> When you plug an audio cable into a smartphone, it just works.
No, hardware-wise you're still going through a DAC, and the complex audio subsystem of the OS is still deciding, upon receiving the connection signal, to re-route the application audio through that headphone DAC. Or not. Jack or Lightning doesn't change this.
> Apple can choose which manufacturers get to create Lightning-compatible audio devices.
Sure. Or you can use the included lightning-jack adapter and just use normal, un-DRM'd headphones.
>Once Apple gets the ability to add DRM, the record industry gets the ability to insist that Apple use it
See my first point: the audio jack wasn't your last guardian of freedom.
>In other words, if it’s impossible to connect a speaker or other audio device to an iPhone without Apple software governing it
Use the adapter. And see the first point.
> the only way to connect an iPhone 7 to a recording or mixing device will be over the suboptimal Bluetooth connection or a dongle provided by Apple.
Aha! They finally acknowledge the adapter! But do they acknowledge that it's functionally identical to a built-in DAC?
> It's possible that iOS or specific apps will be able to disable the dongle.
It's also possible the phone will halt and catch fire if you run an unapproved app. But disabling the dongle would be moronic. For one thing, they'd be incurring the wrath of ADA-defender groups.
>the converter you rely on to hear your phone on your hearing aids—just became less useful.
See previous point.
>But you shouldn’t have to depend on a manufacturer’s permission to use its hardware however you like.
Then don't even buy Apple. They've been locked down in so many other ways for a long time.
Anyhow.
The simple explanation (see Occam's Razor) is that the designers noticed that they were using valuable internal space for a redundant connector (considering the hardware has been able to route audio over Lightning for a long time), and figured they could reclaim that space for something else. Clearly, people disagree with this change. The market will tell.
If a device has an audio jack with the aim that its owners make use of it, it has to provide audio when "something" is plugged in. It's not able to discern what's there. That is what "just works": not that audio is supplied, but that audio is supplied without the possibility to discern what (merely whether, and that a hack) it is being supplied to. That the software may disable the port when it's empty or just on a whim doesn't make the port "just work" any less.
The same applies to Lightning-connected DACs. You might believe that there is something special about an internally connected DAC versus an externally connected DAC, but "just works" is not a point of difference. They both need to work in order to achieve their purpose.
At some point, sound needs to make it into your ears.
> The same applies to Lightning-connected DACs. You might believe that there is something special about an internally connected DAC versus an externally connected DAC, but "just works" is not a point of difference. They both need to work in order to achieve their purpose
Internal DAC has only 1 piece of information: a device has been connected to the jack. A lightning jack has access to way more information: like the manufacturer of the DAC & type of the device (headphone, midi/DAW, car radio, DJ's Mixer, etc) and may opt out of "working" in some instances: e.g. this song should only be played on this headphone whitelist- this is simply not possible to achieve with 3.5mm jacks. Remember the "analogue hole"[1]? Apple just closed it on the iPhone.
Apple included that only to test the waters and possibly later revoke the "analog hole".
If they were really being "courageous" about removing the headphone jack, they would have shipped it without the adapter and not made one available.
The people who think that just because they included an adapter, there won't be DRM, need to remember that from now on any service played on an iphone can decide whether or not to enable analog output, or even have a different output over analog. Cue the services that have decided not to work on analog, and paid ad-free audio.
You'd have to be very naive to not be worried about this in my opinion. calinet6 wrote a great comment about it in the comments here.
if your phone only has a 3.5mm jack, you will have to provide high quality audio through it (if you want to be able to sell it to people interested in listening to music on high quality earphones)
if your phone only has a digital jack and a certification process, you can decide to provide high quality audio to your digital headphones and low quality audio to the 3.5mm adapter.
It's not guaranteed that the DAC you are getting in the 3.5mm adapter is as good as the DAC that you were getting before inside the phone (and given that the 3.5mm adapter costs $9.99 I would be surprised if it was)
I am personally really interested in somebody testing the new external adapter DAC against the 6s internal DAC and see what the quality loss is like. Maybe these days you can create a quality DAC and sell it for super cheap, but it might also be the case that the adapter DAC is going to be much worse than it was before, and in that case there's not much you can do about it if Apple does not license the technology to 3rd parties to create their own.
Apple could degrade it in software. They already degrade DRM'd video playback when it's on a display connection unprotected by HDCP, e.g. when using a VGA dongle.
I've generally been in favor of Apple's hardware changes; for example the original iMac helped the entire industry adopt USB and the Lightning connector is much better than the 30-pin connector (and has a number of advantages over the microUSB pretty much everyone else uses). I've been in favor of their video port changes (except microDVI on the original MacBook Air) even though it created problems for me and my colleagues at work. I'm unhappy about Ethernet being dropped from all their laptop models but it really was an obstacle in their physical design. This change seems unnecessary and I don't like how Lightning is on Apple devices only.
I'm not sure there's an evil DRM plot, I could totally believe Jonny Ive or some designer just didn't like this analog turd messing up the symmetry and digital purity of their designs, especially a connector that's 30+ years old.
Apple waged a war against DRM on MP3 files and won. They tried to do the same with movies and haven't prevailed yet, so we're stuck with DRM on those. It sucks.
Blame the MPAA here. Apple would rather have it DRM free. It's better for consumers, it's better for their sales.
Rumour is, Amazon threatened to stop selling CDs for record companies who wouldn't let them sell DRM-free MP3 files. Certainly they used their massive sales presence to negotiate a deal with the record companies.
I think that was the major tipping point for DRM on music. Apple followed after that.
That's not what happened. Around 2006 all of digital music services were failing because thier DRM was incompatible with the iPod. Once Jobs refused to license FairPlay and gave the record industry the alternative of licensing music DRM free they had no choice but to either allow DRM music or let Apple keep a stranglehold on the market.
My understanding, talking from a few folks who worked on that sort of thing, is that they tried. Of course this is all rumours and chit-chat, so I have no idea how true it is.
But the book publishers would apparently be happy for ebooks to go away, Amazon to stop selling books, and their higher margin deals with Borders to come back. So they called Amazon's bluff.
Competition. I bet you Apple wanted to sell that adapter as premium addon, but because of the angry folks talking about it for a while now due to rumors, they decided to include that adapter with each phone.
Yeah, why should we assume that a company that has a history of making unnecessarily proprietary equipment would do so again in the future? that'd be absurd, right?
"Look at all these new great features you get with this update! Oh, btw your old, obsolete headphone jack won't work with this version anymore... but look at all these new great features! It's entirely your decision, but don't you want all these great new features? Oh btw, here's a voucher for a discount on these awesome new air bud 2's!!"
When have they ever done that before? Everything is within the realm of possibility, but just because someone has the technical ability to do something doesn't mean they will.
This is how I see all the Cory Doctorow/BoingBoing fear mongering. He's made a career out of scaring people and being as disingenious as possible, but because he picks on "the man" the typical college/highschool types praise him as some sort of freedom fighter. Internet fandom really deserves better heroes. The EFF itself is almost as bad and is run by seemingly the most paranoid and reactionary people out there. I imagine their hearts are in the right place but angry and poorly sourced hit pieces hurt their reputation.
>Then don't even buy Apple. They've been locked down in so many other ways for a long time.
Once in a while my Nexus will piss me off, but then I remember what the realistic alternatives are. I do like Apple products, but the lock-downs become a hassle. I can't imagine having to carry around yet more adapters for them. The market probably won't even punish them as the Apple brand is so strong and BT headphones so common, that it'll just royally piss off only a very small percentage of buyers. They're welcome to buy a Nexus/Pixel/Whatever. Apple isn't changing its ways for us. That's fine because we have a choice in mobile OS's.
What would Cory do without Apple to hate on? I worry about the guy.
Nobody's forcing you to buy an iPhone 7. Nobody's taking away all your analog ports. It's like the NRA here getting all up in arms because someone had the audacity to declare a gun free zone in a school which impinges on their freedoms.
Seriously, get a grip Cory. You're free to criticize Apple's decisions but don't make it out like Apple's destroying the world.
