Happy Face

My views are evolving from chatting to you chaps and reading more. I've completely changed my initial ill-formed opinion that DRM could in any way be the "biggest" factor in the decision. It was a reflexive comment from reading one article. Further articles and discussion here don't completely remove all doubts I have that it can be used to benefit apple and lock in consumers to the apple way further. The palava with Match and adding DRM to everyone's existing non-DRM library and that sort of thing should leave anyone cautious about how badly Apple can implement such things. That article Chez posted reflects the view of the one I read that gave me the 4:1 number. The biggest factor is obviously not DRM, but hardware... http://uk.businessinsider.com/apple-iphone-7-wireless-headphones-sales-chart-2016-9

Ewerk is spot on and I've not seen anything to suggest they'll change what he says. The debate on here seems to me to be whether Apple could implement further restrictions due to the new wire. The article Chez posts explaining why they won't also clarifies "it is a technical possibility that an all-digital audio feed could include DRM". So I'm not sure why it's still being discussed. Whether Apple implement further restrictions and to what extent is the debateable thing, and there's less consensus on that.

Interesting article. You disagreed with how you perceived I framed the date. But I disagree with that too. The issue in this thread has been driven by you personally claiming that this was evidence of corporate malpractice and reflected ulteriour commercial motives. Miles out. I specifically said I didn't think they were looking to do anything illegal. There's only evidence of what apple have done in the past, like charging extra for DRM free music.That evidence of what actually happened suggests it wouldn't be beyond them to use the technology for their own commercial interest, as they're well entitled to do. It wouldn't necessarily be good for consumers though. I moved last year to bluetooth headphones so its an advantage to not have a 3.5mm jack. If this is a general trend, we dont need the jack. You doing something doesn't indicate a trend. Or suggest one is coming. Despite bluetooth headphones being about for years, they're still outnumbered 4:1 by wired headphone sales. So you might not need a headphone jack but others still seem to have a place for it If you play mp3s through a home music system, you're a cunt and dead to me Again, it's not about you. You also claimed this new digital connector would be able to control to which amplification systems the signal was sent, I did? Quote that one back at me please? I think an article I quoted might have mentioned that the digital lead could be used in the same was as an HDMI lead to limit output.

I assume it's a copy and paste error. Copying music through the audio jack?

I think you've taken a general point personally.

Driven by me personally? I mentioned the concerns over DRM that are being widely published. YOUR accusation is too incredible for ME to stay in this thread....

I'm an apple user. It's the old space pen innit. The yanks looked at earphones and thought "how can we limit their use to 5 hours at a time or only when they aren't charging their device?" Normally people would look at them llike they were daft, make like the Russians and keep using a pencil. Charge £160 and draw an apple on it and people fall in love with the solution to a problem that doesn't exist ...actually introduces problems... and throw their money at it. I'm sure we'll all be living with it soon. I can't get any phone with a changeable battery or extendable memory because Apple showed "courage". Fingers crossed for the V20 though extendable memory to 2 TB and battery swapping up the ying yang. Defiance!

But I can find an aux cable/charger/plug for my amp/walkman/diskman/minidisk going back decades. Get lush audio quality.

I still have my 13 year old 3rd generation Ipod. It's on it's 3rd battery and is starting to struggle to hold a charge. It's a right twat on that I can't use any other charger except the original "Firewire". So can't USB to it and charge via my laptop while managing the music library in Itunes. Apple not only fence around their ecosystem to limit choice, they then abandon their "innovations" to leave their customers out of pocket with a useless device.

Poll added @@Dr Gloom & @@Christmas Tree don't be pissing your pants if you don't put your predictions into the poll and aren't included in the results.

Aye, apple have always done it first, stripping out floppy drives then CD drives and old monitor connections turning everything USB, but that's not proprietary. Always to much opposition anyway. Maybe this will have positive implications on audio quality across all devices, both wired and wireless. Doesn't convince me the DRM fear mongerers are wrong about ulterior motives though. We'll see I suppose.

This would suggest though that the biggest advancement on the iPhone 7 is a method of stopping people listening to music and charging their phone at the same time. Not sure why they would chose to do that without other greater benefits to the company beyond shaving another mm of the depth of it. Are aux connectors expensive so cutting out those suppliers offer huge savings on production?

I'll bow to you on that. Got tech sites telling me one thing and apple fanboys another. I've no expertise to argue with either, just offering my interpretation of what I've read. I'm not likely to get one either way, but will be interested to see if/how it changes the market.

Apple don't want to shut down those legal options. It would be anti competitive and alienate customers using other music services they prefer or want to use as well for their exclusivity. If it's something they do it will be a move against illegal competition. Not all competition. It's wouldn't bother half as many people as it did 10 years ago or whatever now that streaming is so much more popular than piracy.

once Apple gets the ability to add DRM, the record industry gets the ability to insist that Apple use it ("A phaser on the mantelpiece in Act One must go off by Act 3" - Pavel Chekov, Star Trek: TOS). In 2007, Steve Jobs published his Thoughts on Music, in which he said, basically, that the record industry had forced Apple to put DRM in its ecosystem and he didn't like it. The record industry is still made up of the same companies, and they still love DRM. Right now, an insistence on DRM would simply invite the people who wanted to bypass it for legal reasons to use that 3.5mm headphone jack to get at it. Once that jack is gone, there's no legal way to get around the DRM http://boingboing.net/2016/08/12/how-a-digital-only-smartphone.html

People may want to own their music rather than rent it, to buy from other sources than Apple or even download illegally. They want to play that music through other apps, not through subscription services. Apple have mostly supported that in the past. Built the company on it and defended the right of people to do so. It looks likely they won't any more.

In response to Andrew.... Yeah. That's been my point all along. DRM hardly worked before because piracy was a better solution in terms of the devices you could listen on and the cost. Now all music is as good as free and a digital wire can cut the signal from any illegitimate source, apple are sure to capitalise and drive people towards their subscription service.

If you're listening to exclusive apple content without it having the exclusive apple content DRM why would they support your robbing from them?

Nothing else

"Apple Music has music that nobody else has" Tim cook in his keynote. Where DRM was previously used to stop iTunes music being played on other devices at the record companies insistence, why wouldn't aux removal be used for apples benifit to ensure this exclusive content is not played from any other source than Apple music?

Actually, doesn't look like optical zoom at all.

Were all these camera features on the new iPhone expected? 2 back cameras. One Telephoto and one wide angle. 10 x Optical zoom. Like the sound of them from a phone that slim. The v20 has dual cameras front and back but not aware that any are telephoto.

I'm starting to warm to him

Even if she is a Mary Sue. Just think of it as affirmative action. After a hundred years of the vast majority of films failing the Bechdel test, I think it's excellent if studios overcompensate the other way and give young girls ridiculously positive role models.

To quote Michael Gove.