Apple iPhone 7 Plus Packs 3GB RAM, Early A10 Fusion Benchmarks Look Very Strong (hothardware.com) 324
MojoKid writes from a report via HotHardware: Apple's A10 Fusion processor, paired with the iPhone 7, is already making its mark on benchmark circuit. Although you may or may not be impressed with Apple's new handset, as usual, Cupertino's latest smartphone is looking very strong performance-wise. According to Geekbench numbers, which showcase the iPhone 7 Plus running iOS 10.0.1 (Golden Master), the 5.5-inch smartphone has 3GB of RAM onboard (the iPhone 7 reportedly contains 2GB RAM). Compared to the previous generation iPhone 6s Plus, this is an increase of 1GB. Compared to Android flagships, which come with 4GB or even 6GB of RAM, 3GB might seem paltry. However, benchmarks show time and time again that Apple's SoCs are among the fastest in the industry and simply do more with less resources. Apple says that the advances it has made with the A10 allow the processor to be twice as fast as the A8 in the iPhone 6 Plus and 40 percent faster than the A9 in the iPhone 6s Plus. The iPhone 7 Plus received a Geekbench single-core score of 3233, while its multi-core score comes in at 5363. For comparison, the beefy A9X processor in the iPad Pro -- also paired with 3GB of RAM -- puts up scores of 3009 and 4881 respectively. Likewise, these numbers far outpace those of the iPhone 6s Plus, which delivers 2407 and 4046 respectively.
Twice as fast! (Score:4, Funny)
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My boring conference calls will be cut in half.
You mean a break will be inserted? (To recharge the device?)
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iPhone 7 = the new pet rock (Score:3, Interesting)
Ah yes, crippling the iPhone further with the removal of the highly standardised headphone jack, requiring a pricey and fragile, easy-to-lose, bulky adapter. They're seemingly trying to make the iPhone as useful as a pet rock, and similarly overpriced.
Why is Apple doing this, really? The reason isn't waterproofing (both Samsung and Sony meet at least IP68 ratings, and for some models, even Milspec 810G) without sacking the headphone jack. It isn't technology-related, since both Sony and Samsung fit far more features into less space - again, without sacking the headphone jack.
It's about having yet another expensive-yet-fragile-and-easy-to-lose mandatory accessory, or to create a sense vendor lock-in (because they'll be telling their gullible customers "by the way we make some premium headphones to match our pet rock") so they can sell more expensive yet inferior and terrible sounding headphones by Beats, which literally include weights to lend the illusion of high quality heavy magnets in the drivers. See:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sci... [dailymail.co.uk]
http://bgr.com/2015/06/19/beat... [bgr.com]
http://www.popularmechanics.co... [popularmechanics.com]
I'm happy with my Samsung S7 Edge, thanks - the iPhone 4 was my last; after seeing the direction it was going with the 4s and 5 I made the switch back to Samsung phones (my phone prior to the iPhone 3GS was a Samsung) and am sticking with them.
Re:iPhone 7 = the new pet rock (Score:4, Insightful)
The processor benchmarks are pointless, what matters is how fast stuff actually happens and Android is generally faster at opening the same app etc. Probably because Samsung flash memory is quicker or something, or maybe it's just the massive amount of RAM in high end models. Having a dual core CPU probably doesn't help either.
The 3GB of RAM is welcome, but I wonder if iOS can make optimal use of it. My current phone has 3GB and I never, ever close anything. My GF has an iPhone 6 with a rather pathetic 1GB of RAM, and she is constantly "cleaning" by closing apps manually to avoid it getting slow. Considering everyone else's flagships are moving to 4GB and 6GB now, 3GB is still rather low for such an expensive device.
Oh, and Belkin have released the dongle you need to charge and listen to wired headphones at the same time. It's $40 and huge. And you need the Lightning to Audio adapter that comes with the phone, so actually you need two dongle chained. It's going to be hard not to laugh the first time I see someone with that setup.
