The Obligatory iPhone 7/Apple Watch "Series 2" Thread

[Joyrex]

 

 

cool so now i get another thing i can lose. i spent a lot of money on my shure earbuds, i like them, i'm not going to use apple's and i'm not using shitty bluetooth wireless headphones that crap out on me. it doesn't really matter anyway, i'm using an iphone se and will go to android for my next phone. if at that point the entire industry has phased out 3.5 connectors, fair enough. i just hate built in obsolescence when it's completely unneeded. apple should put some money and effort into fixing their appalling bad music software.

Can't see how you would lose it if it was connected to your 3.5mm jack...

 

And the industry WILL phase out the 3.5mm jack, just like RCA connectors are hardly used anymore.

 

Apple removed it for various reasons - smaller form factor, waterproofing, all-digital connection (surprised nobody mentioned this as an advantage yet) - their product, their decision. If you don't like it, switch to Android until they do the same as companies are usually lemming-like in that respect.

 

You raised an interesting question - what does Android devices use as a music player? Google Music? I have it on my iPhone, and I can't say I'm terribly impressed with it's UI over the Music app on iOS - and this coming from an avowed Google "fan" when it comes to their software.

 

 

i actually don't have an issue with the ios music player, i'm talking about itunes. it's the worst software i've ever used on an otherwise functional computer and i've finally had to do all of my digital music management on my desktop pc through foobar. it's baffling to me how neglected it is and how every upgrade makes it less intuitive and useable. 

btw i'm not an apple hater or whatever. there are strengths and weaknesses and i use both pc and mac hardware (macbook pro laptop and ground up pc build for desktop). it's really more frustrating to see this weird defense of a decision that's clearly for money, not customer satisfaction. this isn't "courageous" as their marketing seems to be trying to communicate, it's so they can upsell overpriced hardware "solutions" to problems they create. i understand that's the tech industry in a nutshell, it's just frustrating because there was nothing wrong with the old audio jack.

 

Guess you didn't read the bit I wrote about waterproofing - the 3.5 mm jack was one of the main issues in getting the iPhone to finally meet an IA67 rating, which means you can drop it in 3 meters of water for up to 15 minutes before the seals give way. Should be a minimum standard on all mobiles, IMO.

 

Totally agree with you on iTunes - it's barely usable right now in macOS Sierra. Was trying to add an album to my wife's phone via WiFi, and first time it worked, but the album art didn't carry over, so I deleted it from her phone, and tried again - either wouldn't transfer (no errors, just nothing), or iTunes couldn't find the phone (even though it was less than 10 feet away, and it was over WiFi anyways, so that shouldn't matter). Finally had to dig out a lightning cable and connect it the old way.

 

At least now they finally have right-click "add to device" menus. Still, iTunes needs to be scrapped and rewritten from the ground up and come up with a new media management scheme (since iTunes doesn't just handle tunes anymore). 

[mcbpete]

Guess you didn't read the bit I wrote about waterproofing - the 3.5 mm jack was one of the main issues in getting the iPhone to finally meet an IA67 rating, which means you can drop it in 3 meters of water for up to 15 minutes before the seals give way. Should be a minimum standard on all mobiles, IMO.

Galaxy S7 has ip68 (1.5m for 30 minutes) and yet happily still has the offending port ... http://www.mirror.co.uk/tech/how-waterproof-galaxy-s7-put-7539315

[doublename]

Didn't the Xperia Z3 as well?

[dr lopez]

the note looked so good until it exploded... really bummed about that.

 

completely agree with keanu here tho - itunes has become the realPlayer of the 2010s -  a virus that needs to be removed from any and every computing station at all costs. I also use macbook pro / homebuild desktop PC and while i'm not nearly autistic enough to use foobar TO THE MAXIMUM it does just fine and plays flacs without concern. and I just don't play music on my MBP anymore. sad.

 

pretty mind-boggling that apple with all their extreme wealth and design nous can't seem to come up with an itunes/media manager app "that just works." even just large tabs at the top would be good.

 

I do still have an issue with the "its what we have so we can't get rid of it" argument - you guys couch it in anti-corporate / liberal lingo but I generally feel obdurate stoicism in the face of change is silly and unproductive especially in the world of technology where things change and improve at a heightened rate. k i'm done now

[Guest]

it would take a lot of courage to rewrite iTunes

[doublename]

Have you tried Clementine on your Mac, Lopez?

