if you had another Mac.

Apple wants to make a thinner phone and eliminate wires. If you want to use different headphones than the ones that come with...well, do so. Are AirPods the most advanced headphones ever to come with a music device? They're usually pretty bad.

robotresearcher3• 10 years ago

That iMac supported USB thumbdrives or any other USB drive. Like a MacBook Air or other ultrabook format machine today.

Are AirPods the most advanced headphones ever to come with a music device?

They don't come with it. They are optional accessories. The new phone comes with Thunderbolt wired headphones.

kalleboo4• 10 years ago

Apple briefly made a candy iMac that had neither a floppy drive nor a CD drive nor any other kind of removable drive

They never made a candy iMac without a CD or DVD drive. They didn't drop optical until the current design of aluminum iMacs in 2012.

I always wondered what you were supposed to do if you had hard drive problems

When they dropped the optical drive with the first MacBook Air, they shipped it with the OS on a USB drive http://www.iclarified.com/images/news/16130/55529/55529-500....

exwardna• 10 years ago

I suspect the lack of jack is a question of advertising / creation of a new environment to force people keep their Bluetooth on. Would that be among the reasons why Apple made that choice?

_qbjt• 10 years ago

You're not alone and I would expand this distinction to not only factor in popularity but functionality as well. CDs phasing out floppy disks may have been done in part for DRM purposes but the advantage was at least clear; 700MB is a hell of a lot more than 1.44MB. With the iPhone 7, Apple is taking away a time-tested feature in favor of alternatives which do not present clear advantages. Bluetooth headphones are annoying to pair and tend to have connectivity issues in conditions like rain. Lightning headphones are expensive and prohibitive. Dongles suck. As for AirPods, I'm not getting the sense that they provide much more in the way of functionality or sound than any traditional, run-of-the-mill pair of headphones. They certainly won't sound as good as my Audio Technica ATH-M50x. What do I have to be excited for?

I know it's hackneyed to glorify Steve Jobs but he always seemed to have his eye on the ball when it came to tech. Macintosh is the obvious example but if you look at his work at NeXT or building products like WebObjects, you see a CEO who predicted the resurgence of distributing computing and the overall dominance of networking in software. With the iPhone, Apple's move to phase out the physical keyboard on mobile devices was done to put content front and center - a design informed by Jobs' vision of a portable "post-PC" device that would act as the source of most of our media consumption.

What is the removal of the 3.5MM jack informed by? Trivial product metrics like thickness and water-resistance? A cynical attempt to make money from licensing proprietary standards? Or maybe Apple is going through the motions, asserting its reputation as a "gatekeeper" that dictates which standards should be left in the past.

Whatever the case may be, the iPhone 7 is not a compelling product. As an iPhone user, my next smartphone will most likely be an Android.

7952• 10 years ago

I would be interested to know how often those jacks fail and need warranty replacement. For whatever reason I seem to break them easily and have moved to Bluetooth to avoid this. The design puts the strain on the socket rather than the jack. There may well be a small minority who regularly need repairs because of this.

mxfh• 10 years ago

Does Apple prohibit to include audio sockets in case accessories? Some kind o flush T-Type bottom dock for angled jacks and with pass-through charging lightning capabilities should be a a no-brainer then.

Otherwise a Bluetooth receiver with extended battery life to wired headphones seems more robust and practical to me anyway. Otherwise I never use headphones when on the go, so I cant really talk about that use case in practice.

aidenn02• 10 years ago

It actually looks like they timed this pretty well; in June bluetooth headsets outsold wired ones:

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2016/07/prweb13581918.htm

StillBored2• 10 years ago

So, its not like you can't buy something like this https://www.amazon.com/Bluetooth-Receiver-Portable-Wireless-...

That that said, I have a few of them and pretty much never use them because the extra battery life hassles aren't worth it relative to just plugging into the audio source.

Apple has lost a few sales in my house because they failed to support one thing or another. My wife is an apple user, but I can never get over the lack of sd/pci/whatever slots, or frequently things like bluray playback... When shopping for a new device.

As far as headphone jacks? Probably just another reason for me not to buy an idevice, I have a fairly large collection of bluetooth headphones, because of some work I was doing with A2DP a few years ago, but I pretty much use wired headphones because I've had the headphone battery die before the phone/etc way to often, and frankly when it comes to comfort (while sitting at my desk), or fit when running I stick to certain headphones not because they have cables but because they are better in the given use case.

bobbywilson0• 10 years ago

Most, if not all of the previous tech they abandoned seemed too early at the time. It forced those who were making products for Apple to follow their lead. Apple has always tried to reduce clutter with design, and a lot of that times it means getting rid of something that doesn't seem like it need to be removed, e.g. limited ports, no removable micro sd for iPhone, wireless devices and accessories, removing drives, soldering in laptop parts. There is a population of people that absolutely despise Apple for doing this. This seems like a classic 80/20 situation where the 80% don't have the need for a headphone jack or are willing to use wireless headphones and be fine with that. While the 20% are upset because like many of the replies below people have specific use cases for why they need it.

It is more likely that we will see other manufacturers drop the headphone jack as well because Apple did. Again, most people will be fine with that. Bluetooth headphones and ear pieces have already been around for awhile. You also have to think about Apple's purchase of Beats Audio.

With that said I will concede that I am also a bit bummed about them removing the port now as well, but I have learned that Apple is incredibly stubborn when it comes to listening to their consumers about these decisions, and you just have to abide, or buy something else.

kylec4• 10 years ago

In this case I think the percentage of people that use the headphone jack in their iPhones is a lot higher than 20%.

smegel• 10 years ago

is still more convenient and dependable than wireless headphones for most people in most situations

And about the same as USB-C driven headphones. Which the iPhone supports just fine. How did you manage to avoid mentioning that in your comment?

mcintyre19942• 10 years ago

If it's really Airpods or bust, they just added $160 onto the price of the phone. I don't think they mentioned any third parties other than Beats.. I guess because they own Beats.. but if the choices are Apple and Beats then the price is going to be ridiculous.

midnitewarrior• 10 years ago

Apple's profits are on the downward slope, and their new acquisition of Beats along with them changing the headphone interface that's been in use for decades gives them great opportunity for revenue -- selling people premium upgraded headphones while instantly forcing all their devoted fans to upgrade. That has got to be worth $50-200 a user.

As far as traditional headphones go, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Unfortunately, Apple knows we've hit Peak Smartphone, and they are running out of grown opportunities, so this is simply an attempt to create more growth where it doesn't otherwise exist.

It's mostly milking their customers and the industry.

hardtke• 10 years ago

This may be a case where the European Union antitrust authorities mandate that Apple do something different. This seems to be a textbook case of monopoly status in one domain being used to exert a monopoly in another (headphones).

daenney• 10 years ago

I'd love to see how a claim with the antitrust authorities will hold up about Apple having an (iPhone) monopoly and abusing that somehow to get a monopoly in the headphone space, which is served by a bajillion manufacturers already providing many wireless and some lightning headphones. Don't forget Apple is also shipping the adapter that keeps all those minijack devices working.

No matter how many times people want to try this, Apple doesn't have a monopoly when it comes to the mobile/smartphone (hardware) space.

importantbrian4• 10 years ago

I don't think removing the headphone jack is going to be as big a deal as everyone here makes it out to be. I have a pair of bluetooth headphones I use for the gym and I love them. In fact all the headphones I see at the gym anymore are wireless. The only thing I hate is having to charge them. If battery technology keeps improving there will be no advantage to wired headphones. Even from a sound quality perspective there are some very nice sounding bluetooth headphones out there, and I suspect that will only continue to improve. The only thing I really use wired headphones for anymore is as monitors when I'm playing in the band, and that's only because our monitor setup is wired. If I could find a good wireless IEM setup I would be in heaven.

I see this as the direction the market is headed anyway. Apple has just moved to embrace it early.

DarkTree• 10 years ago

I don't think removing the headphone jack is going to be as big a deal as everyone here makes it out to be.
I have a pair of bluetooth headphones I use for the gym and I love them.

Yeah, that's why you don't see it as a problem. The majority of people still use corded headphones, some of which are high-quality, pricey investments that you don't just want to stop using. If you end up misplacing that little dongle, you can't listen to music privately until it's replaced. Seems like a downgrade in functionality, with almost no improvement, considering you are already using your bluetooth headphones effectively.

ForFreedom4• 10 years ago

1. Removing the headphones is not what people are complaining but unable to charge the phone and use wired headphones is one thing people are complaining about.

2. USD 160 for a AirPod! thats too much and the design really is not up to the mark

slowmotiony• 10 years ago

How much do you listen for charging to be an issue? I have the beats solo 2 and I change them like once a week for half an hour. Hardly an inconvenience and I listen to them almost every day.

goerz2• 10 years ago

How long before that headphone to lightening dongle will break the lightening port? A broken lightening port, Apple has told me, is "unfixable" and they wanted me to replace the entire phone.

tlrobinson• 10 years ago

To me the biggest difference between this and the examples you mentioned (floppies, CDs, Flash) is Lightning is a proprietary connector, not an upcoming industry standard.

calibration2632• 10 years ago

The future is an upcoming industry standard. Bluetooth. This year I believe is the first year we're seeing fully wireless earbuds, last year or two wired bluetooth earbuds were becoming more popular. Both in the historical examples and now the technology is more expensive and has some drawbacks, however they're much more practical(other than charging, which apple is betting will improve and that 4 hours of playback with 24 hours of recharge in the case will be acceptable).

phatbyte2• 10 years ago

As fair as I know the new iPhone will come with a ligthning adaptor for regular headphones jacks. So that will sort users for now.

wklauss• 10 years ago

Side note, I think it is hilarious that Apple can't get the AirPods to ship at the same time as the iPhone. Anyone who buys the new phone on release is going to be stuck with the crappy lightning headphones for at least a month and a half.

There are other vendors that make Lightning headphones (Philips, JBL...) and plenty of wireless headphones in the market.

pfranz2• 10 years ago

I think it would have been a better transition if they had shipped the AirPods a year before removing it from the phone. Many people have been using bluetooth headphones for awhile, but Apple didn't offer anything until today.

Let's say I go with AirPods. The presentation just showed initial pairing and focused on the phone. It seems to work with iphone 5 and forward, which is great, but does it work with my older laptop? What about non-Apple bluetooth devices? It would be also be a nice little perk to have it work with AppleTV for watching TV at night. Traditional bluetooth sucks when switching between devices (in addition to pairing). It would be nice if they could prove to everyone that was a solved problem (and prove the lighting earpods aren't just a stopgap) before ditching the headphone jack.

inputcoffee• 10 years ago

Remember Flash?

It looked like it was the wrong time to drop it, but Apple was able to move consumers along.

broodbucket• 10 years ago

One was a proprietary technology with a myriad of security and portability issues.

Another is a universal standard that has worked with every type of device for decades.

This isn't even comparing apples to oranges, it's comparing apples to giraffes

stcredzero2• 10 years ago

a good record of abandoning technologies at the right time (floppies, CDs, Flash, etc) but the biggest difference is that those technologies were all on the downward slope of their popularity when Apple made the move

I seem to remember commenters on "social media" (or at least their precursors) being just as confused over all of those changes. (With the possible exception of less outcry over optical drives going away.) It seems like there's always some supporters and always some detractors when Apple does something like this.

Maybe that changes soon or maybe AirPods solve this for iOS users (they by design can't be a universal solution)

There's an Apple pattern, where they support a less popular but more capable existing standard or come up with something superior to a standard, which spurs the development of an even better universal standard. It's high time that someone developed wireless headphones that weren't as much of a compromise as they generally are.

evolve2k• 10 years ago

I am troubled too but here's why I think this makes sense.

Phones will continue to get thinner and thinner. Apple have looked ahead and said, in the future when this thing gets thin enough there won't be any space for any adapters. The main competitor for use of the Lightning port is charging (as we can see from all the comments), but what if come iPhone 8 they will introduced simple wireless charging. Suddenly the need for any port then would come into question and pave the way for a significant further reductions in phone thickness.

endgame• 10 years ago

Can we also take a minute to notice that this is also closing the analog hole?

unixhero• 10 years ago

What miserable trash. Apple id dead to me.

It already was, even more so now. Why am I even here.

shams93• 10 years ago

Apple may make more money on people having to replace an easy to use headphone conveter for $99. The original android spec for 1.0 based on the HTC g1 reference device had a hardeware keyboard like Blackberry but it had all digital audio. You needed a micro usb to 8th inch convertor which was really easy to lose. After the lessons learned with the g1, subsequent Android phones added in the 8th inch audio jack and lost the hardware keyboard. There's a reason why the 8th inch is such a big deal its a standard that goes back to the 1880s.

mdip• 10 years ago

The cynic in me sees this as a further attempt at lock-in.

As you mentioned, when the other technologies were abandoned, a suitable replacement existed that was widely in use regardless of platform. With the headphones, buying a set for an iPhone will now no longer work with other non-Apple devices (at least, at the moment -- are they licensing this to others and are any others interested in lightning headphones?).

I have two friends, recently, who destroyed their iPhone 6 (toilet and cement drop) and opted to purchase a higher-end Android device as a replacement (slightly less expensive with slightly better specs and they liked my phone when I let them play with it). Had they owned a pair of $200 "pretend" high-end headphones[0] that would have only worked with an iPhone, I doubt they would have been so quick to switch. I guess that could work the other way -- preventing Android users from switching to Apple, except it's resolved by a dongle on the Apple side without loss of perceived quality.

Wireless isn't a suitable replacement, either. Every time I see a new set of excellent Bluetooth wireless headphones, I think of the drawer full of the previous BT headphone/headset devices I'd bought and the several that aren't there because I've lost them. Usually something fell off of the device or the battery stopped holding a charge as long as the phone (when I remembered to charge those, too). The AirPods are small so they end up in the pocket opposite my phone with other things[1], most likely, my keys. They appear durable enough to survive in that environment, but it'll take about a week before I pull my keys out (I've only got 3 keys and a couple of rings), one snags on a ring and falls onto the ground without me noticing. Welp, I'm done, off to the drawer you go, mono-Pods.

I lose wired headphones much less frequently. They're usually plugged into my phone (and recent phones hold them tight) and wrapped inconspicuously around my neck. If I pocket them and they snag on my keys, I notice. But the best part is if I lose them, I can find a pair that suites my needs for $15 or less. Something tells me the Lightning headphones aren't going to be that cheap for a long time[2].

[0] "Pretend" high-end headphones refers to the likes of "Beats by Dre" and many others that are little more than the "Air Jordans" of headphones. You pay five times the price of similarly capable headphones because it's got a logo of a perceived "bad ass" on it.

[1] Because, at least where I live, wearing them in your ears when your not using them is going to get you labeled a "Douche Bag" pretty quickly.

[2] A quick search yielded several with the "basic features" I'd be looking for at around USD$50.00. Yikes.

homero2• 10 years ago

Airpods will get lost within days

Whitestrake3• 10 years ago

You know, with all the people who are supposedly going to lose Airpods, it seems to me like you could just about bend down and pick a pair up off the ground if you lose your own!

skywhopper• 10 years ago

Meh, I hate cords, so I've been using bluetooth headphones for years. Just a matter of finding good quality ones. I do think it's dumb to get rid of the headphone jack though. The waterproofing I think they could overcome, and it's not like they could get rid of the DAC processor. It's about space inside the case and thinness, but I think a thicker phone without a dumb camera bump and with outrageously long battery life would be more impressive, IMO.

Tloewald• 10 years ago

I've seen some articles about the reliability of lightning connectors — I've certainly had a few of them "wear out" (i.e. no longer consistently make good contact with the phone's socket) but so far all of our many devices with lightning ports still have well-behaved ports (and this includes an iPhone 5 that is used mercilessly by one of my daughters). Overall, I like the lightning connector as a port, but not so much as a cable.

That said, I've had an iPhone headphone socket fail owing to pocket lint. (It was fixed at the Genius bar for no charge.) I've been told that pocket lint being forced into iPhones sometimes leads to more serious internal damage.