It's never been easier to make your own phone. If Cory and the EFF were really interested in changing the world they'd go and make an open-source, open-hardware smart phone so they had something to point to when people are feeling cheated by companies like Apple.
Let's talk again in 12 or 24 months, when all the other manufacturers have done their usual thing of stampeding blindly to ape whatever Apple's done lately.
> It's never been easier to make your own phone.
Making a phone is the easy part.
Getting permission to use that phone on closed, proprietary networks controlled entirely by a giant telcos who have absolutely no interest in letting you do so, on the other hand...
You'll have nobody to blame but the other vendors, and I think they'd be stupid to follow Apple here. The answer to headphones that Apple has now is the Lightning connector/adapter plus their wireless solution.
Other companies have nothing. Can USB-C do the job? Do they have a wireless standard they can all agree on? I have my doubts.
> Getting the telcos...
They have no say in it. You can use an unlocked phone on any network you want. You can already build your own phone with a Rasperry Pi and a GSM module. There's really nothing they can do.
They won't sell it in their retail stores, that's a huge barrier, but not if you don't care.
> Besides, with only Apple earbuds currently supporting the Lightning audio connection, the only way to connect an iPhone 7 to a recording or mixing device will be over the suboptimal Bluetooth connection or a dongle provided by Apple.
If you are recording stuff from your iPhone using the 3.5mm jack you are already suboptimal perhaps even to the bluetooth.
For one you are going through the iPhone DAC (luckily the iphone DACs are pretty descent) then through a generally crappy mini amplifier. If you are doing this you are expecting suboptimal or really don't care about the music quality. I'm not audiophile and hardly care about extreme music quality but If you are mixing/recording you shouldn't be adding artifacts.
If you do care about quality recording you either tranfer content off the iphone, bypass the phone jack (aka amplifier), or bypass even the DAC (and get a stream directly). There are several products that already do this on the market for the existing iPhone.
(It would be nice if some one would comment instead of downvoting. I don't know if my comment is inappropriate or factually wrong... or just in the way... seriously who records stuff off their iPhone? I'm not disagreeing with the intent of the article just that I doubt audio/music experts are going to be affected by this change)
> If you are recording stuff from your iPhone using the 3.5mm jack you are already suboptimal perhaps even to the bluetooth.
This isn't true at all, unless your hardware is legitimately bad. All but the worst cables and amplifier chains can carry a 20 kHz signal (again, we're talking audio here -- that's basically D/C to modern electronics) at better than the ~45dB signal/noise ratio needed by the ADC on the other side.
And bluetooth isn't in general lossless. If the codec sets match, it's theoretically possible to send a music file directly over an A2DP pipe, but in practice I find almost all audio gets re-encoded for the transfer. In my car, I actually get significantly clearer music with the jack than I do over bluetooth.
I've observed a lot of ground loop problems in cars with a smartphone connected to a stereo line input and also to a USB charger. Some of the USB supply return currents pass through the shield of the audio cable and nastiness ensues.
Cars are one of the worst environments for analog electronics due to massive interference from spark plugs (basically wide band RF emitters), along with bad power from the alternator and high currents through the chassis ground.
I don't know about the iPhone, but many portable devices use a class-D amplifier on the headphone output for battery life, and most class-D amplifiers struggle with high-frequency reproduction.
I agree most usages of bluetooth are not going to be good (hence why I said "perhaps"). However I have a Cambridge Audio DAC with a bluetooth adapter that does have aptx and A2DP support. Does it sound better than the straight 3.5mm? I think so but that is probably because I think I like (cringe) upsampling :).
Of course in the car everything sounds like garbage to me. I don't have the speakers nor the attention span nor the multitasking ability to notice it.
That being said interference is always noticeable.
I think you are factually correct and pointing out an over-reach by the EFF regarding the framing of the subject. The EFF likes to narrow an argument down to the point where they can safely ignore individual caveats, preferring to portray things as "universal rights" issues on the larger level. It's their tactic, from what I've noticed over the years.
I've had reasonable results using the headphone output on both iPhone and iPad with music-creation specific programs intended to create quality / usable output (e.g. Figure & GarageBand). The switch to this iPhone7 setup is bad for me because I have purchased several portable devices that use a dongle - well, now a chain of dongles - to allow me to use them with the device. As in, with my Akai LPK25, I use a USB cable to the Camera Connector, and then an adapter to Lightning, then into an iPhone. Then I use a pair of headphones to listen directly to what's going on. In the iPhone7 setup, now I need Bluetooth headphones if I intend to use one of my hardware devices, at least in theory. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth, both because I don't trust the latency / connectivity until I try it, and second, I don't feel like shelling out $$ for Bluetooth headphones that may or may not be to my studio-type work.
This isn't a grand conspiracy of DRM or Apple or the Music Industry in that regard, it just looks like more of a cash grab of the 'because we can' type nature, which I don't believe should be all that surprising.
No, I don't think it'll be prevented, but I wasn't using an exterior DAC in my scenario. I've got one or two of those (e.g. Line6 something a rather) but what I mean is using the iPhone's internal processing. Use hardware to trigger (via Lightning port) and listen with headphones (via headphone port). That scenario, which is one I use frequently, doesn't work in the new platform shown.
All the other DAC-type stuff should still work provided the iOS / Apple platform will support them (don't see why not). I've just been reluctant to purchase iDevice specific audio cards, so to speak, preferring the USB standard because I use a PC primarily.
There are a lot of iOS music creation apps: software instruments, synthesizers, vocoders, effects, etc. The user of these apps will care about getting good quality audio out of them.
>If you do care about quality recording you either tranfer content off the iphone, bypass the phone jack (aka amplifier), or bypass even the DAC (and get a stream directly). There are several products that already do this on the market for the existing iPhone.
More than several, also certainly not limited to iPhone. My external amp/DAC works through lighting-to-camera USB output.
I wouldn't be surprised if someday my amp/DAC wasn't supported through the existing lighting-USB adapter. Couldn't they restrict how digital sound is output from the iPhone? That is, restricting the use of what external DAC you can use.
There was the Arcam rDock and drDock (sadly discontinued) with Burr-Brown DACS. It carried a disctintly audiophile price mind you. I know there's a few others out there.
Apple makes a Lightning to USB Camera dongle which should be able to drive an external usb DAC (app-dependent I expect, though). I assume that iOS could take away the ability to do that, however.
I understand the argument that forcing content through a proprietary jack opens the door for controlling said content and has huge implications for hardware manufacturers and the way people use their stuff.
What I am having a hard time understanding is why is that any different than the OS influencing what gets sent to the 3.5mm jack? It isn't like apps running in iOS had to interact with APIs to do all the other things (e.g. camera) but not the jack. Is it?
>why is that any different than the OS influencing what gets sent to the 3.5mm jack?
Their issue seems to be that it is not analog. The lightening port and bluetooth connection are two-way data connections, and the phone will be able to identify what is attached (rather than just outputing an analog signal). Here's the quotes that make that clear-
> But intentionally or not, by removing the analog port, Apple is giving itself more control than ever over what people can do with music or other audio content on an iPhone.
>With Bluetooth, the phone can distinguish between different types of devices and treat them differently. Apple can choose which manufacturers get to create Lightning-compatible audio devices.
Yes, they published "Thoughts on Music" on apple.com arguing against DRM on music. Then they took the essay down, and now use DRM on streamed music (and they never stopped using DRM on video or ebooks).
Define "suits them" then. Microsoft locks down everything, even the computer itself with Secure Boot. Apple does no such thing.
If you want to run OS X/macOS on your own hardware it's doable. The only trick is finding drivers, not cracking DRM or license protection.
If you want to run another OS on your Mac you might need to fiddle with the EFI settings and/or update that with an EFI mod tool to make it more compatible, but there's no real impediment to installing anything you want.
Apples to oranges. OSX only runs on apple computers - you 'pay' for OSX when you buy the hardware. However, MS has to sell the software itself. You also downplay the magnitude of the problem "finding drivers".
Yes, the parent post is oddly off topic. Continued invocation of the unrelated windows platform (despite an explicit reminder that this is a Tu quoque fallacy), as well as a strange focus on OS X, as if iOS doesn't even exist.