[Joyrex]

 

Guess you didn't read the bit I wrote about waterproofing - the 3.5 mm jack was one of the main issues in getting the iPhone to finally meet an IA67 rating, which means you can drop it in 3 meters of water for up to 15 minutes before the seals give way. Should be a minimum standard on all mobiles, IMO.

Galaxy S7 has ip68 (1.5m for 30 minutes) and yet happily still has the offending port ... http://www.mirror.co.uk/tech/how-waterproof-galaxy-s7-put-7539315

 

Oh, interesting - well, I guess Apple just suggested that was a benefit, unless their jack is somehow different.

 

Have you tried Clementine on your Mac, Lopez?

Wow, I have never seen this!

 

https://www.clementine-player.org/

 

And for Windows and Linux, too!

 

I'm gonna give this a try - thanks @doublename!

[kakapo]

I have an iphone 6s + and an old macbook pro.  Desktop pc.  Some speakers and headphones and shit.  I don't have an opinion on apple removing the headphone jack.  I don't want to have an opinion on it.  Everyone please be quiet, your witless chirping is getting annoying.  I don't care what any of you think about this.  If I ever upgrade my phone, I may have to make a decision.  It will take 0.00003 seconds.  0.0000000139 kCal.  It will have zero impact on my life.      

[coax]

 

 all-digital connection (surprised nobody mentioned this as an advantage yet)

 

 

 

but does that really matter when there are apparently only shitty bluetooth headphones? how does one get actual good quality bluetooth devices, what's needed? im not against the idea i guess, if it can lead to improvements over time with interfacing with not just headphones but stereos and the like

[keanu reeves]

I have an iphone 6s + and an old macbook pro.  Desktop pc.  Some speakers and headphones and shit.  I don't have an opinion on apple removing the headphone jack.  I don't want to have an opinion on it.  Everyone please be quiet, your witless chirping is getting annoying.  I don't care what any of you think about this.  If I ever upgrade my phone, I may have to make a decision.  It will take 0.00003 seconds.  0.0000000139 kCal.  It will have zero impact on my life.      

 

so less time than it took to write a post about how little you care

[kakapo]

 

I have an iphone 6s + and an old macbook pro.  Desktop pc.  Some speakers and headphones and shit.  I don't have an opinion on apple removing the headphone jack.  I don't want to have an opinion on it.  Everyone please be quiet, your witless chirping is getting annoying.  I don't care what any of you think about this.  If I ever upgrade my phone, I may have to make a decision.  It will take 0.00003 seconds.  0.0000000139 kCal.  It will have zero impact on my life.      

 

so less time than it took to write a post about how little you care

 

 

I care about watmm, reeves.

[mcbpete]

Wow, I have never seen this!

 

https://www.clementine-player.org/

 

And for Windows and Linux, too!

 

I'm gonna give this a try - thanks @doublename!

Me neither - looks nice, like daddy Foobar2000 and mummy iTunes had a baby.

I've just gone back to (of all things!) Winamp. Version 5 is so much better than I remember it being performance wise ....

[Kidrodi]

Swinsian is good too. It's like iTunes but without all the bullshit

[Joyrex]

 

 all-digital connection (surprised nobody mentioned this as an advantage yet)

 

 

 

but does that really matter when there are apparently only shitty bluetooth headphones? how does one get actual good quality bluetooth devices, what's needed? im not against the idea i guess, if it can lead to improvements over time with interfacing with not just headphones but stereos and the like

 

I meant via the Lightning port... 3.5mm is an analogue port.

[Rubin Farr]

 

 

 

cool so now i get another thing i can lose. i spent a lot of money on my shure earbuds, i like them, i'm not going to use apple's and i'm not using shitty bluetooth wireless headphones that crap out on me. it doesn't really matter anyway, i'm using an iphone se and will go to android for my next phone. if at that point the entire industry has phased out 3.5 connectors, fair enough. i just hate built in obsolescence when it's completely unneeded. apple should put some money and effort into fixing their appalling bad music software.

Can't see how you would lose it if it was connected to your 3.5mm jack...

 

And the industry WILL phase out the 3.5mm jack, just like RCA connectors are hardly used anymore.

 

Apple removed it for various reasons - smaller form factor, waterproofing, all-digital connection (surprised nobody mentioned this as an advantage yet) - their product, their decision. If you don't like it, switch to Android until they do the same as companies are usually lemming-like in that respect.