Besides that:

1) How often do you use headphones with your iPhone? I use my iPhone as a small sound system or a wireless source for my car far more often than I use wired headphones (basically, on planes). As I understand it, Apple has greatly improved the iPhone's speakers. (The 12.9" iPad Pro has ridiculously good audio.)

2) Have you gotten over Apple ditching serial ports in favor of ADB, ditching SCSI in favor of IDE (which was a technical regression at the time), ditching ADB in favor of USB, ditching the floppy drive, switching from round laptop power connections to magsafe, not supporting Flash, going from magsafe to magsafe2 and providing $10 converters, switching from the horrid old iPod adapter to the lightning port?

3) If you have one really nice set of headphones you use with your iPhone, just keep the adapter on it. (And if your cable is replaceable, which is the case with all the mid- and high- end headphones I've owned, you can presumably get a lightning-compatible replacement.)

If you have several — the adapters are $9 each.

If you have a ton of different crappy headphones that you use with your iPhone… Why?

4) I really hate dealing with headphone cables. Usually they get tangled unless I carefully spool them back into their case (in the case of Apple's earpods or whatever they're called). If I were paid $5/h for the time I've spent untangling or spooling headphone cables, I would be able to buy all the lightning adapters I'll ever need. If the wireless headphones live up to Apple's claims, I'll be pretty happy.

deepGem• 10 years ago

I see it as a ploy to move people up the ladder to the airpods. Though it's an expensive proposition, I for one will happily ditch the wired headphones for the wireless counterpart. However, what I really dread is losing the airpods and, I can't even imagine what my 3 YO will turn them into :).

abalone3• 10 years ago

Your comment implies they are replacing the jack with wireless earbuds, but that's not what happened. They are doing two things:

1. Switching to a proprietary connector for wired headphones.

2. Releasing improved wireless headphones as an optional add-on.

So you still get "convenient and dependable" wired headphones supplied with the phone. And you get an adapter for using 3rd party wired headphones, so you are not "stuck with the crappy lightning headphones." Wired headphones, whether existing ones from 3rd parties or the upcoming ones from Apple, are unaffected.

As for whether Apple is Really Wrong This Time in requiring an adapter for 3rd party wired headphones... Putting aside how utterly vindicated they've been every time they've done this in history... According to Apple this was to enable major iPhone 7 features like the improved camera.[1] Was that worth requiring an adapter for certain cases, cases which will probably diminish over time as more 3rd party headphones go wireless? I'd say it seems in the ballpark of the sorts of tradeoff decisions they've made in the past.

[1] https://www.buzzfeed.com/johnpaczkowski/inside-iphone-7-why-...

dingo_bat5• 10 years ago

Anyone who buys the new phone on release is going to be stuck with the crappy lightning headphones for at least a month and a half.

Pretty sure they can just use standard Bluetooth headphones. Also, these exist: http://www.samsung.com/global/galaxy/gear-iconx/

wdr1• 10 years ago

(floppies, CDs, Flash, etc) but the biggest difference is that those technologies were all on the downward slope of their popularity when

I remember the lack of Flash support on iOS being fairly controversial at the time. IMHO, it was the combination of lack of iOS support + iOS usage skyrocketing that killed Flash; not that iOS dropped Flash because it was already dying.

dschiptsov• 10 years ago

Presumably, they want to push just a new DRM tech. That's why your headphones and speakers must have a wireless (digital) interface.

Apple is a digital content distribution company in the first place.

questionr• 10 years ago

does anyone know whether the mere use of the 3.5mm drains batteries? I presume so.

moridin007• 10 years ago

the invisible hand of entropy guides us all

piyush_soni• 10 years ago

A very, very common scenario for me was to listen to music in my 2009 car (on long drives) through AUX cable, while still charging the phone through a car charger. It seems that time is gone now.

greendesk• 10 years ago

I personally have the opposite opinion - I did not like the headphone jack and I am considering iPhone 7 because it does not have it.

I was never sure if the jack is all the way in or it is halfway in. Sometimes the audio would disappear, and I would find out the headphones have slowly came off; but not all the way out, just enough to distort the sound.

sreenadh• 10 years ago

The airpods MUST be sold along with the iphone if the the phone does not have an audio jack.

codeulike• 10 years ago

This is pitch perfect:

http://appleplugs.com/

Upgrade to iPhone 7 with Apple Plug.

davidcollantes• 10 years ago

I don't have a problem with the removal if the headphone jack, as I never listening with the phone connected to power at the same time.

Why crappy lightning headphones? What makes them crappy?

joemi3• 10 years ago

Out of curiosity, what is it about Apple's lightning-to-3.5mm adapter that people find so much more repulsive than the 1/4"-to-3.5mm adapter that so many better-than-cheap-earbud headphones come with these days?

PopsiclePete• 10 years ago

I think it's a gamble, yes. I personally hate cords. I'm always getting entangled in my cord in the gym and I'm looking forward to something wireless. My gut feeling is, in another 5 years, we won't ever believe we put up with wired headphones.

lancewiggs• 10 years ago

Perhaps a global perspective might help - from what I see in this international city the switch to wireless headphones and earplugs is well underway. I've been unwired for 2-3 years now.

AliExpress can deliver you a decent set of Bluetooth headphones for $50-$100, or earpieces for $12.

centizen2• 10 years ago

We knew it was going to happen, but I am still disappointed the 3.5mm jack is gone.

tajen3• 10 years ago

They provide the lightening-to-jack adapter for free in the box.

i_live_there2• 10 years ago

Because everyone loves adapters...

ngcazz2• 10 years ago

Which doesn't even allow you to charge.

In any case even with a bundled adapter I feel that removing the jack is a pretty sketchy decision.

centizen2• 10 years ago

And how much is another one when I inevitably lose or break it?

plg2• 10 years ago

AirPods - so is walking around with a thing in your ear cool now? Around here it certainly still signals "I am a jackass"

strictnein11• 10 years ago

Especially when they look like this: https://s.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2016/09/apple7-...

throwanem19• 10 years ago

So, about the size of the current EarPods, except without the wire. Not sure I see the issue here.

mulletbum6• 10 years ago

I think they looking fucking awesome. What don't you like about them, people only see the stem?

That said I would not just walk around like an asshat with them in all the time or anything.

throwanem19• 10 years ago

This would be a thing in both ears, and a very unobtrusive thing at that. So maybe not as jackass-ish as the usual standard.

And that's maybe not wholly something I understand anyway, but sort of feel bad about regardless. I mean, I do wear one [1] during my commute so I can listen to podcasts without wires all over the place, and I'm really hoping iOS 10's speech recognition via crappy mics is good enough that I can integrate voice control into my exocortex. Does that suffice to make me an asshole? Or does it require that I use it to have loud conversations about business things? Or what? I'm not all that sure I grasp the nuance here.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Firegram-Mini-ear-Bluetooth-Headset/d... - it's about the size of the first joint of your thumb.

dmix3• 10 years ago

Once it becomes widely adopted I doubt this will be much of a social issue. The value they provide is real. It's not some gimmicky thing. Tangled wires are extremely annoying and happens nearly every day I use them. Plus the wire gets in the way going jogging or caught on something with normal usage, etc etc. Lots of benefits to having wireless headphones.

Talking to yourself with a non obvious headset will always be awkward looking though.

plg2• 10 years ago

The social issue thing is real and it's an interesting quandary.

I think my personal beef with them is when I interact with someone wearing an earpiece, it makes me think (rightly or wrongly) that they are happy to interact with me BUT at any moment a ping from their earpiece will be by default more important.

Maybe it's (perhaps in part) my own issue though.

On the other hand I can see the value in it, especially if Siri's abilities improve, and if speech recognition improves also.

Maybe I'm just old fashioned and in time this will built into our social fabric (I think back to the late 1980s and early 1990s when walking around with a handheld cell phone seemed incredibly dickish)

ForFreedom4• 10 years ago

I never have the tangled wire issue. 1. You can either wrap it around in the box it came in or 2. wound it in a circle and it stays as is.(That is how I put in in my laptop bag)

k2xl• 10 years ago

Honest question - Aren't IPhones already pretty water resistant?

Unless getting dunked in water, I haven't heard of anyone having any issues with water damaging their IPhone.

umeshunni2• 10 years ago

iPhones are currently 'splash resistant'. Now they're 'swim resistant'. They are now up to the IP67 standards.

tetraodonpuffer3• 10 years ago

IP67 is not good enough for swimming (1m submersion). Note the emphasis of the watch being able to be swum with, but for the phone they only showed it being used when it was raining

AceJohnny24• 10 years ago

The new watches are swim resistant. The phones aren't.

devonkim• 10 years ago

I've heard of people living in really high humidity areas activating the water sensors in their phones and being refused warranty replacements.

hsod2• 10 years ago

Seems like the new thing is if you drop it in the pool/bathtub/toilet (and quickly retrieve it) you should be fine

raesene95• 10 years ago

until now they weren't officially water resistant. I'm guessing that'll make a difference if you have a warrenty repair and the phone has been wet..

wodenokoto3• 10 years ago

You can dunk the iPhone 6 in water. They are fairly water proof, but it is not part of the product specification.

Now they consider the waterproofing good enough to guarantee it.

dragonwriter• 10 years ago

Now they consider the waterproofing good enough to guarantee it.

Well, no, since liquid damage isn't covered by the warranty, there is no actual guarantee. There is a claim (and maybe a third-party certification) of meeting a particular standard, but that's different from a guarantee -- its marketing with no risk of having to pay out money if the performance isn't up to snuff in practice.

A guarantee puts warranty money where your marketing mouth is.

qaq4• 10 years ago

charging while using headphones?

downandout• 10 years ago

This has been my concern since the moment I heard about lightning headphones. I saw no solution presented either.

SurrealSoul2• 10 years ago

nope

i_live_there2• 10 years ago

Never forget, my friend. Never forget... http://core0.staticworld.net/images/article/2015/10/slide-06...

agumonkey• 10 years ago

Oh god, people spared me this ... Darwin design awards.

ngcazz2• 10 years ago

Gross! :)

rhinoceraptor2• 10 years ago

It's not really a big deal, I have a charger at my desk for my phone. So once every 3-4 weeks, I plug in the mouse when I leave. It's never run out of battery when I wanted to use it.

kayoone7• 10 years ago

i think they wanted to specifically make sure people don't use these with wires attached. Apple HATES wires. Imagine their marketing people getting heart attacks when some people dare to post pictures of their shiny Apple hardware online and the magic mouse has a wire attached.

ljk• 10 years ago

also.. http://media.idownloadblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Ap...

throwanem19• 10 years ago

Well, hell. I didn't even think about that. And it's a super complicated active cable, so there's not much chance of modifying an adapter to accept a charge cable alongside a 3.5mm plug.

On the other hand, I will be very surprised if no one has come out with a dual adapter within a year.

peterkshultz• 10 years ago

Only if you buy wireless headphones (have you heard about the AirPods?)

qaq4• 10 years ago

Problem is using headphones while charging is my daughters use case (she keeps forgetting to charge the phone) she is as likely to forget to charge headphones

macinjosh2• 10 years ago

The dock allows for charging and listening through a 3.5mm jack simultaneously so an adapter to charge and listen should be possible. http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MNN62AM/A/iphone-lightning...

msoad2• 10 years ago

I buy a new iPhone every year. I think phone utilization is so high that around $1 a day is nothing for it.

Compare it with cars clothes and other things

enjo• 10 years ago

Where are you getting a $365 iPhone from?

fredleblanc• 10 years ago

At the end, there was a slide about the Apple iPhone upgrade program for $32/mo. That's just about $1 a day.

ceejayoz4• 10 years ago

Reselling the older model, most likely.

adt2bt• 10 years ago

$32/month for the unlocked iPhone every year program from Apple is $384/year, close to $1/day.

hatsix• 10 years ago

$700 new - $350 selling old one on Craigslist?

I just looked up prices on CL, and it looks like the used-iPhone market is approaching saturation... The going rate for 1-year-old iPhones is 150-200.

twblalock5• 10 years ago

The high resale value of Apple products means you only pay full price for the first one.

ctz• 10 years ago

Very long years or cheap iphones where you live.

kylec4• 10 years ago

He's probably referring to the iPhone Upgrade Program, which is $32/month and gets you a new iPhone every year.

lucb1e8• 10 years ago

Commercial space travel shares things up a bit.

msoad2• 10 years ago

If you sell your old phone the math works out fine

hashberry• 10 years ago

It's interesting how you didn't compare it to buying a new computer every year, but rather to cars/clothes, i.e., as a form of conspicuous consumption, a way to enhance social status. But this makes sense as this is how Apple markets its products.

SurrealSoul2• 10 years ago

Honestly if you had an iPhone 6 why would you upgrade? Better battery life is cool, and it being waterproof is novel. However, its basically the same phone for the end consumer.

ihuman6• 10 years ago

Because of the reasons you mentioned, and the better camera?

ceejayoz4• 10 years ago

In my experience, the OS starts to feel very, very slow not long after a major performance bump in the top-of-the-line iPhones.

TheKnack• 10 years ago

In my experience, this is because major iOS upgrades tend to come out at the same time as new phones, and installing one major iOS version as an upgrade over the previous creates issues, especially if you've not set up a phone a new in a few years, whether it's a new phone or not. After installing a major iOS version upgrade, if you erase your phone without restoring the backup, the performance will feel new again, and battery life almost always improves.

revelation• 10 years ago

Seems awfully iterative. You can usually tell by the meaningless "2x more speed" "x% brighter" figures.

nicky014• 10 years ago

But it does come in two different shades of black!

madeofpalk5• 10 years ago

Aren't all iPhones awfully iterative though? Surely this can't be a new revelation.

sosborn5• 10 years ago

I'm excited about the new home button. Those have been the only point of failure on my previous iPhones.

raesene95• 10 years ago

For me the waterproofing is a killer feature that I've been waiting for a while. I use my phone out and about in the west of scotland, which is not the driest place in the world, so having this will be very handy.

wodenokoto3• 10 years ago

Then why didn't you get a Sony Z-series? Water proof, great camera, great battery life, great screen, minimal changes to stock Android.

enraged_camel• 10 years ago

Water-resistant, not waterproof.

That said, the new home button sounds very interesting (I say that both as a developer and end-user), and the new camera will be a very welcome addition. And battery life improvement on top that? Perfect.

It is an iterative improvement for sure, but I don't see why that's a bad thing.

buckbova• 10 years ago

Majority wouldn't. They'll get the 7s or wait for the 8.

ageektrapped• 10 years ago

They specifically made comparisons to the A8 chip (in the 6 and 6+) during the event and emphasized the speed increase. Apple knows their true problem is getting old iPhone users to upgrade.

Also, did you see the event? Not the same phone at all.

Wide color, awesome new camera and dropping it in the toilet might be enough.

yoodenvranx5• 10 years ago

emphasized the speed increase

Isn't the iPhone 6 already "fast enough" for end users?

My current phone is a Moto G 2014 which is still good enough for all my use cases.

legulere2• 10 years ago

dropping it in the toilet might be enough.

the old phone that is

IMcD234• 10 years ago

Camera.

takeda2• 10 years ago

How waterproofing is novel if pretty much all competitors already did it?

jonlucc5• 10 years ago

Novel to the line of iPhones. Someone with an older iPhone looking to upgrade would find the new one is different in that it has water resistance.

0x0• 10 years ago

Wide color is actually the one thing that sticks out as a quality-of-life improvement that might be worth it. Lack of 3.5mm is a very hard price to pay, though. I'll probably still wait and see what's coming for next year's 10th anniversary of the iPhone.

markcerqueira• 10 years ago

This will be the first year I pass on upgrading on the 2-year cycle. I'm happy with my iPhone 6. I don't do much on it besides photos and texting. Although the camera in the 7 is nice, the 7 Plus seems to have gotten the most love in the camera department and I don't want a phone that big.

ksk4• 10 years ago

Apple convinced me to upgrade from my 4S by intentionally slowing it down with every subsequent iOS update. I wouldn't have bought the 6S if I could put an older iOS on the 4S.

nicky014• 10 years ago

You really beleive that was intentional? Like there's some code there that says if running on 4S then run slow? I feel sorry for you.

jakobegger4• 10 years ago

It comes in beautiful glossy black! I really don't like the "space grey" (6 was a bit better than 6s), and the other colors don't look all that pretty either. Call me shallow, but if I spend 870€ on a phone, I want it to be pretty...

harryh• 10 years ago

Totally agree. I've purchased a new phone in even numbered years going back quite a while but I'll be passing this year especially with a bigger redesign rumored to be coming next year for the 10th anniversary.

r00fus11• 10 years ago

If you're on an upgrade plan, it makes no sense to wait - just upgrade each year.

mikeash19• 10 years ago

I have a 6+ and I can't answer that question. I'll probably sit this one out and see if the 7s is more compelling (or if my 6+ is less compelling by then).