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The processor benchmarks are pointless, what matters is how fast stuff actually happens and Android is generally faster at opening the same app etc. Probably because Samsung flash memory is quicker or something,
Or something. Seriously, I expect better from you. Your message boils down to Everything about Apple and iOs is wrong, and everything about Android runs better because of "I suppose so!"
That's sad really. Yeah, there's a special secret building in the Arctic that has the special components that are only available to Samsung and Android device producers, and they sell the bad ones to Apple? Let's try this over again.
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iOS requires less memory than Android because its applications are native. iPhones have always had less processor and memory but outrun Andoid anyway.
Android runs native as well [wikipedia.org], and when you update the OS it goes through and recompiles all apps to use the latest SDKs and OS features on your phone - all optimized for your hardware platform.
You are a moron with an agenda.
That's OK - you're just ignorant... ;)
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Android runs native as well, and when you update the OS it goes through and recompiles all apps to use the latest SDKs and OS features on your phone - all optimized for your hardware platform.
Apple doesn't have to do any of that because it ships you the binaries specific for your phone only. So Android is at some point slower because it's busy doing that work (though it only has to do so once per update).
That's OK - you're just ignorant... ;)
What was that sound? Was it one of the walls in your glass house
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Huh. So when updating the OS (which is when the binaries are recompiled), that's the "delay" you're complaining about? It's done when you update the OS; when you can RUN the OS (it's rebooted) everything is nice and native. I know you're a huge Apple fanboy, but you really, REALLY should educate yourself a bit about the competition. Or you come off looking like a fool for the ignorance you display!
PS: because of the way Android runs, apps written back for Android 2.0 still work. Do apps written for the
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Huh. So when updating the OS (which is when the binaries are recompiled),
It doesn't do that when you download a new app?
Well then it would be slow.
But I'm pretty sure it does that after you download a new app, making the overall system slower while it does that work...
Or you come off looking like a fool for the ignorance you display!
Funny that it seems I know more than you. But then I do develop mobile apps for a living, so I guess that would be expected...
Do you own both iOS and Android devices? Because
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Are you trying to make yourself look like a fool? All he says is "generally they do not" without saying why or under what circumstances. The link he provided is about Apple going into the store and thankfully, removing very old apps that have not been updated in forever... that means my own app needs updating also, but honestly I think it was a greta move for Apple to force people to move forward or drop apps.
I know for a fact the older apps still work because (a) I still get feedback from my app (again
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PS: because of the way Android runs, apps written back for Android 2.0 still work. Do apps written for the 3GS still run without issue? Or does the author have to recompile first?
Depends. Sometimes they do. Generally they do not. Apple tends to not really care about backwards compatibility, so it's a complete crapshoot. I remember that a 2-factor authentication app had to warn people about upgrading to iOS 9.3 because it would break the authenticator requiring a complete reinstall of the app.
Anyway, it doesn't matter: Apple is going to remove access to apps that old entirely [arstechnica.com].
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Apple doesn't have to do any of that because it ships you the binaries specific for your phone only.
Actually they do have to do it. Starting in iOS 9 I think, developers compile to bytecode and then Apple compiles to the native code on their own cloud servers.
So the difference between Android and iOS is that Android compiles the code on your device (because of the wide variety of devices) while Apple compiles it in the cloud because of the very small number of devices they support.
Of course this means that when you update iOS, you have to re-get all your apps from the cloud. Hope you don't have a metered
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You won't because such setups aren't needed. First off, iPhone users will migrate away from headphones that require dongles and, second, phones don't commonly need to be plugged in to listen to music. When they need charging you stop listening.
You are a moron with an agenda.
I think most iPhone users have migrated away from corded headphones a long time ago. Which is why I'm pretty certain that the hate is just emanating from people who would otherwise be bitching about "Apple Hipsters" and "iPhone sheeple". At least for me, the headphone jack going away is roughly as important as floppy disks going away. As in not important at all.
