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Iphone Apple Hardware Technology

Apple Discontinues iPhone X, No Longer Sells iPhones With Headphone Jacks (theverge.com) 131

Posted by BeauHD from the courage-required dept.
Apple just killed the iPhone's headphone jack for good. Not only is the company no longer selling iPhones with headphone jacks, as they've removed the iPhone SE and 6s from their website, but they're no longer including a Lightning to 3.5mm headphone jack adapter with the purchase of a new 2018 iPhone. The Verge also reports that the company is discontinuing the iPhone X with the introduction of its three new iPhones today. From the report: With the iPhone XS starting at a price of $999, and the addition of the cheaper $749 iPhone XR announced today, the iPhone X has become redundant. [...] There's no longer a good reason to shell out for the more expensive iPhone X, except maybe the exclusivity of owning a phone that was ushered in with the 10th anniversary of the original iPhone. It was the first to introduce the now-ubiquitous notch that's influenced the entire mobile industry with a wave of copycat designs, and the first iPhone with Face ID. It introduced intuitive gesture controls and with the phone came wireless charging, plus AirPods.
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Apple Discontinues iPhone X, No Longer Sells iPhones With Headphone Jacks More

Apple Discontinues iPhone X, No Longer Sells iPhones With Headphone Jacks

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  • Distortion field activated. (Score:5, Informative)

    by msauve ( 701917 ) on Wednesday September 12, 2018 @07:19PM (#57302502)
    "It was the first to introduce the now-ubiquitous notch that's influenced the entire mobile industry"

    No, the first phone with a notch was the Sharp Aquos S2, followed by the Essential phone. Both before Apple.

    Not that introducing that butt-ugly "feature" is worth any sort of bragging rights.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Its the verge. An apple ass-sucking web site. So of course apple invents everything.

    • It is when you manage to eliminate the "chin" at the bottom, which pretty much no one else manages to do.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by msauve ( 701917 )
        What phone has a notch at the bottom? And, I'd much rather have stereo front facing speakers with a chin and no notch, than an edge-to-edge display.

        • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

          by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday September 13, 2018 @12:10AM (#57303788)
          Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • Not that I disagree with most of your points but the reason I'm sticking with my iPhone 6s is that Apple still provides updates for it after 3 years (and are still providing updates to the 5s after 5). Their stupid design decisions have put me off buying anything newer however but I don't see any Android manufacturers having that kind of length of update.

            I know about LineageOS but I think it's a bit shit having to rely on volunteer enthusiasts to keep a perfectly good phone updated with new functionality a

            • I get updates from the Google Play Store all the time. Including updates to critical Android subsystem components. The only difference is that with Android, your updates are more granular. People with a cellphone 6 years old get the latest updated version of Chrome, Maps, etc.

              If you like monolithic updates once each sales-cycle (year) go for Apple.

      • Re:Distortion field activated. (Score:4, Informative)

        by Cmdln Daco ( 1183119 ) on Wednesday September 12, 2018 @07:58PM (#57302708)

        For some reason said 'chin' is considered objectionable.

        Not that 'the rest of us' [youtube.com] have been able to figure out why.

        • It's mimicking the appearance of something that's only present as a tradeoff on the iPhones, but without giving the users of their phones everything else in exchange. The notch is there because those things have to be on the front. It contains sensors and the speaker/earpiece. What's the chin other than a pointless waste of space when they've already carved out display space for their own notch?

          • The 'chin' is an ergonomic zone. A place for the physical home and back buttons. It's about usability, not appearance.

    • Re:Distortion field activated. (Score:4, Informative)

      by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Wednesday September 12, 2018 @10:07PM (#57303356)
      Apple rarely introduces new features, but they do tend to popularize or polish them. They certainly made everyone else think it was okay to get on the front-face fugly-bump train.

      • Yes well if Tim Cook went outside and took a shit in the middle of the street you can bet your arse the hords of Apple fans would run out and do the same. Popularized, and yet still somehow copied the process from someone's dog.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      They may be the first not to include a headphone dongle in the box.

    • I am an iPhone user and the notch is not a feature!
      It is an engineering trade off. Apple designers if they had their way would not have a notch but make it full screen. But there is some technology they need to put on top to make it a phone and take selfies. So the notch was a trade off just to maximize screen size. Because for the most part the title info on the screen is white space anyways.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Bongo ( 13261 )

        Very true. It is a design compromise.

        And then, as designers, they also seem to be using the notch as an identifier so you can recognise an iPhone. Which is, I guess, why it then gets copied.

        I wonder how much time they spent trying to shape the notch, to find the least annoying shape. There’s probably a lot of pictures of plants and curves and women on their design boards.

        • I expect a lot of their designs would look a lot like many of the Android phones with legitimate (meaning they are just not black display on the screen) notches as well. Probably making it too thin, where it just made it seem off kilter, a corner notch making it look like someone took a bite out if it.