 

You raised an interesting question - what does Android devices use as a music player? Google Music? I have it on my iPhone, and I can't say I'm terribly impressed with it's UI over the Music app on iOS - and this coming from an avowed Google "fan" when it comes to their software.

i actually don't have an issue with the ios music player, i'm talking about itunes. it's the worst software i've ever used on an otherwise functional computer and i've finally had to do all of my digital music management on my desktop pc through foobar. it's baffling to me how neglected it is and how every upgrade makes it less intuitive and useable.

btw i'm not an apple hater or whatever. there are strengths and weaknesses and i use both pc and mac hardware (macbook pro laptop and ground up pc build for desktop). it's really more frustrating to see this weird defense of a decision that's clearly for money, not customer satisfaction. this isn't "courageous" as their marketing seems to be trying to communicate, it's so they can upsell overpriced hardware "solutions" to problems they create. i understand that's the tech industry in a nutshell, it's just frustrating because there was nothing wrong with the old audio jack.

Guess you didn't read the bit I wrote about waterproofing - the 3.5 mm jack was one of the main issues in getting the iPhone to finally meet an IA67 rating, which means you can drop it in 3 meters of water for up to 15 minutes before the seals give way. Should be a minimum standard on all mobiles, IMO.

 

Totally agree with you on iTunes - it's barely usable right now in macOS Sierra. Was trying to add an album to my wife's phone via WiFi, and first time it worked, but the album art didn't carry over, so I deleted it from her phone, and tried again - either wouldn't transfer (no errors, just nothing), or iTunes couldn't find the phone (even though it was less than 10 feet away, and it was over WiFi anyways, so that shouldn't matter). Finally had to dig out a lightning cable and connect it the old way.

 

At least now they finally have right-click "add to device" menus. Still, iTunes needs to be scrapped and rewritten from the ground up and come up with a new media management scheme (since iTunes doesn't just handle tunes anymore).

I get a lot of cover art errors now as well, sometimes stuff from bandcamp. It will spread the art from one album over to multiple titles in "recently added", the solution I've found is: remove the affected albums, resync your device, then re-add them and sync again and it's usually fixed. But yeah, it's bloatware now, same as iOS.

[Ginerpri]

Other competitors already have double cameras smartphones, I can't see why they were not as courageous as they claim and sell something like my concept here:

[hello spiral]

[modey]

I'm pretty puzzled as to why those wireless buds are that shitty earpods design and not the same design as their IEMs. The one time I was forced to use the earpods, I actually had to put rubber bands around my ears just so they were held in by something, otherwise a slight twist of my head would result in them falling out.

[BCM]

lol

[doublename]

The new Beats ones are actually cheaper, and look better. Upside down af.

[Amen Warrior]

Apple stuff just seems to be so inconvenient already, removing the headphone jack just seems to be yet more inconvenience. The wireless headphones are just bluetooth, so will be worse qual than 3.5mm connection. Re wired digital connection, the inconvenience of having to have a separate pair of compatible headphones outweighs any gains in quality, which will be non existant anyway as Apple/Beats have never made a good quality pair of headphones in the past, and I doubt any decent manufacturers will bother doing apple only compatible shite.

Presumably if the headphone dac is no longer in the phone it's in the adapter?

[eugene]

there must be some dac within the phone itself as there's still a regular speaker. but from what i read lighting port is digital only, so the adapter must act as a dac+amp i guess. it doesn't mean it's crap though, it's really not a problem to come up with a transparent and very cheap dac+headphone amp these days, especially when you're a corporate giant such as apple. only in the moronic audiophile world you have to have a dac of 500+$ to be able to reach some semblance of decent sound quality.

[coax]

@ joyrex oh ok. Yeah that's cool

 

@ eugene good point, hope so

 

Also, a cool aspect of the iphone 7 plus that isn't mentioned as much was the deep learning for digital bokeh in portrait mode. That's a pretty sweet thing even if it's more of a gimmick right now in terms of functionality. I guess it only matches heads/faces atm but the possibilities seem vast for future phones

[Guest]

^ yeah if they open up the API for accessing the raw depth map (iOS 11?), you basically have a 12MP instant 3D scanner.

 

Not liking the bokeh effect myself, the way it is (portraits only, blurs everything except the person) is kinda cheesy tbqh

[Guest]

btw re macOS Sierra: unless you really like the beachball, do yourself a favor and don't upgrade. I had an early beta and it was super sluggish, lot of new background stuff happening which you cannot disable. Rolled back to El Cap. People are reporting the same issues are still in the GM. Looks like they didn't get around to sort out the kinks.