Apple Replaced the Headphone Jack On the iPhone 7 With a Fake Speaker Grill (businessinsider.com) 248
Not long ago, Apple CEO Tim Cook explained why the company felt a need to remove the headphone jack from the new iPhones -- the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. He said, "that jack takes up a lot of space in the phone, a lot of space. And there's a lot of more important things we can provide for the consumer than that jack." His colleague Phil Schiller cited "courage" for the same. As people learn to live in a world where they have to use a dongle to use their existing pair of headphones, gadget repair community iFixit found today that Apple isn't really using that "extra space" it got after getting rid of the headphone jack. BusinessInsider reports: "In place of the headphone jack, we find a component that seems to channel sound from outside the phone into the microphone... or from the Taptic Engine out," they write. Yep -- in the place where the headphone jack used to be there's a piece of molded plastic. "No fancy electronics here, just some well-designed acoustics and molded plastic," iFixit writes.iFixit adds, "Closer inspection shows a new, second lower speaker grille that leads ... nowhere? Interesting." Update: 09/16 21:21 GMT by M : Apple says it's a "barometric vent." The Verge reports: Apparently adding all the waterproofing to the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus meant that it was more of a sealed box, and so to be able to have an accurate and working barometer, Apple used that space. The barometer is the thing that allows a phone to measure altitude, and Apple points out that on the iPhone 7 it can measure even minor changes like climbing a flight of stairs.
As an iPhone buyer (Score:2, Funny)
You absolutely need to know how high you are.
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You almost made me snort my coke..
Liquid or line?
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"It helps to keep the inside of the phone dry."
It can't unless it is magically one way (see Maxwell's Demon [wikipedia.org]) and only lets water vapor out and not in.
In a warm damp environment water vapour will enter the phone through the vent.
On transition to a cold environment that water will condense and you now have liquid water inside the phone.
So in other words it's used and is useful (Score:5, Funny)
Having a barometer built into a phone is more useful than you would think, especially when measuring elevation changes.
Re:So in other words it's used and is useful (Score:5, Funny)
Guess how much more useful that bullshit is than a 3.5mm headphone jack? That's called a downgrade.
Re:So in other words it's used and is useful (Score:5, Funny)
Wouldn't it have been better to keep the headphone jack and sell a bluetooth barometer?
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I'll guess two possible reasons for this:
1. Force more use of Apple patented and licensed tech for headphones
2. Allow DRM implementation at the headphone jack to further control what can be played on the iPhone
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This is really silly. All a barometer needs is either one or two tiny holes (depending on the design of the sensor). The sensor would need to be sealed to the sensor and water tight, of course, but that is required by any sensor they might use. This story is simply an excuse.
I'll guess two possible reasons for this: 1. Force more use of Apple patented and licensed tech for headphones 2. Allow DRM implementation at the headphone jack to further control what can be played on the iPhone
The iPhone6+ (and possibly others) already has a barometer in it.
Barometer on a chip has been a thing for decades already. No "sealed box" needed.
They may have added the vent and moved the sensor for the existing barometer, but it's not a new feature. Gortex venting will probably greatly slow down the sensitivity so make it less useful for stuff they claim it might do.
Re:So in other words it's used and is useful (Score:5, Funny)
You can't know if its a downgrade or an upgrade unless you have a barometer!
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I knock on Tim Cook's door and tell him, "I'll give you one shiny new barometer if you tell me whether I need headphones on a phone."
+5 Funny [wikipedia.org].
Re: So in other words it's used and is useful (Score:2)
Because Apple's decision will ultimately greatly affect the diversity of headphones and their prices on the market. And now people have to buy two headphones...one for Apple's shit, and another for everything else. Not to mention all the additional e-waste from the forced upgrades (in addition to headphones, there are things like card readers, mics, etc...).
Re: So in other words it's used and is useful (Score:2)
Or.. You know.. People can just not buy some stuff.
You would be amazed how easy that is to do.
Re:So in other words it's used and is useful (Score:4, Insightful)
It's almost as useful as a headphone jack...
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Re:So in other words it's used and is useful (Score:4, Insightful)
It has a headphone jack or a charging port, but not both. For that two need a chain of two dongles.
