No headphones for the iPhone 7?

a reply to: NightSkyeB4Dawn

Function.

The OS for IPhone is less buggy than Android. Thats the reason my son sticks with them.

Im willing to tolerate a couple of freeze's a week in exchange for saving $800. Plus, my screen doesn't break nearly as easily. Ive dropped it face down on the street a dozen times, and its not cracked.

originally posted by: tothetenthpower

originally posted by: Iamnotadoctor
A small adapter will be available to plug incompatible headphones into the iPhone 7.
To save everyone who feels like crying because of innovation.

That's not innovation, that's a cash grab by Apple, just like the lightning chargers were. There is nothing 'innovative' about wireless headphones, they exist right now.

A manufacturer forcing it's consumers who purchase their products ( at a huge premium as well)into buying ridiculous adapters for backwards compatibility with existing hardware, is nothing but them attempting to raise their stock prices via sale of proprietary hardware.

Besides, Apple is always years behind the innovation curve. Take any Android device released between 2012 and today and you'll see that they were most, if not all much further ahead in terms of capability than any of the Iphones available at the time.

~Tenth

I used to be an Apple fanboy. We grew up with Apple computers because at that time, Apple reigned supreme in the education sector (both of my parents are teachers). My first computer was an iMac G3 (the CRT all-in-one version), my 1st laptop was an iBook G4, and my 2nd desktop was a PowerMac G4 (dual processors, whoa!).

Needless to say, you're absolutely correct. I didn't really get it until I started getting IT certifications and working as a repair tech for desktops and servers. Even Apple's old RAM was keyed differently so on-the-market RAM wouldn't work in their products. Their entire business model was to sell good software on overpriced hardware, while locking as many customers in as possible. Note, I said "was" in, not because they changed, but because I don't even look at them anymore.

I guess it's fine though, as long as customers know what they're getting themselves into.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

The only reason that Apple enjoys low return rates for software/hardware bugs is due to them NOT innovating their products.

Apple has a return rate of about 10%, that's 20% lower than any other manufacturer. But this is because they do not at all change their platforms, or make very small incremental changes every year during a new release.

I'll give you an example. There was one Iphone, I can't remember that boasted a 1.5Ghz processor, but was underlocked to 666...

Their S version was soon released, advising of better processor speeds, they simply re-clocked the same processor at the 1.5 it should have been to begin with. And they sit there and charge you a premium on old hardware.

~Tenth

a reply to: tothetenthpower

yeah, they miserly meter out upgrades to their products. No argument there.

a reply to: hillbilly4rent

Why not have both? I hate bluetooth.

I don't want to sync or connect or worry about close by devices that use the headphone competing for the connection that were used in the past. I just want to use my head phones right away without configuring anything.

Half the time they don't connect properly if you have multiple devices (laptop,tablets,phones,etc) that use the same bucktooth headphones.

When I want to use my head phone on my phone or my wifes iphone I have to disable bluetooth on my laptop and tablet and other devices and make sure nothing that was previously synced isn't around.

Its much easier to just plug in and even better to use RF for wireless than bluetooth IMO.

a reply to: interupt42

The problem with RF: evesdropping.

Otherwise, i don't really disagree with you.

originally posted by: Bedlam
However, after being run through a lossy BT codec, there is a very detectable difference.

I haven't really looked into this because wires instead of BT are fine with me, but is there a bottneck? Bluetooth data rate not high enough and that's why a crappy codec is used, or would a better BT codec give better results with existing bandwidth?

originally posted by: Arbitrageur

originally posted by: Bedlam
However, after being run through a lossy BT codec, there is a very detectable difference.

I haven't really looked into this because wires instead of BT are fine with me, but is there a bottneck? Bluetooth data rate not high enough and that's why a crappy codec is used, or would a better BT codec give better results with existing bandwidth?

