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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 ins

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?

serge2k 10y ago
Because Apple. I really don't want a shitty android phone. Might get a 6s I guess. I damaged my 6 recently.
- amiga-workbench 10y ago
  Then choose a good one.
usaphp 10y ago
We have bluetooth headphones, which work on iPhones, Androids and computers.
- Lammy 10y ago
  The latency of bluetooth headphones makes things like mobile rhythm games unplayable.
  - mrob 10y ago
    Don't most rhythm games have a latency calibration option? Rhythm games don't need low latency, only predictable latency.
    - Lammy 10y ago
      My iPad 3 is pretty much "the Reflec Beat machine" and while it does have a timing adjustment option it only moves the moment in time that it uses for judgement. If I delay it to compensate for wireless earbuds then it will be visually delayed too past the judge line. Sure they can compensate for this with more options but I like sane defaults. I have never had to touch this slider because zero is already perfect, and in games with separate audio and visual lag compensation options I'm never confident that I've gotten it accurate. This isn't something you should have to ask the user to do. https://i.imgur.com/qU2TEP5.jpg https://i.imgur.com/qU2TEP5.jpg
      - Fej 10y ago
        I've pretty much given up rhythm gaming on mobile platforms. There's always going to be too much overhead and too many unknown variables. Only games that I think have ever gotten this right (insofar as lag correction can be "right") is the Rock Band series, which has auto lag compensation via a photosensor and mic on the guitars. I imagine the best rhythm game experiences will remain on crappy PCs running Windows XP Embedded for a while.
  - riboflava 10y ago
    It depends on the headset. Of course with an audio jack the other end would have to be doing something very wrong to induce a comparable lag.
  - criddell 10y ago
    The phone has a pretty good microphone. It should be able to adjust latency by having you hold an ear bud up to the mic.
- sosuke 10y ago
  Some silly stuff happens with bluetooth headphones such as my PS3 bluetooth headset being unable to hear music played from the iPhone but they work fine for calls.
- chris_7 10y ago
  Well, they work... sometimes.
jacquesm 10y ago
> so now we have iPhone headphones and Android headphones. I think you answered your own question there.
zanny 10y 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?
- AlphaSite 10y ago
  It's the same problem as with USB C, Vulkan is predated by Apples own standard and you can't change it without hurting someone. Apple made the decision that they would rather save their own customers unnecessary pain.
  - jpetso 10y ago
    You can't change it from one day to another, but Apple has all the power to add Vulkan as alternative interface to the same hardware, in addition to the Metal API. They can do this at any time, now or in the future, without inflicting pain on anyone. Eventually Metal won't be used anymore since there's no point in using the less portable API with the same capabilities. Finally, once use of Metal is low enough, discontinue it in a new iOS/macOS update. Upgrades with parallel maintenance and deprecation timelines are well understood, and very feasible for a company with Apple's engineering prowess. There's really no argument other than continued lock-in to stick with Metal only.
  - zanny 10y ago
    > save their own customers unnecessary pain. The pain is going to be that very few video games will be ported to OSX / iOS unless they dramatically increase their market size to justify the heavy cost to port to Metal just for those systems. If Apple cared about customers in this case, it would be an obvious choice to use Vulkan to pressure developers into using the industry standard rather than the Microsoft only product they are using predominantly now.
    - mahyarm 10y ago
      Or the 4 engines that most games are made in will just add a metal layer. Or you use something like https://moltengl.com/ https://moltengl.com/ to make a direct opengl -> metal wrapper. And sales is what will drive ports.
cm2187 10y ago
iPhone headphones (ligtning), Android headphones (USB-C) and laptop/desktop or any old device (audio jack)
niftich 10y 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.
- TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
  I think that removing the headphone jack could be justified if they were moving to an open standard. But instead they're moving to Lightning.
  - niftich 10y ago
    There is an open standard; it's the analog headphone jack. </sarcasm> But there is no 'other' open standard yet, although Intel and other vendors are pondering it [1]. This doesn't mean that HDMI or DisplayPort can't be shoehorned to do it and you can't carry those over the USB type-C plug, but they're meant for other things. This type of 'let's invent one that meets our needs slightly better than the 5 others' is what leads to standards proliferating (and I'll avoid linking the xkcd). [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12305410 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12305410
guelo 10y 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 10y ago
Now we have iPhone headphones and MacBook headphones, even worse.
- mulmen 10y ago
  The AirPods are Bluetooth so they should work with the MacBook too.
theshrike79 10y 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.

