Apple Acquires Beats & Proposes New Headphone Standard

[admin]

Back on May 28th, Apple put out an official notice they would be buying Beats Music & Beats Electronics for the tidy sum of 3 billion dollars. Now it looks like the Cupertino based company has more news: a new headphone connector standard based on the Lightning port currently used to transfer data and charge iDevices. Apple touts several advantages of this new standard, including improved audio quality and being able to eliminate the current 3.5mm headphone jack to reclaim internal space. Surely the ability to lock out third party headphone manufacturers or charge exorbitant licensing fees never crossed their minds, right?

Read about Apple Acquiring Beats and proposing new Headphone Standard

Now it’s time for a bit of feedback. Would you buy headphones exclusively for use on an iDevice? Let us know your thoughts on this!

 

[rojo]

 

[corey]

I can't imagine ever buying anything from Apple or Beats.

 

[shadyJ]

I am guessing we will hear lots of complaining about this from many quarters, but it doesn't bother me at all. I don't buy Apple products, and I am not a fan of Apple, but I do not get the hate they get. If you don't like them, just don't buy them; it's not like there aren't any alternatives. Let's say for the sake of argument Apple abandons the 3.5 mm jack and goes with their Lightning port or whatever. While they may have the muscle to pull that off and make it successful for themselves, it's not like they are going to make 3.5 mm jacks obsolete.

 

[hmurchison]

Apple Acquires Beats & Proposes New Headphone Standard

At least someone is trying to move the product forward.

 

[heyjp]

Lightening to 3.5mm adapter

If the proposed Lightening connector supports analog, then a 3.5mm adapter is on the future. I would rather the phone still have a 3.5, but I could survive.

Jim in Boulder

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Headphones walled garden... Nokia and others have tried it before and failed .... "Good luck" to apple in their attempt

If the proposed Lightening connector supports analog, then a 3.5mm adapter is on the future. I would rather the phone still have a 3.5, but I could survive.

I used similar a headphones adapters in the past and it's a terrible experience, but then again since I would never buy any Apple or Beats I don't really give a damn

 

[Alain Singapore]

Who cares about this new connector. The future is wireless.

 

[Irvrobinson]

Apple is offering the Lightning spec to other headphone manufacturers, so the comic strip above, while amusing, is probably not accurate. I'm sure there will be competing headphones. Nonetheless, this does fall into my "Who cares?" category, and I am an Apple customer. I've never used headphones on my iPhones. I'm guessing the real reason why Apple wants a new headphone jack is to make room for a bigger battery to power a bigger screen, among other things. The 3.5mm jack is 1920's tech. As it is every phone maker uses a proprietary power connector, so the headphone jack is just continuing the pattern. This is a big yawn.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Apple is offering the Lightning spec to other headphone manufacturers, so the comic strip above, while amusing, is probably not accurate. I'm sure there will be competing headphones. Nonetheless, this does fall into my "Who cares?" category, and I am an Apple customer. I've never used headphones on my iPhones. I'm guessing the real reason why Apple wants a new headphone jack is to make room for a bigger battery to power a bigger screen, among other things. The 3.5mm jack is 1920's tech. As it is every phone maker uses a proprietary power connector, so the headphone jack is just continuing the pattern. This is a big yawn.

Lets me rephrase some of these statements Irv - As for "Lighting" licensing : a) Charging arm and a leg (which is passed on to consumers) b) Strong-Arms into their requirements for compliance c) significantly delayed behind their own branded products.

I get the point of making more room for bigger battery, yet at the same time most mid to high end modern smartphones have larger screens, battery life which is acceptable and still have standard 3.5mm jack

As for "every phone maker uses proprietary power connector", Irv wake and smell the roses. Besides Apple(1) every single cellphone and vast majority of accessories now using exactly micro-usb port. (2)

Notes:
1) Apple offers MircoUSB to Lighting adapter
2) MicroUSB 3.0 is a different plug, but it still backward compatible to same old micro-usb

To be honest if they would make headphones which use micro-usb port - I would not be very upset since it's used so much wider

 

[Irvrobinson]

Lets me rephrase some of these statements Irv - As for "Lighting" licensing : a) Charging and a leg (which is passed on to consumers) b) Strong-Arms into their requirements for compliance c) significantly delayed behind their own branded products.