  • Apple's Recent Choices? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I was just commenting recently about poor choices Apple's making in design.

    The lack of headphone jack has me seriously considering going back to Android for my next phone. I use 'em far too often.

    Can I gripe about the AppleTV's absolutely awful remote? It looks slick. The idea of a touch pad is a good one--the implementation just botches it bigtime. The remote is too small, shaped wrong, not ergonomic, made of materials such that it slips easily into sofa cushion cracks, nooks, crannies, and vanishes fa

    • Re: Apple's Recent Choices? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I have Bluetooth earphones and they are a pain - I can't see the charge level and thus don't trust them for going out on a walk but mostly for home exercise.

      Worse, on my last flight I heard the flight attendant announce that Bluetooth headsets are not allowed at all in flight. Good thing I brought the wired!

      Why Apple is doubling down on this seems more bullheaded than intelligent.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Bongo ( 13261 )

      Never before has Apple made such an annoying peripheral as its TV remote.

      Um.

      ***cough***puckmouse***cough***

    • Yeah but the next one is going to be thinner....... and transparent!

  • Not about headphone jacks (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Excelcia ( 906188 ) <slashdot@excelcia.ca> on Wednesday September 12, 2018 @07:30PM (#57302564) Homepage Journal

    Apple's removal of the 1/8" headphone jack isn't about headphone jacks, nor is it about updating to new technology. It's about control and is just one small front in the war to erode the user controlling their own data. Headphone jacks are completely audio, analog, and offer no form of DRM. They are something Apple can't control once the signal is on the jack. You can do anything with it. Re-digitize it (this isn't the 80's where duping a cassette tape lead to rapid quality degradation), or pipe it to any device. The sound was yours once it got to that jack. Apple really doesn't like that, and they are basically tossing an invite to the entire industry to follow along and start down a more restrictive path. Follow us and you can get in on the action too. Erode what you can do with your audio one tiny tenth of a step at a time.

    If anyone thinks that it's about device jack real estate, upgrading with the times, or innovation, they are hopelessly naive.

    • Dongle (Score:3, Insightful)

      by JBMcB ( 73720 )

      Weird. My Wife's headphone-jack-less iPhone came with an analog dongle. It can also still connect to the Bluetooth to analog adapter on our stereo. Why would they allow this?

      • They originally came with an analog dongle as a transition. You don't assert control overnight. The first step is always to remove the technology they can't possibly control in favour of technologies they can control. But in that first step, you can't go all the way to "you will only use our equipment and nothing else", or else no one will adopt the new system. So, as I said, it's one half step at a time.

        New phones don't come with an adapter any more. And it is completely Apple's discretion as to when a

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by JBMcB ( 73720 )

          But in that first step, you can't go all the way to "you will only use our equipment and nothing else", or else no one will adopt the new system.

          Apple usually does it in the first step. The iMac got rid of every legacy port in one go. They switched from the 30-pin to the lightning connector in one model rev. The Mac Pro ditched all internal expansion in one go.

          New phones don't come with an adapter any more. And it is completely Apple's discretion as to when and if adapters will even work. As far as bluetooth goes, that is also completely at their discretion. An update can cause your phone to cease to work with any bluetooth adapter at any time. They can selectively shut down support for a particular adapter, or even shut down all support for any adapter that isn't theirs.

          Sure, maybe they would. Not sure why they would care to do so.

          This was something that was originally intended for HDMI and SPDIF, the ability to have it so they would only output signals to "blessed" hardware that was guaranteed not to record.

          Well, HDCP was always part of the HDMI spec, but no

        • This was something that was originally intended for HDMI and SPDIF, the ability to have it so they would only output signals to "blessed" hardware that was guaranteed not to record.

          Sorry but SPDIF signal (as well as TOS-Link, AES3, etc.) is purely uni-directionnal.
          There is no back-and-forth and therefor there's no way to negociate an encryption.

          SPDIF's only form of protection is bit in the header telling if the source is original or a copy and if the material is allowed unrestricted copies or not.
          That's it.
          The rest of the audio is raw un-encrypted PCM (or optionnally AC3 or DTS bitstreams).

          It's entirely up to the emitting program to emit the correct bits. You could as well control you

    • Re:Not about headphone jacks (Score:5, Informative)

      by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Wednesday September 12, 2018 @10:50PM (#57303534) Homepage

      Apple's removal of the 1/8" headphone jack

      ...is because they bought a headphone company (Beats) and want to sell wireless headphones. That's it.

      The music Apple sells hasn't had DRM for years, and nobody bothers "ripping" ("dubbing" would be the proper term) anything via analog, except for vinyl records. Back in ye olden days when iTunes music did have DRM, people removed the DRM using their computer (remember those things?) - not their phone.

      That being said, Apple is no saint when it comes to DRM. I've had paid apps disappear from my purchase history because Apple pulled 'em [codeminion.com], paid apps that died in the 32-bit purge [wired.com], and I've read of people who've lost movies they'd purchased [theoutline.com] (I only buy Blu-Rays, so I haven't experienced that one).