Yep. There are bandwidth and processing power limitations on BT data streams, although the spec allows for a fairly decent bit rate. There are a couple of fairly common codecs you will run into, one is AM quality IMHO, SBC is a bit better but although they'll tell you how it's CD quality, it's so compressed it is irritating to listen to...I'd call it 'college FM station'. That's what you normally connect to on an iPhone.

There's a higher quality codec called aptX that is significantly better, I've got some upscale Sennheisers with BT that use aptX if possible, and you get a lot better sound with aptX. However, you can still tell it's not as good as wired straight to the DAC. But it's at least something you could listen to. However, aptX is a proprietary codec that they charge money for. My Macbook can do it (albeit surreptitiously...you have to install a mac utility and enable it), and it's not bad.

Technically, you can send AAC over a BT link at 512kb/s, but it's going to take a lot of horsepower and battery power on the receiving end and no one does that at all, as far as I could ever discover.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

There is no way to quantify how much one enjoys music, or enjoys rich sound, etc. Its all just subjective, just like defining what "good sound" is subjective. There are commonly accepted standards, etc. But even with that, there is variance from person to person. I can say that I listen to music for about 9 hours out of any given day. I bought a subwoofer for my office computer so I'd still have some richness of sound that I can't get from simple desktop speakers. Not an audiophile, by any stretch....but I do think music is very important to my day to day life.

With that said, I typically use BT day to day. I have a couple of different ones I use (one for my cell, one for my desk phone at work). The one i carry for my cell is that standard issue LG binaural BT headphones that everyone has. Is the sound as rich as a $200 set of earphones? No. It isn't. Is it still pretty good? Yes. Every bit as good as you'd expect from earphones that cost $50 or so from a company like Skull Candy. I paid about $80 for it...and it handles voice commands as well as having the speaker for talking....so the price seems to wash out.

But if i am not trying to record music, or listening to recordings on a forensic level, i can't see how the marginal loss of audible range would really matter to 99% of the population

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan

But if i am not trying to record music, or listening to recordings on a forensic level, i can't see how the marginal loss of audible range would really matter to 99% of the population

I wondered that too, then did an a/b/c comparison of sbc, aptX and wired, and it was very noticeable at each step, and I'm not a 'golden ear' by any stretch.

I find aptX to be 'ok' for everyday use, and have a pair of aptX/wired Sennheisers and a very nice sounding Fi30 from Fluance that uses aptX. But when I'm at my home-office, I've switched over to some very good wired speakers and it's a world of difference.

eta: that doesn't start to address the latency thing. If they don't put in a way to line up the mouth motions and the BT audio, you're going to be watching entertainment that looks like a Chinese dub. I find bluray movies on my laptop to be unwatchable with BT headsets unless the sw has a video delay setting where you can line 'em up.

originally posted by: GetHyped
a reply to: tothetenthpower

There is absolutely no reason to believe an analog signal travelling the extra journey down a wire will sound better than an analog signal travelling the short distance of the DAC to the transducer.

Of cause there is. In the past Bluetooth has been strangled by bandwidth which didn't have the capacity to transmit 16-bit CD quality 44.1kHz music at 1.35 mbps so the transmission was compressed at a loss of fidelity so sounded tinny. Newer versions of bluetooth allow a theoretical transmission rate up to 24 mbps (bluetooth negotiates a wifi 802.11 link ) which should allow even 24bit songs at a 96kHz sample rate (4.39 mbps). But in some tests, bluetooth 4 in the real world is transmitting as lower than 1 mbps, so a lot depends on the bluetooth stack and its implementation.

Added... BTW I am not impressed with the quality of DAC's on phones. I recently connected a sansa clip (which compares favourably to ipods etc) to my Ditton 66's speakers and it sounded dead. Not even close to a decent quality cd player.

a reply to: Bedlam

Yeah, im sure side by side comparisons are remarkably noticable. I know with my relatively cheap LG earbuds its noticable if i put in my Sony earphones at home.