I can't blame Apple for it. I think they've reached feature saturation. The stuff is just Good Enough now.

snuxoll4• 10 years ago

iOS 9 seems to have fixed some of it, but my 6+ still lags on occasion - the 6s+ seems to have fixed it and I feel like I should have waited the extra month but my Xperia Z3's screen got smashed and I needed a replacement device and my Android issues saw no end. I will probably upgrade just for the performance improvements alone, sucks that I'm losing a headphone jack but outside of the car I never need to charge + use the headphone port simultaneously so I think I'll survive with the dumb dongle.

AndrewKemendo5• 10 years ago

It's hard to know without it in my hands how big of a deal the stereo camera is going to be. The fact that it wasn't designed for depth (at least publicly stated) makes it a little unnerving - for example having to compensate for two separate focal lengths to get good parallax is going to be a pain. However we built our SLAM around taking on dual cameras IF they happened to show up so we should be ok with some parameter changes on each input.

Anyway, AR is about to explode.

iLoch• 10 years ago

Don't count on it. Most people aren't interested in AR. And even when you mention it most people will tell you they'd "rather just use it like normal" (ie. no AR)

If you're talking about groundbreaking mixed reality, like the HoloLens or Magic Leap then maybe. Microsoft is doing the right thing by first marketing to business. The consumer tech isn't ready, and won't be for probably 5-10 years (to be at a place where it won't require any overhead.)

AndrewKemendo5• 10 years ago

Most people don't know what they're interested in and consumers are starting to actually take hold of AR. Ever seen Snapchat filters? Yep those are 3D tracking with depth. Not fiducial AR or just non tracked "overlay" so it counts. It's steps toward HMD AR by showing people what is possible to do to changing the real world dynamically.

Having hardware that can do depth at scale with an application layer is a big step - not sure that the 7 plus gets there but it's a start.

davidiach2• 10 years ago

I was really impressed with the new camera. It seems to me this was a bigger improvement than what they usually do.

excalibur• 10 years ago

I'm still kind of dumbfounded that the 7 Plus has two cameras side-by-side and apparently ISN'T using them to capture 3D images. One would think this would be the best/most obvious application.

davidhperry2• 10 years ago

One would think this would be the best/most obvious application.

Holding some features back for the next model, perhaps. They have to smooth out the 'wow factor' for each model to keep growth steady.

macinjosh2• 10 years ago

The reason for the lack of 3D is probably that the two cameras have different lenses. Once is wide angle the other is telephoto.

nicky014• 10 years ago

Nice opportunity there for 3rd party app makers. Presuming the RAW API or whatever it is called will let apps access the separate sensors.

That said how would the phone display the 3D image? One of those cardboard VR things? Not very Appley.

redler• 10 years ago

The lenses are very close together, so any 3D effect would be very subtle except perhaps in close-up/macro situations.

lorenzhs• 10 years ago

They're too close together for that. Your eyes are about 6cm (~2.4in) apart, those lenses look like they're 1cm apart. You need enough distance between them to capture stereoscopic images.

cududa4• 10 years ago

Remember Touch ID hardware > Apple Pay? I expect we'll see something similar with the dual cameras.

I expect either VR support, 3D imaging, or using them+dynamic light sensing of iPad Pro to have a "reactive" UI where gradients in the UI behave as if they might have real world lighting applied to them

evan_3• 10 years ago

Maybe there's only one image processor so it can't capture from both cameras simultaneously.

carlisle_• 10 years ago

2× louder than iPhone 6s

Just the thing BART & MUNI really needed.

mulmen13• 10 years ago

People on Bay Area transit use their speaker? I don't think I have seen that on a Seattle Metro bus more than a handful of times.

icinnamon• 10 years ago

Confused about what earphones come with the iPhone 7. The standard analog ones (since an adapter is included)? Feels very backwards... unless I'm missing something...

Also, no new MBP is very disappointing.

mulletbum6• 10 years ago

Digital wired headphones come with it. There is an adapter for analog.

acchow• 10 years ago

The headphones are digital? What does that mean?

Veen• 10 years ago

It comes with EarPods with a lightening plug on the end that use the lightening port. They're also throwing in an adaptor so you can use older headphones in the lightening socket too. The only port the iPhone 7 has is a lightening port.

ng-user• 10 years ago

"Up to 5hr. of battery life on one charge"

How the fuck is it acceptable to completely remove the jack and replace it with this 'superior' technology?

k-mcgrady7• 10 years ago

Considering the shipping headphones are lightning it's that port that is the replacement, not wireless.

Longhanks4• 10 years ago

It's not like they're shipping a free adapter. You could also use a Bluetooth headset of your choice that has a bigger battery.

Or you could just buy a different phone. It's their product, what is "acceptable" is up to them.

(Yes, the first part is sarcasm.)

barnaclejive• 10 years ago

They are. Did you watch?

paradite2• 10 years ago

They ARE shipping a free adapter.

Edit: Looks like you wanted to say this, but made a typo.

paradite2• 10 years ago

The case is also the battery, which can last for 24 hours.

Both the airpods and the case can be charged together.

strictnein11• 10 years ago

I seriously don't get it. Are we wearing the case? Or is that dangling behind us or what?

koolba2• 10 years ago

Will they be marketing it as 10 hours (5 left + 5 right)?

madeofpalk5• 10 years ago

Hey, credit where it's due. Apple tends to advertise battery life quite well, with testers often getting over what Apple advertises.

But the answer is no - they advertise 5 hours.

ben174• 10 years ago

They are rightfully advertising it as '5 hours for each ear'. Which, in my case, is actually 10 hours. I only listen to podcasts - and listen to them in one ear. So when one dies, I'll switch to the other while charging the first one. It's really ideal for my use.

alkonaut3• 10 years ago

They claim the plus as "optical zoom" and talk about a 2x factor. Do they mean it can switch between a wide and tele focal length? That isn't "zoom" (at least not in the normal sense) - it's just two focal lengths with a switch. Did I understand the feature correctly?

wodenokoto3• 10 years ago

The way I understood it is they can mix data from both cameras to produce smooth, optical quality zoom between the two focal lengths.

redial3• 10 years ago

No, when using optical zoom there is no mix of data. It uses just the second camera. I think they use both only when creating shallow depth of field shots.

redial3• 10 years ago

it's just two focal lengths with a switch.

Which is what zoom is. Only that in a normal zoom, the 'switch' is a slider.

alkonaut3• 10 years ago

Nah, I wouldn't say a drop in teleconverter in a lens makes it a zoom lens, the zoom bit is the continuous movement between focal lengths.

I suppose even with just two focal lengths, the focal length can be "varied" which is the normal definition of zoom, but I have never heard the term used that way.

arihant2• 10 years ago

It's not. Teleporting from point A to B is not same as walking from A to B.

bzudo• 10 years ago

I think it's 'switch' only, which is unfortunate. It would be nice to have the zoom slider and depth of field feature when shooting video.

tetraodonpuffer3• 10 years ago

what would be interesting for the iphone 7 plus would be to use the telephoto camera for a picture, and use the information from the wide-angle camera to improve the noise reduction in low light, I wonder if Apple is going to also do this (besides using it for bokeh)

JustSomeNobody9• 10 years ago

Image manipulation isn't my thing, but I would think it would have to be the other way round. You're at 2X telephoto so each of those pixels is four of the wide angle pixels in terms of detail now.

drivingmenuts• 10 years ago

No audio jack - no iPhone 7 for me.

End of discussion.

adolfoabegg2• 10 years ago

They didn't mention wireless charging, did they?

AceJohnny24• 10 years ago

Nope.

For that matter, what about charging while using headphones?

_bojan2• 10 years ago

Nope.

mulletbum6• 10 years ago

If they had this thread wouldn't be going bat shit crazy about the headphone jack being removed.

iaskwhy4• 10 years ago

That's a good question as during the presentation of the new features, one of them was called "Wireless" and for a moment I thought "Oh, so that's it, wireless charging too so no need for that strange dongle to charge the phone while listening to music!"

adolfoabegg2• 10 years ago

I expected exactly the same. Wireless charging was the first thing that came to mind as a basic "wireless feature".

pawelwentpawel• 10 years ago

Can somebody explain why a lens with f1.8 is not able to provide the depth of field effect on itself?

tshtf• 10 years ago

Because the focal length (not the 35mm equivalent) is very short due to the small sensor on the phone.

berberous3• 10 years ago

Sensor size. Depth of field is based on (1) sensor size (you want big), (2) aperture (you want a low number, i.e. big opening), (3) focus distance to nearest subject, and (4) focal length (I think...).

So on a full frame sensor camera, shooting someone's portrait with an 80mm will give you very shallow DoF, on a sensor the size of an iPhone, it's probably close to infinite.

Edit: I don't think the above is technically exactly correct...Here's a good explanation: http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/depth-of-field.ht...

rodgerd• 10 years ago

Nit-pick: more exit pupil than sensor size, but they're a rough approximation anyhow.

But you're correct that the short (actual, not equivalent) focal length of camera phones makes an f/1.8 completely irrelevant.

NLips• 10 years ago

Sensor size doesn't really have an effect - it's about focal length. The reason sensor size seems to have an effect is because for the same field of view with a bigger sensor, you have a longer focal length. For the same focal length, aperture and focus distance, a larger sensor doesn't change DOF; it just adds more of the surroundings to the outside of the picture.

bluehawk• 10 years ago

Because it's a tiny lens with a very very short focal length. Short focal lens tend to make everything in focus, regardless of aperture.

oscilloscope• 10 years ago

It's a combination of wide-angle focal length and small sensor size. It is still possible to get a natural depth of field effect by getting very close to the subject, and that effect should be more pronounced with the 56mm equivalent telephoto lens.

resolaibohp• 10 years ago

Because sensor size has a large factor in depth of field. The camera sensors in phones are very small. This is why you can get better depth of field with a full frame camera then you can with a crop sensor and same goes for small phone sensors.

ksk4• 10 years ago

Because it depends on other factors. See what happens for the 1/3" Sensor Size, f1.8, 29mm focal length, etc..

http://dofsimulator.net/en/

qnk• 10 years ago

  The high-gloss finish of the Jet Black iPhone 7 is
  achieved through a precision nine-step anodization and
  polishing process. Its surface is equally as hard as
  other anodized Apple products; however, its high shine
  may show fine micro-abrasions with use. If you are
  concerned about this, we suggest you use one of the many
  cases available to protect your iPhone.[1]

I think I'd go for the Black one instead.

[1]http://www.apple.com/shop/buy-iphone/iphone-7

tdy721• 10 years ago

I never use a case for my phones. Honestly, I kinda like the way phones "wear down". It's mine, and I scratched it up a bit, no problem.

emptyfile• 10 years ago

This, IMHO phones are not supposed to be jewelry.

matthewmcg• 10 years ago

Same. It reminds me of the "brassing" you see on well-used cameras that have a black finish over metal. The coating wears off in a distinctive way with heavy use.

Example: http://leicaphilia.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/BP-M3-5414...

spike0212• 10 years ago

Agreed. The case for having a case is when you want to keep resale value as high as possible, but even now that's not such an issue if you do the upgrade program where you automatically get a new phone every year and basically lease it.

webXL• 10 years ago

I put an Apple case on my iPhone 6 when I got it and recently took it off and the side screen swipes work a lot better. It was clearly designed to be used without a case, so it's strange that they sell them. Oh yeah, they make 20,000% profit on each one :P

I just worry about scratches though because I always sell my phones when I'm done with them.

moultano• 10 years ago

Unfortunately mine don't so much "wear down" as "fail catastrophically and suddenly."

r00fus11• 10 years ago

If you plan to resell it (either as an upgrade program, or as used pre-owned) then a case helps you retain resale value.

Used to be I could just gift to my relatives, but they're pretty happy with their iPhone5's.

krisdol3• 10 years ago

I used to take that approach, then I shattered a Galaxy S, then a Galaxy S4 (twice!), a Sony Xperia Z3, and an iPhone 6. I now accept the bulk and hope it will preserve the contents of my credit card better.

shas3• 10 years ago

This is strange: you buy a jet-black phone so that it looks slick. Then you buy a case and change its appearance because scratches might show? Weird logic.

DannyBee• 10 years ago

It's aluminum.

The "9 step polishing process" is pretty much how you'd polish anodized aluminum to that level anyway.

(I do a large amount of machining).

Anodizing does not make it actually stronger. The layer it generates is slightly harder, but still do not have great wear resistance

There's not much you can do about this as long as you use anodized aluminum.

veeti• 10 years ago

Reminds me of the first iPod Touch generations with the mirror finish metallic backs. They would get scratched the moment you took the device out of the box.

mustaflex• 10 years ago

the price for heaven's sake... it's me or every year the new model gets almost 100 bucks more expensive the the previous one. We can expect a base price of 1000€ in 5 or 6 years.

thewopr• 10 years ago

Or almost now

$969 for premium specs.

http://www.apple.com/shop/buy-iphone/iphone-7/5.5-inch-displ...

ryfm• 10 years ago

+taxes and apple care and it's over 1K

IMcD234• 10 years ago

They haven't raised the price in...ever? They lower last years model by $100 as well.

dangoor• 10 years ago

I don't think the latest model iPhone has changed in price for years.

djrogers3• 10 years ago

No, it's virtually the same price it's always been, but with more storage. The first iPhone with 8Gb was $599, 9 years later it's only $50 more for the 32gb model. What weird blogs have you been reading?

mig39• 10 years ago

lol, are you Canadian?

tempestn2• 10 years ago

Presumably if they were Canadian they would have mentioned a price in dollars rather than Euros.

brian-armstrong• 10 years ago

I'm curious if this spells the end for the headphone jack in the industry. Now that's gone from the iPhone, should we expect other phones to drop it? What about tablets and laptops?

cozzyd7• 10 years ago

The original iPhone did not usher in the era of the 2.5 mm audio jack.

shinratdr• 10 years ago

That's because it didn't have a 2.5mm audio jack. How can it usher in the era of something it isn't a part of?

kayoone7• 10 years ago

i am pretty sure it's the end of the headphone jack, IF the wireless headphones work really well. Traditionally Bluetooth headphones have always had a few quirks and annoyances (i still love mine) so if they fixed that i believe that people will see the benefits. It's kind of like the outcry when the very first iPhone did not have a keyboard at all. Only a Touchscreen ? WTF?

Chos89• 10 years ago

Yeah, that would be the case, if it only were not for the dozens of just touchscreen phones before the iPhone came out. IMO, this could be the beginning of the decline of Apple (since smartphones make majority of apples profit)

npizzolato3• 10 years ago

You can pry my cheap $5 headphones from my cold, dead fingers. No way am I paying $150+ for something I'm likely to lose several times a year.

cozzyd7• 10 years ago

Well, at least the lack of a headphone jack might prevent some people from using a selfie stick.

IMcD234• 10 years ago

Selfie sticks work over Bluetooth now! No need for a headphone jack. The $12 one my girlfriend bought is Bluetooth.

cozzyd7• 10 years ago

What, so now you have to charge the selfie stick? How convenient...

csomar• 10 years ago

Lightening stick coming very soon.

castis• 10 years ago

Not that I condone the usage of them but if they don't call that item a lightning rod I'll be sorely disappointed.

tebruno996• 10 years ago

I'm not even upset about the headphone jack. Whatever. I'm really upset because you won't be able to do the following:

1.) Audio+GPS+Charging in non-Bluetooth Car.

