Apple to remove the Headphone Jack in MacBook Pros too?


Recommended Posts

I've just completed an Apple survey, and one of the questions was "Do I listen to music via my Headphone Jack?"

 

Quite a few others have had the same survey, too. If this happens, I'm done with it.

 

 

DON'T YOU DARE, APPLE!

  • Like 2

I've never owned a MacBook but applying "windows" based laptops and tbh even desktop experience I very very rarely in the last 10 years have used a 3.5mm jack for listening to anything. Do you not use USB headsets?

 

 

  • Like 1
1 minute ago, Skiver said:

I've never owned a MacBook but applying "windows" based laptops and tbh even desktop experience I very very rarely in the last 10 years have used a 3.5mm jack for listening to anything. Do you not use USB headsets?

 

 

At home I use a USB headset but at work if needed I use headphones. I'm thinking of going back to headphones at home:) I wonder what would give better audio.

1 minute ago, Skiver said:

I've never owned a MacBook but applying "windows" based laptops and tbh even desktop experience I very very rarely in the last 10 years have used a 3.5mm jack for listening to anything. Do you not use USB headsets?

 

 

Huh. I use my headphone jack all the time. Unless I'm alone in the house I'm not really a fan of playing music through my speakers, and I don't think I have a USB headset.

 

In fact, part of my dislike towards the whole "let's ditch the headphone jack" is because I use my earphones on all my devices almost all the time. It's great that I don't need a set of earphones for one device, another set for another device, and so on.

3 minutes ago, Skiver said:

I've never owned a MacBook but applying "windows" based laptops and tbh even desktop experience I very very rarely in the last 10 years have used a 3.5mm jack for listening to anything. Do you not use USB headsets?

 

 

No. I have a selection of very good 3.5 jack headphones. 

 

This is obviously going to happen at some point. 

Just now, Danielx64 said:

At home I use a USB headset but at work if needed I use headphones. I'm thinking of going back to headphones at home:) I wonder what would give better audio.

 

What your saying is do I want a digital or an analogue signal? I'm pretty sure Digitial is massively more beneficial in terms of sound quality. I vaguely recall someone from Intel coming out recently and speaking out in favour of the move to USB based headphones and talking about the quality boost people will get from that.

1 minute ago, Nick H. said:

In fact, part of my dislike towards the whole "let's ditch the headphone jack" is because I use my earphones on all my devices almost all the time. It's great that I don't need a set of earphones for one device, another set for another device, and so on.

I'm sure that audio pros will say that the 3.5 headphone jack would produce better sounds than USB based ones.

  • Like 2
8 minutes ago, Skiver said:

What your saying is do I want a digital or an analogue signal? I'm pretty sure Digitial is massively more beneficial in terms of sound quality. I vaguely recall someone from Intel coming out recently and speaking out in favour of the move to USB based headphones and talking about the quality boost people will get from that.

Analog > Digital when it comes to sound quality. Digital > Analog when it comes to other stuff like licencing, piggybacking data etc

 

To be honest, most people don;t have good enough quality headphones that they'd notice, but for those that do it's going to hurt.

  • Like 1

 

4 minutes ago, Nick H. said:

Huh. I use my headphone jack all the time. Unless I'm alone in the house I'm not really a fan of playing music through my speakers, and I don't think I have a USB headset.

 

In fact, part of my dislike towards the whole "let's ditch the headphone jack" is because I use my earphones on all my devices almost all the time. It's great that I don't need a set of earphones for one device, another set for another device, and so on.

 

I honestly think that when the tipping point comes most people will have started to adopt the USB format anyway. The real issue will be people with an iPhone needing a pair of headphones with a lightening port and then perhaps having a standard PC/Laptop and then needing USB A/C etc.

 

4 minutes ago, MikeChipshop said:

No. I have a selection of very good 3.5 jack headphones. 

 

This is obviously going to happen at some point. 

 

I'm looking at this from a VHS > DVD > Blu Ray kinda thing - technology evolves and you at some point have to move on and forget the money you spent on the old stuff and move on or be left in the past. I don't think there are people still around saying "but I spent a lot of money on that DVD player - I don't want to buy a Blu Ray Player". Eventually the same will happen here.

 

2 minutes ago, Danielx64 said:

I'm sure that audio pros will say that the 3.5 headphone jack would produce better sounds than USB based ones.

