'Two Years Later, I Still Miss the Headphone Port' (techcrunch.com) 566
An anonymous reader shares a column: I've been trying to figure out why the removal of the headphone port bugs me more than other ports that have been unceremoniously killed off, and I think it's because the headphone port almost always only made me happy. Using the headphone port meant listening to my favorite album, or using a free minute to catch the latest episode of a show, or passing an earbud to a friend to share some new tune. It enabled happy moments and never got in the way.
Now every time I want to use my headphones, I just find myself annoyed. Bluetooth? Whoops, forgot to charge them. Or whoops, they're trying to pair with my laptop even though my laptop is turned off and in my backpack. Dongle? Whoops, left it on my other pair of headphones at work. Or whoops, it fell off somewhere, and now I've got to go buy another one. I'll just buy a bunch of dongles, and put them on all my headphones! I'll keep extras in my bag for when I need to borrow a pair of headphones. That's just like five dongles at this point, problem solved! Oh, wait: now I want to listen to music while I fall asleep, but also charge my phone so it's not dead in the morning. That's a different, more expensive splitter dongle (many of which, I've found, are poorly made garbage).
Now every time I want to use my headphones, I just find myself annoyed. Bluetooth? Whoops, forgot to charge them. Or whoops, they're trying to pair with my laptop even though my laptop is turned off and in my backpack. Dongle? Whoops, left it on my other pair of headphones at work. Or whoops, it fell off somewhere, and now I've got to go buy another one. I'll just buy a bunch of dongles, and put them on all my headphones! I'll keep extras in my bag for when I need to borrow a pair of headphones. That's just like five dongles at this point, problem solved! Oh, wait: now I want to listen to music while I fall asleep, but also charge my phone so it's not dead in the morning. That's a different, more expensive splitter dongle (many of which, I've found, are poorly made garbage).
I don't. (Score:5, Insightful)
Because I don't buy phones that don't have one.
Genius, isn't it?
Re:I don't. (Score:5, Informative)
Enjoy it while you can. All the android phones are starting to follow suit.
and it sucks
How long will you have a choice? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't buy phones that don't have one.
Tell that to someone who resolved not to buy phones that lack a QWERTY keyboard.
Re: How long will you have a choice? (Score:3)
I'm typing this comment on my shiny new-ish Blackberry KeyOne, an Android phone with a QWERTY keyboard. It took about a week to adapt back to using physical keys, but after a few months of use I'm totally content. So much less frustration when you can actually feel the keys!
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it's getting really hard to buy a premium smartphone with one
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Because I have never used the headphone jack on any phone.
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Now tell us how you don't use social media (because you have no friends), make phone calls (because you have no friends) and use a ridiculously unworkable seventy-three step backup process to ensure that you never lose data even though the only data you have is hentai.
Texting is faster than calling or social media and I have a 3 step backup plan that is CTRL-A, CTRL-C, CTRL-V with data that is only mostly hentai.
Re: I don't. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: I don't. (Score:5, Funny)
Well, even my bluetooth headphones are quite an improvement from taking that live band with me on every trip.
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Bluetooth headphones were made for making phone calls, not listening to music.
Back in the 1990s, yes. But welcome to the 21st century.
Technically what you hear through them is not the music itself, but a compressed approximation of the music.
You will be very sad if you every study anatomy and psychology, and learn how human senses work. Our perception is necessarily highly compressed.
Do you imagine you "hear" the sound-pressure level at every moment? Are you one of those Luddites who hated CDs because of the sampling, or born too late?
Best not to use the word "Technically" when you have zero technical comprehension.
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I once owned a first generation CD player. The audiophiles were not wrong. The analog recording process had evolved over decades to use microphones that were intrinsically too bright, to compensate for the LP recording process, which was intrinsically low-pass.
All the original CD transfers from the early 1980s are ludicrously shrill. On the other hand, every audio CD I've ever bought going all the way back to 1983 is still
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Re: I don't. (Score:5, Insightful)
It would have been nice for an alternative evolution came out first. USB headphones have been around for years, but not in usb-c form and not as analog over usb.
Like the beauty of the 3.5mm jack is that it doesnâ(TM)t fucking break. It rotates if itâ(TM)s an L-shape. USB? It will break off the PCB and since that is also your charging port, you just killed the phone.