2.) Listening to music at desk and still have enough charge for the Audio+GPS for the drive home.

3.) No more listening to music/audiobooks as I fall asleep because in the morning the iPhone won't be charged for my desk usage the next day unless I wake up and plug it back in during my sleep.

They can do whatever they want with the headphone jack, but pretending like we don't need to plug the phone in!! Thats daft.

sotojuan2• 10 years ago

I wonder why they didn't just have two ports...

elliotec5• 10 years ago

1. Most cars are Bluetooth enabled, and many old ones have aftermarket systems that are. 2. Most people listen to music at their desk with their computers 3. That does seem a bit of an issue, but part of the point of the AirPods

drinchev• 10 years ago

1) Buying another accessory for my car isn't the solution. What if I drive a rented car?

2) Most people store their music on their phones though.

tebruno996• 10 years ago

I just ad the Bluetooth convo with a friend and there seems to be this assumption that "most cars that people buy have bluetooth" but it just doesn't stand up very well when you look at what cars offer bluetooth in their base trim.

http://cars.axlegeeks.com/d/f/Bluetooth

yes, there are 11 pages but if you click on say Dodge and filter by 2016 you'll find only 3 high end vehicles with base trim on bluetooth. This means people actually need to choose Bluetooth which sounds crazy to us why they wouldn't but most people have no idea.

coredog64• 10 years ago

My computer belongs to my employer, my iPhone/iPod/whatever belongs to me. I think my employer would be a little pissed if I filled the 256GB SSD with nothing but my music.

macNchz• 10 years ago

I'm continually underwhelmed with the reliability of the bluetooth in my car and others I've used recently. Annoying pairing process, random disconnects, arbitrary limits on the number of paired devices...I usually just use an aux cable.

yoodenvranx5• 10 years ago

There should be some sort of y-cable adapter which allows you to listen to music and charge the phone at the same time? But I am not sure if that is actually tech ically possible.

Longhanks4• 10 years ago

The docks do this since years. You just plug in the lightning and the dock provides lightning out and audio out.

So an adapter is definitly possible.

lh77772• 10 years ago

I've had this setup in my travel kit for years. I use it in every rental car so I can listen to music and charge my phone / use GPS at the same time.

Y-Cable (dock connector to audio & USB): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005LUKCX4

Dock to Lightning adapter: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B014854UWG

For a cleaner solution (and if you also need a cigarette lighter to USB adapter), there's this from Griffin, but it's out of stock and unclear whether it's discontinued: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NCF0LHC

I've never had anything but a terrible experience with Bluetooth, and I'm definitely never using Bluetooth to connect my phone to a rental car, so I imagine I'll be using the above system for a long time to come.

nfriedly3• 10 years ago

I'm sure someone will make a slitter to enable analog audio + charging. There will probably be an "official" one for $60 and Chinese knockoffs for $5.

dzhiurgis2• 10 years ago

$60 buys you entire radio unit that supports iOS USB cables, full control of playback using remote, etc.

nomercy400• 10 years ago

I wonder how they will do that. Charging gives noise. Analog audio is very susceptible to noise.

k-mcgrady7• 10 years ago

> 2.) Listening to music at desk and still have enough charge for the Audio+GPS for the drive home.

If you're at a desk you probably have a computer. Why not listen on that? Most people are using streaming services so it's only a matter of logging into Spotify's website or iTunes and you have access to all your music.

> 3.) No more listening to music/audiobooks as I fall asleep because in the morning the iPhone won't be charged for my desk usage the next day unless I wake up and plug it back in during my sleep.

I fall asleep to podcasts every night - I have never, ever had my phone plugged into a charger whilst doing that. The main reason is safety (I'm just not comfortably with a charging battery next to my head while I sleep). But the other reason is that it's totally unnecessary thanks to the sleep feature built in to the iPhone (in the clock app). I've go to bed with about 60% battery, wake up with around 40% and then connect it to my laptop when I get to work.

archon• 10 years ago

you probably have a computer. Why not listen on that?

Is this supposed to convince me to buy the device?

Jtsummers2• 10 years ago

Not all of us can access streaming services from work or install iTunes. I can technically access streaming services, but seems the corporate proxy server makes it impossible to use them effectively.

mikeash19• 10 years ago

So as long as your work computer is fairly open, you're good to go. What about the other 90% of people?

anthonybsd2• 10 years ago

1.) Audio+GPS+Charging in non-Bluetooth Car.

Is your car older than 3 years? If not, what prevents you from listening to audio via USB?

dogshoes• 10 years ago

Yes, lots of cars don't have Bluetooth or USB. A quick Google search shows the average age of cars on American roads has reached 11.5 years.

My personal car is 14 years old and runs fine, but I need to use the aux input on the radio to listen to my phone.

DigitalJack9• 10 years ago

I only just got a car that has an AUX jack. Cars are expensive. I pay mine off and keep it for 10 or more years.

acdha5• 10 years ago

In addition to the question of cars which don't have it, software quality a huge problem and cars don't get software updates.

I've rented a fair number of cars while traveling in the last year and hit a number of problems:

* Everything Ford makes has a bug where the car's computer will lock for a minute or two and either crash / decide the phone doesn't exist or display a blocking modal dialog telling you that you have too many tracks on your phone if you connect it using USB. I have ~11K tracks (iTunes Match) and that's apparently more than they tested with. Toyota had a similar failure with USB.

* Bluetooth is more miss than hit: pairing is usually buried in the UI, slow, and reconnects are unreliable so you might have to try a couple of times before anything connects.

* None of the cars have a UI designed for more than a handful of tracks so while you can get something to play eventually, the experience is terrible.

* Not everyone supplies enough power to charge over USB or does so inconsistently, so you may arrive with 10% battery if you used the GPS.

100% of vehicles with AUX in lines work perfectly every time without any fussing. I want something like Bluetooth to work but there's this massive market failure where almost nobody seems to have a QA team or a support process where updates actually happen (BMW suggested that a friend buy a newer car to fix their bugs). I'll give Subaru an honorable mention for having reliable software but they desperately need to hire some UX specialists.

dagw• 10 years ago

My car is a 2014 model and has neither bluetooth nor USB.

shawkinaw2• 10 years ago

Not justifying the removal of the port, but Apple's Dock [0] has its own standard audio-out port, and I'm sure others out there do as well.

[0] http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MGRM2AM/A/iphone-lightning...

zouhair2• 10 years ago

Or you can get a phone with a Jack port.

rimantas4• 10 years ago

  > Audio+GPS+Charging in non-Bluetooth Car.

I can do this with iPhone 6 already. And could do with iPhone 5. In a 2013 model year car. There is an USB port in my car, connect lightning cable and thats it: phone is charging, music is playing.

imgabe4• 10 years ago

But then you have to rely on the car's data USB port supplying enough current to charge the phone while the audio + GPS are draining the battery. That's not always a sure bet, depending on the particular car's specs.

ksml2• 10 years ago

I don't know about you, but to me, 2013 is relatively recent. Plenty of cars don't have that capability.

tebruno996• 10 years ago

I have 2x Dodge Caravans 2005, and a 2000 Miata. Luckly the vans have AUX ports along with the mid-vehicle 6 disk dvd player. No usb, bluetooth, or tape deck.

unprepare3• 10 years ago

yeah most cars with USB ports also have Bluetooth, so im not sure youre making a strong argument.

If you currently have a cigarette lighter charger and an aux port, how can you charge your phone and listen to music?

__david__2• 10 years ago

You can already do #1. I've been using one of these [1] plus an Apple 30-pin dock to lightning converter for years. It's been worth it just because there's only one thing to plug into the phone, and it allows you to route your cables nicely if you want.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/SunbowStar-Universal-Charger-Adapter-...

clord• 10 years ago

Yes, I do this too, and it angers me because it proves that this datapath is possible to build. Double-dongle sucks, but it works. I marvel at how backwards apple can be when it wants to be. I wonder if this new headphone dongle they announced can be hacked to do charging.

tedmiston11• 10 years ago

My car doesn't have aux, so I've been achieving it with a Bluetooth FM transmitter. It's not ideal with occasional FM interference when traveling, but it's also ≤ $50 vs replacing the head unit, etc. And it works in every car.

ihuman6• 10 years ago

Apple could justify 1 by using CarPlay

dv_dt• 10 years ago

I just have a bluetooth car device that jacks into the Aux port. It also gives you tactile buttons for bt audio control. With a two-usb port cig. port charger, one powers the bluetooth audio, the other my charger.

heyheyhey• 10 years ago

Plugging an iPhone 8 into my car was my biggest worry but it looks like some type of BT adapter (that I never knew existed until today) will work just fine for me.

DigitalJack9• 10 years ago

you sleep with headphones? Not trying to be a dick here... I would like to do the same, but I'd fall asleep with headphones and roll over or something and send my phone flying.

tebruno996• 10 years ago

Yes, I have the lightning cable come up in the middle of the bed and place the phone between my wife and I's pillows. I then route the headphone wire around my pillow and up the top so that when I fall asleep and it falls out it will be pulled back behind the pillow and I won't sleep on it. If I roll over i switch ears (only 1 ear in).

She requires complete silence to go to sleep ;)

mintplant• 10 years ago

No more listening to music/audiobooks as I fall asleep because in the morning the iPhone won't be charged for my desk usage the next day unless I wake up and plug it back in during my sleep.

Well you could get a standalone charger and a spare battery-- oh wait, no, they got rid of that too.

mixedCase3• 10 years ago

The LG V20 can't come soon enough. It boggles my mind the amount of people willing to put up with a non-expandable non-replaceable battery.

tedmiston11• 10 years ago

3.) No more listening to music/audiobooks as I fall asleep because in the morning the iPhone won't be charged for my desk usage the next day unless I wake up and plug it back in during my sleep.

Can you really sleep with earbuds in? In that use case, I use the device's speaker.

exception_e5• 10 years ago

Sure can! http://www.sleepphones.com/

I wear these each night and listen to relaxation videos such as ASMR [0]. Many people in that community use these.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_sensory_meridian_re...

tebruno996• 10 years ago

My wife won't let me sleep with the speaker, so I've adapted to have 1 earbud in depending on which side I want to sleep on. It eventually falls out and tomorrow I seek to the last place I remember in the book and repeat ;)

jsz0• 10 years ago

iPhone won't be charged for my desk usage

Your desk probably has a power outlet located nearby in case you are willing to change your routine.

jbmorgado7• 10 years ago

The solution to Apple design flaws, is not too carry a charger with your at all times.

freyr• 10 years ago

I'm sure the Apple iCar will support simultaneous audio and charging via the lightning interface.

ojii• 10 years ago

Only on Apple-built iRoads as long as you are connected to iCloud.

yaegers2• 10 years ago

The simple solution for that would be a special charger with a Y-cable so one can plug the headphones in there when the device is charging. No extra adapters that can be lost. Just include a charger with a y-cable thingie in the iPhone package and they would be done. You buy the phone, you get the new headset with the new connector including a charger that allows to still plug in the headset. If that will not be the case I don't know why Apple cannot think of such a simple solution.

balabaster2• 10 years ago

It's water resistant but water damage isn't covered under warranty? How can you have it both ways like that?

"Water resistance IP67 under IEC standard 60529. Liquid damage not covered under warranty."

How does one make such a big deal of it being water resistant (Product film: 1m 35s; "...to make this the first water resistant iPhone") but not cover liquid damage under warranty?

brainfire• 10 years ago

The same way they use durable glass and don't cover broken glass under the warranty.

lucb1e8• 10 years ago

They're not saying the glass is unbreakable, they say it's strong. Water resistant sounds entirely different from 'should survive small splashes' and doesn't add anything if it's not actually watertight. I already use my android phone in the rain, covering it as well as I can, and take the risk. Or hope it survives when splashing water over it. That works, so the next step is actually being watertight.

k-mcgrady7• 10 years ago

Probably because it's water resistant not water proof. You can't put it 50m under water for a few days and then complain it's damaged. I guess if they are saying it's water resistant they have tested pretty extensively and can guarantee that under the conditions they say it will not get damaged. Not great that the customer has to place their trust in the company regarding that though.

matt_wulfeck• 10 years ago

That's precisely why it's spec ip67. It allows them to have their phone independently verified while still leaving the customer on the hook for damage.

Yes, it's unfortunate that if its damages under 50m it's your word versus their word.

iaskwhy4• 10 years ago

I guess it's because IP67 means it's only "protected against the effect of immersion between 15cm and 1m" so it's not really 100% water resistant (nothing is, I guess).

xenadu02• 10 years ago

It's just setting expectations.

The series 1 watch had the same caveats but proved very water resistant in practice. To make stronger promises you need to understand how the seals age and how the device behaves in lots of situations, or you need to over-engineer it with bulky seals and other compromises. You also need to understand and deal with extremely tight manufacturing tolerances.

If Apple said the iPhone was waterproof people would take it scuba diving then post YouTube videos showing how "crapp" the new iPhone is, then we'd have watergate (lol) all over the tech press.

Much like Trump/Hillary, people don't hold anyone else to the same high standard they hold Apple to. (If Trump manages to not vomit on himself at the first debate he'll be declared the winner by the media. )

underbluewaters• 10 years ago

For reference, I took my supposedly not-shower-proof Apple Watch diving to 30 feet and it was fine. I could even use the touchscreen and heart rate monitor underwater to some extent.

sosborn5• 10 years ago

How does one make such a big deal of it being water resistant (Product film: 1m 35s; "...to make this the first water resistant iPhone") but not cover liquid damage under warranty?

If you brought in a water damaged phone how would you prove that you didn't exceed the rated coverage?

MagnumOpus• 10 years ago

Occam's razor should apply here.

It is impossible to prove a negative, but the percentage of people taking a phone on a >50m mixed-gas technical dive is vanishingly small.

coryfklein6• 10 years ago

"water resistant" != "water impervious"

theshrike7913• 10 years ago

Every single smartphone has the same clause in fine print. Even the almighty Samsung does this.

If you need to go diving with your phone, either get a proper waterproof case or get a properly ruggedized dumbphone.

megablast• 10 years ago

It is always like that for anything Water Resistance. That is because people can still break it by not following the rules (> 1 meter, >30 mins).

neals• 10 years ago

How am I not going to loose those two tiny little earbuds?

itomato• 10 years ago

Worse yet, _one_ of them.

kylec4• 10 years ago

I wonder if you'll be able to buy just one, or if you'll have to buy a whole new pair.

jamesmccann2• 10 years ago

Feeling pretty disillusioned by another iPhone and iOS update. The 3.5mm coupled with lightning instead of USB-C just look like obvious traps for lock in with no real gain (5hr of playback time?!)

iOS still continues its march of adding minor features that should be in regular OTA updates and packing them up with some serious marketing hype. There's barely any improvement here and most of the features are already well implemented in Android / Google Apps or Facebook Messenger.

Disappointing.

Ologn• 10 years ago

already well implemented in Android

Yup. I remember the original iPhone/iPad announcements where many features were fairly innovative. Now applauded feature announcements are for features already out on Android phones.

Longhanks4• 10 years ago

Show me an Android phone that will provide the hassle-free experience Apple promises with those AirPods. That's the most innovative part of this event for me.

devrelm• 10 years ago

Right?

New stereo speaker system

Oh cool, you mean like the forward-facing stereo speakers on my 2-year-old Nexus 6?

shopkins• 10 years ago

Come on, the stickers alone are worth an OS upgrade! /s

untog2• 10 years ago

The new notification framework in iOS 10 feels like a genuine step forward. The rest, I agree.

bobwaycott4• 10 years ago

iOS 10 notifications are a royal pain in the ass compared to those prior. Particularly from the standpoint of dismissing with minimal interaction. You must be more intentional now to get rid of them.

nicky014• 10 years ago

iOS is a free OTA update.

jamesmccann2• 10 years ago

I was trying to place emphasis on the regularity not the cost of an upgrade. Packaging up what seems like relatively trivial features into a major OS release isn't really progress.

lukeholder• 10 years ago

Charging the Airpods in the case for 15 minutes gives you 3 more hours of audio playback. The case has 24 hours of charge available.

ngrilly6• 10 years ago

The biggest drawback, maybe the only drawback of this new iPhone, is that you can't use the EarPods while charging.

