16 ms·

Apple’s $9 engineering marvel no one wants (2017)

214 points by wheresvic1 8y ago

_bxg1 8y ago
It's weird that this much quality went into the guts, but they couldn't make the cable on it a little more sturdy. I use mine sparingly, but it feels like it's going to break if I look at it the wrong way, and I've read that some people have to replace it every couple months.
- d-sc 8y ago
  I understand where you are coming from. I have a couple of these of my own. Apple probably doesn’t want to make these stronger than the things the connect to: eg headphones or the phone. Within certain load profiles the weakest component will suffer most of the wear. Would you rather the connector broke on the $9 adapter or the $1500 phone?
  - Dylan16807 8y ago
    It's not the connector that breaks. Making the actual cable thicker shouldn't cause anything else to fail first, and the nature of a short piece of cable connected directly to a phone is to get horribly bent all the time; it needs thickness.
zdragnar 8y ago
> Personally, I’m amazed whenever I use it but I always wonder for a moment, “what if Apple just made what people wanted?” "What people want" is pretty slippery. For every person I've heard complain about needing the dongle, I've known at least one or two others who exclusively use the wireless ear buds and wouldn't go back. YMMV.
- epberry 8y ago
  Give it a few years I think most people will look at this like removing the CD. The wireless audio experience is mostly better. Airpods for example connect and disconnect effortlessly. Being able to walk all over the office while on the phone has done wonders for my pacing.
  - b_tterc_p 8y ago
    It's already been a few years and people are still annoyed by it. Airpods are great, but they're also expensive. Saying wireless is better isn't a fair comparison either, because wireless is an option even with a headphone jack, and most people still use wired headphones anyway with a much less convenient connector.
    - culturestate 8y ago
      I would be willing to take a bet that if you stood at one of the entrances to Times Square for 24 hours and tallied wired vs. wireless headphones, wireless would come out on top. NPD had wireless overtaking wired in sales (obviously this doesn’t account for people using bundled earphones) for the first time back in 2016: https://qz.com/745108/wireless-headphone-sales-just-hit-a-tipping-point/ https://qz.com/745108/wireless-headphone-sales-just-hit-a-ti...
      - mixmastamyk 8y ago
        When wireless is much more expensive, this is unlikely.
        culturestate 8y ago
        Even before the iPhone lost its headphone jack, NPD already pegged the share of wireless headphones under $50 at 30% of the (again, already larger) wireless market. The demand has only grown since then, and the market has responded. The most popular pair of bluetooth headphones on Amazon is waterproof, has 4.5 stars, and only costs $20: https://www.amazon.com/LETSCOM-Headphones-Waterproof-Sweatproof-Cancelling/dp/B07DXQTCQL/ https://www.amazon.com/LETSCOM-Headphones-Waterproof-Sweatpr...
    - ryandrake 8y ago
      Honestly I’m shocked that the headphone jack outrage is still a thing. When they removed the jack, I thought, “people will be mad for a few weeks then just forget about it, like they forgot about cassettes.” Here we are in 2019 and people are still complaining about it! If anything, it’s been great PR for Apple. It has served as an anger lightning rod, distracting people from Apple’s other actual problems, focusing everyone’s rage on this other stupid thing.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- TruthSHIFT 8y ago
  Designing for what people want is how you get a Homer Simpson car. https://simpsonswiki.com/wiki/The_Homer https://simpsonswiki.com/wiki/The_Homer
  - nemacol 8y ago
    Designing for what a single idiot wants is how you get a Homer Simpson car. My desire for a headphone jack and an SD card support is hardly going to give the phone three horns.
- sorenjan 8y ago
  Isn't the whole point of agile development to better respond to what the customer wants? Instead of trying to dictate what features the customers get? I used wireless ear buds exclusively before Apple removed the 3.5 mm jack, but when I lost them I was glad I had a headphone jack so I could use a wired pair until I bought new wireless ones. The thing about phones with headphone jacks is that it gives you a choice, since wireless still works.
  - mixmastamyk 8y ago
    A yearly hardware release is about as "waterfall" as it gets these days.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    Apple can’t very well be “agile” with yearly releases when it takes multiple years just to design/test/ramp up the supply line for a new iPhone. It’s not like they can just push the design to git and have a two week release cycle.
elsewhen 8y ago
site seems down. google cache: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ckxU-AKUcgAJ:https://misfra.me/2017/12/12/apples-9-dollar-engineering-marvel-no-one-wants/+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ckxU-A...
golfer 8y ago
HN hug of death? "503 Service Unavailable" Here's the Google Cache link: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fmisfra.me%2F2017%2F12%2F12%2Fapples-9-dollar-engineering-marvel-no-one-wants%2F&oq=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fmisfra.me%2F2017%2F12%2F12%2Fapples-9-dollar-engineering-marvel-no-one-wants http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttps...
- aboutruby 8y ago
  I'm having trouble with the google cache version too, so here is the archive.org version: https://web.archive.org/web/20190408150115/https://misfra.me/2017/12/12/apples-9-dollar-engineering-marvel-no-one-wants/ https://web.archive.org/web/20190408150115/https://misfra.me...
- misframer 8y ago
  Author here. Sorry, resizing my droplet now.
  - Nextgrid 8y ago
    Just wondering if you can share your stack and what kind of traffic did you get (in terms of requests/second)? Always curious as to how much traffic HN really brings and why some sites stay up and others die.
    - marcosscriven 8y ago
      Generally two possibilities for managing a large load - either a third party blogging provider that can deal with it, or a static site. Why anyone hosts small blogs on self-hosted VPNs is beyond me - all sorts of problems including security maintenance and peaky load. You can go one further with caching, but that’s yet another moving part that’s not necessary for a simple site.
    - liquidise 8y ago
      Some stats from my front-page a month ago: - Time on front page: 15 min - Views in first 15 min: ~5000 - Views in first 60 min: ~7000 - Views in first 600 min: ~11,000 - Views over the next 5 days: ~5000 HN front pages bring a bunch of users quickly, but it isn't a scale that will cripple moderate hardware with some basic performance tuning (directly serving assets, for example). The tail is also great, fully 3/4 of my post-front-page views come from click-throughs on social.
jdillaaa 8y ago
I am pretty convinced that this greatly degrades audio quality on my aux headphones. Bluetooth quality is normal, but with this cable, I can hear the difference. When plugged into an amp/speaker the grain is so abundantly obvious (compared to a BT or AUX connection)
- thesumofall 8y ago
  https://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/lightning-adapter-audio-quality.htm https://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/lightning-adapter-audio-qu... seems to disagree. Could it be a question of the higher quality output (in comparison to BT) highlighting a lower quality source signal?
josefresco 8y ago
> But guess what? No one wants it With 794 reviews, clearly some people want it. The bad reviews tell us more accurately that; "no one likes it".
- kminehart 8y ago
  i think the point is that people have to buy it, not that they buy it because they want it.
NickBusey 8y ago
In the years that have passed since switching to an iPhone without a headphone jack, I have never once needed to use that dongle. Bluetooth more than covers my use cases. So the article is correct, I don't want it, but I also don't need it.
- Aloha 8y ago
  I picked up one of the belkin adapters that lets me charge and use headphones - I mostly use it with an over the ear headset, for conference calls, as I often have to dial in for multi-hour conference calls, which kinda beat the endurance of most bluetooth options.
  - maccard 8y ago