Obviously apple will gladly lock down, control, restrict, and regulate their users (and even their devs) when it serves their purpose. Just look at iOS. The entire platform is restricted from top to bottom.
That's a phone, and they've taken a different approach with security for those. The product they're offering is one where you're more restricted in what you can do, but you're given more security as a trade-off.
For their iOS products, more locked down equals more safe. They're treating them more as appliances than as general purpose computers. For consumers this has some appeal: The risk of malware and trojan/virus like applications is effectively zero on iOS.
If there was a way to offer security without locking things down they'd probably do it, but I think that's a logical impossibility.
If you don't like that model you have a ridiculous number of alternatives, more so than in the PC space.
So this is less a case of Apple using DRM when it suits them and more a case of Apple using DRM when it suits the consumer. Running only trusted, signed applications is a limitation, but it's one that is not without benefits.
It would be so easy to beat this though (if you want the analog hole route), ultimately that gets decoded and sent to the speakers in the headphones, rip the headphones apart.
Unless they start doing serious hardware anti-tamper in headphones I don't think it's a real risk.
Bingo. We already see this with HDMI and HDCP where you can get a diminished experience, or none at all, because the playback device and the TV can't get their ducks in a row.
Amazon will serve me HD video on my smart TV using its Amazon app, but not on my computer using the same TV as a second monitor. And lest you think the problem is the computer, I can get it on my PC just fine using a regular computer monitor...it's a bummer to think about this sort of thing with simple audio as well.
Huh. I often use my non-smart TV as a second monitor, but I'd never tried playing an Amazon video on it. Sure enough, the same video that plays in Firefox on a VGA monitor gives me a "we're experiencing a problem playing this video." message if I move the browser to the TV.
Yeah, I'm imagining some scenario where say Spotify partners with Bose, and if you plug in Bose headphones then you get higher quality audio than you can get elsewhere. Or say tidal (Jay Z's streaming service) says you can only listen to some songs via Kanye's new headphones.
That's actually really interesting. Especially as everything is moving toward personalization. If you have a set of headphones that have a unique ID tied to you, the artist could even intro a song with your name - or in the future procedurally generated music could substitute a reference to your city into a song.
Thats a cool idea!
Arcade fire did a really cool music video in a similar vein that was interactive/personalized: http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com/
This is totally off topic, but just checked out your website and damn, you're a hell of a runner. I'm thinking about signing up for my first ultra real soon!
It's not that society doesn't care, it's that people don't spend time figuring out all the distant-future implications of their choices. While you can't boil a literal live frog by turning up the heat slowly, this principle works extremely well on the free market.
But if a manufacturer wanted to only play audio to their device, they could have already made it a lightning-connected device.
If they do give the ability to distinguish the lightning-to-3.5mm adapter from other lightning headphones, that isn't any greater than the ability to distinguish between the 3.5mm jack and the lightning port is it?
The issue not likely to arise with hardware manufacturers. However, content license holders have been eager to have powers to restrict playback based on the device that will be playing back, see region encoded disks and HDMI.
Apple has been very good at predicting (or perhaps directly causing) the demise of certain technologies: the disk drive, the CD drive, the ethernet port. They removed them much to the chagrin of many a loyal customer, and a few years later they nearly ceased to exist across the entire industry (we're still waiting on the ethernet port to go away but give it time).
How many times will it take you forgetting your dongle to just pony up and buy the apple approved headphones? How long will it take you using the non-default, non-apple, non-sleek, clunky dongle as you show off your fancy new iPhone 7 to your friends before you decide it's got to go? What if they're using it the apple-intended way?
How long will it take before nobody buys headphones anymore? A few generations until they deprecate the dongle since nobody is using it? Where you can no longer buy a $10 set of headphones at a drugstore and plug them in? Where 'every audio device must provide analog audio output in a universal format that every device has been able to read since audio was invented or it is functionally useless' is no longer a maxim?
Long-term, we are giving up a universal and open protocol that all devices work with for a proprietary one. If you don't expect companies to abuse this to make money and to stop you from doing what you want with your equipment, well, I've got a bridge to sell you.
Floppy disks, optical disks, ethernet were all replaced by unencumbered standards and they all lead to a superior experience (well, maybe not ethernet, but there are definitly advantages to wireless). If you're old enough to have used a floppy disk drive you do not miss them.
Any time you introduce two way communication, you introduce the possibility of DRM, but that does not guarantee it. I can still use my HDMI with my linux PC. DRM is exclusive of the technology and I see no reason to hold back the technology because we are worried about DRM.
There are lots of compelling reasons to dislike this change. Among them the fact that I have a large investment in traditional headphones and devices that work well with them (my iPod, my HTC Phone, my stereo, TV, piano, guitar amp, etc etc etc), a decrease in quality, convenience and weight of wireless headsets (how long do they work? How much do they weigh? Can I swim or workout with them?). But DRM is not automatic.
>If you're old enough to have used a floppy disk drive you do not miss them.
I am, and I do. Floppies were ubiquitous, durable, reusable, and cheap enough to give away. There's no replacement today - flash drives are the closest thing but when was the last time someone handed you one with no expectation of getting it back? Or bought a box of 50?
Sneakernet became much less vibrant with the death of the floppy.
Flash drives cost almost nothing. I'm not going to lose any sleep over a $4 flash drive being given to someone and never getting it back. In terms of inflation that's cheaper than giving someone a floppy that cost $1.
Floppy disks were always terrible. Slow, unreliable, prone to failure at the worst possible time. A simple magnet could trash them beyond repair. A bit of water could render them unreadable. Leave it loose in your bag and it gets bent? The thing was toast.
In the dying days of the floppy disk, around the time Apple introduced the iMac with no floppy drive, they were already obsolete. 1.44MB could barely hold anything useful at that time, most people doing any serious exchange had already moved on to Zip drives because they held a more reasonable 100MB, or CD-R since you could burn six times more than that onto them. If you had tiny WordPerfect files then floppies were adequate, barely, but what kind of a market is that?
I'll give you 3 of those points, but definitely not durable. Some of them lasted a long time, and some of them stopped working before I could finish writing to them. And since writing to them was painfully slow, something frequently went wrong.
Of course with flash drives we can wait the short time it typically takes someone to copy the contents off to get it back. And since they can hold significantly more data, they are also far more reusable.
You can buy USB flash drives for $2. People don't refrain from handing over flash drives because they're expensive, they do it because they have a reasonable expectation that you're able to immediately copy the data, or that you can receive it over a network.
The death of the floppy didn't kill sneakernet, the rise of portable networked computing did.
Floppies were NOT durable, and I just bought a box of 10 8GB USB sticks for under $20 - that's similar to the cost of the 1.44MB floppies we used to buy.
> Small enough to fit in your pocket but large enough not to get lost from your pocket
You can get keyring flash drives, I'd rather that than something larger. Anyway a floppy barely fit in a pocket.
> Cheap enough not to care about
Flash drives are cheap enough not to care about... but my data isnt!
I would definitely give a flash drive to someone if they needed it. They're like $4 each or something. And on a $/Gb comparison they obviously blow away a floppy.
> Disk could be ejected but still sitting in the drive not sticking out far enough to be a bother
You can safely remove a flash drive and leave it plugged in if you like.
The headphone jack was already destined to be replaced by USB type-c on many (not all) portable devices. Apple's move may change the time line, but does not change this fact.
"ports older than USB" meant serial and, later, ethernet.
My new-issue Dell work laptop lacks an optical drive and Ethernet. My dad just bought an even beefier Dell laptop and the first thing he asked was "where's the DVD drive?" Dell offered to send him a free external USB optical drive, but told him that internal optical drives were simply not an option on that make of laptop.
The question is, who is going to win: the legion of teenagers and young adults who listen to audio via the headphone jack, or device makers?
(It's the legion.)
If you had a replacement that was better - cheaper, less of an annoyance than $5 headphones plugged into a cheap phone - then you might win. But the proposed replacement is superexpensive, battery-powered wireless headphones. When the no-strain-relief Apple cables break, probably within weeks, you're supposed to buy another superexpensive set. That's not going anywhere with the horde of teenagers. It's a non-starter.