(Edited for clarity)

pearjuice• 10 years ago

So it's water resistant but not water proof... It has 2 cameras like other Android phones had years ago. Basically same everything but with a Mario app and no headphone jack? Do you think Steve Jobs would have approved of this to hit retail?

Unklejoe7• 10 years ago

Can the 3.5mm to Lightning adapters be legally produced without paying royalties to Apple for using the Lightning connector?

On a related note: I wonder if one reason for eliminating the jack is to close that open interface which some devices like the "Square" were using. I'm not sure how much of an impact this has though; it was just a thought.

Longhanks4• 10 years ago

Apple's adapter is only $9 (http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MMX62AM/A/lightning-to-35-...).

Unklejoe7• 10 years ago

I don't see how this is related to my comment.

My concern was basically about Apple being able to prohibit manufacturers from making hardware that they don't explicitly approve. (I don't know if they can or can't.)

cozzyd7• 10 years ago

Pretty sure that the adapter would work just as well (I don't know anything about the readers, but assume they are just encoding the CC info as an analog signal and listening to it over the microphone port... I wonder how easily they might be snooped via EMI).

Unklejoe7• 10 years ago

Yeah, you're right. I bet it would work anywhere you grabbed the analog signal from. You could probably even repurpose a set of bluetooth headphones for it.

I don't know why I didn't think of that.

tmuir• 10 years ago

Even if the electrical functionality doesn't change, the mechanical functionality has. With a flexible cable between, it will be far more cumbersome to hold the phone and reader, while swiping a card.

mahyarm9• 10 years ago

Well if I can buy good $2 Lightning cables from daiso, I bet someone will do it in a few months/years.

mulmen13• 10 years ago

I hadn't thought about the Square with the loss of the headphone jack, that's an interesting change. Can the Square device be adapted to use the Lightning connection? Maybe Bluetooth?

niftich13• 10 years ago

Bluetooth sure. It was already using modulated audio like a modem over the analog jack. You can pair using bluetooth and continue to speak audio, with maybe lowered bandwidth to robustly survive the subband codec -- the mandatory base codec.

But I don't know what kinds of OS-level permissions go into allowing apps to pair with bluetooth devices on iOS.

AceJohnny24• 10 years ago

I was really curious how they'd handle wireless audio. In my experience, Bluetooth is slow to pair, connect, and glitchy in common environments. So I find it very indicative that the new Airpods do not mention Bluetooth, and the Beats Solo3 cryptically mentions "Connections: Bluetooth, Wireless" on its product page [1]. Sadly, I don't expect them to open their tech to 3rd parties soon :(

[1] http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MNEN2LL/A/beats-solo3-wire...

ihuman6• 10 years ago

From the video, I got the impression they're using their own custom radio solution, that allows them to more easily pair. We don't know much about the reliability of the new mechanism, however.

Edit: I am wrong

cududa4• 10 years ago

The keynote addresses this. It is indeed a new wireless format

kalleboo4• 10 years ago

http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MMEF2AM/A/airpods

Connections

AirPods: Bluetooth

It's also compatible with old iPhones going back to the 5, so it can't be anything too custom. My bet is it's Bluetooth but a custom profile and custom pairing.

_bojan2• 10 years ago

Removed audio jack and still not waterproof.

JustSomeNobody9• 10 years ago

I doubt ANY smartphone is waterproof.

The new iPhone 7, however _is_ water _resistant_[0].

[0] Which is what you probably mean.

reitanqild3• 10 years ago

Mine is. IP something something. Can shoot photos under water.

Just because iPhone isn't doesn't mean no other can be ;-)

tptacek• 10 years ago

I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that cameras are nice and so are Retina displays but what we'd really like to see is a big splashy page about whatever's new with the Secure Enclave Processor in the 7.

Not because there's anything wrong with the 6! Ivan Krstic's talk about Apple platform security at Black Hat was probably the best talk of the whole event. Nobody is delivering seamlessly integrated chipset-up-through-application security the way Apple is. Forget about in mobile devices; I mean, in computing, period.

I'm excited to learn what else is coming there!

heartbreak8• 10 years ago

I'm also really excited about this. A lot of people have been distracted by a single issue and are missing some really nice features of this phone.

Beyond the secure enclave, if the haptic home button is anything like the new trackpads, it'll be an amazing feature. One less moving part to break. And the cameras...wow. Finally decent depth of field on the camera that's always in my pocket.

javajosh3• 10 years ago

Finally decent depth of field on the camera that's always in my pocket.

Recently I upgraded to the Samsung Galaxy S7. It was about $400 and it has an incredible camera; far better than my old iPhone 5s, and it looks substantially better than the iPhone 6/6s photos I have seen. Plus, it has a headphone jack, microSD support (so nice to be able to upgrade), and a really beautiful screen. Yes, Samsung installed some bloatware but some of it is actually useful (their UI for toggling radios is quite good) Android Kit-Kat is solid. To me, this was Android's first reasonable phone.

DigitalJack9• 10 years ago

I guess this is pedantic, but clearly the haptic actuator is itself a moving part.

I take your meaning though, and that there is reason to hope it will work better than the mechanical button. And even if the feedback were to fail, the button might keep working.

kelseydh8• 10 years ago

Verge is giving the haptic buttons a big thumbs down:

"Another thing I tried: the new home button, which uses a "taptic engine" to give you physical feedback when you press it — it's pressure sensitive too, so it can tell if you really mean to press it or just tap it. And it's awful. On a MacBook trackpad, you get this uncanny feeling that you're actually hitting a button. On the iPhone, the whole bottom of the phone just sort of "kicks." It's not bad haptics like you remember, with weird vibration, it's just a new kind of bad haptics. It doesn't feel like a button at all. It's a bummer."

http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/7/12827772/iphone-7-plus-phot...

CountHackulus• 10 years ago

My Nokia N900 from 2009 had decent depth of field and a decent lens. It's nothing really to write home about.

abtinf2• 10 years ago

I am right there with you on this one. I scoured the product pages as soon as they went live on apple.com, looking for any new information on security features. Couldn't find anything.

idlewords• 10 years ago

I wonder if Apple felt that talking it up would be needlessly provocative, given the new crypto wars.

DigitalJack9• 10 years ago

They might be trying to avoid being a political ping pong ball in the war on people.

tedmiston11• 10 years ago

I found the talk (though I don't pretend to understand it all), video & slides are online if others are interested.

Behind the Scenes with iOS Security

Abstract - https://www.blackhat.com/us-16/briefings.html#behind-the-sce...

Slides - https://www.blackhat.com/docs/us-16/materials/us-16-Krstic.p...

Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLGFriOKz6U

acdha5• 10 years ago

It's probably in vain but I keep hoping that Apple will decide to enter the two-factor auth market with something like the U2F design where the Secure Enclave could sign challenges. It'd be really nice if there was an Apple ID-for-the-web to go along with Apple Pay.

abtinf2• 10 years ago

Adding a simple spoken/typed passphrase or passcode would turn the iphone into a full blown three-factor auth method.

wfn• 10 years ago

Does SEP not allow peripherals (e.g. the radio module) direct memory access anymore? That would be a very tangible thing indeed wouldn't it; and if it does not then the radio etc. firmware is still super unsafe.

jakobegger4• 10 years ago

The Airpods look like a genuine improvement. I really hate untangling my earphones every time I use them. The carrying case looks brilliant; much nicer to carry a smooth case than a mess of wires in my pocket.

protomyth3• 10 years ago

They used the word "courage" during the keynote. I would say the actual words are "lock in" and "licensing fees". I would have been ok with USB-C because at least those will be able to move between machines.

The adapter is useless for me since it doesn't allow power to be supplied so my long drives are now problematic. I guess I'll have to take that into account on buying the next car.

nicky014• 10 years ago

I'm sure some 3rd party will come out with a combined charging & audio adapter.

djrogers3• 10 years ago

Apple has one too - it's called the dock

mempko• 10 years ago

I think they meant you have to be brave to buy it.

PerfectElement• 10 years ago

Or you can buy a better phone.

protomyth3• 10 years ago

Probably, but I have to get over the lock-in cost which is not cheap.

nickpp• 10 years ago

Still downscaling the iPhone 7 Plus resolution down to 1080p?! Still no 1-1 pixel mapping?!

I know nobody else cares...

sk8ingdom2• 10 years ago

This bothers me as well...and definitely becomes an argument against the iPhone 7 Plus. It's going to be difficult to choose between dual camera / longer battery life, and correctly mapped pixels.

Synaesthesia4• 10 years ago

At more than 400 dpi it's not really visible. I've scrutinized it heavily, and I can even (barely) see the pixels on the retina iPad and regular iPhone.

overcast3• 10 years ago

I especially enjoyed the last second comment under his breath regarding the matte black iPhone 7 pricing.

32GB standard for all models, except the matte black, which will ONLY come in 128GB, and you'll be paying $100 more at $750.

Nice underhanded move by Apple to maximize profit for what will undoubtedly be the most popular color.

First they force everyone to buy the 32GB upgrade last year on the 6S, now you're forced to do the same to 128GB, unless you want a rose colored phone.

The camera upgrade looks nice, but the headphone jack is a joke. Another wire that will inevitably fall apart like the other Apple lightning connectors.

EDIT: Jet Black, NOT Matte Black. Still dumb.

hbosch2• 10 years ago

Nit: I think you are talking about the Jet Black color, not the Matte (regular) black.

overcast3• 10 years ago

I stand corrected.

iaskwhy4• 10 years ago

This is not correct, the 32GB capacity is available for the matte black iPhone 7 - it's gone for the jet black one.

Jtsummers2• 10 years ago

16GB for smart phones has been a terrible option for years. It's sort of comedic, though also very tragic, to watch people juggle images and audio and apps on 16GB devices.

Havoc3• 10 years ago

Don't think Jet Black will be the most popular. Think standard black will be.

Jet Black will be full of scratches by the time you've unboxed it.

strmpnk• 10 years ago

Rumors had it that they're in shorter supply than the other colors so it might make sense for them to mark that one as a premium model only. They could add a 32GB model later.

Another theory might be the branding they started with the cylindrical Mac Pro which is also this sort of gloss black. So perhaps we'll see more products with this gloss applied?

Either way, I've always ended up regretting getting a lower capacity model. I only upgrade every 3-4 years and I am definitely looking forward to 128GB or more so I don't have to juggle apps, audio, and pictures constantly. So for me that's the starting price. Steep but I don't buy phones so often so it's not my biggest budget worry.

overcast3• 10 years ago

Gloss anything always turns into a nightmare of scratches, and fingerprints. It looks pretty for about three seconds out of the box, and then it's quickly ruined. I thought they learned their less with the old plastic gloss cases, iphone2 era?

With multiple cameras as 12MP on this thing, 32GB is just going to become as silly as the 16GB model was. Embarrassing it's such a small amount on a $700 device.

obilgic• 10 years ago

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is AirPods seem super useful for taking phone calls and all the other apps such as Snapchat, I would wear them off all day.

Airpods might become the virtual reality for your ears.

kelseydh8• 10 years ago

You're right... But there is no faster way to kill the coolness of AirPods than to have it associated with the stereotype of bluetooth headset-wearing douchebags fielding phone calls in public.

hmate9• 10 years ago

I won't be buying the new iPhone but I thinks removing the headphone jack seems like an extremely small problem.

The main issue seems to be that you now can't charge and listen to music at the same time. How often do you actually do that? In the past 5 years I have probably done that once.

For those of you who do think it is an inconvenience, I bet there will be a product on the market in 2 weeks that eliminates this problem.

robotresearcher3• 10 years ago

You can't charge and listen to music at the same time. How often do you actually do that?

My two use cases that I expect are pretty common:

1. In the car, plugged in to charge since using GPS navigation drains the battery very fast, and car audio input is AUX only.

2. Phone on the nightstand, plugged to overnight charge and I go to sleep listening to podcasts or music on headphones to avoid disturbing my partner. I can dozily remove my headphones, but I can't switch cables without waking up.

I agree that there will be aftermarket products to solve it. Just makes the thing more expensive for me, so less likely to buy.

jbmorgado7• 10 years ago

You can't charge and listen to music at the same time. How often do you actually do that?

Lots of times. Me and anyone that takes medium to long trips in their cars and and uses GPS navigation while charging and listening to music like basically all people that use smartphone do.

a_sriram2• 10 years ago

I wonder why they removed the 3d touch? edit: I just saw the video...its still there. Looks like it is a default feature now. My bad.

hbosch2• 10 years ago

3D Touch is still a feature.

nicky014• 10 years ago

Where did you hear that?

a_sriram2• 10 years ago

I dont see them mention it. The iPhone 6s tech spec has "Retina HD display with 3D Touch" mentioned.

heartbreak8• 10 years ago

3D Touch was featured in the Instagram demo.

songgao2• 10 years ago

2.4Ghz is super congested. 802.11g is. Bluetooth is. Even your microwave is on 2.4GHz. If everybody starts to use Bluetooth headphones all the time, I fear it's gonna make it totally unusable.

cududa4• 10 years ago

There are tons of call center farms with people packed very closesly using Bluetooth headsets (and have been for a decade) and there doesn't seem to be an issue

songgao2• 10 years ago

Are you sure about them being Bluetooth? I'd be interested to know how they make it work.

If you meant something like this [0], DECT [1] works on a different frequence band.

[0] https://en-us.sennheiser.com/phone-headset-wireless-call-cen...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Enhanced_Cordless_Tele...

ChrisBland• 10 years ago

Cool - more dongles, adaptors + what not to carry around and lose and then pay apple another $40 for each time. I say this writing on my Thunderbolt display that has since been rendered obsolete if I ever want a new macbook

jws• 10 years ago

    Lighting to 3.5mm audio: $10
    Lighting EarPods: $30
    MagSafe to MagSafe2 Converter: $10 (for that new laptop)

So yeah, an extra adapter is going to run the cost up about 1%.

lucb1e8• 10 years ago

writing on my Thunderbolt display

I really hope you aren't actually writing this on the display.

72deluxe14• 10 years ago

Yes, what is the plan for this?

I ask as my 2012 MBP non-retina needs replacing at some point (I think I'll shove as SSD in first, to get 3 more years life) but where do we go from here?

saynsedit3• 10 years ago

I feel like I can't buy this unless Apple pays its EU-enforced Irish tax bill. We give them money but the vast majority of it never goes back into the economy.

[Edited for technical correctness]

tobltobs• 10 years ago

It is a tax bill from Ireland. The EU isn't a state, it doesn't collect taxes.

shawkinaw2• 10 years ago

It's an Irish tax bill decided by the EU. Think about that. Starting to think Brexit wasn't such a bad idea after all.

Also, spending money puts it back in the economy, and Apple spends plenty. Taxes are probably the worst way for money to cycle through from an efficiency standpoint.

All that said, they should obviously pay what they legitimately owe.

saynsedit3• 10 years ago

Taxes may be the worst way to recycle money but in the absence of anything else it's a really good way. Apple's revenue far outweigh its costs. They have one of the largest cash reserves of any corporation in the world.

http://money.cnn.com/2015/07/22/investing/apple-stock-cash-e... http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2014/04/13/fun-numbe...

NetStrikeForce• 10 years ago

It's an Irish tax bill decided by Ireland, but not enforced for Apple and probably some other big companies. That's what the EU complaint is about: Unfair state subsidies to Apple, the most anti-capitalist thing ever - people's taxes are used to subsidise Apple. Let that sink in.