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Like the beauty of the 3.5mm jack is that it doesnâ(TM)t fucking break. It rotates if it's an L-shape. USB? It will break off the PCB and since that is also your charging port, you just killed the phone.
^^^^^THIS.
Headphone ports work perfectly well in literally billions of devices going back ~40 years or more. It's an amazing technological success that just works.
Apple's bullshit excuse of "courage" was believed only by suckers and fanbois.
Re: I don't. (Score:5, Insightful)
After 50 years, the 3.5mm jack is damn near perfect. There are some potential problems with it, but nothing which is too much of a problem.
If people want to use bluetooth, they're welcome to it. But I've gone iPhoneX and then back again. A major part of this was the headphone jack.
What people often don't realize about the headphone jack is that it takes power. This is this real problem for companies these days. A small audio amplifier places a drain on the battery. It also requires space on the PCB. It's extremely difficult to design an audio amplifier with insanely good audio which fits within the real-estate constraints of a phone and also make it so there's no interference from all the surrounding radio circuits.
So... the solution is to charge us more and remove the port.
What Apple and the others seem to forget is that we like the choice. I don't like constantly losing headphones because they're not connected to the phone. Or constantly leaving my phone on the desk and being out of the building before I realize I forgot it... because the sound starts crackling. I don't like breaking expensive lightning to headphone dongles. I don't like having to constantly charge wireless headphones. I hate when my headphones run out of battery on the train.
Now.. here's the REAL PROBLEM
I don't like having to constantly pair and pair and pair and pair my damn headphones. I use my headphone with my PC to talk on Skype. I use my headphones on my phone to
I've been hoping Apple or Google will release a phone at some point called "The old fogey phone" for people who want all the features of the latest phone but are willing to live with lesser audio to get the headphone jack.
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After 50 years, the 3.5mm jack is damn near perfect. There are some potential problems with it, but nothing which is too much of a problem.
A lot of people try to claim that "it can't be made waterproof" or that "it collects dust and lint" or some other bullshit excuse.
1) It's trivial to waterproof a 3.5mm jack and plug. I've done it dozens of times with nothing more than a little bit of RTV or silicone sealant. So that excuse is pure bullshit.
2) It collects pocket lint or dust? OH NOES!!1! But so does a USB-C port, as well as every other connector on the planet. Just use some compressed air to blow it out and it's as good as new.
But noooooooo
Re: I don't. (Score:4, Funny)
Fiddly little things. When I was a young 'un, headphone plugs were the size of a frankfurter.
and no shops stock USB headphones (Score:4, Funny)
Walk into many audio shops, retail shops, dept stores, cheap stores, where they have dozens of headphones, ALL ARE 3.5s
No one at all stocks USB native headphones, or rarely at massive high prices.
Adapters? well... still rare to find, or 10x EBAY prices at retail stores.
Apple+Google+Others = Your are dicks, moron managers, who never listen to music, who ignore their engineers, and I bet even their own kids prefer a old style socket. So you might be rich ass fuckers, but your dumbass fuckers.
Reverse that POV (Score:3)
You're looking at it backwards. From the designer's point of view, the beauty of breaking the phone is that someone gets to sell you a new one. If everyone jumps on the bandwagon, even changing vendors won't help. And you'll note that even Samsung and Google are beginning to suck down this particular mug of koolaid. Either you go without a phone (which most people won't do) or there's a brand new cause of planned obsolescence, plus they get to sell you more dongles, batteries, chargers, etc.
Follow the money
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You're holding it wrong.
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USB 3 is better that 2 and 1, but you can still plug in you 1 and 2 devices into a 3 port no problem.
I don't really know the history of Firewire
So we got two improvements over time there. This is not that. Bluetooth headsets are still expensive compared to normal ones. A cheap set of earphones is only $5-10. I have yet to see a BT set this cheap. And if there is, it will still sound better than the cheap wired ones. They also have batt
Can't spell radio without ad (Score:3)
The vast majority of FM radio is ads 24/7. Even the music is ads for the albums the songs are on.
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Maybe you should try ABC Classic FM in Australia :-D No advertisements at all (though sometimes the music is not particularly classical and I have to switch off; beats listening to the local ad-riddled pop station playing tripe while I'm driving).