    My noise cancelling bluetooth headphones claim 30 hours battery life. I've tested 17 hours straight while flying (including layovers). That's longer than my phone lasts without a charger.
    - Aloha 8y ago
      I hate double ear devices for phone calls.
      - maccard 8y ago
        That's a totally fair gripe. There are plenty of wireless bluetooth earphones/earplugs with 10/12 hours battery life, which is roughly the battery life of my Pixel 3 when used.
        Aloha 8y ago
        I just got away from them because I'd lose them, forget to charge them or break them.
- dbcurtis 8y ago
  > Bluetooth more than covers my use cases. That is great for you. But when Apple designers decide that everyone should be forced into your category, they are actively deciding not to have empathy for the users for whom Bluetooth does not cover their use cases. Good product design starts with empathy for every user. Apple has written off entire categories of users. I assume it is not because the don't know how to gather user data, it is because the actively DO NOT CARE. For me, someone who: a) still has their hearing, b) has been listening to classical music for decades, c) has a collection of carefully and critically chosen wired headphones, the lack of a headphone jack is a gigantic FU.
javagram 8y ago
Might be worth adding a [2017] tag.
benbristow 8y ago
I would've preferred a headphone jack as I've already lost mine.
- kalleboo 8y ago
  I've lost like 4 of them by now
  - wilsonnb3 8y ago
    https://www.amazon.com/Dongle-Dangler-Keychain-Accessory-Compatible/dp/B01MSYT8HH https://www.amazon.com/Dongle-Dangler-Keychain-Accessory-Com... I keep mine on my keys, haven't lost it yet.
    - prolepunk 8y ago
      A dangle for a dongle. :)
    - dontbenebby 8y ago
      Semi serious question: but where do you keep your keys? (When I don't have a bag, I find my current keyring bulky as it is...)
    - kalleboo 8y ago
      That's a brilliant product
BooneJS 8y ago
It wasn’t “free” in terms of money. Neither were the tires that came with my car. It’s also not free in terms of time spent thinking about them. Like all dongles, I have to remember to bring them wherever I go in case I need them. They’re an engineering marvel, no doubt about it. I just wish I didn’t maybe need it.
blub 8y ago
An engineering marvel necessary because of product design stupidity. One can neither use the same headphones for a Mac and iPhone, nor charge an iPhone from a Mac using the cables that come with the devices. I barely use that crap adapter because it's inconvenient. Thank goodness Macs still support headphone jacks.
- eropple 8y ago
  > One can neither use the same headphones for a Mac and iPhone, nor charge an iPhone from a Mac using the cables that come with the devices. The latter is very much true, but my headphones (not Apple ones) pair to two Bluetooth hosts at a time. I use them regularly with my laptop and my iPhone. You have to pause the audio output from one to use the other, granted, but it's not a big deal.
- baby 8y ago
  I use the air pods now, so it works on every machine except my nintendo switch :(
  - lazyjones 8y ago
    Surely you can buy a $10 BT transmitter that plugs into the 3.5mm jack?
    - zdwolfe 8y ago
      I've tried that - a cheap BT transmitter has latency high enough that the sound is out of sync with the game.
  - CodeWriter23 8y ago
    Can you tell me why I’m always seeing AirPod users with only one headphone in their ear?
    - Kye 8y ago
      To listen for hazards while outside. I don't know about inside.
terryschiavo22 8y ago
This doesn't replace the fact that I never wanted my headphone jack taken away in the first place. They broke a perfectly good thing in the name of $200 wireless earbuds.
- ceejayoz 8y ago
  They broke a perfectly good thing in the name of water intrusion, didn't they? IIRC Apple said the headphone jack was the single biggest source of damage. The first device to ditch the jack was Apple's first device to hit IP67 rating. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207043 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207043
  - alexvoda 8y ago
    Plenty of other companies make or made IP68 waterproof phones with exposed headphone jacks. It's not an issue.
    - ceejayoz 8y ago
      It's entirely possible that Apple doesn't like/trust the way their competitors approached waterproofing.
      - iainmerrick 8y ago
        Given all the many hardware problems Samsung has had -- exploding batteries!! -- if there was a flaw in their waterproofing don’t you think it would have been publicised by now? I haven’t heard any such reports. If doing it “the Sony way” would involve making the phone 1mm thicker, okay, I can easily believe Apple would decide they need to rip it up completely and do something different. Samsung and Sony phones aren’t exactly chunky, though. I would have been really happy with just a waterproof iPhone 6. Then maybe they could follow that up with an iPhone X with a headphone jack. Still do AirPods, just market them as a completely independent product.
      - amaccuish 8y ago
ericabiz 8y ago
I have non-anecdotal evidence that people definitely buy the Lightning to headphone adapter. We sell them in our stores and it's one of our biggest accessory sales. You know why people buy them all the time, though? Because, frankly, it's a terrible design. It's tiny, easy to lose or forget, and they break easily. That's why it has such terrible reviews in the Apple store site--it's not a good product for what it is. I deal with Apple products on the daily, and the removal of the headphone jack is still one of the things that irritates me most about Apple. The others would be: the whole battery scandal where Apple slowed down older phones without explaining that the battery, a replaceable component, was the issue. And the 2016-2018 MacBook keyboards, which are an absolute travesty. The headphone to Lightning adapter may be a "marvel of engineering", but it was a completely unnecessary one. It doesn't create more room inside the phone, and Samsung had water-resistant phones with headphone jacks. It's basically designed to force you on to more expensive wireless headphones.
- LeoPanthera 8y ago
  > It doesn't create more room inside the phone Can you elaborate on this? Because it seems like it obviously would. 3.5mm jacks have got to go somewhere.
  - ericabiz 8y ago
    Sure. A lot of people thought when Apple removed the headphone jack that it would make room for a bigger battery, specifically. But Apple didn't use the space that way. They put the Taptic Engine there instead. The bigger Taptic engine on e.g. an iPhone 8 vs. 6 is used for two things: 1) 7/8 series have a home button that doesn't actually push. The Taptic Engine mimics the feel of a button push. 2) It allows for different types of vibration, e.g. when hitting the corner of the screen while dragging or for more subtle notifications. (https://www.androidcentral.com/its-2018-and-android-phones-still-cant-compare-iphones-taptic-engine https://www.androidcentral.com/its-2018-and-android-phones-s...) The iPhone 6 battery is 1810mAh, whereas the 8 is 1821mAh. So they didn't increase the battery size; they added the Taptic Engine instead, and got rid of the mechanical home button. Articles gush about the Taptic Engine, but I'd still rather have my headphone jack back. And I liked the clicky home buttons.
MR4D 8y ago
If they made a USB-C version of this, they could sell them for 3 times that price and probably run out of stock.
- linkingday 8y ago
  Now I'm interested in what the Google version that comes with the Pixel 3/XL is like
- sarreph 8y ago
  Googled that for you: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MU7E2AM/A/usb-c-to-35-mm-headphone-jack-adapter https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MU7E2AM/A/usb-c-to-35-mm-...
- sirn 8y ago
  They do, and it also costs $9[1]. I bought one after I realized (the hard way) that the new iPad Pro doesn't have a headphone jack… [1]: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MU7E2AM/A/usb-c-to-35-mm-headphone-jack-adapter https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MU7E2AM/A/usb-c-to-35-mm-...
  - davio 8y ago
    Especially interesting since Apple doesn't make USB-C headphones. I can tolerate the iPhones shipping with Lightning headphones. For the iPad Pro I guess the only official solution is AirPods.
delibes 8y ago
Hug of death - archive link: http://archive.is/rQqtB http://archive.is/rQqtB
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