> we're still waiting on the ethernet port to go away but give it time
You have it precisely backwards.
Far from going away, everything became Ethernet.
Take a look at the modern interconnection standards: HDMI, USB 3.0, Thunderbolt, etc. They are all packetized transfer across an impedance controlled double pair of wires.
I think parent was probably implying wireless would take over.
I don't agree however, call me a luddite but I'm partial to the simplicity and speed of wires. Not for my phone of course, but for my main desktop PC, I'm happy it's not wireless.
How long will it take me to buy the clunky charging dongle - one for my bag, one for the car, and just leave them there? I'm an outlier - I don't use the headphone jack to listen to music but rarely - I use it to make phone calls - because both the audio quality and the volume offered is much superior to any reasonably priced wireless solution I've seen - with the added advantage of me not needing to charge it.
I suspect that Apple has enough usage data reported from customers to indicate how many of its customers use bluetooth (which is a universal and open protocol) to justify this from a business perspective - while it'll be inconvenient for me - I understand that in many ways, I'm not the typical Apple customer.
The EFF article? its FUD, pure and simple. A couple of the early android devices had no headphone jack - there was no great outcry about the encroaching DRMed world, some minor grousing about the annoyance of not having a headphone jack was all. Apple will likely support the adapter as long as most everyone else does - as in the past they were never the first to get there, just the most notable.
My understanding is that it is about what is the output. The 3.5mm jack outputs the regular audio data. You could just make it output encrypted data, but that is the same as removing it, all the headphones won't work. If you replace it with a proprietary system you can add in DRM, like not outputting anything if the connected device (which can be an adapter) is not certified. Everything has to get transformed into regular data at one point, but the content mafia is trying since many years to control as many parts of the system as possible. This is one further step.
>The 3.5mm jack outputs the regular audio data. You could just make it output encrypted data, but that is the same as removing it, all the headphones won't work.
The 3.5mm jack outputs an analog signal. It's already been converted from digital data to an analog signal by the phone's DAC chip.
Exactly; Apple has always controlled what can be sent to the DAC on the audio jack. (I don't know if it has a dedicated DAC, but even if it shares with the speaker, the device knows when something is plugged into the jack).
How secure are these dongles? Will we see third party ones, or do you need key material from Apple before they will light up?
The Xbox is full of this kind of thing, btw (most peripherals require a "security chip" that just needs to handshake; purely revenue protection, and nothing to do with security).
Apple products have always been built with a Walled Garden approach, so nothing new here. The same ios software/hardware combo has always been fully controlled by Apple.
I'd think that the OS is irreparably "blind" to devices connected to the 3.5mm jack, unable to identify them, and unable to discriminate among them, unable to send audio output to some of them, and not to others. A proprietary audio standard might include a way to identify devices (since manufacturers would likely have to use some kind of ID in the devices they make with Apple's blessing).
The discussion seems to be easily diverted into one about audio, but I think something that I've not seen in discussion about this issue is the way some app makers have used the analog audio port as a data jack. I've long had the impression this was a workaround that was begrudgingly tolerated by Apple. Though we've all heard about how heavy-handed their app store policies are, so maybe I'm imagining things. But anyway, how does this new port affect the use of those devices and how does it affect future devices? Are there Lightning-only devices in the works, does Lightning allow the same sort of communication that the analog port did?
Plugging the audio jack seems to be Apple closing a loophole. It's not at all different from soldering RAM on motherboards to close the after-market RAM upgrade loophole and force customers to decide at purchase time how they'll use the computer in the future. Either they'll by too-low spec'd machine and have to upgrade sooner, or buy high spec'd and pay more upfront. Either way Apple wins. Their phones don't have card slots but my $50 LG phone does, so it's not a question of capability. When you can add 32GB of storage for $15, that money doesn't go to Apple.
The truly bothersome thing is how in denial people are about Apple's true intentions, or maybe it's simply that they own Apple stock. Apple's a public company, this is profit motivated pure and simple. Whether this move will also coincide with the interests of the customer remains to be seen.
Yea the one that comes to mind for me would be the card swiper by Square and other companies. That thing is amazing for small businesses, especially mobile food carts. I'm starting to see many are moving over to the card reader however, which I'm not sure if that is lightning-based or not.
Anyway, I think that is a great point. Smart phones need a good serial port for 3rd-party hardware. USB would work, but everyone uses a different standard. Is the lightning port any easier or more difficult to work with? I imagine there's some sort of cost to using a proprietary port like that as well.
> Yea the one that comes to mind for me would be the card swiper by Square and other companies.
At the hardware level, that's a microphone. I don't see any a priori reason to imagine it would fail to work via the Lightning to 3.5mm adapter, any more than any other microphone would. It's less convenient mechanically because the connection is no longer rigid, which may make swiping uncomfortable, but that's the only drawback I see.
(And a sibling comment mentions having seen Apple explicitly call that out as something which will keep working, so maybe we don't need to reason a priori here.)
The new phone comes with the analog jack adaptor in the box. Assuming the electrical and A/D, D/A specs are not different than the previous built-in analog jack, nothing has changed apart from the hassle of a dongle.
Sure, but what percentage of iphone owners will lose this dongle? I imagine its a non-trivial number. Apple's famous markup means they created a new revenue source out of thin air with this decision. Certainly, Apple has an interest in making their phones as sleek as possible, but that decision is always tied to monetization concerns. I think its a little naive to ignore the added income Apple is going to enjoy here.
The adapter costs $9. Not a huge cost to replace, and I don't think Apple is marking it up very much. Apple sells seemingly simpler cables for $19 and up, so I think they're trying really hard to make it cheap to buy.
The utility of the audio port as a data jack is so minuscule compared to the impact and backlash of removing the 3.5mm port that I don’t think it is much of a factor at all.
Though I can't find the reference offhand, Apple said the adapter would support other "audio jack" tools, specifically calling out the Square payment dongle.
I'm not convinced. The record industry has already given up on DRM except for streaming. A lot has to happen before DRM is applied to headphones.
Audio is not like video, where it's hard to get a decent copy from the screen. With audio you can always just hook up to the analog output to the speakers themselves and get a copy indistinguishable from the original
Fighting for DRM on headphones would be an uphill battle in so many ways, and I'm not sure the record industry is stupid enough to waste the effort. They've already seemed to learn what everyone know: piracy is solved by making the content easily, universally available at a reasonable price. Piracy is tedious. Just make a better service and the customers will come to you.
Agreed; Apple has a very cozy relationship with the major music industry (see also: paying for exclusive content to best its market-competition) and while yes, this proprietary lock-in does have genuine DRM concerns, I don't think it's nearly as overwhelming as portrayed. I appreciate staying 'concerned' with DRM creep and issues of ownership vs. licensing (something the EFF loves to conflate when convenient for their arguments), but going "Chicken Little" is a bit much. They've already got their DMCA 1201 case in progress to kill DRM.
Back to the headphone lock-in: Is it profiteering from customers who really like the Apple ecosystem? For sure! Is it just another instance of using music to sell something else with even higher profit margins? Sure! Will it result in a doom-and-gloom future where thousands of music fans are rounded up, sued, and punished for finding a work-around on their own? Seems very unlikely.
That Apple wants their users to only use 'approved' peripherals with their stuff (i.e. only those from which they get a share of the profits) under the guise of 'user experience' and 'convenience' does not mean the rest of the world will suddenly give up on their analogue headphones. Apple users will be able to buy dongles (which have to be Apple-approved, so Apple will still get their share of the profits leading to higher prices which Apple-users are willing to bear to be part of that exclusive community) to connect their analogue headphones, the rest of the world will happily keep plugging those 3.5mm jacks into their phones and tablets and radios and other devices.
As an aside, what a strange creature is man that he wants to replace a device which is analogue by nature - ears not being digital after all - with a digital counterpart which is clearly sub-optimal, overly complex and fraught with potential restrictions. Meanwhile that same man will brag to his friends about the analogue turn table he purchased on which he plays his analogue records for that true analogue experience, claiming a much warmer sound that is clearly superior to that produced by digital players which 'chop the sound into bits which takes away from the experience'.
