Could it be true, iPhone going to USB type C

[transmaster]

Apple dropping the jack, though? Yeah, fine with that, lol!

You have Bluetooth 5.0 on your iPhone 8. Bluetooth earphones, and headphones are just now starting to hit the market with the 5.0 standard it has much greater bandwidth and it can do lossless playback. The biggest problem is finding ear, or headphones using 4.2, or 5.0 that support Apples AAC standard. Qualcomm’s IPX5 is everywhere, which takes care of the Android folks, but you know what Apple thinks of Qualcomm.

 

[hjames]

Apple has never changed connectors for one that takes up more space. Ever. That’s literally all you need to know to understand that they are not going to go USB-c. No way. No how. And there is zero upside. A bigger fatter connector with no technical benefit (speed isn’t really a factor, the iPad Pro pushes 5gbps over lightning) is not going to find it’s way to iPhones.

Which is good, because its a solid standard that is about as trouble free as you can ask for. I don’t want to buy another round of cables for my house. There is a black hole in my home that swallows cables and power bricks. I should set a dash button up for anker cables...

Makes perfect sense to me. The lightning connector is robust and bidirectional & works no matter how you plug it in -
I also don't see any gain in going to a USB variant either ...

 

[KrisM]

You have Bluetooth 5.0 on your iPhone 8. Bluetooth earphones, and headphones are just now starting to hit the market with the 5.0 standard it has much greater bandwidth and it can do lossless playback. The biggest problem is finding ear, or headphones using 4.2, or 5.0 that support Apples AAC standard. Qualcomm’s IPX5 is everywhere, which takes care of the Android folks, but you know what Apple thinks of Qualcomm.

For sure.
But when my head hits the pillow I often listen to music, and have headphones that work for me. When I'm out and about I have earbuds that work for me.
I'd rather not buy anything new. Certainly not because of this issue. I'd rather it be about a bump in quality, and when the budget works for me.

Times change, and I get it.
I'll suck it up and use the Apple dongle. And then wear it out and buy another one. And then go all old man yelling at the clouds.

 

[transmaster]

Now that there are durable lightning cables I have no problems either.

 

[transmaster]

Klipsch has a very nice Bluetooth Headphones with a 20 hour battery. And they all do AAC,

 

[EngineerNate]

Makes perfect sense to me. The lightning connector is robust and bidirectional & works no matter how you plug it in -
I also don't see any gain in going to a USB variant either ...

The USB-C connector is all of those things...

I've also seen fewer broken USB-C cables than lightning cables.

 

[KrisM]

Klipsch has a very nice Bluetooth Headphones with a 20 hour battery. And they all do AAC,

I'm confused about the "they all do AAC" thing. Does that mean bluetooth headphones have to be compatible with formats? I'd would have thought they would just transmit/receive whatever audio is being played on the phone.
I don't do AAC(right now), pretty much all I use on my phones is FLAC, with the odd MP3 file.

I admit I'm not too up on bluetooth, I don't use it much. Mostly just for airdropping pics.

 

[KrisM]

The USB-C connector is all of those things...

I've also seen fewer broken USB-C cables than lightning cables.

Original Apple cables, or good ones?
I think the fail rate on the originals is terrible. Less so, by a country mile, with a good replacement.

 

[EngineerNate]

Original Apple cables, or good ones?
I think the fail rate on the originals is terrible. Less so, by a country mile, with a good replacement.

I agree. Anker Powerline are the best, for both USB-C and lightning.

The issue I've seen with lightning cables is that the actual insert is plastic. Regardless of the brand, if you have one next to the bed for example, and you step on it, it's quite easy for the end to snap off. Not so much with the metal "barrel" of the USB-C.

I'd like to see micro USB, USB-A and USB-B all die in favor of a single USB-C standard for everything. The fact that it's robust enough to use as the only charge port *and* dock connector on my ridiculously specced work laptop tells me it can handle everything.

The fewer types of cords in my life the better.

 

[KrisM]

I agree. Anker Powerline are the best, for both USB-C and lightning.

The issue I've seen with lightning cables is that the actual insert is plastic. Regardless of the brand, if you have one next to the bed for example, and you step on it, it's quite easy for the end to snap off. Not so much with the metal "barrel" of the USB-C.

I'd like to see micro USB, USB-A and USB-B all die in favor of a single USB-C standard for everything. The fact that it's robust enough to use as the only charge port *and* dock connector on my ridiculously specced work laptop tells me it can handle everything.

The fewer types of cords in my life the better.

Yeah, the less proprietary the better.
I used to work for Sony, and good grief did they have it bad.

 

[PabloX]

Makes perfect sense to me. The lightning connector is robust and bidirectional & works no matter how you plug it in -
I also don't see any gain in going to a USB variant either ...

Lightning also has an ergonomic advantage. That is, it's easy to plug in. Lining up micro USB plugs is a PITA, especially as my near vision starts to go.

USB-C is better than micro USB in this regard but it's also quite a bit bigger. I can't see Apple making their phones bigger to accommodate it. They need all the space they can get.

 

[transmaster]

I'm confused about the "they all do AAC" thing. Does that mean bluetooth headphones have to be compatible with formats? I'd would have thought they would just transmit/receive whatever audio is being played on the phone.
I don't do AAC(right now), pretty much all I use on my phones is FLAC, with the odd MP3 file.

I admit I'm not too up on bluetooth, I don't use it much. Mostly just for airdropping pics.

