Hi. There is always Android! I won't be investing in another iPhone if
this is the case. It's just as bloody well I can use both operating
systems. With Android, everything is standard across the board and you
don't need special adaptors and chargers.
On 04/12/2015, Husna Begum <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
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From: Jonathan Mosen
Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 2015 3:49 PM
To: viphone@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Apple, Don't Take my Headphone Jack Away
Hi everyone, I waited a few days to see if this issue might be raised by
someone else. But I'll raise it here myself, because I'm not sure whether
Apple may be flying a kite here and seeing what reaction this idea gets.
There's an unconfirmed rumour from a source that has in the past been
credible, that the next generation iPhone will not include a headphone jack,
so Apple can make the phone thinner.
I'm pasting a blog post that I wrote and published on this subject 72 hours
ago. Here goes.
I like thin, lightweight technology, but it isn’t the only criterion that
determines what I use. If thin and light doesn’t give me the performance I
need, I’m happy to choose something heavier or bigger.
When the iPhone 6 Plus came out, I bought one. Initially, it seemed
absolutely enormous, and I thought I’d never get used to it. Now I’m on the
6s Plus and would never go back to a smaller iPhone. The battery life and
the bigger screen for Braille screen input make it the right choice for me.
After being a MacBook Air user for three years, I recently bought a 15-inch
MacBook Pro with all the specs maxed out. It includes 16GB of RAM and 1TB
solid state storage.
Compared to my MacBook Air, the Pro feels heavy and thick, and I’ve
therefore given it the nickname “The Big Kahuna”. But it fits in my backpack
just fine when I travel, it isn’t really that arduous to take places, and
the thing is, it goes like a rocket. I enjoy having OS X for a few apps and
functions, but Windows is still my primary operating system. With a laptop
this fast and powerful, I can run JAWS in a virtual machine with superb
results, and still tend to iMessages and FaceTime calls.
Sometimes I pick up my old MacBook Air and think, “oy, what have I done?
This thing is so cute!” But the performance factor soon reminds me that I
made the right decision for my particular needs.
There’s plenty of choice of form factor in the MacBook line now. If you want
to go ultra-portable, there’s the new 12-inch retina MacBook, which is just
adorably thin and light, with compromises to match. It sports a single USB
type C port, which is the only way both to connect peripherals to it and
charge it. And the keyboard is, to put it charitably, an acquired taste.
So when it comes to Mac, Apple now has a line-up that can meet the needs of
the road warrior who wants something really light for a bit of word
processing, email and web surfing, all the way to someone who needs plenty
of grunt and is willing to lug it around.
There is not so much flexibility in the iPhone stable, where there are
usually now two current models with similar specs but different screen
sizes. So when I read a rumour that Apple may dispense with the 3.5mm
headphone jack in iPhone 7 models, it had me concerned.
Before I explain why, let me be clear that Apple itself has made no official
statement about the future of the headphone jack. It’s only a rumour. But I
read a lot of technology sources, and have come to know which sources tend
to be more reliable. The source of this story, the Japanese technology site
Mac Otakara, has a good track record. No news site that reports things like
this gets it right 100% of the time though. It’s also possible that Apple
wants to monitor customer reaction to the idea, by letting it leak. But
there’s no doubt that decisions as fundamental as this are being taken now,
or probably have already been taken.
You can read an English summary of the story at Mac Rumours.
Even if the story is wrong, and I hope it is, I want to write a defence of
the headphone jack for those who think its loss wouldn’t be a big deal. Some
of us really, genuinely need it.
The story suggests that the 3.5mm headphone jack will be dispensed with,
because it’s preventing Apple from making the iPhone thinner. If they
removed the jack, they could shave more than 1mm off the thickness of the
phone.
If this rumour is correct, Apple would probably include Earpods with a
Lightning connector, since specs for headphones that use the Lightning port
have been available since 2014.
According to the story, the Lightning port would include a digital to
analogue converter, so you’d still be able to connect 3.5mm headphones.
There is no word in the story that this Lightning port would be in addition
to the one already on iPhones, implying that you’ll have one port for both
charging your device and listening to wired headphones or connecting the
device to a mixer.
My first objection to this rumour is a philosophical one. 3.5mm headphone
jacks are ubiquitous. The standard is supported by a massive number of
manufacturers. It would be sad if Apple required its users to carry a
proprietary adapter, probably sold separately, to connect standard equipment
to their single proprietary port. But they’ve done this before. Even on my
maxed out MacBook Pro, I have to buy a special adapter just to connect to
wired Ethernet.
My remaining concerns relate to functionality. As a hearing-aid wearer, I
use my iPhone with a cable between the headphone jack and my hearing aids
about 95% of the time. There’s no latency because it’s analogue all the way,
and since no Bluetooth is involved, it’s energy efficient in terms of
hearing aid battery usage. The Lightning to analogue adapter would be one
additional device to carry, use and potentially lose, and it would mean that
I couldn’t use my iPhone in the way that is optimal for me while I’m
charging it. There’s also the possibility that the digital to analogue
converter may introduce latency. That wouldn’t be important for most tasks,
but it would be detrimental to all VoiceOver users who use 3.5mm devices,
not just hearing aid wearers.
But there’s always Bluetooth, and that’s the way the world is going, right?
There may be a few exceptions, but the majority of Bluetooth audio I’ve used
on iOS is laggy with VoiceOver, Apple’s built-in screen reader for blind
people like me, that I find it a frustrating, sub-optimal experience.
Streamers for hearing aid wearers often power down very quickly after
VoiceOver has stopped speaking, to save energy. This means that hearing aid
wearers who use VoiceOver with Bluetooth streamers often must cope with
missing the first second or two of what VoiceOver is saying, as the
Bluetooth streamer powers up after detecting audio. If you’re taking a phone
call or listening to music, that’s no big deal, but for a VoiceOver user,
it’s not a good experience. And Bluetooth streamers chew through hearing aid
batteries faster than an analogue connection, imposing additional costs on
hearing aid wearers.
Taking hearing impairment out of the mix, there are many people who use the
3.5mm jack, and want to do so while charging their device. Bonnie, for
example, has a pillow speaker, because she likes the radio on at night. It
plugs into her iPhone while it’s charging.
We may be about to see a similar controversy with iPhone to the one that
greeted the new MacBook’s single USB C port and all the inconveniences that
go with that. When that controversy was at its peak, proponents said that
Apple often likes to move the tech agenda forward, and that they’re uniquely
positioned to do that by making “bold” decisions like this. Sorry, I don’t
consider a single port for peripherals and charging a bold decision. It’s
just a pain. If you want to use multiple devices, you have to buy some sort
of hub, which detracts from the convenience of having an all-in-one device.
I realise that as a VoiceOver user with a hearing impairment passionate
about getting the most optimal audio experience, I’m a minority within a
minority. But if this rumour proves to be true, it will be my queue to
seriously examine other mobile options. I really don’t want a phone one more
millimetre thinner, when it’s going to create an experience for me that
would be poorer.
Jonathan Mosen
Mosen Consulting
Blindness technology eBooks, tutorials and training
http://Mosen.org
No virus found in this message.
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Version: 2015.0.6176 / Virus Database: 4477/11097 - Release Date: 12/01/15
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