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I use the optical digital out from the headphone port about 8 hours a day. It's connected to my audio technical dac/headphone amp. I'll only be interested in w

I use the optical digital out from the headphone port about 8 hours a day. It's connected to my audio technical dac/headphone amp. I'll only be interested in wireless headphones once they actually have decent quality. And even then, I already have very good Beyerdynamic headphones (the T90 and the DT880) and I don't see why I'd spend money to change them. I'd be rather annoyed at not having hdmi or sd card mostly because carrying dongles is a pain. It's kind of sad but Apple products just do not excite me anymore. I remember before I used to try and follow the keynote to see the new iphone or I looked forward to seeing the first intel macbook when it was unveiled... Now, I look at the iphone 7 and there's really nothing in it that makes me want to buy it. There hasn't really been anything new with their laptop either (ok, maybe the new small macbook is not bad it's a good travel notebook)...

nitrogen 10y ago
Things might be interesting again if Apple ever tells the world what they're doing with the PrimeSense (designer of the original Kinect) assets they bought. Consumer depth-sensing cameras took a major step backward when they pulled the plug on PrimeSense.
- nicolas_t 10y ago
  Oh yes, that's a good point. I really hope they release something based on that.
- soylentcola 10y ago
  I've been messing around with a RealSense depth cam lately and it's been somewhat interesting. In the past I played around with an old gen1 Kinect using stuff like TouchDesigner and ZVector but had to hold off on picking up a gen2 Kinect when the adapter needed for PC hookup was somewhat pricey and always on back order. I haven't gotten into the gritty details yet and have only been using it with TouchDesigner and ZVector Touch so far but it's fairly promising as a low cost, decent quality RGB+depth camera.
- alasdair_ 10y ago
  I presume these assets were bought so they would have a competitor to Google's Project Tango if it takes off. The first Tango phone from LG is far too big and underpowered but future Android phones could have this stuff built in unobtrusively. Couple that with better AR games (a new version of Pokemon GO, for instance) and Apple will badly need something similar to compete.
sirn 10y ago
Genuine question, is there any particular reason DAC is connected via optical rather than USB? Or was it because AT's DAC do not have USB support? I asked this question because I initially thought anyone with an high-end headphones are least likely to be affected if Apple removed headphone port from a Mac (because the included headphone port usually isn't powerful enough to drive some of the high-end models anyway, and many would likely to replace the DAC too, in addition to adding an Amp.)
- the_mitsuhiko 10y ago
  The reason against USB was always latency. Firewire was doing better in that regard but optical was hard to beat. Not sure if that has changed since.
  - dietrichepp 10y ago
    Yes, that's some pretty old information, but I used to think the same thing. The main cause of latency is audio buffer size. At the same buffer size, the difference between FireWire, USB, and optical is not really enough to care about. The main reason you'd use a higher buffer size is if your software can't handle half as much data in half as much time. There were some problems with old software and hardware that have been resolved for the past ten years or so, but USB audio could be problematic in the early 2000s. Optical was never really any better than FireWire in terms of latency.
    - the_mitsuhiko 10y ago
      > The main cause of latency is audio buffer size. Right. I'm really not an expert on this but my understanding is that with S/PDIF supposedly you have a control over the buffers on either side whereas with USB audio you are limited by the USB spec.
      - dietrichepp 10y ago
        Eh, that's not a very accurate way to describe things. S/PDIF itself transmits samples of audio one at a time, whereas USB transmits frames encoded in packets, but in practice there are going to be hardware buffers of some size, and the software will process one buffer at a time. The end result means that there are no real advantages to S/PDIF, and a number of serious disadvantages.

nitrogen 10y ago

Things might be interesting again if Apple ever tells the world what they're doing with the PrimeSense (designer of the original Kinect) assets they bought. Consumer depth-sensing cameras took a major step backward when they pulled the plug on PrimeSense.

nicolas_t 10y ago
Oh yes, that's a good point. I really hope they release something based on that.
soylentcola 10y ago
I've been messing around with a RealSense depth cam lately and it's been somewhat interesting. In the past I played around with an old gen1 Kinect using stuff like TouchDesigner and ZVector but had to hold off on picking up a gen2 Kinect when the adapter needed for PC hookup was somewhat pricey and always on back order. I haven't gotten into the gritty details yet and have only been using it with TouchDesigner and ZVector Touch so far but it's fairly promising as a low cost, decent quality RGB+depth camera.
alasdair_ 10y ago
I presume these assets were bought so they would have a competitor to Google's Project Tango if it takes off. The first Tango phone from LG is far too big and underpowered but future Android phones could have this stuff built in unobtrusively. Couple that with better AR games (a new version of Pokemon GO, for instance) and Apple will badly need something similar to compete.

sirn 10y ago

Genuine question, is there any particular reason DAC is connected via optical rather than USB? Or was it because AT's DAC do not have USB support? I asked this question because I initially thought anyone with an high-end headphones are least likely to be affected if Apple removed headphone port from a Mac (because the included headphone port usually isn't powerful enough to drive some of the high-end models anyway, and many would likely to replace the DAC too, in addition to adding an Amp.)

the_mitsuhiko 10y ago
The reason against USB was always latency. Firewire was doing better in that regard but optical was hard to beat. Not sure if that has changed since.
- dietrichepp 10y ago
  Yes, that's some pretty old information, but I used to think the same thing. The main cause of latency is audio buffer size. At the same buffer size, the difference between FireWire, USB, and optical is not really enough to care about. The main reason you'd use a higher buffer size is if your software can't handle half as much data in half as much time. There were some problems with old software and hardware that have been resolved for the past ten years or so, but USB audio could be problematic in the early 2000s. Optical was never really any better than FireWire in terms of latency.
  - the_mitsuhiko 10y ago
    > The main cause of latency is audio buffer size. Right. I'm really not an expert on this but my understanding is that with S/PDIF supposedly you have a control over the buffers on either side whereas with USB audio you are limited by the USB spec.
    - dietrichepp 10y ago
      Eh, that's not a very accurate way to describe things. S/PDIF itself transmits samples of audio one at a time, whereas USB transmits frames encoded in packets, but in practice there are going to be hardware buffers of some size, and the software will process one buffer at a time. The end result means that there are no real advantages to S/PDIF, and a number of serious disadvantages.