If you are still trying to justify Brexit's shitshow you're doing it wrong.

dchest2• 10 years ago

You're not "giving them money", you're exchanging your money for their product. If you are so keen on giving money to your government, there are plenty of ways to do it.

saynsedit3• 10 years ago

I already pay my fair share, they should too.

xbryanx• 10 years ago

I know this is a minority use case, but my iPhone is a great tool for testing whether audio equipment is working or not when I'm doing media system installs. Simply plug in the iPhone and play some sounds. Alas...

koolba2• 10 years ago

OT / @dang: This thread really makes one appreciate the new collapsible comments!

bobwaycott4• 10 years ago

I was thinking the same thing. First time I've used it.

mturmon• 10 years ago

Yes, it proved its worth dealing with duplicative 3.5mm jack comments.

ino3• 10 years ago

collapsing is really slow, it takes 3-5 seconds on safari + mba.

superdaniel• 10 years ago

Experiencing the same issue on Firefox on OSX.

ksml2• 10 years ago

This is happening to me on Android (Chrome); the page completely freezes and can't be scrolled for 3-5 seconds. I assumed it was my phone reflowing or something, but I feel like it shouldn't be that bad, and if it's also happening on MBA, it really shouldn't be that bad

PhantomGremlin• 10 years ago

Something is wrong. I just collapsed the top thread (733 comments) and it was almost instant. I'm running Firefox 48 on OS X Mavericks on a non-retina MB Pro. NoScript is loaded but ycombinator whitelisted.

fjarlq• 10 years ago

Noticeably slow on my OSX Chrome (mid-2014 MBP) as well. Is there an issue tracker where we can submit CPU profiles and whatnot?

ulfw• 10 years ago

I can't believe that even the newest Beats 3 Solo Wireless have Micro-USB charging. Talk about Apple not knowing what their product charging/connection strategy is! (Lightning for AirPods, but Micro-USB for Beats, Lightning for everything else, from Apple Pencil charging to Apple Mouse)

srikz3• 10 years ago

I somehow expected a ton of conversation around the new A10 Fusion chip. After 340+ comments I couldn't find any mention of it (I just did a page search for A10, A10 Fusion). Apple were already ahead with their per-core performance but seems like they have widened the gap even further this time with their version of the big.LITTLE arrangement. Wonder how Qualcomm's next chips will be. From what I heard, 820 will be the last custom chip they will do and from now on the CPU will be just the reference ARM chips and they will focus on the GPU and better integration of radios on the chip. Someone with more knowledge (about Apple's and Qualcomm's chip) please fill in.

epberry• 10 years ago

I would be surprised if Qualcomm only did reference designs after the 820. They were forced to switch to the reference 64 bit ARM design after Apple leapfrogged mobile chipmakers and it really hurt them. They had a lot of trouble with the big.LITTLE architecture and power management which led to 810 power issues which somewhat led to Samsung dropping them for the S6.

With the 820 Qualcomm was able to make their own custom cores (I think they went with 2 or 4 instead of 8) and generally overcome the 810 trainwreck. Qualcomm's ability to integrate the radio, GPU, DSP, crypto chip and some other things with a custom CPU into a true SOC is really a massive advantage within mobile and I expect them to build on that with more custom designs.

One last note about big.LITTLE. It seems like a panacea - just move all the big jobs to the big processors and the little ones to the little processors, yay! But this is much, much harder in practice. Doing this wrong leads to disastrous UX, screen tears because rendering shifts off of the big cores being one prime example. Process scheduling is already very tough and current schedulers are the result of many years of experimentation and heuristic best practices. Of course Apple controls the whole stack (i.e. they don't need to worry about where Kernel maintainers want to go with the schedulers) and I'm sure they have some amazing engineers working on Darwin so maybe they were able to overcome problems here. If you can schedule correctly it does seem like a big power savings win. But (and I may be behind the times here) that is a big if...

srikz3• 10 years ago

Even I feel that by not doing custom designs they will be consumed by lower priced competition like Mediatek. This piece of info was by someone who claimed works/worked at Qualcomm so I didn't dismiss it initially. We will probably know about it by end of the year.

mahyarm9• 10 years ago

Well at least for screen renders you can make sure render threads stay on the big cores and with GCD you can use thread priorities to determine what to put on which core. iOS has concepts of active/inactive and is mostly a one-app-at-a-time os. They also have a well defined background processing modes and extension API. With all of this structure, I don't think it will be as hard as we think it will be.

dgregd• 10 years ago

Probably performance of A8 for most of people is good enough. At least for native apps.

simonh2• 10 years ago

Right now I'm sure you are correct, I have a 6+ and it's performance is fine, but things change. OS and application demands are only going to increase, the new architecture may well provide higher power efficiency and thus better battery life. Finally we don't know what other hardware tricks the processor and it's supporting chipset implement. In the last few processor cycles Apple has been adding hardware functionality to support specific device features such as security, image processing audio signal processing and motion/position tracking so it's not all just about the raw performance.

niftich13• 10 years ago

This is a Nice Device. You can read my other comments lamenting the headphone jack, this comment isn't about that.

The screen is beautiful. The two cameras are a clever trick that I hope work as well as advertised -- and their cameras have been historically very good. Splash resistance is overdue, but appreciated.

But A10 is a bit of a disappointment [1][2], only as powerful as the A9X. Do they have any new hardware encode/decode blocks at least?

With A9 they were having yield issues and had to different traces being manufactured by two different fabs to enhance capacity. What do we know on the chip front?

[1] https://www.techtastic.nl/smartphones/apple-a10-soc-van-ipho...

[2] http://www.trustedreviews.com/news/iphone-7-benchmarked-here...

srikz3• 10 years ago

damn! here I was thinking that A10 is a big jump. I guess A10X Fusion will be a hell of a chip in the next iPads.

frankchn• 10 years ago

Rumors say TSMC is manufacturing most/all of the A10s on their 16nm process [1].

[1] http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/07/11/apple-chip-builder...

Synaesthesia4• 10 years ago

A9 is amazingly fast - benches like twice as fast as every other phone out there. With Apple's great SSD it's a pretty powerful package for a phone. Instead they have lower power consumption now which I think is a fair call.

Brakenshire• 10 years ago

A9X has a far higher thermal envelope than a smartphone processor, if the A10 is as powerful I'd say that's very impressive.

jimjimjim• 10 years ago

so, what's the next market/eco-system?

mobiles are mature products and the players are strictly in cash-cow or market share mode. nothing of importance is changing.

I've got an iphone se and an iphone 4 and you can't tell me that's the most they can do for 6 years of product development by one of the richest companies in the world. (yes i know that it's faster with more a and more b and more c etc)

Apple needs to drip feed improvements over the next x years to keep sales up so we can't expect anything game changing.

"The Others" are trying this and that but nothing seems to be sticking, probably not able to drive consumer desire enough.

so if nothing is happening, what is the post-phone next-big-thing to get into?

joakleaf2• 10 years ago

Super slick AR glasses... If they ever arrive.

davnicwil• 10 years ago

Yes, agreed on this. Just for fun, I'll make a prediction on timelines so I can look back on this in 5 years and see how it played out (and probably laugh at myself):

Closed VR headsets (maybe some AR, but still bulky headsets) for the next couple of years, with moderate adoption amongst gadget lovers, enough of a market for lots of investment and R&D, but ultimately never make it mainstream.

In around 5 years' time, with miniaturisation + battery improvements, the tech eventually evolves into a light, practical and nice-looking AR glasses form-factor which does achieve mainstream adoption and becomes ubiquitous - possibly even replacing the glass-slab smartphone as the primary mobile computing device for a majority of people.

chubot• 10 years ago

IoT and VR are the obvious technologies that have been introduced after smart phones. They both have significant obstacles in addition to the significant potential.

I won't pretend to know how things will pan out -- I agree with the idea that inventing the future is easier than predicting it.

I'd like to hear some contrarian thinking against IoT and VR. And maybe a list of "next big things" that weren't. Clean tech might be one of them. I recall some pre-www hype by Bill Gates about the "CD-ROM business", which seems to have been less of a business than a cheap distribution medium. Flip cameras were a blip.

This definitely applies: http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html

"Live in the future and build what seems interesting"

People trying to jump on trends are usually too late, because 1) they pick the wrong trend due to lack of fundamental understanding, and 2) It takes years to develop true expertise.

The people really profiting from deep learning now were toiling in obscurity 10 years ago. And plenty of people picked a line of AI research 10 years ago that has already fallen out of favor. There's no free lunch: risk and reward go hand in hand.

nathancahill3• 10 years ago

Interesting, the Unlocked option isn't available on the Apple Store right now. Temporary quirk until preorders?

acdha5• 10 years ago

IIRC, with the 6 the unlocked model wasn't available for a couple months but the 6S was available immediately. It was enough that I didn't bother with the 6 because by the time it was available and in stock it was close enough to wait until September.

nathancahill3• 10 years ago

What do you'll do if you spend a significant amount of time overseas?

curiousfiddler• 10 years ago

I have a design issue with AirPods. When my earphones (with wire) fall off (and it happens when you're running or doing some other similar activity), I know for sure, that me or someone else accidentally won't crush them, because the wires often prevent them from falling on the floor. I don't know how the current design of AirPods would prevent that.

freewizard• 10 years ago

exactly same concern.

AirPods is certainly not for running bc it's loose and no water resist at all. But you are right even in daily usage, it could fall off and go no where.

ino3• 10 years ago

I don't use in-ear because they've always fallen very easily from my ears, and I always feel like its the wires that are pulling them off.

I imagine these new ones would stay better because the lack of weight from the wires. I'm not excited about them though, I don't use headphones outside, and at home I don't need new ones.

thesmok• 10 years ago

I have a kickstarter idea: make a lanyard that's just a rope with small silicone rings on both ends. Fix the airpods to the rings, put it on the back of your neck, done! They are not going to fall on the floor.

Don't forget to pay me 40% of sales for idea.

aledalgrande• 10 years ago

Does anyone know more about the cameras on the Plus? Are they synchronized via hardware?

danra2• 10 years ago

So disappointing they just decided to ignore "touch disease". Bad form.

rimantas4• 10 years ago

Yes, because every company introduces new flagman by talking about some diseases. That's a good form.

danra2• 10 years ago

I should have been clearer. I really expected them to announce a free repair for anyone suffering from the issue, not to keep ignoring it like they have so far, even when the problem is obviously effecting many customers.

sergiotapia2• 10 years ago

You know I was annoyed the audio port being missing but after seeing the new airpods, I'm sold. They look amazing, and will be fantastic to use in the gym. I'm sold. Take my money!

Retr0spectrum• 10 years ago

Even $160?

sergiotapia2• 10 years ago

Yeah no, I won't pay $160. I thought they would be $40 at most. That's ridiculous.

asragab• 10 years ago

I look forward to measuring graphics performance in FMPF (Flying Monkeys Per Frame)

chadlavi2• 10 years ago

everyone: "This does not perfectly fit my current unique use case, so damn it to hell"

jbmorgado7• 10 years ago

Perhaps you could give us anyone use case where removing the headphone jack suits them...

eriknstr3• 10 years ago

I submitted the URL for archival as have a lot of other people done, but what I found strange is that there are archived versions of "page not found" results going all the way back to 2014.

http://web.archive.org/web/20160907200621*/http://www.apple....

Meanwhile, nobody has attempted to archive links for iPhone 8.

I guess maybe the IA crawlers found links to the page from elsewhere. Links made either by mistake or by someone making a joke about the release of iPhone 7 back in 2014 and betting on people not actually following the link. I dunno.

mrb• 10 years ago

Weird. Nowhere is stated the amount of RAM the phone has. Not even http://www.apple.com/iphone-7/specs/

Wikipedia claims 1GB (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_7). Can't be right?

Synaesthesia4• 10 years ago

Doubt it since the 6S has 2gb.

ariabuckles2• 10 years ago

They generally don't market the amount of RAM; I had to scour blogs after the SE launch.

It seems very unlikely they'd go from 2GB (in the 6S and SE) to 1GB though. Most likely 2GB. I could see 4, but that seems quick on them to increase it compared to usual.

qaq4• 10 years ago

I think Apple needs to add a few younger people to their executive team, because it seams they no longer can even pretend to be exited during the presentation.

gchokov5• 10 years ago

Or not

jbmorgado7• 10 years ago

Well perhaps what they really need then is to start making exiting products again.

Didn't have one since Steve Jobs died.

qaq4• 10 years ago

Well 5K Imac was nice, but other than that you are right

bluedino2• 10 years ago

Enough about the headphone jack going away - isn't anyone concerned with how big of a deal they made about Pokemon on the Apple watch?

Apple looked so uncool and out of it when they continued to talk about it. Half the crowd has forgotten Pokemon Go even existed by this point.

ihuman6• 10 years ago

How is talking about a game that came out 2 months ago out of it?

Half the crowd has forgotten Pokemon Go

The crowd that originally played the game when it came out was gigantic. Even half of that is still a huge number of people.

dpacmittal• 10 years ago

How is talking about a game that came out 2 months ago out of it?

I think he means to say talking about a game at keynote is not very Apple-ish, considering their luxurious brand image.

wang_li3• 10 years ago

They looked astonishing lame all throughout by constantly having to tell the viewer how glorious and awesome everything was. If they can't just tell us what the feature is and let us be amazed by the feature itself, then whatever they're saying just isn't that great. I don't care how many transistors are in a processor, it's trivia. I don't care what a marvel of engineering the W1 is. I don't even care that they dug out their childhood rock polishers to make the new case shiny.

chillacy6• 10 years ago

That's basically apple's keynote style, going all the way back to Steve. I always find the design videos interesting (the ones with Ive narrating).

throwawaymsft• 10 years ago

That part of the presentation was awful and had me rolling my eyes. "Oh, I wonder what Pokemon it's going to be inside this egg... Pikachu!" <halfhearted claps>

They could have made it funny by having the worst Pokemon appear. Or having it run away. Very poor showmanship.

mikeash19• 10 years ago

Their third-party demos are almost always really weak. I don't really understand why they keep having them. I think these events would be quite a bit improved if Apple just stuck to Apple.

coryfklein6• 10 years ago

I'm having a hard time seeing the value add on the AirPods that justifies paying ~5x the cost of stock Bluetooth earphones.

Siri integration and easier charging is definitely really cool, but not worth paying $120 over regular Bluetooth headphones that will probably be copy cat'ing that functionality in t minus 3, 2, 1...

_ph_2• 10 years ago

Unless Bluetooth earphones support AAC over Bluetooth, they are going to sound bad on an iPhone. So there is the potential for the Airpods to sound much better than cheaper earphones. Looking at the presentation, they do pack a lot of faszinating technology. So, taking the typical Apple pricing into consideration, I do not think they are especially expensive. Of course, all depends on how good they actually sound.

arihant2• 10 years ago

I'm seriously not comfortable with getting audio through a digital port that has an authentication chip built in. That's HDCP and DRM for music waiting to burst into life.

"Unauthorized playback."

SysArchitect3• 10 years ago

You mean a DAC, like the iPhone already had built-in to provide you with sound out through the 3.5mm jack?

fnj2• 10 years ago

To all: it's Lightning [R], not lightening. Go ahead. Call me a nitpicker.

mulmen13• 10 years ago

Thank you. Lightening is:

Noun:

A drop in the level of the uterus during the last weeks of pregnancy as the head of the fetus engages in the pelvis.

Verb:

[1] To make or become lighter in weight, pressure or sensitivity.

[2] To make or become more cheerful or less serious.

[3] To make or become lighter or brighter.

[4] To emit flashes of lightning; flash with lightning. (rare)

None of these things is similar to charging your iPhone.

modzu• 10 years ago

bet they bring back the jack in iphone 8

sparky_• 10 years ago

I doubt it, actually. They have a history[1] of removing ports and features which seem unbelievable at the time, and then pushing forward with that decision, however unpopular.

1: Floppy drives, optical drives, MacBook Air ports, etc

j2bax3• 10 years ago

I've never seen Apple backtrack on a decision this substantial. They've weighed all the outcomes, far more than we will probably ever understand and they will not reverse course here. Far more likely, the rest of the industry will follow within a few years.

walterbell3• 10 years ago

Tim Cook's John Sculley moment.

mslot• 10 years ago

I wonder if the 2 cameras can be used as a stereo camera for augmented reality.

orf• 10 years ago

No headphone jack, and it still breaks when you drop it. Not worth it.

kelseydh8• 10 years ago

Succinct.

At least the toilet drop is okay now.