locklock 8y ago
I've been using Mac products since I was a child (thanks, dad) more or less happily and the removal of the headphone jack and the requirement that you have these adaptors has been the first thing to make me seriously consider going elsewhere. I probably won't, due to years of lock-in, but to rephrase it's the worst experience I've had with anything Apple in my lifetime. I've had three adaptors, two Apple ones that broke in separate ways (one would keep firing commands randomly from the control buttons on my headphones, the other lost the right channel entirely) and a crappy third party one that just fell apart. Even when the adaptor works, having a dongle sticking out of your pants pocket is a total pain that nobody really asked for. It solves no problem, it's in no way better than the previous alternative, and it really just reads like a massive "fuck you, pay me" from Apple to their customers. I settled on non-Apple bluetooth headphones, which have their own set of problems but at least I can reliably listen to music during my commute (for the most part).
n1000 8y ago
Not everybody agrees about the sound quality, compared to the jacks on iDevices: - [German] https://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/iPhone-7-nachgemessen-Audio-Adapter-liefert-schlechteren-Sound-3325932.html https://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/iPhone-7-nachgemessen-Audio-... - [Summarising the above] https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/256241/45492 https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/256241/45492 - Another test: http://soundexpert.org/articles/-/blogs/audio-quality-of-lightning-to-3-5mm-headphone-jack-adapter http://soundexpert.org/articles/-/blogs/audio-quality-of-lig... - https://ifixit.org/blog/8448/apple-audio-adapter-teardown/ https://ifixit.org/blog/8448/apple-audio-adapter-teardown/
PascLeRasc 8y ago
It is an impressive engineering feat, and certainly better than the Android ones that just pass analog through the USB-C jack, but it's worth noting that this DAC performs worse than what it replaced [1]. Dynamics have less range, there's more THD, and output impedance is lower, so it's harder to drive heavier headphones. I noticed a difference in clarity using Audio-Technica ATH-M50s and Beyerdynamic DT 990 250Ω. Specifically, the Beyerdynamics could be driven "good enough" for me with the iPhone SE jack, but I wasn't happy with how they sounded on the Lightning dongle. [1] https://ifixit.org/blog/8448/apple-audio-adapter-teardown/ https://ifixit.org/blog/8448/apple-audio-adapter-teardown/
- TBastiani 8y ago
  My experience is similar. I recently bought a USB-C to DC jack adapter from Apple for use on my Pixel 2 phone. The sound on my SoundMagic E10 was flat and mushy. Even though the earphones are "only" rated as 46 Ohm.
- rhinoceraptor 8y ago
  My pair of DT 770 Ms sound awful with the lightning to USB adapter, even though they're only 80 ohms. But I guess if you're using high impedance headphones it comes with the territory that you may need an amp. For me, they sound good driven from my iPad pro and a USB C charging/headphone adapter so I listen from that at my desk.
- dmitrygr 8y ago
  > certainly better than > the Android ones that > just pass analog through > the USB-C jack Almost none of the USB-C ones actually do that. Most of them actually also include DACs. the specification that allowed actual analog output through the USB-C port was not widely adapted.
- holy_city 8y ago
  The link to the measurements from your source: https://kenrockwell.com/apple/lightning-adapter-audio-quality.htm https://kenrockwell.com/apple/lightning-adapter-audio-qualit... According to those measurements the adaptor's DAC is fantastic, especially for a $9 part. And in the spirit of anecdotes, the old iPhone DACs were notoriously hissy and weak, and if you're buying high impedance headphones you have no business plugging that into a phone's headphone jack... spend the $20-50 on an amp/DAC and call it a day. Just a bigger dongle.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
JustSomeNobody 8y ago
I have one. I had to buy it as my 8 didn't come with it. I think the louder supporters of the 3.5mm jack removal are a bit disingenuous with how simple BT is. I have several iDevices. As does my wife. If we turn on a BT speaker, we don't know which device it will connect to. Sometimes the last one, sometime whichever one responds to the speaker faster[0]. My BT headphones? Same thing; will it connect to my work phone? My personal phone? My iPad? My laptop? Who knows? Here's what I do know, A 3.5mm jack with always[1] connect to the device I want it to connect to. [0] I'm sure someone will tell me I'm doing it wrong. Whatever, a 3.5mm jack still wins here. [1] For most definitions of always.
- pier25 8y ago
  I agree... BT is finicky, specially if you use your headphones on multiple devices. When I want to use my headphones with my TV I have to make sure BT is turned off on my phone and iPad before turning my headphones on. If wireless headphones are the future we need something better than BT.
beat 8y ago
I use it almost every day, to listen to my iPhone at work with the studio-grade headphones I've trusted for years (Beyerdynamic DT770). It works great and hasn't failed yet. Marvel indeed!
rargulati 8y ago
From the comments I've read here, I guess a contrarian take: If the purpose of the decision was to get people to move to wireless headphones, then specifically for myself and my network of folks, this seems to have worked. Initially I had the Oppo Wired headphones. Soon after removing-3.5mm-gate (and dealing with the adapter), I'm exclusively on wireless: the Airpods and the latest Sony over ear headphones. Honestly, at the cost of sound quality (which used to be important to me), but gaining noise-cancelling and not having to wrangle with wires, it's such a convenience. Apple was right, and I imagine the trend will largely be towards wireless. That being said, experience still has a ways to go (connect, battery), and die-hard audiophiles will never be satiated.
- iainmerrick 8y ago
  die-hard audiophiles will never be satiated. Very true. They will gradually die off, though...!
  - gumby 8y ago
    > They will gradually die off, though...! Don't worry a fresh crop of flat earthers, anti-vaxxers, or gold-standard fanatics will spring up to fill that particular ecological niche.
- closetohome 8y ago
  The purpose isn't to convince people to switch to wireless headphones. Most people were already using bluetooth headphones when the iPhone 7 came out. The purpose is to reduce manufacturing cost and complexity.
  - culturestate 8y ago
    > The purpose is to reduce manufacturing cost and complexity This argument doesn’t hold water for me because successive generations of iPhones have only become more complex. The X family has a tiny Kinect in the display! The theory about pushing people to wireless makes much more sense if you look 5 years down the road and see e.g. an Apple Watch and some kind of AR accessory (or even AirPods and Siri as the AR accessory...) as the primary mobile compute devices, which everyone and their brother assumes is what Apple is trending toward.
creeble 8y ago
They're $9 now. I wonder what they'll be next year.
- mcphage 8y ago
  They’ve been $9 for a few years, I’d expect them to stay at that price until they’re discontinued or significantly changed.
georgeecollins 8y ago
Isn't the point of all this that Apple wants you to migrate to AirPods?
jdreyfuss 8y ago
This is just another entry in the "Apple: a Dongle Company" narrative. Apple has long had a philosophy of designing things their way and making the consumer adapt to their whims, rather than accepting standards or designing for the way people like to use things. If you're charitable, you can say that they design with the future in mind. If you're not, you can say they know they can squeeze out more revenue via dongles and be indifferent to consumer wants because they have the size and market loyalty to get away with it. Depends on how you feel about Apple, I suppose
- closetohome 8y ago
  "Apple makes money off of dongles" is such a ridiculous argument though. And to imply that they would make major changes to their flagship hardware just for that is way on the wacky end of conspiracy theories. These decisions are based on focus groups, user analytics, and reducing manufacturing costs. Nothing more.
  - llampx 8y ago