Your commentary to the "moron with an agenda" is spot on point. Well played sir!
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Courage. Because wireless is the way to go.
Just don't ask about that wireless charging stuff...
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Wireless Charging will be used to force the lemmings to ditch their 7 for an 8 next year.
There are some things that work great with wireless. Wi-Fi, bluetooth. Radio.
Then there is wireless charging. If it worked the same way, I'd be able to charge my phone while I'm anywhere in the room.
Sadly, that isn't the case. Since wireless chanrging is nothing more than an ancient technology based on using the device as one side of a transformer, plus putting all of the charging circuitry inside the phone, taking up valuable space, you now have a device that has to be put in a very specific place. Be
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It isn't technology-related, since both Sony and Samsung fit far more features into less space - again, without sacking the headphone jack.
That isn't factually true: Samsung S7 (142.4 x 69.6 x 7.9 mm) and your S7 Edge (149 x 72 x 7.62 mm) vs iPhone 7 (138.3 x 67.1 x 7.1mm) and iPhone 7 Plus (158.2 x 77.9 x 7.3 mm). Your phone is shorter and thinner than the iPhone 7 Plus but not the iPhone 7. Both iPhones are thinner than either S7 and the iPhone 7 is the definitely smallest of the group. It's not factually true that Samsung fit more into less space in your specific example.
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The OP said: "It isn't technology-related, since both Sony and Samsung fit far more features into less space - again, without sacking the headphone jack." Specifically he disavowed that it had to do with technology so your post is sorta irrelevant. As far as the Gionee Elife S5.1 is concerned it isn't ip68 so, again, irrelevant.
How is it pricy? (Score:3)
Ah yes, crippling the iPhone further with the removal of the highly standardised headphone jack
The headphone adaptor ships free with the phone.
The really amusing thing is it is your phone that is crippled by the inclusion of the audio jack; your phone is less good that it could be in some way because that jack has to fit in your phone.
Why is Apple doing this, really?
Because they know in the long run it is better for everyone, just like the ditched floppy drives while people like you raised a stick about tha
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We grumbled about floppies because it was a pain in the backside, and because they dropped them in a product that was otherwise highly desirable in the education market, where the floppy was still critical for several more years. The result was that nearly
Waiting Waiting Never (Score:2)
If they had waited just a couple more years for USB sticks to become readily available
Except it would have been twice as long until that happened because people would have just stuck with floppy drives.
Externalizing hardware is orders of magnitude more annoying on a phone
It's an adaptor about an inch long that you just leave on your plug. How is that seriously "orders of magnitude more annoying". The only thing I have used the audio jack for in many years on my phone is - attaching the earbuds that came w
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Ah yes, crippling the iPhone further with the removal of the highly standardised headphone jack, requiring a pricey and fragile, easy-to-lose, bulky adapter.
And can you imagine? It takes one more plugging event. Jeezuz K Ryste! People will die of the exertion. Expect a Yuge class action suit against Apple! Yuge!
Or if you are like me, you'll put the pricey and fragile and easy to use adapter in a drawer somewhere, because you never use it ever. I didn't buy a wirless phone to attach wires to it.
I hear Samsung is bringing out a smartphone with an Ethernet jack on it and a landline jack as well. Because of some reason or another.
And since we are on standardized, Samsung should bring out a phone with a higly standardized rotary dialer.
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Audio over Bluetooth sounds like watery 64kbit MP3 shit. Even my wireless headphones have a cable permanently connected to the AUX jack, because Bluetooth sucks that much.
Bluetooth (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually, bluetooth is quite capable in terms of achievable fidelity. The spec allows for 768kb/sec, and can transfer CD-equivalent sample bit resolution.
This is pretty good, in terms of human hearing, because bluetooth compression isn't just randomly lossy, it's a lot smarter than that. It's both predictive and takes into account human hearing characteristics.