Rezo2• 10 years ago

I'm disappointed by how boring the two-camera solution in the 7 Plus is. I was really hoping they were going show something interesting, like fusion of the two sensors through computational photography into one, with better low-light performance and less noise through downsampling. Or take +1 & -1 exposures simultaneously for a greater dynamic range.

Instead we got a button to switch from one lens to the other, for a 2x optical zoom. That's it. 99% of the time that second sensor and lens will do absolutely zilch. The computational bokeh appears to only use the 56mm lens for the actual photo, and the other lens to capture a depth map to compute the fake bokeh. This is hardly any better than the existing fake bokeh solutions shown many times before on Androids, Nokias and in iOS apps over the years that do the same, except it's a bit faster. The whole thing feels like just another checkbox feature, with very little actual value.

baddox2• 10 years ago

The two photos they showed to demonstrate the depth of field effect looked absolutely terrible. The edge of the mask was extremely blurry. It looked like something you could create in a photo editing app in a few seconds by just drawing over the background with a blur brush.

Rezo2• 10 years ago

That is pretty much exactly what's happening, minus the manual brushing.

A depth map and face recognition is used to locate the foreground subject and a heavy blur filter is applied to the background layer. For the same reason we don't have software today that does perfect (or even halfway decent) automatic masking of faces, the edges become a blurry mess. You don't get any of the beautiful out-of-focus point of light scattering, because the lenses are incapable of capturing it.

rsp1984• 10 years ago

I'm sure they tried to do something fancier with computational photography but probably ran out of time for the release. I'm confident they are going to deliver this in the typical S update next year or even as an OTA.

konradb• 10 years ago

I was hoping for evidence that they'd used the Linx multi-lense technology startup they bought; though perhaps this was it :(

twostorytower• 10 years ago

Looks like they silently killed off the 64GB version :(

finnh• 10 years ago

picture two friends in a car: "oh hey this music is the jam, let me play it for you."

5 minutes of dicking with bluetooth pairing later: "FUCKING BLUETOOTH GODDAMN IT. welp, never mind"

(conversational lull follows)

mulmen13• 10 years ago

I recently went on a trip with several friends and we rented a new Ford Expedition. The integrated audio system in the car supported multiple Bluetooth devices with a history (including previous renters) but as far as I could tell not more than once device at a time. Every time we started the car we had to select Sources -> Bluetooth -> Connect -> ${device name} -> Sources -> Bluetooth -> ${device name}. It was a huge hassle and a 3.5mm cable would have been far easier and sounded better.

chillacy6• 10 years ago

So one interesting aspect of the airpods is seemingly automatic pairing, without having to dive in settings, through what seems like near-field communication. I'm curious to see if they've solved the multi-device pairing problem too.

mikeash19• 10 years ago

The thing is, the pairing UI is rarely the problem. It's the actual pairing implementation. Pairing a phone to a car is usually just a few button presses. Not quite as convenient as NFC or whatever, but not a real problem. The problem arises when you find that Pair button and press it and then it doesn't work and provides no feedback on why it failed. Cue five minutes of screwing around turning things off and on again and finally giving up.

dominotw• 10 years ago

i don't take pictures or live a gregarious life of the people in the promo.

Pxtl2• 10 years ago

I do hope that this will push Bluetooth technology forwards - on my android devices bluetooth audio sound-quality is poor and skips when you launch resource-intensive applications. Also, the UI for syncing and selecting bluetooth devices is generally mediocre and confusing.

lucb1e8• 10 years ago

I have no such issues with my Bluetooth headphones on Cyanogenmod.

primitivesuave2• 10 years ago

I found the WhatsApp integration the most intriguing part of the announcement. By allowing calls from WhatsApp to also be received, I am assuming they are making the native calling/iMessaging API available to any iOS application.

While messaging with iMessage, Facebook messenger, WhatsApp, etc. can be done over WiFi only, calling is traditionally reliant on a cellular provider. The new iPhone only requires a WiFi network, and with the proliferation of WiFi and the first city-wide networks (e.g. Barcelona), it is possible that in the next decade all communication will be done over the Internet.

Also, during a recent trip to Japan I saw an $120 SIM card that gives unlimited Internet access for a year. This works out to $10/month, which is far less than what I pay for Verizon. So in a way this new iPhone may eventually cause cellular networks to primarily become providers of remote Internet access, as telephony shifts to the apps that the local people use to connect with each other.

brobinson• 10 years ago

I saw an $120 SIM card that gives unlimited Internet access for a year

Do you remember which telecom this was?

primitivesuave2• 10 years ago

I went with a Japanese friend to a store called Nojima, which seemed to be the Best Buy equivalent for Japan. There was an entire wall of prepaid SIM cards, and there was a promotion for two 6-month SIM cards for 12,000 yen. I wouldn't have been able to find it had I not been with a Japanese native.

I got a 1 month SIM card for 2,200 yen ($22) which still works out to far less than what I pay Verizon. The network name on the top of my iPhone said "docomo".

davidf182• 10 years ago

NYC is getting a lot of free WiFi via Google (Alphabet) subsidiary

https://www.link.nyc

madeofpalk5• 10 years ago

Yeah, they announced better VoIP calling APIs for iOS 10 earlier this year.

dingo_bat5• 10 years ago

By allowing calls from WhatsApp to also be received

Oh so till now whatsapp calls were android only?

component• 10 years ago

Nope, only FaceTime had the ability to show native call interface.

Previously, WhatsApp showed you a notification when you get an incoming call (if app closed / minimized).

Seems iOS 10 is allowing apps to take over the screen for calls (just like they did on iOS 9 with reply via notification which was only available on iMessage)

lifeformed• 10 years ago

Is this website a terrible viewing experience for anyone else? The videos don't work, and I can't scroll the slideshows unless I flick super fast. I'm on Chrome desktop.

mwalkerwells2• 10 years ago

What are they going to do with the 3.5mm audio jacks on Macs? So Apple removes the 3.5mm audio jack from the phone & adds a lightening port to the mac?

It makes me imagine how nice it would have been to ditch both the 3.5mm & lightening port & replace it with a USB-C port across product lines.

Obviously that would have been even more drastic in many ways, but I can't help but think that they have painted themselves into a strange corner.

mwalkerwells2• 10 years ago

Imagine a world where they opened up the lightening spec originally, that that was the USB-C standard.

DigitalJack9• 10 years ago

I wouldn't mind a lighting port instead of the 3.5 mm jack on my mac. My last macbook, the 3.5mm jack was the one thing that failed, surprisingly. It had a tiny switch inside to go between optical and electrical, and that switch would get stuck in the optical position. Basically I couldn't use headphones half the time.

krisdol3• 10 years ago

What are they going to do with the 3.5mm audio jacks on Macs

I imagine the audio industry would revolt.

krisdol3• 10 years ago

What are they going to do with the 3.5mm audio jacks on Macs

I imagine the audio industry would revolt if it was removed.

rad_gruchalski2• 10 years ago

The premiere of the next mbp next year: "And... We listened to you. We've been hearing that you are upset about not being able to use the same headphones for your computer and iphone 7. We fixed that. We've removed the 3.5mm jack from the new mbp. It's magical."

tedmiston11• 10 years ago

Then they could bring the colored MacBook down to just one port. That could actually be quite nice.

callalex• 10 years ago

Why? What's so not-nice about having a headphone port on a laptop?

nameless912• 10 years ago

Oh also, lighting port. For everything. Not USB3, lightning. FUCKYOUEXTERNALMONITORS.

But in all seriousness, if they make the port count any lower, the MacBook Pro will cease to be a laptop. It will become an iPad without a touchscreen.

madeofpalk5• 10 years ago

Except where the iPad Pro actually has _more_ ports than the Macbook (Lightning, 3.5mm, whatever-that-pro-keyboard-magnetic-port-contacts-thingy-is.

sxcurry• 10 years ago

Well, it's official - Apple has failed again! Doomed I tell you, doomed! Forget the performance enhancements, better battery life, fantastic new cameras, etc, etc - I have to use a new earbud cable. Plus, Jony Ive is going around putting super glue in all the old iPhone audio jacks, so I can't even use my existing earbuds with my existing iPhone. Plus, Apple is charging me $0.00 for the adapter so that I can use my ratty old earbuds with my new phone. Doomed, I tell you.

jonlucc5• 10 years ago

You jest, but only the first adapter is free. Subsequent adapters will be $9.99.

yoz-y• 10 years ago

You can always buy a new iPhone 7 for another free adapter.

Joking aside, I think most people won't notice as the new EarPods connect to the Lightning. That is what I mostly see people with iPhones around having.

mikeash19• 10 years ago

Super extreme nitpick, it's listed at $9.00 on Apple's store:

http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MMX62AM/A/lightning-to-35-...

I must say, I'm a bit shocked at the price. I wouldn't have expected Apple to sell a paperclip for under $19. Their Lightning to USB cable, which seems like it must be strictly simpler than this adapter (no DAC!) costs $19.

prawn2• 10 years ago

I wonder how much the publicity angle plays into their decisions on retiring interfaces? Looking at this one, they've had thousands of articles and comments written over a headphone jack. Would the phone's release receive quite the same level of coverage had they left it unchanged?

Dylan168077• 10 years ago

Oh gee you sure saw right through those people. Definitely true that that only possibilities are "every decision is correct" and "utter doomed failure". I'm glad you were here to remove all nuance.

OJFord• 10 years ago

RIP scroll. What a nasty web page.

It also looks really plastic-y in those renderings.

sofaofthedamned• 10 years ago

Does anybody have any technical details on these headphones?

Are they Bluetooth or not? Or is it the usual proprietary crap?

jug2• 10 years ago

Bluetooth. Explicitly listed here:

http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MMEF2AM/A/airpods

tintor• 10 years ago

No 3.5" floppy drive on the iPhone 7? What is Apple thinking?

BuckRogers2• 10 years ago

They just solidified the iPhone SE as the best product they offer. No way to charge the iPhone7 and use wired headphones at the same time. A camera wart so the phone isn't flat like the SE. The loss of extra battery by going with a wart over a thicker, easier to hold phone like the SE.

I'll be sticking with my 5S, and my wife is no longer upgrading her 4S to the 7 as we were planning.

We love our iPhones, but we do need to replace hers and now looking for non-Apple alternatives since while I prefer the SE over everything on the market, she thought she was going to want the 7 Plus.

mulmen13• 10 years ago

Why did she think she was going to want the 7 Plus? What is it about the SE that isn't appealing? What is it that she was expecting in the 7 Plus that the 6s Plus doesn't offer?

This is an honest question, I have continually upgraded my iPhones for years and this new phone doesn't speak to me either but you are on much older hardware, what about the new phones doesn't speak to you?

Personally I am considering a move to the SE because the form factor of the 6/6s is still too big in my opinion and the 7 doesn't seem to offer me anything I actually need or want.

BuckRogers2• 10 years ago

I keep mine in my pocket, I never saw a reason to go back to the 4.7" Android phones that I used for 5 years prior to moving to iOS. 4" is the right size for a phone IMO. I only have notifications enabled for calls and texts, I'm not the type to be into my phone like a fool and look at it while driving, and I only use it for useful purposes. Random Teamviewer access, checking Google News, Feedly, check personal/work email, check deposits/banking. I also have smaller hands, and need to hold onto metal rails as I ride the train and bus. I almost fumble 4.7"+ phones when using them 1-handed.

She usually has her purse and uses her phone more than me, essentially as a tablet. Playing games often such as something I've become accustomed to, Cookie Run. It's really preference. She doesn't mind the larger phone and doesn't mind the inconvenient size for day to day use.

I'm very letdown the 7(Plus) doesn't have a Lightning port pass-through port on the new charging cables. I can let go of 3.5mm, as I don't have any particularly great investment in headphones, but I can't accept inability to charge and use a wired headset at the same time.

I think they will bring in Lightning port pass-through cables with the iPhone7S, but right now want to rake in expensive, more quickly obsolescent (batteries) wireless Beats headphones before they do that.

Wireless stuff to me just means 1 more thing that needs charging, and while I do like those LG around-the-neck Bluetooth headsets, I dislike being forced into it if I want to charge my phone and use a headset.

_superposition_• 10 years ago

Those won't get lost...

seizethecheese• 10 years ago

For comparison, here's how HN reacted to some previous iPhone launches:

iPhone 6s: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10193201

iPhone 6: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8292029

iPhone 5s: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6361558

iPhone 5: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4512316

dmix3• 10 years ago

This thread has been getting 2x as many upvotes and comments as the other releases. Interesting.

Similarly, this year iPhone SE got even more upvotes (567) than all of these https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11330226

Maybe due to an upswing in HN traffic? Lack of other news today (it has been slow)?

I'm not sure this release was particularly exciting.

phasmantistes2• 10 years ago

Likely also related to the fact that this is arguably the first time than an iPhone release has removed a feature. The highest top-level comment in this thread is about the removal of the headphone jack, and that subthread alone has 644 comments.

pervycreeper2• 10 years ago

It could be related to increased moderator diligence in culling Apple threads today. Previously, the front page would become clogged the days new models were announced. # of upvotes on single threads is not particularly useful absent more context/ information.

grandalf3• 10 years ago

I've been trying out $49 Android phones lately after using an iPhone 6 Plus for over a year.

Android is getting to the point where most users will not really notice a difference between Android and IOS, even on a very inexpensive device.

randomsearch3• 10 years ago

Android is getting to the point where most users will not really notice a difference between Android and IOS, even on a very inexpensive device.

Having had experience recently with top-end Android devices, I'd beg to differ. Functionally an Android device is roughly equivalent to an iOS one, but the design, UI, responsiveness etc. is IMO miles apart.

It may be a matter of subjective taste but I would recommend that anyone reading the above and considering switching spent some serious time using Android first.

grandalf3• 10 years ago

the design, UI, responsiveness etc. is IMO miles apart.

This was my perspective too, last year. Moore's Law seems to have made Android's slower approach to smooth UI finally just about as silky as IOS, even on low end hardware.

stephenr• 10 years ago

That's great, and in 4 years time the cheap android devices will get the current release.

grandalf3• 10 years ago

The latest one ($59) comes with Marshmallow.

alanmeaney• 10 years ago

Genius move by apple. Nothing said 'I'm cool' like the white headphone cables, same effect with new wireless Airpods

sundvor2• 10 years ago

This comment will probably drown in the deluge, but it'll be interested to see if there market for higher quality Bluetooth DACs just got cracked open a bit. I use a Soundblaster E5 myself; this thing is great.

gigatexal• 10 years ago

The lack of the headphone doesn't bother me. I am excited to see what the future holds for digital audio out. I don't care for the airpods though.

davidf182• 10 years ago

I'm most concerned about voice quality. Any indication that there are more or better quality microphones.

Also, I'm concerned about the LTE: on the Verizon network it sounds like they're using the same modem as the Galaxy S7. https://www.qualcomm.com/products/snapdragon/modems/x12

Is that correct?

metafunctor2• 10 years ago

The keynote was trying to boast the gaming capabilities with a demo of… 400 monkeys.

Weak. Give me 400 monkeys, then 4000 monkeys, then 400 000 monkeys, and now the monkeys are forming a fractal, but the fractal is just the surface of a sphere, and zooming out there are a million spheres, and the spheres form… a monkey.

Now THAT's a demo.

gchokov5• 10 years ago

haha very cool :) Gaming push was very lame indeed. All these pokemons, monkeys and even F1.. who cares.

walterbell3• 10 years ago

The new "collapse subthread" HN feature was very useful for hiding 600+ messages in the headphone jack subthread.

evan_3• 10 years ago

One major thing I haven't seen anyone mention about replacing wired headphones with wireless is that as far as I know, you're not supposed to use wireless headphones on a plane. I don't think you'd actually get hassled by a flight attendant but who knows.

randomsearch3• 10 years ago

I've flown over the Atlantic a few times this year, and can confirm that listening via bluetooth was permitted.

kalleboo4• 10 years ago

If the flight offers Wi-Fi then the plane is certified to let you use Bluetooth as well

randomsearch3• 10 years ago

I have two thoughts on the headphone jack:

1. Most of the use cases being discussed here are irrelevant for the average iPhone user. Charging and listening at the same time is not a thing for most users. I know there are perfectly reasonable scenarios where it is useful, but most people don't care. Regarding battery life: personally, I use my iPhone quite a lot, often with bluetooth headphones, and I have had to charge it only once or twice during the daytime in the last two years. If you play a lot of games, or use GPS intensively for a few hours, then battery life could be an issue. For the average consumer, I don't think it will be a major concern.