    Apple has a long and rich history of making their customers buy dongles to interact with technology.
    - jdreyfuss 8y ago
      And they do make money off of dongles[0]. It is obviously a small percentage of their overall revenue, but even a couple percentage points is sizable at Apple's size. [0]https://9to5mac.com/2018/08/24/dongle-top-seller-apple-best-buy/ https://9to5mac.com/2018/08/24/dongle-top-seller-apple-best-...
    - closetohome 8y ago
      I have yet to disagree with one of their format changes. Lightning was miles better than Micro USB or the old 30-pin dock connector, and USB-C allows me to dock my laptop with a single cable. Got any other examples?
gumby 8y ago
I always enable the "product improvement" analytics for companies I trust. And as it happens, I don't care about losing TRRS audio jack, losing the SD slot on Macs (I only have micro SD-using devices these days anyway), Type C (yay! -- and I don't carry any dongles), etc. Since I happen to be happy with these changes I obviously never complain about them. Apple is famous for not doing market research (though I know they do a lot) and I wonder really if they don't probably know what they are doing with a lot of these changes. As far as demographics go, my kid (20) and my gf's kids and their friends (11-16 yo) don't seem dismayed by any of these changes. I'm not saying that these are "get off my lawn" complaints, but the phone is the most mass market of mass market devices and every design decision affects some subculture positively or negatively. As for headphones specifically: iphone volume is high enough that the fact that lightning headphones haven't taken off suggests the headphone market isn't as big as one might think. There are no shortages of boneheaded moves by Apple (I happen to like the feel of the butterfly keyboards but am not happy about how many I've had replaced: 4 since 2016) so this is no apology for a big company that can defend itself!
m3andros 8y ago
For the lazy: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https://misfra.me/2017/12/12/apples-9-dollar-engineering-marvel-no-one-wants/ http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https:/...
pier25 8y ago
Wired headphones have better sound quality, are cheaper and easier to repair (considering the same headphones wired vs wireless), do not need to be charged, and the battery does not degrade over time. Really, what is the mobile industry thinking? Apple was the first but everyone else is following.
- asdff 8y ago
  >Really, what is the mobile industry thinking? The obvious. All the pros you are listed are cons when you are concerned about profitability uber alles.
  - pier25 8y ago
    Because... ?
- wilsonnb3 8y ago
  > Really, what is the mobile industry thinking? Probably that you can still use your wired headphones with a $9 dongle.
karmakaze 8y ago
Why hasn't Apple just switched to USB-C already? Then we can have a wealth of DAC/amp options. To make iPhones thinner still or keep the garden walled.
- ascagnel_ 8y ago
  I think they'll do it eventually. They took a lot of flack from folks when they tossed out 10+ years worth of 30-pin cable support on the switch to Lightning, so they'll likely take a good long while before they switch the phone to USB-C. I think it'll be the last device they produce to make the switch.
blakespot 8y ago
It's Apple's Thunderbolt to FireWire adapter that amazes me. That little $29 thing is a full PCI-e device --- there is a PCI-e interface and a FireWire chipset built into the housing. And the little cable has a huge number of individual cables inside of it. https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MD464LL/A/apple-thunderbolt-to-firewire-adapter https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MD464LL/A/apple-thunderbo...
- Dylan16807 8y ago
  It's just a repeater chip[set]. For something that competes with USB it's a pretty bad price. You can get pretty powerful CPUs for half that or less.
  - detaro 8y ago
    No, it's just as the parent describes: A Thunderbolt-to-PCIe bridge chip, a short PCIe connection, a PCIe Firewire host chip, and a microcontroller to coordinate.
    - Dylan16807 8y ago
      Thunderbolt is PCIe. I have fixed my post to not imply it's only a single chip. It being multiple important chips should cause the opposite of amazement. It means that the product wasn't important enough to get a dedicated chip, which is probably the main reason it costs $29 instead of also being $9.
      - detaro 8y ago
        And Firewire is not related to PCIe at all, so the adapter clearly is not just a repeater. If you want to say something along the lines of"it's just a Firewire host adapter chip + some conversion, doesn't have to be expensive", then say that.
        Dylan16807 8y ago
        It's shoveling bits through basically unchanged. It's a repeater with a different electrical standard on each side. 90% of the effort is in the transceivers.
neves 8y ago
Does it mean that if I buy it and an female lightning to male usb adapter I'd get a good DAC for US$10? Would be a bargain.
- thirdsun 8y ago
  If you have USB-C you can skip one adapter: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MU7E2AM/A/usb-c-to-35-mm-headphone-jack-adapter https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MU7E2AM/A/usb-c-to-35-mm-...
dongled_gates 8y ago
If the idea to revoke the eighth-inch headphone jack is such a great idea, why not make it USB-C like the rest of the donglegate devices?
joshfraser 8y ago
I curse Apple every time they make me pull out a dongle for something that used to just work. I used to love Apple before they became a dongle company. Don't get me started on them killing off MagSafe.
nfriedly 8y ago
As an Android user, I am still regularly annoyed by Apple removing the headphone jack because it gave Google the "courage" to do it. And that has negatively impacted my life regularly in the past couple of years. The main problem I have with Bluetooth headphones is that it's so much effort to switch them between devices. I have 3-4 things that I regularly listen to headphones on, and after repeatedly loosing my dongle, I just gave up and bought a separate set of Bluetooth earbuds for my phone. It's the same in reverse with shared Bluetooth outputs like Amazon Echos and my wife and I's car. They always want to connect to whichever phone was last rather than whichever phone I'm trying to connect it to right now. I literally turn off Bluetooth on my phone whenever my wife wants to connect hers to the echo. With the car, I previously used the aux input and let Bluetooth be exclusively for her. Now I just listen to audio through the phone speakers and don't use the car speakers at all. My car audio experience is significantly shittier than when I had a phone with an headphone jack. Thankfully, I don't drive very much. I know there are workarounds for this, but they're all significantly more complex and expensive than a simple headphones jack. That and, of course, it's one more battery to charge.
netsharc 8y ago
I've learnt it has a DAC after watching Strange Parts take 1 apart and put the components inside the iPhone 7 so he could have the 3.5 jack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utfbE3_uAMA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utfbE3_uAMA
yellowapple 8y ago
If only Apple had put that phenomenal technology in their actual phones instead of making it a $9 dongle. Like, I'd be more tolerant of Apple's decision to drop the 3.5mm jack if it had coincided with Apple migrating iPhones to USB-C connectors, since at least that has the opportunity to play nicely with the rest of the USB-C ecosystem (which is growing pretty extensively) and could be a good way to push USB-C as "the" new standard for audio device connectivity (especially since USB-C directly supports analog and digital audio; the standard seems to advise rather strongly against using USB-C as a 3.5mm replacement outright, but a bit of "Courage™" from Apple could shift the tides such that such a prohibition is excluded from USB-C implementations). Their failure to do so makes it clear that Apple would rather make money on accessories tied to proprietary connectors than actually make good and useful products.
SyneRyder 8y ago
A related tip - if you've got a ThinkPad X1 Yoga with its awful internal headphone audio, try Apple's USB-C To Headphone dongle. It's a cheap but effective audio upgrade, and the competition (like the M-Audio Micro-DAC) is about 4x the price. It even adds support for Apple inline headphone volume controls too.