Where the most serious problem lies is the common tendency to use too much compression on music. Once that's done, there's no fixing the result.
Here
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Re: iPhone 7 = the new pet rock (Score:2)
That's funny my bose Bluetooth speakers sound good with my iPhone.
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I'm with you on this one and have been using bluetooth headphones every day for several years now. I find it interesting to see how many people walk around holding their phone in their hand, wires danging.
Why not just bluetooth to the phone, put the phone away in your backpack and not have to worry about wires being caught on things?
Of course they are not "white ear-buds" so everyone knows i have an iphone (i dont actually have an iphone either).
To those who say bluetooth audio sucks:
You do realise i am us
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Enjoy your high-latency low-bitrate limited-bandwidth bluetooth audio, and don't complain when the audio falls out of sync with video. :-p
Re: iPhone 7 = the new pet rock (Score:2)
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Enjoy your high-latency low-bitrate limited-bandwidth bluetooth audio, and don't complain when the audio falls out of sync with video. :-p
And you'll scream in 3d surround sound as your proper exploding Samsung catches fire.
Noted that blutooth is evil beyond the pale, but bttery fires are just fine. Here is an acceptable situation:
http://www.ctvnews.ca/business... [ctvnews.ca]
http://wallstreams.com/samsung... [wallstreams.com]
http://thenextweb.com/in/2016/... [thenextweb.com]
Yeah, you might want to re-think your talking points.
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Their engineers made the same mistake a year ago with the Macbook, turning a previously good computer into a toy that you can't charge while using it to charge your phone (making it a terrible choice for the college market, which was their primary target market). The new crop of hardware designers are, IMO, utterly ruining Apple's product lines.
Now is the time to buy whatever usable Mac and iOS hardware you can buy. Winter is coming.
And it will be a long, cold winter if history is any indication.
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The fact that you need an adaptor at all is a failure and a criticism. You not recognising this shows that your special world doesn't account for something that millions of people do on a daily basis, listen to music, often while their phone is on charge, and without the requirement to lug around and attempt to not lose a tiny adaptor.
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In every previous instance, something better was available, with the sole exception of Ethernet, and because that is used exclusively while you're sitting at a desk somewhere, an adapter is just a minor nuisance. Neither is true for headphones. There is no wired standard for headphones other than 3.5mm, and by removing that jack, Apple has done absolutely nothing to drive people to a newer, better standard other than taking away a standard that worked reasonably well. This is not how innovation works.
An
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requiring a pricey and fragile, easy-to-lose, bulky adapter.
lol fucking dramatic
This! Which will probably be attached to their pricy and bulkier earphones. This is the bullshit aspect of the whole thing. A free adapter that is no harder to lose than the fscking headphones, that allows the deeply offended to plug in their headphones.
Christ, talk about first world problems.
Monty Python (Score:2)
Well, there's spam egg MojoKid and spam, that's not got much spam in it! Oh, wait, that's ALL spam except for the egg... Sorry!
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Second set of cores (Score:3)
Might be very difficult to get benchmark results, because as soon as you start to run a benchmark, the phone would switch to the faster cores.
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What was said during the keynote is that all 4 cores will never run simultaneously. Either both fast cores are on or the low power ones.
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Here's the link. Jump to 94:35 for the discussion of the A10.
http://www.apple.com/apple-eve... [apple.com]
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3GB? Quaint (Score:2, Insightful)
My cheap One Plus X offered the same over a year ago.
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The OnePlus 3, which is half the price of the iPhone 7, has 6GB RAM...
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...but RAM size isn't an important differentiation in phones.
You can buy an 8GB memory module for far less than either phone. So what?
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You cant exactly upgrade the RAM in a phone, and it can become an issue - the more RAM you have, the fewer backgrounded apps the phone has to terminate due to memory limitations.