Except they clearly explained that they had interference problems with the new camera and the analogue jack, which they don't have by using a digital port. Conveniently, lightning was already there.
I agree the situation is not optimal, but please, stop this "they so greedy", "this is only for selling adapters" etc. After all, it's apple's product, and if it doesn't appeal to you, don't buy it.
As you have stated yourself, the rest of the industry might not even follow them here.
This kind of attitude isn't logical and is in fact extremely dangerous. It's the same argument as "if you don't have anything to hide, why do you mind being spied on by corporations and governments?"
It is entirely reasonable and in fact GOOD that people have strong opinions about things even if they do not personally interact or care about the actual thing. When an increasingly large amount of our society is shaped by Apple or Facebook or Google, their decisions affect everyone, even those not directly using those services or being customers.
Opinions matter. Don't tell people that they should shut up and ignore global implications because they themselves wouldn't buy the product.
If everybody is open about everything, the result is not that all spying/invasion ends. In fact, it doesn't really prevent anything (it makes those who were spying more powerful in fact - you've done their job for them.)
On the other hand, if nobody bought the products a company is selling, that company eventually goes out of business. Or finds that their products don't have a market fit, and adjust them accordingly.
I'm not a free-market-solves-everything type by any means, I just don't see how these can be considered "the same argument" at all.
(Though, I agree with your basic point that we should not only allow, but encourage discussion and opinions. At the root of it, I agree with where you're going.)
I'm definitely not trying to shut down opinions. It's perfectly fine to dislike the removal of the headphone jack.
However, I'm sick of people calling out Apple for being what it is: A capitalistic enterprise. Ultimately, of course they want to make more money. But they have clearly explained reasons other than "sell adapters" (which itself is kind of stupid, since they ship a free one with every iPhone). And after all, they don't control the market. Heck, here in Germany they don't even have 15% market share. It's not like they force the other 85% to drop the headphone jack.
Moving the DAC another centimeter or so from inside the phone to the Lightning plug isn't going to magically cure interference - at least, not when the device that's supposedly interfering is already at the opposite end of the phone. Apple's engineers aren't stupid. If they didn't get a working 3.5mm jack it's because they didn't want to.
>As an aside, what a strange creature is man that he wants to replace a device which is analogue by nature - ears not being digital after all - with a digital counterpart which is clearly sub-optimal, overly complex and fraught with potential restrictions
Well, if you're hearing it it's ultimately become analog. The question is where does it become analog. I can legitimately understand that many people would like that it happens at your ear and you don't have wires.
No, the conversion from digital to analogue can and should happen in the device itself to be able to use the analogue signal with the plethora of peripherals intended for this purpose, without any additional restrictions above those already in place. For those who want or need digital output this possibility already exists in more than one way - through USB and Bluetooth to give some examples - so this is not a valid argument to promote the omission of an analogue output. Nor is Apple's claim of interference from the camera or other on-board hardware valid, given the abundance of camera-equipped devices which have no problems with interference.
It does not take that much thought to see through the rhetoric and discern the true reason for omitting an analogue output, I'd even go so far as to claim that it takes more thought to remain wilfully ignorant of the fact that Apple simply wants more control over how, when and where to 'allow' the device to produce output.
If you think I'm arguing that it made sense to remove the analog output, you're mistaken. It's absurd to me. It's perfectly sensible however to want wireless headphones (or speakers), but Apple hasn't introduced anything new here in that regard.
I mean, I listen from digital output through my 6s probably 90% of the time since the built-in amp doesn't cut it, but I'm also finding this whole thing ridiculous. I'll certainly not be upgrading to a 7.
You can also output digital audio to USB through Apple's Camera Connect Kit, which allows you to use an external DAC/amp for whatever headphones you want.
How about "only Apple earbuds or Apple-approved devices"?
Surely, the point is Apple can easily control what works and what doesn't. Whatever the situation is today is no comfort against the potential abuses of the future.
They have been doing this with headphones for a while now. I became acquainted with this when I had some headphones with play/pause, volume controls, and a mic for my iPhone 4S. After the 4S, I bought an Android phone and was sad to learn the volume controls over the 3.5mm connector were Apple proprietary and the only thing I could do with my $150 Klipsh 'phones as play/pause or answer calls - the volume rocker becoming totally useless.
The lack of a headphone jack is simply yet another excellent reason not to buy an iPhone. What confuses me is why so many people continue to buy Apple products when they're overpriced, locked-down and treat developers like crap.
Because consumers don't care how developers are treated, nor do they care about walled gardens like we do.
They buy the iPhone because of the brand, or they use Android because that's the free phone that was available, or the one the Verizon store pushed.
Geeks like us spend a lot of energy projecting our beliefs onto an audience who simply does not care. I know I've gotten riled up about open standards and DRM and stuff like that; my non-geek friends just roll their eyes at me.
Maybe they do it because they don't care. Or maybe they do it because we geeks treat everything like a Chicken-Little sky-is-falling thing.
I have never owned an iphone, I was considering it whenever my nexus5 gives up the ghost, but Apple has made sure that I'll not be buying the iphone anytime soon. I'll stick to android with headphones, I like my headphones, I invested into solid ear and headphones. $50 each. I'm frugal like that.
Most other manufacturers in contrast to Apple do not only sell these overpriced "flagship devices" which few people really need these days but also offer devices in a more reasonable price range.
The biggest problem is that others often copy stupid or customer unfriendly decisions Apple makes, leading to a lot less choice if you want to avoid it.
> Most other manufacturers in contrast to Apple do not only sell these overpriced "flagship devices" which few people really need these days but also offer devices in a more reasonable price range.
Same reason millions of offices still use Microsoft Windows. It is the brand. It doesn't matter how bad a product is as long as everyone around them is using it and it is viewed as a mark of success and money. Functionality is secondary, people are willing to adapt around it.
Other people getting screwed: Custom IEM wearers. I had a $300 set of Alclair Audio IEMs made so I can use an in-ear audio system on stage while making live music. These use impressions that an audiologist takes of your ear canals for an _exact_ fit that completely seals your ear.
There's not a snow-balls chance in hell I would have these be wireless, or a proprietary standard:
1) Latency. Anything over 2ms is not acceptable for live music. That's the difference between a band sounding "in-time" to "needs practice"
2) We use various tablets, phones to control the mix to our ears, and sometimes in between sets, listen and review music.
3) Removing the 3.5mm pretty much means Apple is exiting professional audio because it's now incompatible with 100% of everything.
4) There is no way in hell my $300 pair of custom-molded IEMs bound to a standard that Apple is going to change in 3 years. Not only would I have to replace my IEMs, but any equipment that's not Apple would have to be updated to match. Not going to happen.
Great points, and reminds me of how Apple treated those who invested heavily in Final Cut Pro 'server farms' (so to speak) for professional production, only to see FCPX and nearly pick up torches and pitchforks. Actively slicing away utility and, well, consideration for professionals at the expense of greater revenues from consumers seems to be ingrained in the Apple business model. I don't like it but I can see it with these kinds of decisions.
Although your points are completely valid for your demographic I think Apple's focus is on mass audience. Additionally, they have not yet announced the ipads and macbooks are divorcing with 3.5. So its possible you still have hope, just not on your iphone.
Either way I feel your pain and hate this decision.
I think Apple seriously underestimates its appeal towards creatives. I've been buying Apple products for 10 years because of their ease-of-use with creative software. As they slowly move away from PC's and professional media standards I see their market share diminishing.
They are heading down the path of lowest common denominator just like Microsoft in the early 2000's. I expect the same fate awaits them as someone else fills that role.
What have they specifically done that has made your creative work more difficult? I'm a creative using a MacBook Pro and it's just as good for me doing audio work as it was 5 years ago. They've also been doing a good job with Logic Pro, with some big updates of the last couple of years. Even if they removed the headphone input from their laptops (which I don't ever see happening) it's not going to effect creative professionals because they don't use it anyway.