214 points by wheresvic1 8y ago

It's weird that this much quality went into the guts, but they couldn't make the cable on it a little more sturdy. I use mine sparingly, but it feels like it's going to break if I look at it the wrong way, and I've read that some people have to replace it every couple months.

d-sc 8y ago
I understand where you are coming from. I have a couple of these of my own. Apple probably doesn’t want to make these stronger than the things the connect to: eg headphones or the phone. Within certain load profiles the weakest component will suffer most of the wear. Would you rather the connector broke on the $9 adapter or the $1500 phone?
- Dylan16807 8y ago
  It's not the connector that breaks. Making the actual cable thicker shouldn't cause anything else to fail first, and the nature of a short piece of cable connected directly to a phone is to get horribly bent all the time; it needs thickness.

zdragnar 8y ago

> Personally, I’m amazed whenever I use it but I always wonder for a moment, “what if Apple just made what people wanted?” "What people want" is pretty slippery. For every person I've heard complain about needing the dongle, I've known at least one or two others who exclusively use the wireless ear buds and wouldn't go back. YMMV.

epberry 8y ago
Give it a few years I think most people will look at this like removing the CD. The wireless audio experience is mostly better. Airpods for example connect and disconnect effortlessly. Being able to walk all over the office while on the phone has done wonders for my pacing.
- b_tterc_p 8y ago
  It's already been a few years and people are still annoyed by it. Airpods are great, but they're also expensive. Saying wireless is better isn't a fair comparison either, because wireless is an option even with a headphone jack, and most people still use wired headphones anyway with a much less convenient connector.
  - culturestate 8y ago
    I would be willing to take a bet that if you stood at one of the entrances to Times Square for 24 hours and tallied wired vs. wireless headphones, wireless would come out on top. NPD had wireless overtaking wired in sales (obviously this doesn’t account for people using bundled earphones) for the first time back in 2016: https://qz.com/745108/wireless-headphone-sales-just-hit-a-tipping-point/ https://qz.com/745108/wireless-headphone-sales-just-hit-a-ti...
    - mixmastamyk 8y ago
      When wireless is much more expensive, this is unlikely.
      - culturestate 8y ago
        Even before the iPhone lost its headphone jack, NPD already pegged the share of wireless headphones under $50 at 30% of the (again, already larger) wireless market. The demand has only grown since then, and the market has responded. The most popular pair of bluetooth headphones on Amazon is waterproof, has 4.5 stars, and only costs $20: https://www.amazon.com/LETSCOM-Headphones-Waterproof-Sweatproof-Cancelling/dp/B07DXQTCQL/ https://www.amazon.com/LETSCOM-Headphones-Waterproof-Sweatpr...
  - ryandrake 8y ago
    Honestly I’m shocked that the headphone jack outrage is still a thing. When they removed the jack, I thought, “people will be mad for a few weeks then just forget about it, like they forgot about cassettes.” Here we are in 2019 and people are still complaining about it! If anything, it’s been great PR for Apple. It has served as an anger lightning rod, distracting people from Apple’s other actual problems, focusing everyone’s rage on this other stupid thing.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
TruthSHIFT 8y ago
Designing for what people want is how you get a Homer Simpson car. https://simpsonswiki.com/wiki/The_Homer https://simpsonswiki.com/wiki/The_Homer
- nemacol 8y ago
  Designing for what a single idiot wants is how you get a Homer Simpson car. My desire for a headphone jack and an SD card support is hardly going to give the phone three horns.
sorenjan 8y ago
Isn't the whole point of agile development to better respond to what the customer wants? Instead of trying to dictate what features the customers get? I used wireless ear buds exclusively before Apple removed the 3.5 mm jack, but when I lost them I was glad I had a headphone jack so I could use a wired pair until I bought new wireless ones. The thing about phones with headphone jacks is that it gives you a choice, since wireless still works.
- mixmastamyk 8y ago
  A yearly hardware release is about as "waterfall" as it gets these days.
- scarface74 8y ago
  Apple can’t very well be “agile” with yearly releases when it takes multiple years just to design/test/ramp up the supply line for a new iPhone. It’s not like they can just push the design to git and have a two week release cycle.

elsewhen 8y ago

site seems down. google cache: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ckxU-AKUcgAJ:https://misfra.me/2017/12/12/apples-9-dollar-engineering-marvel-no-one-wants/+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ckxU-A...

golfer 8y ago

HN hug of death? "503 Service Unavailable" Here's the Google Cache link: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fmisfra.me%2F2017%2F12%2F12%2Fapples-9-dollar-engineering-marvel-no-one-wants%2F&oq=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fmisfra.me%2F2017%2F12%2F12%2Fapples-9-dollar-engineering-marvel-no-one-wants http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttps...

aboutruby 8y ago
I'm having trouble with the google cache version too, so here is the archive.org version: https://web.archive.org/web/20190408150115/https://misfra.me/2017/12/12/apples-9-dollar-engineering-marvel-no-one-wants/ https://web.archive.org/web/20190408150115/https://misfra.me...
misframer 8y ago
Author here. Sorry, resizing my droplet now.
- Nextgrid 8y ago
  Just wondering if you can share your stack and what kind of traffic did you get (in terms of requests/second)? Always curious as to how much traffic HN really brings and why some sites stay up and others die.
  - marcosscriven 8y ago
    Generally two possibilities for managing a large load - either a third party blogging provider that can deal with it, or a static site. Why anyone hosts small blogs on self-hosted VPNs is beyond me - all sorts of problems including security maintenance and peaky load. You can go one further with caching, but that’s yet another moving part that’s not necessary for a simple site.
  - liquidise 8y ago
    Some stats from my front-page a month ago: - Time on front page: 15 min - Views in first 15 min: ~5000 - Views in first 60 min: ~7000 - Views in first 600 min: ~11,000 - Views over the next 5 days: ~5000 HN front pages bring a bunch of users quickly, but it isn't a scale that will cripple moderate hardware with some basic performance tuning (directly serving assets, for example). The tail is also great, fully 3/4 of my post-front-page views come from click-throughs on social.

jdillaaa 8y ago

I am pretty convinced that this greatly degrades audio quality on my aux headphones. Bluetooth quality is normal, but with this cable, I can hear the difference. When plugged into an amp/speaker the grain is so abundantly obvious (compared to a BT or AUX connection)

thesumofall 8y ago
https://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/lightning-adapter-audio-quality.htm https://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/lightning-adapter-audio-qu... seems to disagree. Could it be a question of the higher quality output (in comparison to BT) highlighting a lower quality source signal?

josefresco 8y ago

> But guess what? No one wants it With 794 reviews, clearly some people want it. The bad reviews tell us more accurately that; "no one likes it".

kminehart 8y ago
i think the point is that people have to buy it, not that they buy it because they want it.

NickBusey 8y ago

In the years that have passed since switching to an iPhone without a headphone jack, I have never once needed to use that dongle. Bluetooth more than covers my use cases. So the article is correct, I don't want it, but I also don't need it.