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It has both until you use one or the other; when you use one, the other disappears. Because both functions share the same port.
they are working on a headphone which charges the phone using the power generated by oxidizing your earwax.
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Having a barometer built into a phone is more useful than you would think, exclusively when measuring elevation changes.
Fixed that for you
Weather or Not... (Score:2)
Never seen a weather station? Any idea what hey are measuring?
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The weather?
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Having a barometer built into a phone is more useful than you would think, exclusively when measuring elevation changes.
Fixed that for you
This might just be the most complicated method for turning the phone off when you get on a plane so the battery doesn't ignite. Now that they have become the first manufacturer to innovate a way to make water resistant phones, they have added elevation resistance as well!
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Isn't the GPS receiver already doing a better job of that?
Re:So in other words it's used and is useful (Score:4, Interesting)
Unless you're in a lab kept at 1 STP. Of course it is.
Using a barometer to measure altitude is retarded to the point of it being a cliche physics exam question (measuring the height of a building with a barometer).
Are you rapidly climbing stairs or is there a storm a comin'?
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"You know what Steve Jobs thinks of the Barometer in his new iPhone7?"
He would be so happy because being 6 feet under, he can't get GPS!
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I know there old Slashdot stereotype is old men in a basement eating cheetos, but you've honestly never been on a hike? You know, rapidly gaining elevation when climbing a hill...
Yeah, I can see how that would be useful.
"Hey guys, we're at 1,872 feet now."
"Thanks Kendall."
"Hey guys, we're at 1,886 feet now."
"Thanks Kendall."
"Hey guys, we're at 1,904 feet now."
"Thanks Kendall."
Maybe put the phone down and enjoy the hike. If you really need to know your exact position at some point on the hike, that's the entire point of GPS. You don't need a barometer that's going to give you a different altitude reading based on whether or not there's a storm coming.
Re:Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes (Score:4, Interesting)
Even a slight breeze will throw altitude, as inferred through a barometer, off by a huge amount.
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More technophobes, who can't even understand the phone might be in a pack but recording accurate tracking data...
Sigh, what a bunch of technically ignorant losers come to Slashdot these day!
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No, GPS is not a better job.
GPS' horizontal accuracy is good - about 1m. But its vertical accuracy is horrible - anywhere from tens of meters to a hundred meters or more. GPS was never made with vertical accuracy in mind.
Even pilots using VNAV rely on airports to transmit a vertical guidance signal to give a precise vertical signal.
And altitude is just one use of a barometer. You can also use it for weather - in fact, that's why you don't use a barom
Re:So in other words it's used and is useful (Score:5, Informative)
In this case, it probably was 3.5mm jack, or sealed case for waterproofness. I'm guessing waterproofness won out.
Nope. There are other waterproof smartphones [digitaltrends.com] that have a higher rating (IP68) than the iPhone 7, yet they all have a headphone jack. What won out was a way to push customers into either buying headphones that use the lightning port or bluetooth headphones that use Apple's W1 chip. Either way, Apple gets paid when others make accessories with their proprietary crap. "Oh, but there's a dongle", you say. Indeed there is. Apple knew there would be an even bigger shit-storm if not for some way for people to still use non-Apple headphones, but genius lies in the inconvenience of using the dongle. Which is exactly what will make iPhone users more likely to purchase Apple taxed headphones in the future.
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GPS' horizontal accuracy is good - about 1m. But its vertical accuracy is horrible - anywhere from tens of meters to a hundred meters or more. GPS was never made with vertical accuracy in mind.
GPS vertical accuracy is just as good as it's "horizontal" accuracy. It is just that the GPS receiver does not have accurate topological data, which is difficult to comeby. Early GPS receivers didn't have any topological data at all.
Re: So in other words it's used and is useful (Score:2)
What does local topography have to do with measuring height above sea level using GPS?
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E.g.: A barometer can give more accurate elevation data than GPS, so that when you are in a high-rise building and make an emergency call, first responders know what floor you are on.
Not sure this is why it is included, but it's a possible application.
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Um, no.
Air pressure varies with weather/temperature/etc.
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Pressure changes due to movem
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Airplanes, skydivers, and hikers have all used altimeters that relied on pressure changes
Yes, I'll keep that in mind next time I use my phone when I throw myself out of airplane.