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by wed128 ( 722152 )

        Beats makes wired headphones too... or did until very recently

        • Go to any low-common-denominator retail store like Target or Walmart, though. Try to find a quality pair of wired headphones. I am sure you can special order them from places on the web. They've essentially disappeared in regular retail spaces.

    • If anyone thinks that it's about device jack real estate, upgrading with the times, or innovation, they are hopelessly naive.

      Well, you certainly stirred up the pot and got people to respond. I may as well join in.

      Let's consider the two sides here. We have you saying Apple is doing this to better enforce DRM, and therefore sell more copies of the same music and DRM encumbered devices. On the other hand we have Apple. I thought for sure that Apple made some kind of statement on why they removed the headphone jack from their phones. A short search of the internet brought me to an interview of someone that claims to be in the kn

    • Since you can still record off the headphone adapter or off bluetooth receivers like the creative soundblaster one I have I don't buy that argument. Just look at apple's laptops, they do it because they can get away with removing ports that users really want, because people will complain all day and then still by them. However, bluetooth means that your audio is never perfectly in synch with video, but usually a few frames off. So that may be OK for phone sized screens, but for ipads not so much. So if I

    • That is a great conspiracy theory, but:

      eadphone jacks are completely audio, analog, and offer no form of DRM. They are something Apple can't control once the signal is on the jack. You can do anything with it.

      a) they sell the adapters.
      b) they sell devices which connect to devices with analogue audio outputs
      c) they sell headphones.
      c.1) headphones have drivers
      c.1.1) those drivers are line level and are identical in signal to the signals that need to be recorded.
      d) the devices support happily sending high quality audio to other deviecs which have analogue outputs.

      Basically the analogue hole for audio cannot be physically closed in any way shape or form. On top of that there se

    • cue nefarious conspiracy theories.....

      The DRM battle is over buddy....Get over it.

  • The less expensive XR will be selling a lot, I think. Has the FaceID which many people find cool, a good enough screen, and similar processor power as the flagship models.

    • The less expensive XR will be selling a lot, I think.
      Has the FaceID which many people find cool, a good enough screen, and similar processor power as the flagship models.

      I didn't watch the keynote - have they finally fixed FaceID so it works in landscape mode?

  • As a parent who recently got talked into buying (Score:5, Funny)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday September 12, 2018 @08:07PM (#57302778)
    an iPhone for his college age kid I'd like to personally thank Apple for making the X so undesirable and thereby saving me $200-$300 dollars. I hope to see more of these cost saving measures. Maybe a partnership with Microsoft?

  • I used to own an iPhone and I know some elements of being in the Apple ecosystem is good. I also believe them, when they claim they focus on security more than others. They (appear) to care about backdooring devices.

    What I am sick of is _die_hard_ classic Apple fans, utterly stuck in the little Apple box, incapable of logical and rational thought. I thought these zealots had died out, alas I was wrong.

    You can't bring up the headphone jack thing without some idiot shouting at you how archaic it is, or how

  • Their design decisions aren't all gold- they just have a massive army of overly-moneyed sycophants who ooh and ahh at everything they do since Apple had the first legitimately good idea for a touchscreen cellphone interface. The notch is dumb. Ditching the 3.5mm jack is dumb. All of the proprietary connectors were dumb. The walled garden is dumb. Glass backs are dumb. No expandable storage is dumb. Smart Watches are in fact, dumb. Bluetooth headphones suck. 3D Touch was stupid. Apple's UI aesthetics have been awful for like 5+ versions of the OS.

    But Android manufacturers follow right along because

    1. They don't hire anyone who can design UIs or human-usable tech

    and

    2. Apple makes a shitzillion dollars, and they don't understand that Apple has so much goodwill they can continue flogging really increasingly fucking bad phones for probably another half a decade before even their diehards start to give up.

    No one has that kind of faith in Samsung or Motorola or . Hire the right people and make your stuff good on its own merits. You'll never outdo Apple even if your stuff ends up better in the end because you're forever seen as a follower of THEIR trends.

  • You know, there are LOTS of reasons that bezels, physical buttons and a headphone jack provide actual BENEFIT to the user.

    Leave it to Apple to brainwash their idiotic rabid fanbase and turning features in to dirty words, so that they can trick them into wanting something that is counter to their own best interests (and wallet).

  • I was going to replace my daughter's 6S with either another 6S or an SE, but this will jump the price. Crap.

  • It would be interesting to see if this market change will force consumers to go with apple specific hardware or purchase after-market adapters to use 3.5mm devices.

  • So much moaning and complaining about the notch to begin with....
    Then a bunch of wanna-be notch copycats.

    Strange.

  • Let's remove the jack for my powerless wired headphones and replace them with a wireless headset that needs charged every few hours and has additional components like batteries to add to our trash... great decision. No, don't worry its advancement, not spoiled people.

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