I don't know what the license fees will be, but I doubt they'll be onerous, if not free. This is still in my "Who cares?" category. Apple wasted a ton of money on Intel's proprietary Thunderbolt interconnect for Macs, and is there anyone who uses it for anything, except perhaps an over-priced Apple monitor or an expensive storage system? Apple has been doing all sorts of dumb interconnect-related things for years (Remember Firewire?), and in the end the only people who paid for them are us over-privileged, fashion-conscious, technically illiterate Apple customers.

I get the point of making more room for bigger battery, yet at the same time most mid to high end modern smartphones have larger screens, battery life which is acceptable and still have standard 3.5mm jack.

I was just guessing on the battery point, but it is an area of weakness for the iPhone.

As for "every phone maker uses proprietary power connector", Irv wake and smell the roses. Besides Apple(1) every single cellphone and vast majority of accessories now using exactly micro-usb port. (2)

Roses smelled, although usually it's coffee I'm told to smell. I never looked that closely at my Galaxy S4's connector. You're correct! I still don't care, but you're correct.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

p.s.s: Love my S4 and my Shure IEMs

 

[riker1384]

This could be useful, it would make it easier for headphones to have active EQ without the headphones having to have cumbersome batteries attached. Also noise canceling. It would be a nice option, except that it'll be proprietary and come with fees.

 

[rojo]

I don't know what the license fees will be, but I doubt they'll be onerous, if not free. This is still in my "Who cares?" category. Apple wasted a ton of money on Intel's proprietary Thunderbolt interconnect for Macs, and is there anyone who uses it for anything, except perhaps an over-priced Apple monitor or an expensive storage system? Apple has been doing all sorts of dumb interconnect-related things for years (Remember Firewire?), and in the end the only people who paid for them are us over-privileged, fashion-conscious, technically illiterate Apple customers.

Firewire's a bad example. Firewire was superior to USB 1.0, and wasn't limited to Apple devices. Many Sony devices employed Firewire (they called it i.Link, IIRC?), and lots of PCs had an IEEE 1394 interface, or could get one easily by adding a PCI card. External Firewire hard drives were much faster than USB 1.0 drives.

But I'm picking nits. I agree with the main sentiment of your post.

Apple's products are very well polished. They focus on the end user experience and intuitive use for the lowest common denominator, and it shows. But that's not to mean I'm a fan, not by any means.

Every Apple device looks and works like every other Apple device, whether you want it to or not. There's no individuality. No customization. No personality.

There's no real superuser control or hackability. If I want to install Firefox or Chrome on an iPad / iPhone, I can't. Apple disallows any app capable of executing any scripting. Jailbreaking doesn't change that. If I want to establish an FTP link over Bluetooth, I can't. If I want to replace the stupid battery, I can't -- not without unreasonable effort. If I want to teach my AppleTV to play DLNA / UPnP streams, I can't. If I want my iPod to play FLAC or OGG files, it can't be done. If you are an Apple device user, you must conform.

Quite a reversal from their famous 1984 Super Bowl commercial, huh?

There are other things that irritate me about Apple stuff, but I'd just be whining if I continue. I think they should stick to desktop workstations.

 

[Irvrobinson]

Firewire's a bad example. Firewire was superior to USB 1.0, and wasn't limited to Apple devices. Many Sony devices employed Firewire (they called it i.Link, IIRC?), and lots of PCs had an IEEE 1394 interface, or could get one easily by adding a PCI card. External Firewire hard drives were much faster than USB 1.0 drives.

I think Firewire is a great example. Apple knew Intel was pushing USB into the 300M+ unit/yr PC market and avoided it, probably because USB is an Intel technology and they were anti-Intel at the time. The fact that Sony got on the wrong train with them isn't a good argument; it was still a train to nowhere, albeit a faster one. It is sort of odd that both Intel and Apple then tried to push Thunderbolt to replace USB, an even faster train to nowhere.

 

[MidnightSensi2]

Thunderbolt has been an advantage for me, but I work with high resolution video a lot.

Firewire is heavily used in A/V industry. USB for a long time just didn't cut it bandwidth wise, and ethernet is just coming along now. Good example: focusrite.com