Re:I don't. (Score:5, Informative)
And I'll also listen to my free FM radio that doesn't eat up my data plan or battery
But the FM radio in the phone uses the headphone wire, plugged into the headphone jack, as an antenna.
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You're still here ;-)
I know this is too ideal, but ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I know I'm being unrealistic, but I wish free-market economics worked the way they theorize it should: that very few people would buy a product that doesn't have a 3.5mm port, and the demand would be filled by other manufacturers (unless you're Apple-addicted, then you're at their mercy). It bugs me to no end when the market bends and adapts to the supplier.
Re: I know this is too ideal, but ... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Wish I could upmod you. Brilliant insight. Thank you, and for that link. Awesome article; dovetails with much of my observation and thinking.
I've only dabbled in economics (college minor) and it's obvious that the major assumptions are false, and / or are based in illogic. I still say that something's wrong when there's much demand for 3.5mm jacks and suppliers are willing to risk the loss in sales, especially when newer phones don't really have gigantic offsetting advantages. I think the world needs mu
Re: I know this is too ideal, but ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Horseshit.
Unless you define 'good' as 'unusably thin'.
Re:I know this is too ideal, but ... (Score:5, Insightful)
And you apply it to iPhone market? That is the most irrational market there is.
But, it's not rational (Score:3)
How is it rational for me not to buy a device that, in total, is better than my current one. Sure, the lack of a headphone jack is a negative, and worse than the same phone with a headphone jack, but all in all, the new features may still make it a better phone.
It's not irrationality, it's coarseness of decisions. It's not like Apple offered two versions and let the market choose.
600 other manufacturers do (Score:5, Interesting)
I just walked through the electronics section of a general merchandise store and there are no fewer than 30 different phone models available within 10 feet of me right now. At least 27 of those have headphone jacks. Most of them are available at a much lower price than the iPhone. Rationally, people with different needs and desires would choose different phones. This LG on my left is probably the best choice for 3% of buyers, the more expensive LG two feet away is probably the rational choice for 2% of buyers, the iPhone is probably the best for 2% of people, etc. The difference between the 2% of people who *should* buy iPhones and the number who *actually* buy iPhones is the number of irrational iPhone purchases.
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I mean, that's an anecdote with superficial plausibility. But you're assuming what you want to show... namely that the iPhone is only the best choice for 2% of people. And, of course, people who naturally agree with you about the lack of iPhone merits are voting you up
I'm not sure why you think that the iPhone is such a bad choice for over 100 million Americans (and many more outside the US). It's amazing that you know more about their needs than they do. Or, the alternative, that their preferences are
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I'm kinda shocked by this logic. Clearly, phones are unequal. There's no reason to use the total number of phone models as anything interesting. For one thing, Android models churn much faster, because Android model IDs change when the OS gets upgraded on the same hardware or depending on the carrier. What matters is how many phones are available in a store at one time.
The second issue is that subdividing similar products doesn't make each equally likely, because you ignore bucketing. If there were 1
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Or it could be that it IS working as it is supposed to, and the 3.5mm port is not as needed as you want. From my experience it is only needed by a few, at home people connect to bluetooth speakers, that lets them charge and play. Similar in modern cars, and you should not have head phones in while driving anyways. For exercise is the only time you need something and charging is not something you normally can do at that time anyways.
Re:I know this is too ideal, but ... (Score:5, Interesting)
OK, if it's working as it should, what's the reason for removing the jack? It's not any of the bullshit ones the marketing department came up with: cost ($800 phone and you need a $40 accessory to replace all the lost functionality), size/space (plenty of phones to compare, a dongle is bigger, and they charge more for larger phones, anyway), water resistance (a jack can be just as water resistant as a USB port). I suspect the reason Apple did it was strictly aesthetics - one less hole in their device. That's not unexpected, they make a lot of form over function design decisions ("you're holding it wrong"). But please, what's the legitimate, real, user benefit of removing the jack?
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That i t is not needed and there is a drive to make the devices thinner.
Re:I know this is too ideal, but ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I know this is too ideal, but ... (Score:5, Informative)
Try again.
The iPhone 6 had a headphone jack and was thinner than any model they've made without the 3.5mm headphone jack. Removing the jack has nothing to do with making the phone thinner.