serge2k 10y ago

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

amiga-workbench 10y ago
Then choose a good one.

usaphp 10y ago

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

Lammy 10y ago
The latency of bluetooth headphones makes things like mobile rhythm games unplayable.
- mrob 10y ago
  Don't most rhythm games have a latency calibration option? Rhythm games don't need low latency, only predictable latency.
  - Lammy 10y ago
    My iPad 3 is pretty much "the Reflec Beat machine" and while it does have a timing adjustment option it only moves the moment in time that it uses for judgement. If I delay it to compensate for wireless earbuds then it will be visually delayed too past the judge line. Sure they can compensate for this with more options but I like sane defaults. I have never had to touch this slider because zero is already perfect, and in games with separate audio and visual lag compensation options I'm never confident that I've gotten it accurate. This isn't something you should have to ask the user to do. https://i.imgur.com/qU2TEP5.jpg https://i.imgur.com/qU2TEP5.jpg
    - Fej 10y ago
      I've pretty much given up rhythm gaming on mobile platforms. There's always going to be too much overhead and too many unknown variables. Only games that I think have ever gotten this right (insofar as lag correction can be "right") is the Rock Band series, which has auto lag compensation via a photosensor and mic on the guitars. I imagine the best rhythm game experiences will remain on crappy PCs running Windows XP Embedded for a while.
- riboflava 10y ago
  It depends on the headset. Of course with an audio jack the other end would have to be doing something very wrong to induce a comparable lag.
- criddell 10y ago
  The phone has a pretty good microphone. It should be able to adjust latency by having you hold an ear bud up to the mic.
sosuke 10y ago
Some silly stuff happens with bluetooth headphones such as my PS3 bluetooth headset being unable to hear music played from the iPhone but they work fine for calls.
chris_7 10y ago
Well, they work... sometimes.

jacquesm 10y ago

> so now we have iPhone headphones and Android headphones. I think you answered your own question there.

zanny 10y 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?

AlphaSite 10y ago
It's the same problem as with USB C, Vulkan is predated by Apples own standard and you can't change it without hurting someone. Apple made the decision that they would rather save their own customers unnecessary pain.
- jpetso 10y ago
  You can't change it from one day to another, but Apple has all the power to add Vulkan as alternative interface to the same hardware, in addition to the Metal API. They can do this at any time, now or in the future, without inflicting pain on anyone. Eventually Metal won't be used anymore since there's no point in using the less portable API with the same capabilities. Finally, once use of Metal is low enough, discontinue it in a new iOS/macOS update. Upgrades with parallel maintenance and deprecation timelines are well understood, and very feasible for a company with Apple's engineering prowess. There's really no argument other than continued lock-in to stick with Metal only.
- zanny 10y ago
  > save their own customers unnecessary pain. The pain is going to be that very few video games will be ported to OSX / iOS unless they dramatically increase their market size to justify the heavy cost to port to Metal just for those systems. If Apple cared about customers in this case, it would be an obvious choice to use Vulkan to pressure developers into using the industry standard rather than the Microsoft only product they are using predominantly now.
  - mahyarm 10y ago
    Or the 4 engines that most games are made in will just add a metal layer. Or you use something like https://moltengl.com/ https://moltengl.com/ to make a direct opengl -> metal wrapper. And sales is what will drive ports.

cm2187 10y ago

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

niftich 10y 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.

TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
I think that removing the headphone jack could be justified if they were moving to an open standard. But instead they're moving to Lightning.
- niftich 10y ago
  There is an open standard; it's the analog headphone jack. </sarcasm> But there is no 'other' open standard yet, although Intel and other vendors are pondering it [1]. This doesn't mean that HDMI or DisplayPort can't be shoehorned to do it and you can't carry those over the USB type-C plug, but they're meant for other things. This type of 'let's invent one that meets our needs slightly better than the 5 others' is what leads to standards proliferating (and I'll avoid linking the xkcd). [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12305410 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12305410

guelo 10y 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 10y ago

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

mulmen 10y ago
The AirPods are Bluetooth so they should work with the MacBook too.

theshrike79 10y 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.