Sorry but I see zero benefit to this on the phone. Fitness apps? Who gives a crap. It's a phone. You can't wear it swimming it doesn't monitor your heart rate, and if you're remotely interested in any kind of accurate fitness you will have an additional device to do all this stuff anyway.
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Again, if you're serious about it, tracking your exercise on an iPhone is the wrong way to go about it. And as a marathon runner myself I can categorically say there's nothing worse than running with something heavy slapping around in my pocket. Things like the Garmin forerunner are far better than any phone, and to be perfectly honest there is no need to accurately track elevation when running. I could see this being useful when climbing or downhill mountain biking ... neither of which I would do with a ph
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As far as comfort goes, people will bike with a phone in a jersey pocket or mounted to the stem/handlebars. Most folks I see running with a phone use an arm strap. Personally I wouldn't want to run 26 miles with one on my arm but f
Useless unless the phone is doing what it does (Score:2)
After just 1 hour, the accuracy is +-200m, or the height of a 30 story building give or take, so basically useless unless you are constantly calibrating it.
It's almost like you didn't know phones can use GPS more than once an hour.
Detecting how far *below* sea level you are going, as that pressure is usually quite reliable.
The phones seem about as accurate in Death Valley as anywhere.
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You must not live in a part of the world where the weather forecast includes phrases like "Snow and sleet above 3,000 feet tonight." This is very common in the western U.S. That's the reason that interstate highways are frequently marked with signs reading "Elevation 2,500 feet."
If I'm driving on a road that doesn't have elevation signs, but I know that there is going to be bad weather above a certain altitude, shouting "Hey, Siri, what's my current altitude?" in the car is going to make for far better tr
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You must not live in a part of the world where the weather forecast includes phrases like "Snow and sleet above 3,000 feet tonight."
Nope. Illinois, elev. 600±not a whole hell of a lot unless you're in a tall building.
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I live in Colorado where accurate altitude data is nice for hiking and orientation on maps.
Because if you did live in a state like Colorado you wouldn't just sit in a car ossifying, but actually enjoy nature.
Kind of amazing to me how many people on Slashdot are clamoring for less accurate data, just because it would make Apple look bad.
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Having a barometer built into a phone is more useful than you would think, especially when measuring elevation changes.
I've worked with barometers in embedded devices in the past. They're shitty at measuring all but the largest elevation changes. There are many environmental factors that could trick the device into thinking the elevation has changed. Ever go into a building and hear air rushing past the doors? That's because there is a pressure differential between the inside and outside of the building. Just walking inside could make the phone think it has changed altitude by several hundred feet.
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Having a barometer built into a phone is more useful than you would think, especially when measuring elevation changes.
If a "barometer" measured the quality of the bars in which I was drinking, then I would agree, but I don't think it does.
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Just because you don't find it useful doesn't mean everyone else doesn't as well. If it doesn't detract from the phone aside from the few cents it costs to add, why not add it? 99% of people never run Linux on their PC, but I'm sure most people here would cry foul if Intel used that as an excuse to do something to make their processors incompatible with Linux.
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Having a barometer built into a phone is more useful than you would think, especially when measuring elevation changes.
Many phones had barometers at some point including 2 of my 3 previous smartphones.
No one cared, no apps used them, and most vendors have removed them as the utterly uninteresting devices they are. Having a barometer in my phone is about as interesting as having a 3.5mm headphone jack on my drone.
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Is about the same as people who use wired headphones?
Re: So in other words it's used and is useful (Score:4, Insightful)
A barometer is definitely useful. However there are two problems:
1.) It's not a useful as a standard headphone jack
2.) It's not an either/or proposition. No reason you can't have both, except Apple wants to sell you overpriced dongles and wireless headphones.
Re: So in other words it's used and is useful (Score:2)
That was 32 years ago, man.
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I remember when the waterproof Yaesu VX-7 [yaesu.com] radio came out (hand-held amateur radio transceiver), and it had a problem with being too sealed.. The problem with anything that is waterproof and has a speaker and/or a microphone is that the pressure on the inside can be very different from the pressure on the outside. If you change altitude, you will find that the pressu
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Barometers measure pressure.