2. OTOH, in the last few years headphones have become a very, very big market. They are a huge status symbol for teenagers and early 20-somethings. If you've saved a lot of money to afford a pair in that stage of life, the headphone jack is a big deal. It's not going to be "cool" to carry around an adapter all the time, and regardless people will hear "no headphone jack" and be annoyed. That demographic seems key to me in maintaining Apple's market lead over the long term, i.e. trend-setting young people.

Overall, I actually think that (2) will be a very big issue. Whilst I am of the opinion that wires are horrible in general, Apple may have misread its market here.

gakada• 10 years ago

Charging and listening is not a thing for most users

Many people nowadays don't have a computer -- especially in that big Asia demographic that Apple so loves. If your phone is the only device you own that is capable of playing music, then charging while you listen is often obligatory.

Feels to me like Apple has gone to far in designing the iPhone for a particular kind of luxury buyer (who can afford Beats or $159 earbuds) instead of targeting the mass market.

visarga• 10 years ago

Many people nowadays don't have a computer especially in that big Asia demographic that Apple so loves.

Many people use battery packs, in fact, on a recent trip to Tokyo, I bet almost everyone had a battery pack - it was commonplace to see a little USB wire coming out of the bag and into the phone. And also, many of them used headphones - that would turn out bad when competing for the same power - and strangely, almost everyone had an iPhone 6, so, I don't see how they will manage with the 7. There are so many iPhones in Tokyo that it feels like the Nokia of the 2000's.

sbierwagen• 10 years ago

  They are a huge status symbol for teenagers and early 20-somethings.

Are you nuts? No they're not.

ajosh• 10 years ago

Maybe not where you live but I have definitely seen people in that game range use headphone brands as a status symbol in the same way they use cell phone brands as a status symbol.

Viper007Bond• 10 years ago

Why do you think Beats are so popular? They're literally a fashion accessory, often not even being used for music.

stormbeta3• 10 years ago

Even as someone who uses bluetooth headphones 100% of the time, I'm still pretty unhappy with this as they don't even support the industry standard for high quality bluetooth audio: apt-x (or if they did, I must've missed it somehow).

r00fus11• 10 years ago

Has anyone done a real test between iOS and Android on BT headset quality as it relates to apt-x? Seems that the only issue might be latency, though newer BT headsets I found have pretty decent response times.

jmiserez• 10 years ago

Most support AAC though, which is in the Bluetooth standard somewhere. At least when connected to the iPhone that sounds as good as apt-X, even on really good headphones.

I've run into this issue a few times with headphones that do: - apt-X only - apt-X + AAC - AAC only - neither

and as long as it supports AAC it sounds good with Apple devices. Sadly, manufacturers don't really put it on the label so it's hard to know.

cstejerean• 10 years ago

All the cool kids already have Bluetooth headphones, and the ones that don't soon will. There is nothing cool about having a wire dangling around. I don't think they misread the market at all. It is time to move to Bluetooth.

yaegers2• 10 years ago

It's not going to be "cool" to carry around an adapter all the time

Let's be honest. You seen the adapter? It's not very thick and basically just a little bit of cable. Why do people make a big deal about "carrying around an adapter"? You connect it to the headphone and then you roll the headphone cable up just like before only this time there is an extra two inches of the adapter cable in there. How is carrying around that thing even an issue? If you want to keep your old headphones and use a new phone you just have to keep the adapter on your headphone cable all the time.

forgottenpass• 10 years ago

you just have to keep the adapter on your headphone cable all the time.

I don't think it's unreasonable to say that people connect to more than a single pair of headphones with their phone. That puts you back into dongle carrying territory.

Sometimes I walk to work without bringing headphones, then use the pair I leave at the office.

I have an Aux cable on the stereo in my living room that my friends occasionally use. Should they make sure to always bring headphones to the bar? They're not planning to listen to music at the bar, but at least they can convince themselves they didn't lug a fucking dongle around all evening just to play music pregaming at my place.

chris_overseas• 10 years ago

From the website, big and bold: "iPhone. Now in stereo."

Honest question, not having owned an iPhone before - is this really the first iPhone that can produce stereo sound through the speakers? If true, that seems like a crazy thing to advertise given how standard a feature it has been in most phones for so long. On the other hand, if iPhones have had stereo output already, why shout about it now?

enneff2• 10 years ago

It's stereo in the sense that there's a speaker on the top and bottom of the phone, so that when watching media with the phone in landscape orientation you can hear good stereo audio. I'm not aware of another phone that does this; I'm sure they exist, but it's not a common feature.

martinflack• 10 years ago

It's been available for a few years on several Android phones:

http://www.phonearena.com/news/Best-phones-with-front-stereo...

rocky1138• 10 years ago

Relevant article: http://www.phonearena.com/news/Best-phones-with-front-stereo...

Zhenya• 10 years ago

Sony Xperia Z2 HTC ONE (M8,M9, etc) Nexus 6, 6P

I'm sure many others.

I can almost see that distortion field works...

breatheoften• 10 years ago

I want a combination wallet+airpod dock+phone battery case. Wallet, airpod dock, retractable lightning connector (to charge iPhone), retractable usb cable (to charge battery). Battery doesn't need to be huge, just enough to get you another 20% or so phone charge -- and I imagine that would be enough battery for a whole lot of airpod recharges.

gjolund• 10 years ago

I suppose the iPhone7 is nice if you like being told what you need by the largest corporation on the planet.

sosborn5• 10 years ago

if you like being told what you need

I never understood this. Any product you buy is a series of compromises made by the manufacturer.

bane4• 10 years ago

It's official, Apple is basically resorting to nickle and diming their customers, except instead of nickles and dimes, it's $160 to achieve very basic functionality in order to achieve something that virtually nobody really honestly cares about. All that's been achieved is that Apple has now created/affirmed a new non-optional secondary market that they're now positioned to best sell into (Beats). There's not even the decency to see if people care about a thinner phone by offering both a thin model without a jack and a thicker phone with one (for some strategically important price differential).

But honestly, complaints and analysis don't matter, people will line up to buy this garbage and to make it worse it'll become a stupid trend that will bleed over into Android-land and now instead of the perfectly fine $10 headphones I picked up at Big Lots, I'll have to shell out 10x that so I can listen to a podcast on my way to work.

edit and they don't even have the respect for their customers to ship their stupid buds on time with the product that requires them...so that their customers can look like bluetooth douchebags from both sides.

mikeash19• 10 years ago

What very basic functionality now costs $160?

bane4• 10 years ago

Headphones

coldtea3• 10 years ago

except instead of nickles and dimes, it's $160 to achieve very basic functionality

The size, performance, battery life and construction of the wireless earpods are anything but "basic". In fact, most run-of-the-mill competitors are at the same price or more for wireless earbuds.

There's not even the decency to see if people care about a thinner phone by offering both a thin model without a jack and a thicker phone with one (for some strategically important price differential).

The "decency" of not having a focus and vision as a company, and throwing stuff out to see what sticks?

All that's been achieved is that Apple has now created/affirmed a new non-optional secondary market

You know you can use all other brands of wireless (and wired with either the adapter or with lighting) headphones, including all your older headphones, right?

But honestly, complaints and analysis don't matter, people will line up to buy this garbage

So, people buy it, but it's still "garbage" because you say so?

and they don't even have the respect for their customers to ship their stupid buds on time with the product that requires them...

The "respect" to magically fix the production slowdowns? Maybe ask the Chinese to whip and beat their workers more or over-clock the assembly line robots?

Or the "respect" to delay the release of the phone for 2+ weeks, so that those interested in those specific wireless buds (a small percentage of the overall iphone buyers) get them simultaneously with the phone?

Even the starting premise is wrong. Nothing "requires" them. You can use your old, non wireless buds, third party wireless buds, new non wireless headphones, and even third party Lighting headphones. Apple's new wireless earpods are just one option upon hundreds.

so that their customers can look like bluetooth douchebags from both sides.

Maybe you have some anger issues, but Apple doesn't seem to be the real source...

bane4• 10 years ago

coltea, I say this fairly nicely, having seen your posts many times here on HN, your posts are so consistently composed of Apple apologia as to be irrelevant to any discussion about the company or their products. You're kind of the poor man's John Gruber of HN.

I don't mean this to be personal, but I've never seen you post (and I just searched back comments on HN) anything even remotely critical of Apple, and most of your Apple related posts relate to you popping up to defend the company or "clarify" something that could be construed as negative to the company. If I didn't know better, I'd say that you worked for the company -- but you've claimed you don't a couple of times.

HeavyStorm• 10 years ago

Question: besides a cool accessory (airpods), and a weird double camera thing, what's really pushing forward here?

Galaxies have been splash proof for some generations, and Bluetooth phones aren't new (only the design of this one seems to beat everything else).

Other than that, only traditional Moores Law advancements, like, more battery, more RAM, more processing power. None of these are enabling techs, in that they don't enable you to do anything that you can't with older devices.

So, I guess, update when the old one gives up the ghost?

msie• 10 years ago

Being able to collapse comments comes in real handy here! Collapsing the headphone-jack threads...

Ph0X• 10 years ago

Speaking of collapsing, does it feel really slow in this thread? It almost feels like their implementation is O(n) where n is the number of comments, and it's really struggling here. I see a very clear 500ms delay here whereas it's instant in most other threads...

sudeepj• 10 years ago

Wouldn't the AirPods will be very easy to lose? What if they drop-off while snoozing. I mean with wired headphones, even if they come out of the ear (say while sleeping on a long travel) they are still attached to the phone and hence cannot lose them.

alberthartman• 10 years ago

Steve jobs is dead. It shows.

jcoffland• 10 years ago

Mehhhh... Who cares?

Animats2• 10 years ago

Yawn.

Here's an ad for the 1957 Chevrolet Bel-Aire. (Available "with two four-barrel carburetors!" Two-tone paint! Tailfins!) There's about as much difference between the new IPhone and the N-1 model as there was between the 1956 and 1957 Chevys.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-HelvOG5RE

malloryerik• 10 years ago

What about the mic for voice calls?

jug2• 10 years ago

Surprised to see them not move from Lighting to USB-C with this. Now we'll have a new generation of EarPods that won't fit their new generation of MacBooks. It seems disjointed for how coherent a company like Apple tends to be, now that they had the opportunity to unite their product line better with purely digital audio.

Was USB-C supposed to be their future or not...? It sounded like it when they introduced the MacBook. Do their teams communicate well with a lack of strife?

gchokov5• 10 years ago

Let me say it simply, contrary to many others.. I am buying one.

Enlovened• 10 years ago

…

tempodox• 10 years ago

And destroying the headphone market with yet another incompatible plug. Count me out.

MrLeftHand3• 10 years ago

Great, now they have a phone with double camera wart and no jack.

Also what's up with Apple being so obsessed about pictures? I know you want to have the nude selfie in the toilet to be the best as possible, but come on!

And everything revolves around fitness. People wont get up from their bum, just because their watch tells them to. And the other who already do fitness don't need a watch to tell them how fit they are. They already know. Because they can feel it.

And I almost forgot that having now two different types of back casing is a feature apparently.

Last but not least, Apple is still ignoring the cries of millions of users about the battery life. That majority of the people would trade in the slim design for days worth of juice.

Who cares about paper thin phones when you have to put them into a case with extra battery within it to have it powered through the day?

Who cares about the seamless Jet Black casing when you put the phone into an ugly plastic case?

It looks like 'Form Over Function' again for Apple.

Good job apple, this is probably the most uninteresting keynote ever. Except for the people dancing in stockings at the end.

gruturo• 10 years ago

Also what's up with Apple being so obsessed about pictures? It's a very, very, very common and important use case for the phone. The iPhone has been for many years the "most popular camera in the world" according to pretty much any metric and any website (Flickr, Instagram, you name it). They can't keep substantially improving how well it makes phone calls, only tiny incremental improvements happen in that field, but they do frequently have newsworthy changes to the camera, and they know it's a hugely important aspect for the iPhone audience, so they make sure to tell you about it - be it Harry Potter photos, a Backside Illuminated CMOS sensor, more megapixels, better aperture, one more sensor sticking out from a random side, etc.

MrLeftHand3• 10 years ago

I understand this. As the first cameras were introduced in mobiles the trend is still on the rising. Also I haven't said that they should improve the the quality of the calls. We are talking about smartphones, there are hundreds of other thing to be improved or added.

I'm not saying they're not adding or upgrading other features, but it really feels like the biggest selling point is the camera now.

Like last year trying to sell 3 second videos as live photos.

mrweasel• 10 years ago

Apple isn't selling you an iPhone, they're selling you a dream. The idea is to make you want to be the person snapping all those great photos and most people want to be fit and active, even if we don't want to put in the effort. Apple is selling you the dream that if you just have an iPhone and Apple Watch you'll be motivated to get out, get fit, meet interesting people and sit around a fire at a beach on a summers night. That's why they are so focused on photo, and fitness.

There isn't really much innovation in the iPhone 7, it's just the next iteration of the models before it. It just doesn't sell that many phone telling people: Yeah it's a little fast, so if you feel that your phone fast enough, maybe don't buy it.

MrLeftHand3• 10 years ago

Nicely written.

It is true for a long time now, that Apple sells a lifestyle. It really kicked off when they introduced the iPod and the new line of Mac's not to mention the debut of the iPhone.

I'm not denying the genius behind their marketing strategy, but I'm wondering when this cow will start giving less milk.As more and more people in the upcoming generations are tech literate, the harder it will get to impress them with a better camera and a shiny gloss finish.

I feel this road doesn't lead to more useful innovations. Maybe it will lead to a fitter, happier life with loads of pictures in it.

72deluxe14• 10 years ago

The TMobile/Google G1 I had used to have no headphone jack and relied on an adapter. It was really annoying.

One point about the stereo speakers is that you'd need to put your face/nose right next to the phone to appreciate the stereo, surely?

coldtea3• 10 years ago

I think the only people that are annoyed with the camera bulge (a functional bulge if there ever was one) are people with OCD -- it "ruins" the perfectly straight edge. It's not like you'll ever feel it in your pocket or something.

Meanwhile, just a decade or so ago most phones had camera bulges, edge bulges, antennas that stretched out from the body, were 3-4 times the thickness, etc.

pankaj_k• 10 years ago

If there's so much courage, they should remove them jacks from their macbooks also ;)

nikon• 10 years ago

Really boring and hard to justify the cash. Wish I had a 6S so I could keep it for a year or so... I have iOS 10 right now and it's quite laggy on my 6.

Regarding the comments about how do I charge and listen, I accidentally found this dock[0]. Not sure if it's a new product.

[0] http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MNN62/iphone-lightning-doc...

exodust• 10 years ago

I wish people would care for the environment more and keep their phones and devices for longer.

Even the packaging mostly ends up in landfill. There is something unhealthy about "shiny new toys" released every year that we must have according to the media's frenzy of Apple advertising.

ksec• 10 years ago

Absolutely amazing HN thread, 1711 comment as of now and less then 10 are on A10 SoC?

It is truly a astonishing, how they manage to use the same TSMC 16nm, and get 40% single core performance increase. The rumors is the same SoC core from A9 but 40% higher clock speed from 1.8Ghz to 2.6Ghz, while keeping the same thermal envelop.

Some people were wondering if these Smartphone CPU can easily scale up the clockspeed. Turns out it can. And the performance could now exceed the baseline performance of Macbook.

i.e, Apart from compatibility reason, there is no longer a case for Apple to continue and use Intel CPU. A Quad Core A10 may even outrun the current Macbook Pro given the similar TDP.

SoloLady• 10 years ago

Will the AirPods be acceptable for use while on airline flights since airlines prohibit the use of WiFi devices?

iPhone 7

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