Jonathan, I completely agree. I too thought the 6plus was enormous when
I bought it, and like you I wouldn't want to have to go back to a
smaller iPhone now unless I absolutely had to.
On 01/12/2015 15:49, Jonathan Mosen wrote:
Hi everyone, I waited a few days to see if this issue might be raised
by someone else. But I'll raise it here myself, because I'm not sure
whether Apple may be flying a kite here and seeing what reaction this
idea gets.
There's an unconfirmed rumour from a source that has in the past been
credible, that the next generation iPhone will not include a headphone
jack, so Apple can make the phone thinner.
I'm pasting a blog post that I wrote and published on this subject 72
hours ago. Here goes.
I like thin, lightweight technology, but it isn’t the only criterion
that determines what I use. If thin and light doesn’t give me the
performance I need, I’m happy to choose something heavier or bigger.
When the iPhone 6 Plus came out, I bought one. Initially, it seemed
absolutely enormous, and I thought I’d never get used to it. Now I’m
on the 6s Plus and would never go back to a smaller iPhone. The
battery life and the bigger screen for Braille screen input make it
the right choice for me.
After being a MacBook Air user for three years, I recently bought a
15-inch MacBook Pro with all the specs maxed out. It includes 16GB of
RAM and 1TB solid state storage.
Compared to my MacBook Air, the Pro feels heavy and thick, and I’ve
therefore given it the nickname “The Big Kahuna”. But it fits in my
backpack just fine when I travel, it isn’t really that arduous to take
places, and the thing is, it goes like a rocket. I enjoy having OS X
for a few apps and functions, but Windows is still my primary
operating system. With a laptop this fast and powerful, I can run JAWS
in a virtual machine with superb results, and still tend to iMessages
and FaceTime calls.
Sometimes I pick up my old MacBook Air and think, “oy, what have I
done? This thing is so cute!” But the performance factor soon reminds
me that I made the right decision for my particular needs.
There’s plenty of choice of form factor in the MacBook line now. If
you want to go ultra-portable, there’s the new 12-inch retina MacBook,
which is just adorably thin and light, with compromises to match. It
sports a single USB type C port, which is the only way both to connect
peripherals to it and charge it. And the keyboard is, to put it
charitably, an acquired taste.
So when it comes to Mac, Apple now has a line-up that can meet the
needs of the road warrior who wants something really light for a bit
of word processing, email and web surfing, all the way to someone who
needs plenty of grunt and is willing to lug it around.
There is not so much flexibility in the iPhone stable, where there are
usually now two current models with similar specs but different screen
sizes. So when I read a rumour that Apple may dispense with the 3.5mm
headphone jack in iPhone 7 models, it had me concerned.
Before I explain why, let me be clear that Apple itself has made no
official statement about the future of the headphone jack. It’s only a
rumour. But I read a lot of technology sources, and have come to know
which sources tend to be more reliable. The source of this story, the
Japanese technology site Mac Otakara, has a good track record. No news
site that reports things like this gets it right 100% of the time
though. It’s also possible that Apple wants to monitor customer
reaction to the idea, by letting it leak. But there’s no doubt that
decisions as fundamental as this are being taken now, or probably have
already been taken.
You can read an English summary of the story at Mac Rumours
<http://www.macrumors.com/2015/11/27/iphone-7-no-3-5mm-headphone-jack-lightning/>.
Even if the story is wrong, and I hope it is, I want to write a
defence of the headphone jack for those who think its loss wouldn’t be
a big deal. Some of us really, genuinely need it.
The story suggests that the 3.5mm headphone jack will be dispensed
with, because it’s preventing Apple from making the iPhone thinner. If
they removed the jack, they could shave more than 1mm off the
thickness of the phone.
If this rumour is correct, Apple would probably include Earpods with a
Lightning connector, since specs for headphones that use the Lightning
port have been available since 2014.
According to the story, the Lightning port would include a digital to
analogue converter, so you’d still be able to connect 3.5mm
headphones. There is no word in the story that this Lightning port
would be in addition to the one already on iPhones, implying that
you’ll have one port for both charging your device and listening to
wired headphones or connecting the device to a mixer.
My first objection to this rumour is a philosophical one. 3.5mm
headphone jacks are ubiquitous. The standard is supported by a massive
number of manufacturers. It would be sad if Apple required its users
to carry a proprietary adapter, probably sold separately, to connect
standard equipment to their single proprietary port. But they’ve done
this before. Even on my maxed out MacBook Pro, I have to buy a special
adapter just to connect to wired Ethernet.
My remaining concerns relate to functionality. As a hearing-aid
wearer, I use my iPhone with a cable between the headphone jack and my
hearing aids about 95% of the time. There’s no latency because it’s
analogue all the way, and since no Bluetooth is involved, it’s energy
efficient in terms of hearing aid battery usage. The Lightning to
analogue adapter would be one additional device to carry, use and
potentially lose, and it would mean that I couldn’t use my iPhone in
the way that is optimal for me while I’m charging it. There’s also the
possibility that the digital to analogue converter may introduce
latency. That wouldn’t be important for most tasks, but it would be
detrimental to all VoiceOver users who use 3.5mm devices, not just
hearing aid wearers.
But there’s always Bluetooth, and that’s the way the world is going,
right? There may be a few exceptions, but the majority of Bluetooth
audio I’ve used on iOS is laggy with VoiceOver, Apple’s built-in
screen reader for blind people like me, that I find it a frustrating,
sub-optimal experience. Streamers for hearing aid wearers often power
down very quickly after VoiceOver has stopped speaking, to save
energy. This means that hearing aid wearers who use VoiceOver with
Bluetooth streamers often must cope with missing the first second or
two of what VoiceOver is saying, as the Bluetooth streamer powers up
after detecting audio. If you’re taking a phone call or listening to
music, that’s no big deal, but for a VoiceOver user, it’s not a good
experience. And Bluetooth streamers chew through hearing aid batteries
faster than an analogue connection, imposing additional costs on
hearing aid wearers.
Taking hearing impairment out of the mix, there are many people who
use the 3.5mm jack, and want to do so while charging their device.
Bonnie, for example, has a pillow speaker, because she likes the radio
on at night. It plugs into her iPhone while it’s charging.
We may be about to see a similar controversy with iPhone to the one
that greeted the new MacBook’s single USB C port and all the
inconveniences that go with that. When that controversy was at its
peak, proponents said that Apple often likes to move the tech agenda
forward, and that they’re uniquely positioned to do that by making
“bold” decisions like this. Sorry, I don’t consider a single port for
peripherals and charging a bold decision. It’s just a pain. If you
want to use multiple devices, you have to buy some sort of hub, which
detracts from the convenience of having an all-in-one device.
I realise that as a VoiceOver user with a hearing impairment
passionate about getting the most optimal audio experience, I’m a
minority within a minority. But if this rumour proves to be true, it
will be my queue to seriously examine other mobile options. I really
don’t want a phone one more millimetre thinner, when it’s going to
create an experience for me that would be poorer.
Jonathan Mosen
Mosen Consulting
Blindness technology eBooks, tutorials and training
http://Mosen.org <http://mosen.org>
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