What have they specifically done that has made your creative work more difficult?
Final Cut Pro X is now unusable due to them engineering the UX for beginners (it's basically an iMovie Pro) and similar moves to cater to the lowest common denominator. After installing Little Snitch, I noticed my mac was calling home to apple servers for basically any action which slows processing/rendering.
> Anything over 2ms is not acceptable for live music. That's the difference between a band sounding "in-time" to "needs practice"
Obviously you want your in-ear sound to be as exact as possible, but a 2 ms difference will not make a band sound bad. I remember hearing 9 ms was the threshold for live music, but I can't find any references. If it truly is lower I would love to read some source material.
There are very few people in the world that would be capable of playing within a 2 ms tolerance (but maybe you're just holding you in-ear reference to a higher standard to allow for human error).
The problem is Bluetooth audio, from all sources, is far higher than 2ms latency. The best codecs seem to be (per sources like this -- http://stereos.about.com/od/glossary/fl/What-is-aptX.htm) 40ms or so. "Typical" Bluetooth audio seems to have a latency of 150ms-200ms.
Musicians can compensate to some degree of latency, but not when your audio is delayed by approx. an 1/8th note at 140bpm. (1/8th note at 140bpm = 214ms). Even 40ms isn't terribly tight.
So rule Bluetooth audio out for this.
The dongle is an option, of course, but it probably is not as robust as a soldered-in 3.5mm jack.
I'm sure in-ear monitoring with an iPhone is unfortunately too much of a niche application for Apple to care much, though...
Do you have a source saying that the analog over lightning is being used here? Because the slide I posted in my other reply says it is "digital audio" over lightning, which I assume to be true for both lightning earpods and this adapter (though I very well could be wrong).
Articles about the Lightning headphone spec from a couple of years ago suggest that it only includes digital audio. They even specify a DAC that should be used.
I have doubts that the EarPods are digital also it's not stated anywhere.
Some of the lightning docks had some circuitry in them but no DACs.
The lightning to 30pin converter works with older DAC-less audio setups/docks.
Overall my hunch is that it's not digital only yet.
Hmm not sure most of the "digital" stuff was not about the earpods but about the wireless ones AKA the "AirPods"
The ones that come with the iPhone 7 in the box are the regular earpods we have now just with a lightning connector, there have also been a few videos going back to july about the 3.5mm connector some of them taken it apart it doesn't seem to have anything in it.
o.0 Did you click the link? It goes to right when he starts explaining Earpods switching to lightning, with "digital audio" written in the slide, and reiterating "digital audio" multiple times.
I imagine it doesn't have any DAC. The DAC is still inside the phone, just like on previous iphone, the dongle is just a physical adapter to the 3.5mm standard.
I had assumed it had a DAC since I haven't seen apple use lightning for analog audio yet. I could be wrong, but couldn't find any source for clarification (upon googling). This slide from yesterday seems to suggest lightning is being used for digital out: https://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ghvFaov2v5hQ-mZ8y-r6VM5oTWI...
Unlikely; the audio had to be converted from digital to analog on the phone previously so now that's being moved to a dongle so it's still the same process (roughly). If it does add latency I would bet it's very unnoticeable (like sub milliseconds when compared to the built-in solution).
Entirely possible. Onboard DACs use I2S which adds basically zero latency; one of the ways of getting audio out over Lightning is to use USB which requires additional latency-causing buffering. It's possible that there's another lower-latency way of getting audio out over Lighting but only Apple knows.
How so? If they were through carriers, you probably still paid for part of it through your monthly bill, and part of it was subsidized by your carrier.
Either way cmdrfred's
> An Android phone costs less than the dongle.
is incorrect. Most people are paying for their phones in some way, whether Android or iOS, whether directly or via their carrier, and the dongle is free with the phone.
Unless these were gifts, you paid for them. If the phones were "free" or just a penny from a mobile carrier, the real price of the phone was hidden in the monthly service charge. That's why you had to sign a long-term service contract to get the "free" phone.
Thank goodness the carriers have been moving away from that kind of deceptive pricing.
I think you are overstating things. 3.5mm isn't really the standard for professional audio. Much more common is 6.35mm, RCA, S/PDIF, XLR, and USB. All of which would already need an adaptor for the 3.5mm. But I doubt I'm saying anything you don't already know.
Yes it's annoying if you already are set-up for 3.5mm, and yes I can see why you wouldn't want to use a consumer wireless audio standard for live music performance, but it hardly equates to Apple "exiting professional audio".
This reads slightly hyperbolic. I suspect Apple will fight against DRM on music for quite some time having made the decision to remove it.
In the past the Apple's designs needed to respect a vast pre-existing ecosystem of headphones, amps and assorted other audio gear. Dropping the socket largely takes them out of that ecosystem, but today the success and reach of their devices exerts pressure on that ecosystem to move in Apple's direction too. That pressure does the rest of the ecosystem a significant disservice: the interoperability of the devices, cables and practices in that ecosystem provides so much utility!
I'd heard that it caused camera interference, which I don't understand. But the more plausible thing I heard was that they needed some room for that new haptic thing they put under the home button.
You can order laptops now and they are talking about a phone. They even negotiate with OEMs, such as Intel,[0] to provide more open versions of their products, diligently trying to create widespread change. They aren't all the way there,[1] but seem committed to the long run.
(I'm not affiliated, and all I know about them is what I read.)
As long as we're listening to music via physical speakers manipulating air pressure, there will always be an unencoded electrical audio signal somewhere in the system.
Now, when we start getting DRM-enabled bone conductors implanted in our jaws...
Right! And this point is exactly why the comparison with video DRM in the article is a bit weak, because video will normally be split into a signal per pixel before becoming analog, making it impractical to access the full unencoded video signal.
This, plus the fact that most copyrighted audio will be playable and copyable through unprotected channels for a while (Spotify / YouTube on PC / Android) I don't think this move has anything to do with DRM.
Except that there are adapters that convert to that same old jack, and so you haven't really lost anything.
Yet, anyhow. If they ever lock you down to only approved headphones, then we've got a real problem, and not just for being able to do what you want with your music.
You can control what songs can be decoded with what adapter.
You can control the bit rate and quality.
You can effectively make songs that only play on certain headphones or songs that play better quality when you have your beats plugged in.
This isn't the first time this has been brought up this was the first thing everyone had in mind when the rumors about Apple ditching the headphone jack first appeared.
Not really, they can't tell what headphones are plugged in they might be able to determine some very coarse profile but even that is highly questionable.
With audio being pushed through lighting port in a digital format Apple knows for sure what device is connected to it, and even if you spoof the device id they can still use DRM because the device decodes the digital signal and if it doesn't have the correct set of keys or decoding configuration it would not be able to play the audio.
As the article mentions, it's probably super easy for iOS to refuse to route audio to the adapter if it so chooses, for example when playing certain "fairplay" encrypted content. How convenient.
The difference is in how smart the jack can be. First, it's under legal/licensing restriction, which means you have to pay to play (ignore the adapter for now; it's inconvenient and can also be detected as a particular kind of 'unlicensed' device).
Second is the subtler stuff -- like how the jack can now communicate about the music and the device with the phone, so you really could do things like have exclusive Apple music releases only playable on Beats, or (behind the scenes) have a higher quality version play on your Beats than your other headphones, reinforcing the illusion that the new port and devices are "better" than the old analog one (which is impossible). Or have advertising play on radio, except on headphones that have paid a premium to be "ad-free."
It also opens up much more positive possibilities, like the phone knowing the frequency profile of the headphones that are plugged in and automatically using the right equalizer settings to make it sound great. Or, simply wireless devices being able to charge through the port when plugged in. Or having headphones with memory that can keep a few hours of music on them 'synced' by plugging in so you don't even need your iPhone to listen.
So all in all, it's a set of tradeoffs, giving up some freedom and simplicity, for the opportunity of more possibilities in the future. It's difficult to say exactly how it will be used, but the realist point of view is that it's all ending up as the same analog sound in the end; there's only so much that can be revolutionized. Time will tell.