Aloha 8y ago
I picked up one of the belkin adapters that lets me charge and use headphones - I mostly use it with an over the ear headset, for conference calls, as I often have to dial in for multi-hour conference calls, which kinda beat the endurance of most bluetooth options.
- maccard 8y ago
  My noise cancelling bluetooth headphones claim 30 hours battery life. I've tested 17 hours straight while flying (including layovers). That's longer than my phone lasts without a charger.
  - Aloha 8y ago
    I hate double ear devices for phone calls.
    - maccard 8y ago
      That's a totally fair gripe. There are plenty of wireless bluetooth earphones/earplugs with 10/12 hours battery life, which is roughly the battery life of my Pixel 3 when used.
      - Aloha 8y ago
        I just got away from them because I'd lose them, forget to charge them or break them.
dbcurtis 8y ago
> Bluetooth more than covers my use cases. That is great for you. But when Apple designers decide that everyone should be forced into your category, they are actively deciding not to have empathy for the users for whom Bluetooth does not cover their use cases. Good product design starts with empathy for every user. Apple has written off entire categories of users. I assume it is not because the don't know how to gather user data, it is because the actively DO NOT CARE. For me, someone who: a) still has their hearing, b) has been listening to classical music for decades, c) has a collection of carefully and critically chosen wired headphones, the lack of a headphone jack is a gigantic FU.

javagram 8y ago

Might be worth adding a [2017] tag.

benbristow 8y ago

I would've preferred a headphone jack as I've already lost mine.

kalleboo 8y ago
I've lost like 4 of them by now
- wilsonnb3 8y ago
  https://www.amazon.com/Dongle-Dangler-Keychain-Accessory-Compatible/dp/B01MSYT8HH https://www.amazon.com/Dongle-Dangler-Keychain-Accessory-Com... I keep mine on my keys, haven't lost it yet.
  - prolepunk 8y ago
    A dangle for a dongle. :)
  - dontbenebby 8y ago
    Semi serious question: but where do you keep your keys? (When I don't have a bag, I find my current keyring bulky as it is...)
  - kalleboo 8y ago
    That's a brilliant product

BooneJS 8y ago

It wasn’t “free” in terms of money. Neither were the tires that came with my car. It’s also not free in terms of time spent thinking about them. Like all dongles, I have to remember to bring them wherever I go in case I need them. They’re an engineering marvel, no doubt about it. I just wish I didn’t maybe need it.

blub 8y ago

An engineering marvel necessary because of product design stupidity. One can neither use the same headphones for a Mac and iPhone, nor charge an iPhone from a Mac using the cables that come with the devices. I barely use that crap adapter because it's inconvenient. Thank goodness Macs still support headphone jacks.

eropple 8y ago
> One can neither use the same headphones for a Mac and iPhone, nor charge an iPhone from a Mac using the cables that come with the devices. The latter is very much true, but my headphones (not Apple ones) pair to two Bluetooth hosts at a time. I use them regularly with my laptop and my iPhone. You have to pause the audio output from one to use the other, granted, but it's not a big deal.
baby 8y ago
I use the air pods now, so it works on every machine except my nintendo switch :(
- lazyjones 8y ago
  Surely you can buy a $10 BT transmitter that plugs into the 3.5mm jack?
  - zdwolfe 8y ago
    I've tried that - a cheap BT transmitter has latency high enough that the sound is out of sync with the game.
- CodeWriter23 8y ago
  Can you tell me why I’m always seeing AirPod users with only one headphone in their ear?
  - Kye 8y ago
    To listen for hazards while outside. I don't know about inside.

terryschiavo22 8y ago

This doesn't replace the fact that I never wanted my headphone jack taken away in the first place. They broke a perfectly good thing in the name of $200 wireless earbuds.

ceejayoz 8y ago
They broke a perfectly good thing in the name of water intrusion, didn't they? IIRC Apple said the headphone jack was the single biggest source of damage. The first device to ditch the jack was Apple's first device to hit IP67 rating. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207043 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207043
- alexvoda 8y ago
  Plenty of other companies make or made IP68 waterproof phones with exposed headphone jacks. It's not an issue.
  - ceejayoz 8y ago
    It's entirely possible that Apple doesn't like/trust the way their competitors approached waterproofing.
    - iainmerrick 8y ago
      Given all the many hardware problems Samsung has had -- exploding batteries!! -- if there was a flaw in their waterproofing don’t you think it would have been publicised by now? I haven’t heard any such reports. If doing it “the Sony way” would involve making the phone 1mm thicker, okay, I can easily believe Apple would decide they need to rip it up completely and do something different. Samsung and Sony phones aren’t exactly chunky, though. I would have been really happy with just a waterproof iPhone 6. Then maybe they could follow that up with an iPhone X with a headphone jack. Still do AirPods, just market them as a completely independent product.
    - amaccuish 8y ago

ericabiz 8y ago

I have non-anecdotal evidence that people definitely buy the Lightning to headphone adapter. We sell them in our stores and it's one of our biggest accessory sales. You know why people buy them all the time, though? Because, frankly, it's a terrible design. It's tiny, easy to lose or forget, and they break easily. That's why it has such terrible reviews in the Apple store site--it's not a good product for what it is. I deal with Apple products on the daily, and the removal of the headphone jack is still one of the things that irritates me most about Apple. The others would be: the whole battery scandal where Apple slowed down older phones without explaining that the battery, a replaceable component, was the issue. And the 2016-2018 MacBook keyboards, which are an absolute travesty. The headphone to Lightning adapter may be a "marvel of engineering", but it was a completely unnecessary one. It doesn't create more room inside the phone, and Samsung had water-resistant phones with headphone jacks. It's basically designed to force you on to more expensive wireless headphones.

LeoPanthera 8y ago
> It doesn't create more room inside the phone Can you elaborate on this? Because it seems like it obviously would. 3.5mm jacks have got to go somewhere.
- ericabiz 8y ago
  Sure. A lot of people thought when Apple removed the headphone jack that it would make room for a bigger battery, specifically. But Apple didn't use the space that way. They put the Taptic Engine there instead. The bigger Taptic engine on e.g. an iPhone 8 vs. 6 is used for two things: 1) 7/8 series have a home button that doesn't actually push. The Taptic Engine mimics the feel of a button push. 2) It allows for different types of vibration, e.g. when hitting the corner of the screen while dragging or for more subtle notifications. (https://www.androidcentral.com/its-2018-and-android-phones-still-cant-compare-iphones-taptic-engine https://www.androidcentral.com/its-2018-and-android-phones-s...) The iPhone 6 battery is 1810mAh, whereas the 8 is 1821mAh. So they didn't increase the battery size; they added the Taptic Engine instead, and got rid of the mechanical home button. Articles gush about the Taptic Engine, but I'd still rather have my headphone jack back. And I liked the clicky home buttons.