 

I'd treat those sentiments the same way people say I'd rather read a paperback than a kindle. The benefits are clear but people will choose to ignore it for "nostalgic reasons".

Just to follow on from my last post. Although analog audio is far superiour in quality, most people don;t have the headphones to hear the difference any way.

 

Edit: OK, seems Neowin did manage to post the edit to my above post even though it told me it hadn't Sorry for the double.

  • Like 1
2 minutes ago, MikeChipshop said:

Analog > Digital when it comes to sound quality. Digital > Analog when it comes to other stuff like licencing, piggybacking d

Analogue > Digital in a lovely perfect world with no interference where your original source is analogue.

 

Digital > Analogue in the real world, where your sample rate is now at a stage whereby perception isn't impaired.

11 minutes ago, Danielx64 said:

I'm sure that audio pros will say that the 3.5 headphone jack would produce better sounds than USB based ones.

Not even in the least.  First off, all audio from a Macbook is digital - that's a fact and live with it.  The 3.5mm jack converts it to analogue.  It's not the best nor worst quality jack in the world ever (in fairness, it's better than many).

 

But if you want the PURE signal that your Macbook is dealing with, digital is the only way to get that.  Then use a high quality amplifier, preferably valve based.  Seems a lot for headphone usage.

11 minutes ago, Nik Louch said:

Not even in the least.  First off, all audio from a Macbook is digital - that's a fact and live with it.  The 3.5mm jack converts it to analogue.  It's not the best nor worst quality jack in the world ever (in fairness, it's better than many).

 

But if you want the PURE signal that your Macbook is dealing with, digital is the only way to get that.  Then use a high quality amplifier, preferably valve based.  Seems a lot for headphone usage.

Well if the headphone jack goes then the line in jack would also go as well right?

1 minute ago, Danielx64 said:

Well if the headphone jack goes then the line in jack would also go as well right?

Yup.  Not used that ever, in fairness.  External breakouts if you want to play with audio.

8 minutes ago, Nik Louch said:

Yup.  Not used that ever, in fairness.  External breakouts if you want to play with audio.

Not even something like this: http://www.centrecom.com.au/creative-soundblaster-zxr-pcie-sound-card-high-quality-sound-reproduction ?

2 minutes ago, Danielx64 said:

What about it?  That doesn't go into a Macbook Pro.  Yes, it has some analogue audio ports (RCA/Phono and 3.5mm jack) and is a more professional audio source.  And?

 

Are you asking whether I would use them?  Yes, of course I would, eventually I need to use an analogue connection for my analogue mixer.  I stated that I use external breakouts - this is nothing more than a version of that, that connects over an internal bus rather than external.

 

Sorry, what are you asking?

The trouble I have, is that I can't see the reasoning (beside profit margins) behind this? The vast majority of people use 3.5mm headphones. You won't save any material space by removing the port.

 

Unless they're replacing it with a lightning port, which would be a very Apple-y thing to do.

2 minutes ago, John. said:

The trouble I have, is that I can't see the reasoning (beside profit margins) behind this? The vast majority of people use 3.5mm headphones. You won't save any material space by removing the port.

 

Unless they're replacing it with a lightning port, which would be a very Apple-y thing to do.

 

Read above - why did we replace VHS with DVD, Why do we need a smartphone when a regular mobile still enabled us to make calls? The list goes on its technology advancing.

 

1 minute ago, Skiver said:

Read above - why did we replace VHS with DVD, Why do we need a smartphone when a regular mobile still enabled us to make calls? The list goes on its technology advancing.

 

I hope - for Apple's sake - you're right. They called it with the 30-pin to Lightning change, and I hope I'm just one of those people that hasn't yet seen the benefit to this.

Just now, John. said:

I hope I'm just one of those people that hasn't yet seen the benefit to this.

In fairness, I think the way apple put this out their has been terribly mishandled.  I agree with the decision to do it but not the way they did it.

 

They didn't play strongly enough how the box contains everything you need to either use your existing headphones, or their included lightning headphones.

 

What they did say (in a very potted way) is: No more headphone jack.  Buy our expensive wireless headphones.

 

OK, so the two are completely separate items, but the take away message is terrible.

  • Like 2
1 minute ago, John. said:

I hope - for Apple's sake - you're right. They called it with the 30-pin to Lightning change, and I hope I'm just one of those people that hasn't yet seen the benefit to this.