I'm with mbreese in that I still don't see how having an external intermediate between the headphones and the phone enables this anymore than having an internal intermediate between the headphones and the rest of the phone.
That said, this is only true as long as it's still a 3.5mm plug for the headphones. If headphones start directly integrating with the new port, this equation drastically changes.
I think it's an easier "sell" to refuse third party headsets connecting through a legacy adapter, compared to refusing to use the bundled headsets that came in the box.
HeadphoneJackGate is really a damning indictment of the tech industry. The usability of Apple products for ordinary people has been sliding downhill for years due to trendy-but-idiotic features like hidden UI, flat UI, and gestures (and various abominations combining the three). But the lack of a headphone jack (a total non-issue thanks to the included adapter) is what the tech press gets worked up over...
The next iphone in 2017 or 2018 probably won't have the adapter. All headphone manufacturers should go and ask for lightning certification. The adapter is just a temporary measure to soothe customers. It won't be supported forever.
If apple honestly wanted digital audio they would have used the universal USB-C standard for the future. Apple wants customer lock-in to their platform and using lightning will prevent customers from leaving because these customers have invested a lot in their ecosystem. Ditching the lightning and moving to USB-C was the right thing to do, converting everything to lightning isn't.
Apple will only drop the adapter when enough people no longer need it. And given that Apple still sells a VGA adapter for the iPhone, it's not like they are likely to stop making it any time soon.
What about the fact that Apple ships a Lighting-to-3.5mm-stereo-analog adapter in the box? As far as I can tell, there is no practical difference from the previous scenario, other than that you need to plug in the dongle to make analog recordings.
I agree with a lot of what EFF does, but in light of the adapter provided, they're blowing this issue way out of proportion.
The real issue here is this might be anti-competitive, and go as far as being an anti-trust issue. Apple can now limit who makes headphones for the iPhone and the ones that are "allowed" could end up seeing their headphones far more expensive than the Apple and Beats brands. This is all because 3rd party brands will have to pay licensing fees to Apple to use the port. So we could end up seeing headphones that are 20%+ more expensive compared to Apple or Beats headphone units.
You don't need a license from Apple to make Bluetooth headphones or regular headphones and people will use a connector they already have from Apple. You don't want to use lightning headphones? Use Bluetooth or keep using your existing headphones with the converter that you got with a phone. I think people here are making a bigger deal than it really is.
Also, like mentioned in the article and here before, some applications on iOS that want to implement DRM could identify and block the jack adapter with their audio. "Please use lightning headphones to play this content". Apps from streaming services could be pressured into this by the labels they license their content from.
Not tomorrow, but in a few years when lightning headphones have spread a bit.
Which is a hassle. If you are making headphones now in 2016 and beyond, you are going to have to deal with the lightening port to be competitive in the iPhone accessory market.
This wasn't a push to use the lightning port -- it was a push for accessory makers to ask "First, can we make this wireless?". Lightning isn't really long for this world, either -- (not sure if it goes in 2 or 4 years, but I'd bet pretty heavily against it surviving for 6).
The next iteration of the watch is probably self-sufficient, no phone needed, and will require BT accessories.
Well again, that is another problem. BT headphones have proven to be a pain to deal with in the past. Pairing especially is a huge issue. Instead of working with the industry on that, they went with a proprietary solution which is implemented in the W1 chip. If you want to use that...you have to pay licensing fees.
Again, the quality is low on those and pairing is an issue. As said, they could have worked with the industry on that however they went with their own proprietary chip and protocol.
What makes you think that a quality of Bluetooth headphones is low? Bluetooth channel has more than enough to bandwidth to pass indistinguishable quality audio. And as for pairing issues, I noticed that issue is not in Bluetooth but in poor chips manufacturers use in their cheap products.
> It advertises that the move helps make the phone more water-resistant.
Absolute, utter nonsense. I have a 3 year old Samsung Galaxy S4 Active that sports an open headphone jack and can be SUBMERGED in water without any problems.
I don't want to have any heavy batteries sitting over, on or in my ears. Let alone the trash DAC and amplifier that these bluetooth devices have.
I think removing the headphone jack is stupid. But it has zero to do with DRM. Moving the DAC to the other side of a connector changes nothing at all about Apple's ability to implement DRM.
There was an Apple controlled DAC in your phone before, now its in a dongle 2cm away. Its annoying but not a diabolical plot.
Certainly not. Its about removing the jack to make the phone slimmer or more aesthetic or more waterproof. Or all of the above. The internal DAC is certainly part of a SOC anyway.
The point is that having an Apple DAC in a dongle makes no fundamental difference from a DRM perspective over just using the internal one on old phones. Its not a plot. We're in Texas here, hearing hoofbeats and everyone is insisting that zebras are coming.
So, apple gets rid of the headphone jack and the fear of the END of headphone jacks propagates. . .
This is somewhat depressing and frustrating; depressing because one companies' decision has the potential to influence other companies implementations that therefore will affect us all? Frustrating because homogenization is apparently that simple to implement?
I guess this quote by who knows who is ever so true. . . "there is no profit in the current paradigm. . .you have to create problems to create profits", unfortunately.
I don't disagree, but I believe the 3.5 millimeter jack was destined to be replaced eventually (not universally, but in common usage) by USB type-c regardless of Apple's move.
I am paranoid I know, however the first thing I thought is that, as headphone can be used in a reverse way as microphones, that Apple made a secret deal with the NSA (or else...) so they will be able in a Bluetooth range to connect (as Bluetooth is far away from being secure) and listen to people. Those plugs all around are just free and easy tool for spies.
Of course they could also listen to non encrypted conversations during phone calls between people using encrypted channels/tools.
Am I the only one thinking about that?
1. Apple has already publicly stated this is not about DRM and, at least when it comes to music, they have been very anti-DRM for a long time.
2. Apple earbuds aren't the only one's you can use. There are lots of lightning compatible headphones and they've been around a while.
3. This is not 'The End of Headphones Jacks'. It's one phone manufacturer. Globally iPhone market share is less than 20% so if you want a headphone jack you have a lot of great options.
> Apple has already publicly stated this is not about DRM
I'm not sure why anyone considers this relevant. It is not like apple is signing a contract which would allow us to sue them if they "change their minds".
Not only has Apple stated this isn't about DRM but throughout their recent history they've tended to back up their anti-DRM stance be getting the music labels to drop it at a time when that was pretty controversial. Any statement from them should hold some weight considering this whole debate is a conspiracy theory at best.
> Any statement from them should hold some weight considering this whole debate is a conspiracy theory at best.
Those are two separate issues. Whether or not the "whole debate is conspiracy theory at best" has no bearing on whether a statement like this from apple should hold any weight. Apple's claim may or may not be true, but we should look to other sources of evidence to evaluate this, and completely disregard 'because apple said so'.
I took "A considering B" to mean "The truth of B strengthens the claim A."
Regarding Apple's history with DRM, that's not something to completely ignore but its not very compelling, either. I see no evidence that Apple (especially as it exists today) has a true, sustained ideological position against DRM. Apple explicitly positions themselves as the platform with the least regard for empowering their users to use their (mobile) devices as they see fit (because being seen as 'more secure' is marketing gold). If the situation arose in which Apple's leadership believed they would make more money (on the whole, and long term) by embracing DRM in more places, they would do so.
I'm not sure why you would want to make up conspiracy theories, but if you are considering whether a theory (conspiracy or otherwise) may be true, the non-actionable claims made by a marketing savvy company should not have any weight in your evaluation of that theory.
So what? Early consumer computers (including ones from Apple) didn't have audio jacks either; you had to add audio adapter interfaces to have audio at all. It's just going full circle.
DRM has nothing to do with whether a device has an analog audio jack. Nobody in their right mind copies audio through the headphone jack output.
If an audio output device enforces DRM, that can be done just as well by a built-in analog out as by some bluetooth add-on or whatever. Analog out starts out digital. The audio data flows to some audio chips. Those chips have drivers, and the drivers can be signed, part of a signed OS image, etc. You can make a device that will only play digital-rights-managed content, even if it has analog outputs.