MR4D 8y ago

If they made a USB-C version of this, they could sell them for 3 times that price and probably run out of stock.

linkingday 8y ago
Now I'm interested in what the Google version that comes with the Pixel 3/XL is like
sarreph 8y ago
Googled that for you: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MU7E2AM/A/usb-c-to-35-mm-headphone-jack-adapter https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MU7E2AM/A/usb-c-to-35-mm-...
sirn 8y ago
They do, and it also costs $9[1]. I bought one after I realized (the hard way) that the new iPad Pro doesn't have a headphone jack… [1]: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MU7E2AM/A/usb-c-to-35-mm-headphone-jack-adapter https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MU7E2AM/A/usb-c-to-35-mm-...
- davio 8y ago
  Especially interesting since Apple doesn't make USB-C headphones. I can tolerate the iPhones shipping with Lightning headphones. For the iPad Pro I guess the only official solution is AirPods.

delibes 8y ago

Hug of death - archive link: http://archive.is/rQqtB http://archive.is/rQqtB

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

locklock 8y ago

I've been using Mac products since I was a child (thanks, dad) more or less happily and the removal of the headphone jack and the requirement that you have these adaptors has been the first thing to make me seriously consider going elsewhere. I probably won't, due to years of lock-in, but to rephrase it's the worst experience I've had with anything Apple in my lifetime. I've had three adaptors, two Apple ones that broke in separate ways (one would keep firing commands randomly from the control buttons on my headphones, the other lost the right channel entirely) and a crappy third party one that just fell apart. Even when the adaptor works, having a dongle sticking out of your pants pocket is a total pain that nobody really asked for. It solves no problem, it's in no way better than the previous alternative, and it really just reads like a massive "fuck you, pay me" from Apple to their customers. I settled on non-Apple bluetooth headphones, which have their own set of problems but at least I can reliably listen to music during my commute (for the most part).

n1000 8y ago

Not everybody agrees about the sound quality, compared to the jacks on iDevices: - [German] https://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/iPhone-7-nachgemessen-Audio-Adapter-liefert-schlechteren-Sound-3325932.html https://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/iPhone-7-nachgemessen-Audio-... - [Summarising the above] https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/256241/45492 https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/256241/45492 - Another test: http://soundexpert.org/articles/-/blogs/audio-quality-of-lightning-to-3-5mm-headphone-jack-adapter http://soundexpert.org/articles/-/blogs/audio-quality-of-lig... - https://ifixit.org/blog/8448/apple-audio-adapter-teardown/ https://ifixit.org/blog/8448/apple-audio-adapter-teardown/

PascLeRasc 8y ago

It is an impressive engineering feat, and certainly better than the Android ones that just pass analog through the USB-C jack, but it's worth noting that this DAC performs worse than what it replaced [1]. Dynamics have less range, there's more THD, and output impedance is lower, so it's harder to drive heavier headphones. I noticed a difference in clarity using Audio-Technica ATH-M50s and Beyerdynamic DT 990 250Ω. Specifically, the Beyerdynamics could be driven "good enough" for me with the iPhone SE jack, but I wasn't happy with how they sounded on the Lightning dongle. [1] https://ifixit.org/blog/8448/apple-audio-adapter-teardown/ https://ifixit.org/blog/8448/apple-audio-adapter-teardown/

TBastiani 8y ago
My experience is similar. I recently bought a USB-C to DC jack adapter from Apple for use on my Pixel 2 phone. The sound on my SoundMagic E10 was flat and mushy. Even though the earphones are "only" rated as 46 Ohm.
rhinoceraptor 8y ago
My pair of DT 770 Ms sound awful with the lightning to USB adapter, even though they're only 80 ohms. But I guess if you're using high impedance headphones it comes with the territory that you may need an amp. For me, they sound good driven from my iPad pro and a USB C charging/headphone adapter so I listen from that at my desk.
dmitrygr 8y ago
> certainly better than > the Android ones that > just pass analog through > the USB-C jack Almost none of the USB-C ones actually do that. Most of them actually also include DACs. the specification that allowed actual analog output through the USB-C port was not widely adapted.
holy_city 8y ago
The link to the measurements from your source: https://kenrockwell.com/apple/lightning-adapter-audio-quality.htm https://kenrockwell.com/apple/lightning-adapter-audio-qualit... According to those measurements the adaptor's DAC is fantastic, especially for a $9 part. And in the spirit of anecdotes, the old iPhone DACs were notoriously hissy and weak, and if you're buying high impedance headphones you have no business plugging that into a phone's headphone jack... spend the $20-50 on an amp/DAC and call it a day. Just a bigger dongle.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

JustSomeNobody 8y ago

I have one. I had to buy it as my 8 didn't come with it. I think the louder supporters of the 3.5mm jack removal are a bit disingenuous with how simple BT is. I have several iDevices. As does my wife. If we turn on a BT speaker, we don't know which device it will connect to. Sometimes the last one, sometime whichever one responds to the speaker faster[0]. My BT headphones? Same thing; will it connect to my work phone? My personal phone? My iPad? My laptop? Who knows? Here's what I do know, A 3.5mm jack with always[1] connect to the device I want it to connect to. [0] I'm sure someone will tell me I'm doing it wrong. Whatever, a 3.5mm jack still wins here. [1] For most definitions of always.

pier25 8y ago
I agree... BT is finicky, specially if you use your headphones on multiple devices. When I want to use my headphones with my TV I have to make sure BT is turned off on my phone and iPad before turning my headphones on. If wireless headphones are the future we need something better than BT.

beat 8y ago

I use it almost every day, to listen to my iPhone at work with the studio-grade headphones I've trusted for years (Beyerdynamic DT770). It works great and hasn't failed yet. Marvel indeed!

rargulati 8y ago

From the comments I've read here, I guess a contrarian take: If the purpose of the decision was to get people to move to wireless headphones, then specifically for myself and my network of folks, this seems to have worked. Initially I had the Oppo Wired headphones. Soon after removing-3.5mm-gate (and dealing with the adapter), I'm exclusively on wireless: the Airpods and the latest Sony over ear headphones. Honestly, at the cost of sound quality (which used to be important to me), but gaining noise-cancelling and not having to wrangle with wires, it's such a convenience. Apple was right, and I imagine the trend will largely be towards wireless. That being said, experience still has a ways to go (connect, battery), and die-hard audiophiles will never be satiated.

iainmerrick 8y ago
die-hard audiophiles will never be satiated. Very true. They will gradually die off, though...!
- gumby 8y ago
  > They will gradually die off, though...! Don't worry a fresh crop of flat earthers, anti-vaxxers, or gold-standard fanatics will spring up to fill that particular ecological niche.
closetohome 8y ago
The purpose isn't to convince people to switch to wireless headphones. Most people were already using bluetooth headphones when the iPhone 7 came out. The purpose is to reduce manufacturing cost and complexity.
- culturestate 8y ago
  > The purpose is to reduce manufacturing cost and complexity This argument doesn’t hold water for me because successive generations of iPhones have only become more complex. The X family has a tiny Kinect in the display! The theory about pushing people to wireless makes much more sense if you look 5 years down the road and see e.g. an Apple Watch and some kind of AR accessory (or even AirPods and Siri as the AR accessory...) as the primary mobile compute devices, which everyone and their brother assumes is what Apple is trending toward.

creeble 8y ago

They're $9 now. I wonder what they'll be next year.

mcphage 8y ago
They’ve been $9 for a few years, I’d expect them to stay at that price until they’re discontinued or significantly changed.

georgeecollins 8y ago

Isn't the point of all this that Apple wants you to migrate to AirPods?