 

It's not just apple that is doing this - Motorola has done this on two of their devices. I think because of the iPhones popularity it's easier to stir up a hornet nest with the users and neglect to mention that there are at least two other phones out there that have already done this too. Those phone uses the USB-C port for audio now and I honestly see this being the standard for all mobile devices within the next 12-18 months at the absolute maximum. 

 

I'd argue it's an easier achievement on something like a Macbook or a Windows based laptop as they generally come with more than one USB port as it is anyway.

  • Like 2
1 minute ago, Skiver said:

I'd argue it's an easier achievement on something like a Macbook or a Windows based laptop as they generally come with more than one USB port as it is anyway.

Then USB will get replaced with something else down the road.

1 minute ago, Danielx64 said:

Then USB will get replaced with something else down the road.

 

Potentially but for now all we will see is a new USB standard/port type. I think we'll probably see an adoption of USB C over USB A but that won't be as quick as replacing the 3.5mm jack.

Just now, Skiver said:

Potentially but for now all we will see is a new USB standard/port type. I think we'll probably see an adoption of USB C over USB A but that won't be as quick as replacing the 3.5mm jack.

Each new port/protocol spec seems to unify a few previous ones.  What USB-C can do is astounding (IMHO) and unifies (or replaces) a lot of existing used ports in various use cases.  But I'm certain something will come next :)

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • Ford execs say they made a mistake when they replaced human engineers with AI by David Uzondu Ford recently announced that over the last three years, it's had to rehire about 350 "gray beard" engineers to mentor younger staff and reprogram diagnostic systems and AI tools that were failing to meet up to quality expectations. The company's VP of vehicle hardware engineering, Charles **** said that leaders overlooked the deep experience of veterans who survived many product cycles. **** admitted that simply replacing them with AI was a huge mistake, and that while AI is "a fantastic tool," it remains "only as good as the information you use to train it." The rehired engineers now run mandatory meetings to troubleshoot vehicles and reprogram automated engineering software and AI tools to prevent glitches before production. These technical specialists hunt for failure points before parts ever reach the plant floor, helping prevent the massive recalls and defects that previously cost the company billions as it aims to cut one billion dollars in expenses this year. In last year's JD Power Quality Survey, an annual study that measures the quality of a car during the first three months of ownership, Ford finished 10th among mainstream brands and scored below the industry average. But this year, JD Power ranked the automaker as the top mainstream brand, placing it above the likes of Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. Ford attributed this massive improvement directly to the expertise of these returned engineers. Ford's realization that AI cannot magically design and test quality vehicles without senior human oversight is just the tip of the iceberg. When Careerminds looked at companies that conducted AI-driven layoffs, researchers found out that 35.6% of those companies had to rehire more than half of the employees they previously fired. Another 32.7% had to rehire between 25% and 50% of them. In 2024, Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO of Klarna, proudly announced that its new chatbot was doing the work of 700 full-time customer service agents. As a result, the fintech company froze hiring and cut hundreds of positions. But by mid 2025, and into 2026, Klarna was scrambling to recruit human agents again because customer satisfaction had plummeted. It turns out, while AI is very good at answering basic questions like how to check an account balance, when faced with complex customer issues that require nuance, the thing usually resorts to the unhelpful, robotic corporate jargon we all know and love.
    • Free AI in IDEs is shifting to paid models Or you know, you could just learn to actually design and code apps, use frameworks to handle the repetitive parts and not use AI at all - and voila... free for life!
    • In a sane world US antitrust laws wouldn't even allow these companies to be in the position to be subjected to EU directives. As you say, better than oligarch nothing.
    • Apple reportedly has a second-generation iPhone Fold planned for 2027 Good grief, Apple hasn't even released a first folding phone and the Apple faithful is already obsessing over the sequel? Seriously people, go out and touch grass... because this level of obsession is borderline stalkery/neurotic.
    • I checked on the IPs associated with every login and they're all mine... And whenever I get a new prompt, there is no activity to show for it. 
  • Recent Achievements

    • Enthusiast
      Xonos went up a rank
      Enthusiast
    • Conversation Starter
      Admir earned a badge
      Conversation Starter
    • First Post
      The_Focal_Point earned a badge
      First Post
    • Apprentice
      daryld went up a rank
      Apprentice
    • Contributor
      Carltonbar went up a rank
      Contributor
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      405
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      169
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      129
    4. 4
      neufuse
      69
    5. 5
      Xenon
      68
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!