So the iPhone being lauded because it has 3GB of memory is laughable when a cheaper phone manages to provide twice as much.
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the more RAM you have, the fewer backgrounded apps the phone has to terminate due to memory limitations.
And people wonder why Android phones have worse battery life...
RAM isn't the only reason to terminate applications.
So the iPhone being lauded because it has 3GB of memory is laughable
I'm the one laughing at 2am after my friends with Android phones have been done for hours.
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Hear, hear. It is a shame OnePlus canned the X - it was (still is!) a fantastic phone at a great price.
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Yes you could, but that adds complexity and any complexity costs testing, performance, die size and as a result heat. Especially at current sizes (pondering going into the single digit nanometer process) you want to put the least amount of anything in your chips these days.
It's funny because I remember not just 20 years ago programming to fit things into a minimal amount of memory; then we got a glut and as a result languages like Java and Python; now we're all trying to cram Python and Java back into C to
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No, I do follow. Whether or not Java is compiled to bytecode, and executed by an interpreter, or compiled further down into machine code, has no effect on the memory usage of the running java application. Java uses more memory than objective C, because one is garbage collected, and the other is not (or rather, it isn't on iOS - it can be on a mac).
Garbage collection is not an appropriate memory handling strategy on mobile devices, because it trades off memory and CPU cycles against ease of programming. Java
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So what do you need 3 GB for?
Are you running the backend database server for a popular web site on your phone?
No, but unlike my previous phones with 1 and 2GB, i don't ever need to manually kill apps. The phone always feels snappy and responds fast.
A10 Fusion? (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't A10 Fusion a bit of a weird name? AMD called their APU's "Fusion" when they first came out and gave them model numbers A6, A8, A10.... Even though they dropped their "Fusion" branding, I am sure I am not the only tech guy who upon hearing "A10 Fusion" thinks of an AMD APU. And it's been just five years since they came out, it is not like you have to be an old geezer to remember.
Unless I've missed something and Apple now uses AMD APUs on their iPhone...
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It seems to be based on their version of the big.little ARM chip concept. It's technically a 4 core processor but only 2 are active at a time. Previously they used Fusion to mean a magnetic HD along with SSD cache built in. Their OS applies to term to any set of spinning disk and SSD that you combine into one virtual disk.
So unless there's some other reason for it, it appears to be their marketing term for "slow and fast working together".
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Apple CPU design (Score:4, Interesting)
Apple's CPU design work doesn't seem to get much coverage outside the highly technical trade press, but they have and continue to produce great designs on the ARM base. Not sure if their license allows them to sell their chips to 3rd parties, but I'd think both the 9 and 10 series would be attractive to many systems designers (aerospace, etc). Also wondering if Apple is moving toward at least a dual-CPU (x86 + A10, say) design for the next generation of Macintosh.
sPh
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"Also wondering if Apple is moving toward at least a dual-CPU (x86 + A10, say) design for the next generation of Macintosh."
No. How would that be useful? If Apple could produce an ARM design that could outrun x86 then MAYBE they could consider a transition. That seems unlikely.
Apple would be more likely to be "moving toward" NO next generation MacIntosh.
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Doubt it, Apple realizes their eco-system matters.
And using an A10, probably in conjunction with some Intel heater, might cut battery usage for their laptops.
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Not sure if their license allows them to sell their chips to 3rd parties, but I'd think both the 9 and 10 series would be attractive to many systems designers (aerospace, etc).
Apple has an architectural license so yes they could. They chose not to do so.
Also wondering if Apple is moving toward at least a dual-CPU (x86 + A10, say) design for the next generation of Macintosh.
I don't see any benefit. x86 is far less energy efficient so that's why Apple does not use them in mobile devices. As for x86 they work with Intel on power and space efficiency. The only benefit is software porting as a transition; however, since they control OS X, they could move the whole thing to ARM like they when moved to x86 instead of PowerPC and not blink.