What happens when the air pressure changes? Barometers are fucking less for mobile devices unless you're comparing them to a known-accurate barometer somewhere else or you already know you're at a fixed altitude (such as being at sea). Barometric altimeters require constant calibration to normalized air pressure readings.
The very idea of a phone having a barometer is asinine if you live anywhere that has weather.
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Timing. Barometric changes from weather occur in the space of minutes to hours. For, say hiking or a quadcopter it is seconds to minutes. Thus, there is a useful window for barometric information for things OTHER than weather.
That's way every quadcopter that can hover has a barometer inside of it. Accurate to about a foot. Yes, it you watch, say a DJI Phantom hover for an entire battery (15 - 20 minutes) AND there is a relatively rapid change in barometic pressure due to a weather front, you will see i
And this was needed because? (Score:5, Insightful)
A more perfect barometer was needed to accomplish what exactly? The device can now tell that I've ascended stairs more accurately. This will lead to what? And this change was as valuable as the headphone jack, how? Sure, more waterproof will probably help some people but overall? It just seems like a dick move.
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There are tons of them for mobile phones. They do things like tell you have far you've ridden, what you're average speed is/was, if your pace was faster or slower than the last mile or the last time you did it, or how it compared to the best time anybody has recorded on that route. AND they record elevation changes because those make a big difference. The problem is that GPS does it badly.
Since pressure is used in things like altimeters, it's not hard to see why i
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I recently worked on a project where knowing the height of an object within 1ft was critical to the project. It failed because it wasn't possible to accurately determine that height with any barometer we could find (at least not one that could be affixed to a drone). The barometer excuse is utter bullshit. The best that a barometer that can fit on a phone can do is determine a general trend in elevation change. And any basic one will do that just fine.
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People die when the police can't figure out what floor of a high rise building they are on, after calling 911 and passing out. You can find plenty of news reports about the numerous times it has happened.
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A more perfect barometer was needed to accomplish what exactly
No, it's just a lie. A complete, outright lie. Have you seen a SMT baro? I've got a shitload of them here, mostly on flight controllers and IMUs. The hole in them is smaller than 1/16".
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Like checking barometric pressure? Is that the new thing?
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Android phones manage this without sacking the jac (Score:5, Insightful)
Somehow Android phone manufacturers have managed this for years (with even more sensors) with LARGER batteries, and maintaining water resistance all while not eliminating the headphone jack.
This is all about generating new earbud+headphone sales.
Re:Android phones manage this without sacking the (Score:4, Insightful)
Except the phone still COMES with headphones that work just fine.
Until you try to plug them into an airplane's entertainment system. Or the headphone jack on the side of your desktop computer speakers. Or a transistor radio. Or anything else outside of the newest Appleverse. Then they don't work just fine.
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Speaking of radio, does it support FM radio yet? The headphone cable usually doubles as an antenna.
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Casio G'zOne. I had one 5 years ago. The latest model comes with software to undistort images taken under water. How's that?
barometric sensor? Why? (Score:2)
Between a standard headphone jack and a barometric sensor, I know which I'd find WAY more useful in day-to-day life.
"Barometric vent" (Score:5, Funny)
Is that Apple-speak for "hot air"?
upgrade or downgrade? (Score:2)
Fortunately, now there's a sensor that can measure whether the phone has gone up or down.
Wrong Headline... (Score:4, Informative)
Should read: Apple Replaced the Headphone Jack On the iPhone 7 With a Huge Taptic Engine
Just look at the pictures:
https://www.ifixit.com/Teardow... [ifixit.com]
(Look at Step 6)
It's obvious that the huge Taptic Engine is right in the line of fire for where the plug would go.
That said: I do this it's a bit BS to put a "speaker grill" there. It might be aesthetically pleasing (balance) but it's a bit underhanded. I'm not really buying their "it's for the barometer!" schtick either...
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With the addition of tri-point screws, many iPhone 7 repairs will require up to four different types of drivers.
Imagine... (Score:2)
Just imagine how much space Apple could use if they made the phone thicker. They could have a bigger battery, headphone jack, barometer... there are all kinds of possibilities.
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But then people would complain about how thick the phone will be -- while simultaneously taking their existing thinner one and putting it into a thick battery case to get any useful life out of it.
