Steve Wozniak: "Bluetooth just sounds so flat for the same music." (Apple ditching 3.5mm on iPhone)*

Apple is rumored to be ditching the headphone jack on forthcoming iPhones. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak doesn't like this idea. See the link below. From this article:


"Apple's co-founder has a warning for the company: Keep the headphone jack.

The company's co-founder, Steve Wozniak, appeared less than impressed with the rumors that Apple plans to ditch headphone jacks in an interview with the Australian Financial Review.

"If it's missing the 3.5 millimeter earphone jack, that's going to tick off a lot of people," Wozniak told the newspaper in an article published Wednesday morning.

Rumors have been circulating for months that Apple's next iPhone will be much thinner -- so thin that it may not have room for a headphone jack. Instead, customers would connect their headphones via Bluetooth or with an adapter that connects to the iPhone's charging port.

But carrying around an adapter could be troublesome for many people. And Bluetooth doesn't offer a great listening experience.

Wozniak warns: "I would not use Bluetooth ... I don't like wireless. I have cars where you can plug in the music, or go through Bluetooth, and Bluetooth just sounds so flat for the same music.""


Steve Wozniak to Apple: Keep the iPhone's headphone jack »


I've never listened to music via a Bluetooth headset. Generally speaking, listening to music on an iPhone via the headphone jack is not an audiophile experience, but is it decidedly worse via Bluetooth?

 

Bluetooth is terrible.

 

And he says in that article he uses custom molded earbuds. Let's take a perfectly good technology and outmode it because we can. How long until the 3.5mm Revival?

 

Apple's idea to ditch the headphone jack, which not only outputs music to earphones, is strange on so many levels. That jack has it's uses for normal and discreet cell phone conversations as well, especially for people on the go. Sure, get a future iPhone with an adapter into the charge slot. More bulk on a thinner phone. Sounds like a contradiction of illogical proportions.

 

The best marketing blurb they have is that Bluetooth is "Near CD Quality".

It has it's uses, but a wired connection always sounds better, even with less than CD quality sources. I've been using a couple of BT 4.0 just recently and listening fatigue still happens too easily for me.

 

I am sure they could make a 3.5 mm to Thunderbolt (the charging port) adapter. That way all folks have to do is plug the adapter onto the end of their Beats and they are good to go.

 

And a 2 way cord for headphones while charging? (How I usually use headphones and an iPhone)

I've used Apple products for my entire professional life and have always agreed with ditching waning tech (the floppy disk), but this feels premature. My 3.5" headphone jack is usually the last thing to F up in my phones. I'm bummed by the move, but I'll still buy a 7 next month.

 

Why not put some money into the R&D for better quality Bluetooth audio? There is already Apt-X Bluetooth which is supposedly CD quality (which i don't think Apple even uses for iPhones).
They should come out with a Bluetooth audio quality that is the best ever, but that would mean actually caring about sound quality.

 

Sony has something called LDAC which is supposed to support high res over BlueTooth.

Sony Global - LDAC™: High quality wireless listening »

Not sure if this is going to be part of a standardisation process, and I have no personal experience with it (I have a Sony device that can send it, but no headphones that support it)

 

I guess the most positive way of looking at it is that if the most popular device manufacturer on the planet ditches the standard and starts pushing wireless, it may provide the incentive needed for companies to invest big r&d money and finally develop a better wireless standard for the future. In a way it may have to happen early for it to happen at all



but real talk i still want my 3.5mm jack

 

When they removed various ports from the laptops, and opticle drives too, I knew they would not stop there.

 

Bluetooth is great! ...for my keyboard.

If they do this, there will be a bigger backlash than when they ditched the floppy drive. And unlike then, this one might actually cause a user base shift.

 

Sad truth is they could remove the microphone, speaker, and screen, and millions of iSheep would still buy it.

 

Thanks to all of the changes that APPLE have made to "everything" that I originally loved about their products, I'm honestly about to dump them, once and for all. A headphone jack, USB's and plugs that I can use with my "existing connecting electronics", like DJ controllers and sound systems, in general, is what I'm worried about! I mean, USB-C, who wants THAT crap and why are they forcing that down our damn throats??? Let me also add that I want something I can carry with me anywhere, with 500 solid state gigs, so I can keep my music with me, not in a cloud or streaming! Just how many changes are they going to make to my beloved "Macbook Pro", that I'm going to hate, if they ever actually release the damn thing?

(NOTE TO APPLE: I needed a new Macbook Pro a year ago and I'm tired of waiting for your schedule to release a new one!)

I've been watching every one of their big shindigs, waiting like a kid at Christmas for a new Macbook Pro, only to find out that they've created more useless apps and released more useless Apple Watches. I'm convinced that they've lost their vision and that they want to turn everything in the world into "The Jetsons", but some of us are ok with reaching for the stars and taking us out of the stone age, while keeping our feet on the ground. (Sorry Casey!)

 

I'm tired and been tired off all the advancements and improvements, I preferred it when things "just worked".

I don't need my phone to be thinner either, I think it's fine and about right right now.

 

May I "like" your post, times ten?

 

Bluetooth doesn't sound as good as a wired connection, but AirPlay seems to work well. I've got an Airport Express hooked up to my preamp's DAC to stream from iTunes on a Mac or via my iPhone and it sounds quite good.

 

I wish Steve Wozniak would come out of retirement and come back to Apple as head man. He's the practical side and thoughtful side the company needs and a good filter to Tim Cook's too radical side. I think Woz's return would be a great thing for Apple and get Apple back to their roots.

 

Not an audio issue, but I wonder how everyone who's using card swipers like Square via the jack will like this move. They're already having to deal with one attachment, I can't imagine it being anything but a hassle to have to have another one (or buy a new swiper) to keep things moving.

 

I've played MP3 music from both my phone and MP3 players and the music sounds better than I would expect it would. This is compared to a memory stick plugged into the Sony streaming box with digital optical out to the ESS Saber DAC in the iNova.

Bluetooth, not so good. Emotiva seems to haave come up with a better way to do BT, I bought the unit some time ago but have not opened it up yet.

 

My company uses them and iPhones for our card processing.
We are moving to tablets and a program where we manually enter the card numbers, instead of the swipe.

 

Saying that bluetooth doesn't sound good is like listening to crappy earbuds and them claiming that all earbuds sound bad. I am NOT saying that the same set of headphones will sound identical when wired versus using bluetooth, but the difference is quite subtle under most listening conditions. Given how few people are truly audiophiles, I doubt that many people would notice or care about a loss of sound quality when listening to music via bluetooth.

I quite like my Sennheiser Momentum 2 wireless headphones. They definitely don't sound flat. I slightly prefer them wired, but the difference isn't a large as the difference between the Momentum 2 and the Sennheiser HD 700 headphones I also own.

What audiophile is going to choose his/her phone as the preferred source when deciding to do serious listening? Isn't anyone who cares about sound quality likely to have much, much better equipment for music listening anyway?

 

While you are bitching about Apple and ISheep (interesting that came from the UK, home of the sheep lovers) Samsung is busy doing the same thing. But no complaint about the Koreans. Enjoy your micromini USB plugs.