2 GB on the iPhone 7 (Score:2)
Is a major disapointement. At this price, I expected 4 GB.
Yikes that's fast (Score:2, Interesting)
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No, I don't think so.
Common applications are multi-thread. Even at a basic level, one core driving the UI another driving the business logic.
Single thread might make a difference for games, but a well written game in 2016 won't be single threaded either.
P.S. My Note 7 reported 5499 multi-core, so it's like taking a flame thrower to the iPhone 7 plus number.
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The Android subreddit was discussing this a day ago. In actuality some Android devices have slightly better performance in the multi-core benchmark while their single-core scores are much lower, although take comparing different platform scores with a dash of salt. I don't follow mobile devices but some people attribute some of this performance to come from NVMe storage in newer iPhones. https://www.reddit.com/r/Andro... [reddit.com]
https://www.reddit.com/r/Andro... [reddit.com] has one of the benchmarks posted.
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Citation needed?
Find a common app written for iOS and Android (hmm... like GeekBench?) and the results will show the difference.
JIT compilers are pretty darn good these days... they even use them for the web.
Battery life ? (Score:2)
The metric that I really want to know was not there: how long will it last when idle (waiting for incoming calls) and how long the speech time ? For me, I want a minimum of 48 hours idle, more is better. It is occasionally nice to do something else with the thing, but not all the time. This is like all computer reviews: focus on speed, for client stuff it is not what interests me.
I did see that the $159 AirPod headphones only last 5 hours before needing recharging. Although not being a mac fanboi I can't se
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Everyone overlooks the number of pixels (Score:2)
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For example, the iPhone 7 Plus is 1920x1080; the Samsung S7 Edge is 2560x1440. The Samsung device is pushing 78% more pixels.
Which is more a function of GPU and not the CPU. Apple uses PowerVR for their GPU and Samsung used a Mali (ARM) or Adreno depending on where it is sold. Reports are Samsung devices with Mali are sluggish compared to Adreno [zdnet.com] variants.
Performance not so important anymore (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't find people complaining about performance that much. I hear more battery life complaints, fragile and breakage issues. When Apple talks about performance I just shrug anymore. Yeah it's noticeable on paper but who cares. I'm not trying to run complex computations through it. Just watch videos, text, and play simply games. I could do that on a iPhone 4s. Save your money on hype and still get a audio jack and buy a model below the 7 series. Same would go for a Android. Don't waste extra on the latest and greatest.
OnePlus 3 (Score:2)
My OnePlus 3 has 6GB of ram, and 64 GB storage.
And a 3.5 mm jack.
And costs half as much.
http://www.gsmarena.com/oneplu... [gsmarena.com]
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I know i'm stating the obvious, but if you don't want to buy a new iPhone... don't. You old one will work just fine for the foreseeable future.
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If your current iPhone is still relatively new, it will be at least a year or so longer before Apple cripples it with an iOS update designed with that in mind.
[Citation Needed] And when has Apple done that?
iOS 10 Compatibility List [apple.com]
The oldest iPhone: iPhone 5 (September 21, 2012)
The oldest iPad: iPad 4th gen (November 2, 2012)
The only thing you could say is the iPod Touch has to be new.
If anything newer versions of iOS work well with older iOS devices. You can't say that about Android devices.
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Re: Performance (Score:2)
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LOL You have a grave misunderstanding of the Oracle vs Google issue.
Andoid doesn't use "Java" because the licensing agreement for "Java" was unacceptable and Java itself was open source. Google complied with the requirements in using the source while also respecting the requirement NOT to call the product "Java". Android uses Java technology in bulk (and does so legally), it's just not a Java product capable of running Java apps directly.
Regardless of the name, the comment you replied to is dead-on accura
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Yeah, yer right, no one would ever think to compile Java direct to machine code.