My biggest problem with BT is the lag/skip. If my keys are anywhere near my phone, any movement in my keys causes the the BT to interfere and not transmit for a second or so.

a reply to: tothetenthpower

Yes, it is ... although I have a pair of Nakamichi Bluetooth cans that sound darn near close to my Sennheiser HD-25's ... which is freaking amazing to me. In fact, the Naks are more comfortable to longer wear, and being cordless is a huge advantage at times.

And my Bowers & Wilkens P5's are somewhere right in between. All very, very close with lossless hi-fi sound files. We're talking about having to close your eyes and concentrate to hear the quality improvements.

Even more amazing? The Nakamichi's were less than half the price of the Sennheiser's. My AKG's don't even sound as good for casual listening.

I have to many headphones. Wait, no I don't ... LOL

Bluetooth 4.0 is a huge leap from 2.0 and even 3.0. For most people who listen to compressed music (MP3 format) -- they're already listening to a non-hi-fi sound file. The wireless signal quality is plenty good enough to reproduce a 192kbps MP3.

Now, if I was listening to a FLAC, AIFF or WAVE format file, I'd most certainly want to use a corded pair.

a reply to: tothetenthpower

I'm fairly hip to apple's SOC history and their competitors. They turn them at about the same rate as everyone else, averaging a new design every year or so.

Apple SOCs

They're also more innovative than the competition, actually customizing microcode to be optimized with their software. I'm by no means a fan of apple, but they do the SOCs right.

Also, when a new fab is mass producing, statistically you will have mass yields for the lowest performing, and higher binning will come up to production yields later on. So someone like intel being that far ahead of the competition can bring out their low yield highest bins at ridiculous prices, and shortly after have higher yields for their lower bins. That takes a lot of patience on their part. Apple takes a different approach, it seems, and looks for a low bin in volume while holding out for higher binned in large numbers later in the year. I think it works well considering they have less tiers of processors to bring to market in their products.

I missed a page but I can't believe nobody has mentioned the miserable bug iPhone has had for several generations now with bluetooth. It apparently doesn't affect everybody -- but enough. I can't use it at night because it will spontaneously dial someone, like my elderly parents, at 3am if I dare. Yes, I mean all on its own. This has been an issue with the 4, 5 and 6 at the least, and every time I see something from Apple about it (some customer service response) they're acting like "How odd!" but all you have to do is google to see it's a serious bug they have never repaired.

They could easily provide their 'new' tech without 'removing the headset jack' so there was at least 1 version that had both and gave some time for the shift. Definitely I'd say they're either creating a captive market or really trying to hurt others with their leading numbers. (Apple acts like Microsoft, there's a shocker.) I don't really care but if they don't fix the bug, my next phone won't be like the last 3 -- it'll be something that isn't iPhone so I don't have to worry about my phone acting like it's possessed.

I am an Apple user myself (not exactly a fanboy per se, but that's a different subject) and this possibility really torques me off. I will definitely be buying whatever adapter it takes to get a physical connection because:

A) I can definitely hear the difference between a hard connection and a wireless one, even using very good wireless headphones
B) the latency of wireless audio transmission makes writing music by playing along with other recorded tracks virtually impossible

Perhaps they should just do away with the microphone as well.
For some insane reason, people would rather type all day.
The inconsistent displacement of one-on-one, direct communication over messaging is not always productive.

The reason I like wired headphones is because I know my phone is still in my pocket and not left on the bus I just jumped off in a hurry. And they sound better and cost less.

Edit; and they won't fry my vitals with as much radiation. Tinitus is preferable to a tumor.

a reply to: tothetenthpower

That's planned obsolescence.

Apple are renowned for it, I think it was the iPad 1 that had no camera but had all the hardware installed for one, then lo and behold, ipad 2 comes out with a camera.

I hate ear buds. They don't fit my ears properly, they're always slipping out. Oh well, at least I got wireless headphones.