This is interesting but personally I think this move is more about Apple being able to take more profit from its Beats brand and from any third party speaker maker that now has to license to work with iOS.
Of course I guess they can also sell "premium DRM" snake oil to recording companies now, because nobody can tap audio from hardware. That's totally impossible right?
Apple just loves to tax their ecosystem. They also have a huge fetish for eliminating connectors, plugs, etc. even when they are well past the point of diminishing returns there.
The also just made it so their phone no longer works with millions of car audio systems that have an auxiliary input jack. Not all of us have 2016's with fancy Car Play or Android Auto.
While true, when the jack was the main interface for earplugs, it would've been unthinkable for the os to refuse routing audio there.
Now that lightning is default and the adapter is an extra legacy, it's much more "reasonable" (in heavy quotes) to just pop up a dialog with "this accessory is not compatible with the media file"
A headphone socket can report whether there's a jack plugged in or not - that one bit of information is the total extent of traffic in the reverse direction. There is no electronic standard for back talk from analog audio devices, and it would be pointless for Apple to try, because no analog device currently on the market would comply with it.
I'm not wrong. Apple could implement a new standard for handshaking. Only approved devices would implement it or identify themselves correctly. Current analog devices would be treated exactly as they will be using the adapter shipped with the iPhone 7.
iOS can refuse to play anything it fancies. If Apple wanted to add DRM it could have done it already (I thought it did once but took it off but I may be recalling incorrectly). I can't for the life of me see how this makes any difference.
BTW I don't mean this as some sort of "Apple are too nice to do this" thing. TBH I think they don't enforce audio DRM largely because they wouldn't be the beneficiaries. If and when that changes then I'm sure we'll hear different rhetoric.
They limit their market to only those people who'll put up with DRMd music. I don't recall the dates of the decisions and changes too well but I'm pretty confident iTunes sales would have sky-rocketed some time AFTER the DRM came off.
Is the number of people who only buy music from iTunes really enough to keep iPhone where it is in the market?
Not true. The os switches off the analog jack when the internal speaker is used or when sound is routed to a Bluetooth headphone or speaker. Clearly the OS can deny an analog jack.
my point is, an os can check whether an analog jack is authorized to work or not, an analog jack is an analog jack. On the other hand, a DRM system can be implemented with any digital accessory.
If there is a 3.5mm dongle available, how is this truly the end of the headphone jacks?
The headphone jack is still there, it just has to be accessed via the dongle. It's gone from being physically on the device, but the capability is not gone.
I think a post like this undermines EFF's credibility. Steve Jobs has railed against DRM for music and finally was able to get it. iTunes music has been DRM-free for years now. Why would Apple back out on DRM-free music?
>The customer base of Apple has no problems spending huge amounts of money.
exactly, and thus it is probably to control other manufacturers' access to that customer base. With digital non-public interface to headphones, you'd have to buy a license to produce such headphones. Basically extending "in-app purchase" 30% house cut to hardware accessories. Or another example from history - PC architecture vs. PS2.
It's frustrating that there's not a (significant) phone vendor committed to both user confidentiality and end-user control (libre/free/open).
Apple seems to provide confidentiality, if you buy their marketing, and Google is much more open/free. These should be, IMO, fundamentals of IT, but it's not even a realistic option.
Isn't this tacitly assuming that Apple will be able to single-handedly eliminate the headphone jack? I think it is quite likely that post-Jobs Apple has finally overstepped it's bounds, and despite it's good qualities the iPhone 7 will be a relative dud. In which case the iPhone 8 will (reluctantly) put the jack back.
To be completely honest, literally 0 of the people I know with iphones have anything other than official Apple headphones. Even when they break, they go into an apple store and buy new ones.
There will be lots of complaining, but for most people this won't change anything except the annoyance of not being able to charge while using the headphones without an adapter (which is the only reason I see the average joe complaining about this change).
Yep. EarPods, for most intents and purposes, are good enough for most people listening to most things. They're not like the old unnamed apple earbuds which were barely even dollar store earbud quality.
Those who use different headphones are largely already using Bluetooth or care enough about sound quality that they bypass their iPhone's DAC and/or amp and use a portable DAC/amp instead.
Exactly. It's quite annoying to see this no-problem blown so out of proportion (it sure will cause some problems for some people, but considering the whole user base that's negligible) but if one was to judge by the complaints it sounds like it affects all.
The headphone industry was generating $2.3B in revenue in 2013 [1], with premium headphones making $1B of that. Needless to say, the world is much larger than your friend group.
I wonder how much of that "premium" segment is owned by Beats? Regardless of their quality, this CNN article[0] claims that beats owns a quarter of the total headphones market and over half of the "premium headphones" segment.
These other stats claim that Apple & Beats, combined, account for 70% of future purchase plans for teens.[1] Th definitely have the edge with regards to marketing.
And also, looks like just recently Bluetooth headphones are outselling wired headphones.[2]
With Apple controlling Beats, and Beats nearly controlling the headphones market, I still think this problem will end up affecting a mere niche demographic one year from today.
I guess Android phones will probably go for something based off USB-C. I wonder if Apple will approve an adapter from lightning to some other digital connector?
There's a lot of potential for anti-competitive practice here -- for example, Apple could theoretically prevent the Spotify app from transmitting audio over Bluetooth or Lightning, forcing users into the Apple Music ecosystem.
Antitrust law is not just about monopolies, and it does not only apply to monopolies. Also, the world market wouldn't matter, because any individual case would be brought in a specific legal jurisdiction, where only that specific jurisdiction's market would be relevant.
The headphone jack is not obsolete. Apple has proved this by including the adapter. If it was really a revolution in amazing tech, they wouldn't have included the adapter because the consumers would be throwing their existing headphones away and flocking to the amazing quality air buds.
I have a few pairs of good headphones, and I'd be willing to bet that you cannot compare the quality of those sure-to-be-crap air buds to good IEMs or good wired headphones.
I'm not going to eschew the many good headphone manufacturers out there to be locked in to whatever beats poser garbage Apple decides to license its stupid DRM-locked wireless tech to.
I'm not shocked or alarmed, I just won't be buying an iphone 7.
I'm also tired of the haters. But the gratuitous crassness of this comment is a bit too much. There's no need for it.
A better approach would be addressing Cory Doctorow and the EFF's point directly by pointing out that the converter cable exists and comes with all new phones. And that when it comes to audio, Apple doesn't tend to deliver bad cables or low quality DACs.
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No, hardware-wise you're still going through a DAC, and the complex audio subsystem of the OS is still deciding, upon receiving the connection signal, to re-route the application audio through that headphone DAC. Or not. Jack or Lightning doesn't change this.
> Apple can choose which manufacturers get to create Lightning-compatible audio devices.
Sure. Or you can use the included lightning-jack adapter and just use normal, un-DRM'd headphones.
>Once Apple gets the ability to add DRM, the record industry gets the ability to insist that Apple use it
See my first point: the audio jack wasn't your last guardian of freedom.
>In other words, if it’s impossible to connect a speaker or other audio device to an iPhone without Apple software governing it
Use the adapter. And see the first point.
> the only way to connect an iPhone 7 to a recording or mixing device will be over the suboptimal Bluetooth connection or a dongle provided by Apple.
Aha! They finally acknowledge the adapter! But do they acknowledge that it's functionally identical to a built-in DAC?
> It's possible that iOS or specific apps will be able to disable the dongle.
It's also possible the phone will halt and catch fire if you run an unapproved app. But disabling the dongle would be moronic. For one thing, they'd be incurring the wrath of ADA-defender groups.
>the converter you rely on to hear your phone on your hearing aids—just became less useful.
See previous point.
>But you shouldn’t have to depend on a manufacturer’s permission to use its hardware however you like.
Then don't even buy Apple. They've been locked down in so many other ways for a long time.
Anyhow.
The simple explanation (see Occam's Razor) is that the designers noticed that they were using valuable internal space for a redundant connector (considering the hardware has been able to route audio over Lightning for a long time), and figured they could reclaim that space for something else. Clearly, people disagree with this change. The market will tell.