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That phone already exists, it's called an LG G3. Oh and it comes with a better operating system. ;-)
Oh yes! (Score:3)
Because OF COURSE a millimeter-thick grill has the same volume as an entire headphone socket. WHO WRITES THIS SHIT?
http://www.firstpr.com.au/rwi/... [firstpr.com.au]
iPhone 8 feature (Score:2)
Decisions, decisions... (Score:2)
Decisions, decisions...a standard universal headphone jack that literally millions of devices will plug into, or a barometer.
Gee, which one would I use more? It's such a puzzle.
Clickbait! (Score:2)
Over the years, I've submitted some stories Some on popular stuff, and some on tech stuff.
As Slasddot jumps feetfirst into the world of What this Pennsylvania Housewife Found out that is Driving Dermatologists Crazy, I can fully understand exactly why they were rejected.
tl;dr version. Apple removed the headphone jack, and replaced it with something.
Now I'll take the discretion to post in less obviously stupid stories. Peace out.
It's official (Score:2)
So we're back to this headphone jack thing again? (Score:2)
Look ... The headphone jack is gone on the iPhone 7 series because Apple wants it gone. It's as easy as that. If a 1/8" stereo headphone jack is THAT big of a deal to you? You obviously need to start considering other smartphone products. I'd say chances are real close to 0% that Apple will decide to bring it back again in a future iPhone.
Despite the uproar, the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus phones achieved record sales. T-Mobile said they sold more of them the first day than they've ever sold of ANY phone in their
Galaxy Nexus (Score:2)
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It's not just a phone, it's a GPS, a computer, notepad, music player. Barometers, Bluetooth and wifi are used to give more accurate location info. It can also be used as a health tracker, a pedometer, collecting more accurate local weather information to feed into forecast models. There's apps for all that stuff.
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Barometers, Bluetooth and wifi are used to give more accurate location info.
And there we likely have the insight. The better Apple/Google/Microsoft/everyone can track your location, the better it is for them.
It can also be used as a health tracker, a pedometer, collecting more accurate local weather information to feed into forecast models. There's apps for all that stuff.
Yes, I'm sure that it's the missing spice in the recipe that will allow smartphones to finally stave off the tectonic-plate slide into obesity that is happening. I'm sure that "fitness tracking" applications are used entirely differently from home treadmills, stationary bikes, and weight sets. Surely people won't just buy them, try them, then lose discipline and abandon them
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Why on Odin's green earth would a telephone need a barometer? Does it also have a temperature probe, and wind and rain gauges? A telephone should have an earpiece and a mouthpiece and precious little else.
A barometer is typically used as an altimeter. I assume they plan to use it to supplement GPS.
However, despite Apple's claims, no barometer can tell if you are climbing a flight of stairs. This is because there are too many environmental noise factors that could produce the same effect. For example, turning on the vent hood in your kitchen could trick the sensor into thinking you increased your altitude by over 100 feet.
I've worked with barometers in embedded devices in the past. I once had a device
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However, despite Apple's claims, no barometer can tell if you are climbing a flight of stairs
You are mistaken, modern barometers are phenomenally good. They've got a noise level below 10 cm. Take for example the LPS25H. I've got no affiliation with STM, but I like their chips and find their accelerometers good quality, reliable and easy to use.
The hurricane depression thing is slow moving, climbing stairs takes only minutes, so it can tell.
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A few years ago I put together a tiny altimeter using a temperature/pressure sensor following a plan on "Instructables". You had to set the bas
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Oh, so no headphone jack then.
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It won't work, silly.
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So what happens when you are in an airplane and the cabin is pressurized?
the battery catches fire
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We can admit that the articles were pretty much always crap. The difference is that, back in the day, someone in the comments section would have pointed out that removing the headphone jack is about ApplePay competing with Square and, in the future, other payment competitors like Bitcoin. If it weren't for a lot of your supposedly highly-intelligent peers deciding to jump into yet another walled garden, maybe /. wouldn't have changed quite as much over the years.
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Square already supports a bluetooth-paired card reader, one that accepts regular chip cards and NFC (both Apple/Android/Plastic). That's not news.
Any merchant using the old magstripe-to-headphone jack is liable for fraud under the new rules anyway, so that's a non-starter.
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