Get ready for Apple-proprietary headphones. Forbes columnist Gordon Kelly said that the Beats deal suddenly became lightning port clear:
Suddenly why Apple AAPL -85.71% spent a seemingly ludicrous $3.2 billion buying Beats is starting to make sense. The reason: Apple is being more Apple than we ever imagined and it could mean saying goodbye to your favourite pair of headphones. Furthermore, if my theory is correct, then the new ones you buy will probably have Beats on the logo.
Get Ready For Lightning Headphones
Like most Apple developments, the news emerged from a leak. 9to5Mac has learnt that Apple submitted a specification to its MFi (Made For) licensing program for headphones which connect using the company’s proprietary Lightning port instead of the standard 3.5mm jack. Furthermore all it will take for the Lightning port to start accepting these new headphones is a firmware update.
Like most Apple innovations this brings some notable upsides. The 3.5mm jack (technically called a ‘TRS’ connector) is rarely the bottleneck to audio quality, but the Lightning port will enable a switch from analogue to digital audio with an exceedingly high lossless stereo 48 kHz digital output and mono 48 kHz digital input. If you can afford a $1,000 pair of headphones you may pick up the difference.
Of more relevance to most people, however, is the new functionality it will bring. Headphones with a Lightning connector would be able to do more than lower/increase volume, end calls and skip tracks. .....
Right now you can plug any pair of headphones or earphones into an iPhone, iPod, iPad, Mac or MacBook, but with the switch Apple would control an essential peripheral and its MFi licensing program would see it start to take a sizeable fee for every pair of headphones sold for use with an Apple device. Meanwhile Apple would suck up the majority of the profits with the Beats brand because owning it means there will be no licensing fee.
As for users who want to stick with their headphones, they would need to pay for an adaptor which – like the $29 Lightning to 30-pin adaptor (below) – would inevitably be expensive and just bulky enough to make you want to buy dedicated Lightning headphones long term...... Rest of the column
Remember when they changed the power cords?
6 comments:
if you like your headphones, you can keep your headphones
"I demand an investigation" -Ronny Lott
The original 9to5mac article says nothing about plans to ditch a standard audio jack. It only discloses plans that Apple will offer lightning enabled headphones. Forbes is just insinuating that the standard jack will be dropped.
I think it would initially have limited potential, but for those that do use premium headphones with noise cancelling functionality, it would be one less battery to worry about.
And though I think the Forbes article is a little ridiculous, I wonder how many people are still plugging nice headphones into more than one device. I'm a pretty heavy music listener, but my only headphone utilizing device anymore is the iPhone. Everything else is bluetooth (speakers, car, stereo).
The main reason I don't like Apple is all their forced proprietary equipment, and yes, being forced to have an iTunes account. Anything Apple costs more. It's not worth it to me. Taking over Beats may seem awesome to them, but the headphones are delicate, and not worth the cost.
Shades of Firewire and Thunderbolt. Beats phones average audio tech at best. Apple paid through the nose for the hype of the brand.
Beats are more about a brand than sound quality. There are equally good phones to be had for far less. This plays right into Apple, which is less a technology innovator and more of a trendy brand name.
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