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Headphone jack is WAY overrated on a phone (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm fighting what seems to be the majority opinion with this ... but I really don't take issue with Apple ditching the headphone jack on the iPhone 7.
For starters? It's always been a troublesome connector when dealing with phone cases. Many of them didn't allow you to push a given 1/8" jack far down enough into the phone to make a connection. (Always depended on how much plastic material someone happened to put around the metal part of the jack and so forth.)
When using a $100 extended battery case, such things become serious problems, because you're losing the functionality you paid that much to add, every time you have to take the phone out of the case to use a set of wired headphones, or to plug it into the AUX jack in a car, or ?? That was the problem that initially drove me to start using bluetooth stereo earbuds. (I have pretty good results and sound quality with the LG Tone Infinum.)
Besides that, though? I'm already attaching my iPhone to my Alpine stereo via a USB to Lightning cable in my Jeep. Not using the headphone jack at all for that. That allows the stereo to control much more on the phone than if it was just using an analog audio plug connector.
There have been some good arguments made against this change and DRM, arguing that eliminating the 1/8" stereo jack in favor of something like Lightning connectors amounts to finally plugging the "analog hole" that ensures non DRM access to audio content. But I think it's VERY far-fetched to suggest the entire industry would ditch the analog audio jack. The connector is so prevalent because it's very inexpensive, as much as anything else. It's so easy to implement an audio jack in a circuit and the cables for it are about as cheap as they get. This is just something Apple sees benefits to doing (a way to ensure all the gadgets attached to the new phones use a digital audio pathway with power and control channels as part of the standard). It means more profits for Apple too, certainly. But Apple doesn't make these changes JUST because they can charge more afterwards. They only do it when they see a way to improve the user experience.
Apple has a long-standing fascination with changing around connectors and jacks when they think they have a superior way to handle one of them. The "mag-safe" charging connector on their laptops is a good example. Yeah, it's proprietary and costs more than a barrel plug, up front. But it sure did put a stop to all those costly laptop repairs when someone breaks the charging jack loose inside of it.
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I'm fighting what seems to be the majority opinion with this ... but I really don't take issue with Apple ditching the headphone jack on the iPhone 7.
Watch this get modded as troll real quick, along with your post.
This is just another Slashdot fake outrage event. Sort of like systemd. People who hate Apple for one reason or another, will wring their hands and moan how they'll never buy an iphone again because they can't plug in a headphone. Then when pointed out there is a dongle for that, will moan again about how inconvenient that is - yet going into cognative dissonance that if plugging in a little dongle is inconvenient, that somehow plugging in a headphone is the best thing going. That's --- Odd.
But just like systemd, the apocalyptic warnings are more hystrionics than any actual problem. I've had 4 iPhones, now, and never plugged anything into the headphone jack on any of them. The missing jack is a plus for me. It means one less O-Ring on my waterproof case. Interestingly enough, in order to use an headphone jack equipped iPhone with a lifeproof case, you have to have.......... a dongle.
Re:Headphone jack is WAY overrated on a phone (Score:4, Insightful)
troublesome connector when dealing with phone cases
Then stop buying those troublesome cases.
When using a $100 extended battery case, such things become serious problems
This issue concerns an insignificant portion of smartphone users. Just because they can't plug the 3.5 mm plug with the charging case does not mean that the connector had to be deleted.
Basically, none of the arguments I have heard before, except those about space savings justified actually deleting the headphone connector. In iPhone 6S which had it, you could still use BT, digital or whatever other headphones you want.
It ships with an adaptor. (Score:3)
Day one, every single person that buys an iPhone 7 will be able to use their headphones without any further purchase.
More like failure of a post...
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feckin hipsters anyhow, what if I need direct wired access to the internet, or am at my aunt Sari's, no tower in sight, and need to make a call on my iPhone.? You didn't think about THAT did you Apple?