Re:I know this is too ideal, but ... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I know this is too ideal, but ... (Score:5, Interesting)
... water resistance (a jack can be just as water resistant as a USB port) ...
Case in point. My Kyocera Hydro Vibe [kyoceramobile.com] (that I bought in 2015) has a headphone jack and is "Certified waterproof for IPX5, and IPX7. Immersible for up to 30 minutes in up to 3.28 feet (1 meter)." Also comes with a user-replaceable battery and FM receiver that works with NextRadio [nextradioapp.com]. Sure, it only runs Android 4.4.2 (KitKat) but it does what I need it to using Ting [ting.com]
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The materials (and licensing?) to create the port are most certainly greater than zero. This cost saving can be passed on the customers.
Have you looked at how much new iPhones cost by any chance?
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I don't know, but it seems that it's kind of silly to replace something tried and true that just fucking 'works'; with a menagerie of dongles, adapters, and overpriced wireless headphones that may or may not deliver comprable sound quality.
It's a step backwards any way you slice it. New does not necessarily mean 'better'. (unless you're Apple, and you're wanting yet another way to extract even more money from your customers.)
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Due to channel congestion?
Also, bluetooth doesn't work on my phone at all when wifi is enabled.
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And how does taking the metro to work stop you from using a lightening based headphone jack during the commute? They come with one. You typically cannot charge on the metro so there is nothing there preventing it.
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Marketing is the poison for the free market.
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The thing is while I do miss a 3.5mm port as well. Not as much I like having my device waterproof. or trying to clean gunk, pocket fluff, from the slot.
It is a case of a trade-off vs rewards. Heck I would love for my phone to have HDMI or a VGA connector, USB 3 port... But I have a laptop for the real usage, with all these crazy ports. I use my phone, mostly for basic internet searches, emails, text and sometimes I will make a phone call. We forget that this device is not a PC replacement.
Re:I know this is too ideal, but ... (Score:5, Insightful)
So they can make the USB port waterproof but not the 3.5mm port? And the USB port has more wires and also has power, which the 3.5mm port doesn't
I don't think so.
Why didn't you switch to another phone ? (Score:2)
Even with my carrier's very limited set of choices for phones (mainly apple product) , I had no trouble finding a perfectly good smart phone with a headphone jack and at about a 1/3rd the price of the lowest end Apple product.
So if you wanted the feature and don't have it, don't blame markets for not working blame yourself for not making them work. They aren't magic after all, they represent the summation of all the participants decisions.
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I don't understand what you are saying. I just changed my phone. When I bought it, I made sure there was a headphone jack on it. I had no problem finding what I wanted. (I ended up picking an LG Q7+ if you wonder.)
Jackless phones tend to be the tech high end ones. There I am not surprised not having a jack isn't much of a problem. These phones are pretty much only purchased by tech enthusiast who probably have different wireless headset for their different devices.
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There are lot of people who use the headphones that come with their product and not aftermarket products. If the Apple store sells some Apple ear buds that work with Apple iPhone, then that is seemingly good enough for many people.
Think of the last few decades where people bought a walkman or CD player and most only ever used the shitty bundled in headphones? Market forces are at work here, and the theory tells us the selective pressure is not high for 3.5mm headphone jacks.
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Even though I've been using a MacBook Pro for the past five years, I replaced my iPhone 5c it with a Samsung Galaxy S8 and it's just fine. I have three (on screen) buttons at the bottom of the phone instead of just one really dumb button for everything, AND I don't have to use iTunes to copy stuff to and from my phone. I'll never go back to an iPhone (but I'm still happy with macOS... for now).
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So don't buy shit electronics. (Score:2, Interesting)
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expensive mistake (Score:4, Interesting)
removing the headphone port is the most annoying "feature" ever. im ready to pay off my iphone 8 so i can sell it to get a cheap android phone with the headphone port. it's ridiculous. 3rd party dongles are cheap and not built to spec so they burn out and/or have terrible audio. apple charges too much for dongles. i cant charge and listen at the same time on road trips now. dumb. i should have never "upgraded". i am learning an expensive lesson.
Want to know why it bugs you? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Because removing the headphone jack was a cynical move by phone manufacturers to upsell you a pair of bluetooth headphones. There is virtually no benefit to the consumer of such a move.