jdreyfuss 8y ago

This is just another entry in the "Apple: a Dongle Company" narrative. Apple has long had a philosophy of designing things their way and making the consumer adapt to their whims, rather than accepting standards or designing for the way people like to use things. If you're charitable, you can say that they design with the future in mind. If you're not, you can say they know they can squeeze out more revenue via dongles and be indifferent to consumer wants because they have the size and market loyalty to get away with it. Depends on how you feel about Apple, I suppose

closetohome 8y ago
"Apple makes money off of dongles" is such a ridiculous argument though. And to imply that they would make major changes to their flagship hardware just for that is way on the wacky end of conspiracy theories. These decisions are based on focus groups, user analytics, and reducing manufacturing costs. Nothing more.
- llampx 8y ago
  Apple has a long and rich history of making their customers buy dongles to interact with technology.
  - jdreyfuss 8y ago
    And they do make money off of dongles[0]. It is obviously a small percentage of their overall revenue, but even a couple percentage points is sizable at Apple's size. [0]https://9to5mac.com/2018/08/24/dongle-top-seller-apple-best-buy/ https://9to5mac.com/2018/08/24/dongle-top-seller-apple-best-...
  - closetohome 8y ago
    I have yet to disagree with one of their format changes. Lightning was miles better than Micro USB or the old 30-pin dock connector, and USB-C allows me to dock my laptop with a single cable. Got any other examples?

gumby 8y ago

I always enable the "product improvement" analytics for companies I trust. And as it happens, I don't care about losing TRRS audio jack, losing the SD slot on Macs (I only have micro SD-using devices these days anyway), Type C (yay! -- and I don't carry any dongles), etc. Since I happen to be happy with these changes I obviously never complain about them. Apple is famous for not doing market research (though I know they do a lot) and I wonder really if they don't probably know what they are doing with a lot of these changes. As far as demographics go, my kid (20) and my gf's kids and their friends (11-16 yo) don't seem dismayed by any of these changes. I'm not saying that these are "get off my lawn" complaints, but the phone is the most mass market of mass market devices and every design decision affects some subculture positively or negatively. As for headphones specifically: iphone volume is high enough that the fact that lightning headphones haven't taken off suggests the headphone market isn't as big as one might think. There are no shortages of boneheaded moves by Apple (I happen to like the feel of the butterfly keyboards but am not happy about how many I've had replaced: 4 since 2016) so this is no apology for a big company that can defend itself!

m3andros 8y ago

For the lazy: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https://misfra.me/2017/12/12/apples-9-dollar-engineering-marvel-no-one-wants/ http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https:/...

pier25 8y ago

Wired headphones have better sound quality, are cheaper and easier to repair (considering the same headphones wired vs wireless), do not need to be charged, and the battery does not degrade over time. Really, what is the mobile industry thinking? Apple was the first but everyone else is following.

asdff 8y ago
>Really, what is the mobile industry thinking? The obvious. All the pros you are listed are cons when you are concerned about profitability uber alles.
- pier25 8y ago
  Because... ?
wilsonnb3 8y ago
> Really, what is the mobile industry thinking? Probably that you can still use your wired headphones with a $9 dongle.

karmakaze 8y ago

Why hasn't Apple just switched to USB-C already? Then we can have a wealth of DAC/amp options. To make iPhones thinner still or keep the garden walled.

ascagnel_ 8y ago
I think they'll do it eventually. They took a lot of flack from folks when they tossed out 10+ years worth of 30-pin cable support on the switch to Lightning, so they'll likely take a good long while before they switch the phone to USB-C. I think it'll be the last device they produce to make the switch.

blakespot 8y ago

It's Apple's Thunderbolt to FireWire adapter that amazes me. That little $29 thing is a full PCI-e device --- there is a PCI-e interface and a FireWire chipset built into the housing. And the little cable has a huge number of individual cables inside of it. https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MD464LL/A/apple-thunderbolt-to-firewire-adapter https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MD464LL/A/apple-thunderbo...

Dylan16807 8y ago
It's just a repeater chip[set]. For something that competes with USB it's a pretty bad price. You can get pretty powerful CPUs for half that or less.
- detaro 8y ago
  No, it's just as the parent describes: A Thunderbolt-to-PCIe bridge chip, a short PCIe connection, a PCIe Firewire host chip, and a microcontroller to coordinate.
  - Dylan16807 8y ago
    Thunderbolt is PCIe. I have fixed my post to not imply it's only a single chip. It being multiple important chips should cause the opposite of amazement. It means that the product wasn't important enough to get a dedicated chip, which is probably the main reason it costs $29 instead of also being $9.
    - detaro 8y ago
      And Firewire is not related to PCIe at all, so the adapter clearly is not just a repeater. If you want to say something along the lines of"it's just a Firewire host adapter chip + some conversion, doesn't have to be expensive", then say that.
      - Dylan16807 8y ago
        It's shoveling bits through basically unchanged. It's a repeater with a different electrical standard on each side. 90% of the effort is in the transceivers.

neves 8y ago

Does it mean that if I buy it and an female lightning to male usb adapter I'd get a good DAC for US$10? Would be a bargain.

thirdsun 8y ago
If you have USB-C you can skip one adapter: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MU7E2AM/A/usb-c-to-35-mm-headphone-jack-adapter https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MU7E2AM/A/usb-c-to-35-mm-...

dongled_gates 8y ago

If the idea to revoke the eighth-inch headphone jack is such a great idea, why not make it USB-C like the rest of the donglegate devices?

joshfraser 8y ago

I curse Apple every time they make me pull out a dongle for something that used to just work. I used to love Apple before they became a dongle company. Don't get me started on them killing off MagSafe.

nfriedly 8y ago

As an Android user, I am still regularly annoyed by Apple removing the headphone jack because it gave Google the "courage" to do it. And that has negatively impacted my life regularly in the past couple of years. The main problem I have with Bluetooth headphones is that it's so much effort to switch them between devices. I have 3-4 things that I regularly listen to headphones on, and after repeatedly loosing my dongle, I just gave up and bought a separate set of Bluetooth earbuds for my phone. It's the same in reverse with shared Bluetooth outputs like Amazon Echos and my wife and I's car. They always want to connect to whichever phone was last rather than whichever phone I'm trying to connect it to right now. I literally turn off Bluetooth on my phone whenever my wife wants to connect hers to the echo. With the car, I previously used the aux input and let Bluetooth be exclusively for her. Now I just listen to audio through the phone speakers and don't use the car speakers at all. My car audio experience is significantly shittier than when I had a phone with an headphone jack. Thankfully, I don't drive very much. I know there are workarounds for this, but they're all significantly more complex and expensive than a simple headphones jack. That and, of course, it's one more battery to charge.

netsharc 8y ago

I've learnt it has a DAC after watching Strange Parts take 1 apart and put the components inside the iPhone 7 so he could have the 3.5 jack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utfbE3_uAMA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utfbE3_uAMA

yellowapple 8y ago

If only Apple had put that phenomenal technology in their actual phones instead of making it a $9 dongle. Like, I'd be more tolerant of Apple's decision to drop the 3.5mm jack if it had coincided with Apple migrating iPhones to USB-C connectors, since at least that has the opportunity to play nicely with the rest of the USB-C ecosystem (which is growing pretty extensively) and could be a good way to push USB-C as "the" new standard for audio device connectivity (especially since USB-C directly supports analog and digital audio; the standard seems to advise rather strongly against using USB-C as a 3.5mm replacement outright, but a bit of "Courage™" from Apple could shift the tides such that such a prohibition is excluded from USB-C implementations). Their failure to do so makes it clear that Apple would rather make money on accessories tied to proprietary connectors than actually make good and useful products.

SyneRyder 8y ago

A related tip - if you've got a ThinkPad X1 Yoga with its awful internal headphone audio, try Apple's USB-C To Headphone dongle. It's a cheap but effective audio upgrade, and the competition (like the M-Audio Micro-DAC) is about 4x the price. It even adds support for Apple inline headphone volume controls too.