Samsung is bringing out a phone with both RJ45 and landline jacks because they know what slashdotters must have. Theen those asswipes at Apple will go out of business in about
Re:None of this matters, it has no headphone jack. (Score:4, Insightful)
They could include both IP67 AND a headphone jack. Like Samsung, Sony, and almost all other competitors.
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Maybe they didn't do that because they did their own market research before they developed the product and already know which feature people prefer.
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know which feature people prefer
The fact that it comes down to a preference at all when most of it's competitors offer both is a failure in an of itself. They rightfully deserve the mocking they are getting in the technical presses at the moment.
And I for one thank them for the comedy provided by people who retrospectively and poorly justify their actions.
*Posted from my waterproof Galaxy S7 while listening to music with wired headphones and charging the phone at the same time because I'm stuck in the airport with nothing to do.
Re:None of this matters, it has no headphone jack. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm reminded of a conversation with some co-workers when the new MacBook without an optical drive came out. I was told about how Apple was being stupid for leaving out such a critical piece of hardware, that they'd never buy such a computer, etc.
My response to them then, and my response to critics now, is the same. No one is forcing you to buy Apple hardware. Apple still offers the older product with the hardware you desire. You quite likely are not their target demographic. Apple cannot provide every product to meet every possible customer desire, compromises must be made.
I then asked them about how often they actually used the optical drive they have in their computers. Since Apple included a disc with the MacBook that had software that allowed one to share an optical drive in another computer, MacOS or Windows, I asked if they had more than one computer at home. What I found out is that people rarely used their optical drive, and they all had more than one computer at home. So while they didn't like the idea of needing a peripheral to access an optical drive they did agree that not including the drive did not prevent them from reading optical disks.
What is interesting here is that this analogy only carries so far since this time Apple includes as a peripheral what they left off by default. It'd be like putting an optical drive in the box with every MacBook. Yet people still complain. Apple in both cases was not the first to do this, but the first (or even second) guy didn't make near as many waves. Why is that?
Mock Apple if you want. I even hesitate to come to Apple's defense since they don't need my help and I'll likely be labeled as a "fanboi" for doing so.
What confuses me further about this is that this forum, like my co-workers, consists of largely of people that are (or at least claim to be) knowledgeable of electronics and its industry. Is it so confusing to people that a business case was made for this decision long before the product made it to store shelves? They figured this out. As evidence I'll give the popularity of the MacBook and iPhone product lines, much less that Apple is still around to be mocked. Not only can a business case be made but this was expected to happen eventually.
Thing is that I'm not likely to even buy this new iPhone, I bought a new "dumb" phone a few months ago and I'm happy with it for now. I didn't buy one of those MacBooks either, but I did get one when someone else was paying for it. I'm not in their demographic either but I'd like to think I know a good business choice when I see one. I think Apple did good here, or at least not bad. Now, if all iPhone models lacked the headphone port then we'd have a different conversation.
Re:None of this matters, it has no headphone jack. (Score:4, Insightful)
I then asked them about how often they actually used the optical drive they have in their computers.
And that should instantly lead you to why removing the optical drive was a non-issue compared to removing the headphone socket.
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As I said above...
My response to them then, and my response to critics now, is the same. No one is forcing you to buy Apple hardware. Apple still offers the older product with the hardware you desire. You quite likely are not their target demographic. Apple cannot provide every product to meet every possible customer desire, compromises must be made.
The only exception to my previous statement is that Apple may not be offering the previous model any more. I did a quick look at Apple's online store and I do
Re:None of this matters, it has no headphone jack. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why doesn't Apple create a non-water resistant iP7 SKU with a headphone jack?
Because Apple purchased the worlds largest wireless headset company 2 years ago, and the only way they will ever get their money back is if they transition Beats from trendy to essential.
They are letting users choose (Score:2)
You are free to buy any other phone that features legacy audio technology as a "feature".
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No one is going to read a run-on rant that covers several inches of screen without so much as paragraph breaks.