It isn’t the audio codex it is the bandwidth the Bluetooth device has available for playback.

Here is a good article to read.

https://www.audioholics.com/audio-technologies/bluetooth-audio-guide

 

[KrisM]

It isn’t an audio codex it is the bandwidth the Bluetooth device has available for playback.

Here is a good article to read.

https://www.audioholics.com/audio-technologies/bluetooth-audio-guide

Thanks for the link.

I did a bit of skimming, but I found this bit interesting:

"Apple Music provides a native AAC stream, so it’s the next best thing to a library of AAC or ALAC files. For best results, you’ll need to pay attention that you don’t use your iPhone to stream any other lossy compression algorithms. Compression algorithms like MP3 or Spotify’s Ogg Vorbis will need to be decoded by the iPhone then encoded into another lossy algorithm (AAC) before being transmitted to your headphones."

Does that mean if I play back FLAC the phone(or the app on the phone, I guess) decodes it, and then it's encoded to AAC and then decoded by the headphones?
Or am I getting an early start on being a confused old man when it comes to tech?

 

[EngineerNate]

If the headphones work as a bluetooth DAC then the codec of your files actually does matter. If the file is encoded in whatever format the DAC in the headphones needs the phone likely won't transcode it. Otherwise it'll transcode into whatever format the headphones need.

 

[transmaster]

There is a partial way around this. I use Equalizer Pro, which apparently no longer available on the US App store. But VLC is now available in the App store and it works the same way. The VLC app enables the playback of almost all audio codex’s FLAC, APE, Ogg Vorbis, etc. load the app it is free. The only downside is to load FLAC and other lossless codex you have to use iTunes. Plug in your iPhone, IPad, iPod Touch, VLC even works on the Apple Watch. In iTunes look for your device symbol in the upper left side, click it to open up that devices homepage. On the left side look down until you find “File Sharing” click this it will open up a page to the right, it will show all of the App’s you can use to put files into. Find the VLC app click on it. To the right there is an open field were your music files will be listed At the top look for “VLC Documents”. Finally open up your Music folder(s) pick what you want and simply drag and drop the files into the documents field and they will load. When you see the files listed go back to the VLC App they will be there in FLAC, or whatever. There is also a graphic equalizer you can tweak things for crappy old ears. I am not sure what the Apple lightning adapter does to a FLAC file but if you have a 3.5mm jack plug in and enjoy. At the very least you don’t have to convert your FLAC files.

 

[transmaster]

This is also the best, and only reliable way of loading your personal audio files into your iOS device.

 

[KrisM]

There is a partial way around this. I use Equalizer Pro, which apparently no longer available on the US App store. But VLC is now available in the App store and it works the same way. The VLC app enables the playback of almost all audio codex’s FLAC, APE, Ogg Vorbis, etc. load the app it is free. The only downside is to load FLAC and other lossless codex you have to use iTunes. Plug in your iPhone, IPad, iPod Touch, VLC even works on the Apple Watch. In iTunes look for your device symbol in the upper left side, click it to open up that devices homepage. On the left side look down until you find “File Sharing” click this it will open up a page to the right, it will show all of the App’s you can use to put files into. Find the VLC app click on it. To the right there is an open field were your music files will be listed At the top look for “VLC Documents”. Finally open up your Music folder(s) pick what you want and simply drag and drop the files into the documents field and they will load. When you see the files listed go back to the VLC App they will be there in FLAC, or whatever. There is also a graphic equalizer you can tweak things for crappy old ears. I am not sure what the Apple lightning adapter does to a FLAC file but if you have a 3.5mm jack plug in and enjoy. At the very least you don’t have to convert your FLAC files.

Cool.
I had Eqaulizer Pro on my 5, but I don't think it transferred over to my 8.

I don't have a ton of interest in loading tunes into my phone.
My FLAC playback is via FileBrowser while I'm at home, and my devices can access my files via my network.
As far as I can tell the Apple lightning adapter doesn't do anything to the FLAC files. It has already been decoded by FB.

I've had VLX on my computers for years, and it seems to play just about anything. I think I should add it to my phone some day.

 

[transmaster]

Cool.
I had Eqaulizer Pro on my 5, but I don't think it transferred over to my 8..

Go to the App store. Tap the update button at the bottom when that page opens look in the upper right hand side you will see your Avatar, if you have one or something else. Tap that your App store account page will open. Tap on purchased. It will show all of the app’s you have ever loaded on that account the ones that are 32bit app’s and not usable will be Shadowed. Look to see if Equalizer Pro is still there. It is a 64bit app so if is still there you should be able to load it. While you are there if there are any 32bit apps you liked tap it an if there is a 64bit version it will take you to the App store to load it.

 

[hjames]

This is also the best, and only reliable way of loading your personal audio files into your iOS device.

Nope - I load Apple Lossless files into iTunes and copy them onto the iPhone in iTunes as needed. Perfectly reliable.

I understand its your opinion that you use the best app, and perhaps for you it is,
but claiming its the "Only reliable way" is such clickbait language and is just flat WRONG.

Its not football, its not politics, its not religion, its just mobile music gear ...
Lots of folks just have a different kind of experience than you seem to have.

 

[transmaster]

ITunes/Apple Music cannot do this. This is a FLAC file playing on my iPhone 7+. This is part of my OST set for the Anime “Last Exile” (2003) which I am listening to with my Shure SE215’s plugged into my FiiO i1 dongle.