So cynical that the company I bought my headphone jack-less phone from included a pair of earbuds that plug directly into the remaining port on the phone. And even included an adapter to allow other, standard headphones to plug into the same port.
Now that's cynical /s
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Yes, because it locks you into their DRM scheme. Getting rid of the port is one of the last steps in sealing the analog hole. What better way of distracting you from this fact then by giving you nearly the same functionality without it having the same function as before?
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How do you suppose they can close the analog hole when headphones, by their very nature, are analog devices? If you can attach a set of headphones (or a speaker) to a device then the analog hole exists. It's impossible for it to be closed. Even if a wireless connection is required to connect to those headphones.. the headphones themselves will *still* be an analog device with no possible way of protecting the signal with DRM. Just can't be done.
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What will this unnamed but innovative and consumer-focussed phone manufacturer thing of next? Perhaps yet another dongle that allows their phone to sync / charge with cables
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So cynical that the company I bought my headphone jack-less phone from included a pair of earbuds that plug directly into the remaining port on the phone. And even included an adapter to allow other, standard headphones to plug into the same port.
Now that's cynical /s
That's called a free sample. Pack-in headphones and small, easily misplaced or lost adapters, are consumables.
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And even included an adapter to allow other, standard headphones to plug into the same port.
Now that's cynical /s
the "standard" requires an adapter? who is fooling who?
So when was the last time that you used a keyboard with a PS/2 connector? That was really cynical of PC manufacturers getting rid of PS/2 ports, forcing me to buy brand new USB keyboards. And don't get me started on those adapters that they forced on me when I had to use the AT style keyboard connectors with PS/2 ports.
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And even included an adapter to allow other, standard headphones to plug into the same port.
Now that's cynical /s
the "standard" requires an adapter? who is fooling who?
So when was the last time that you used a keyboard with a PS/2 connector? That was really cynical of PC manufacturers getting rid of PS/2 ports, forcing me to buy brand new USB keyboards. And don't get me started on those adapters that they forced on me when I had to use the AT style keyboard connectors with PS/2 ports.
*sigh*
1. It is still possible, in 2018, to buy desktops with PS/2 ports. Sure, it's a limited choice, but the port remains in existence. Now yes, I know the response to this one is "but you can still buy phones with headphone jacks", and you'd be correct...but the point is that while a port that was depreciated over a decade ago is still on the market, it is unclear whether the same will hold true in ten years for phones. Ten years ago, iPhones had 30-pin connectors and non-iPhones generally used mini-USB,
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So, even ignoring the sound quality and Yet Another Thing To Charge arguments, the PS/2 comparison falls flat.
The point is that times change in ways that are out of our control. I think I still have some 8" floppies around, but all modern computers seemed to have ditched 3 1/2" floppies now days.
I'm not going to defend bluetooth. It sucks in some areas but excels in others.
As for adapter cost, when flagship phones are t the $1k mark, I find bitching about the price of adapters a bit incongruous.
And I'd suspect that for 90% of people your multiple-connector head phone cable is a special case - just like the
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In a way it is, because I'm guessing the earbuds are not high quality.
LOL you're bitching about not having high quality ear buds used to listen to MP3's?
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This makes sense. LG for example still has headphone jacks and MicroSD slots in even their latest flagship phones. Possible reason: they don't make accessories (the quasi-official recommended wireless charger was a Samsung last year, not sure if they even have their own yet) and they don't offer cloud storage.
I think it will come back, ... eventually (Score:4, Insightful)
Same way the free checked bags will come back. Aviation kerosene prices are set to plunge in five years. It will remove all the nickel and diming from the air lines, 35$ for exit row seats, 25$ for guaranteed aisle seat...
But the 40$ late fee for credit cards will stay. The banksters are cruel jerks and they got poor people by their balls. They are not going to stop squeezing anytime soon.
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I'm not sure why you think the airlines will remove the nickel-and-diming. Have they lost any flyers since they instituted it? IIRC, most airlines are pretty much running at capacity already, and Boeing has a years-long waiting list.
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An oil glut is coming.
Long phone calls (Score:2)
Add to the list - any long customer phone calls (like to any customer service, for example)
Before getting on a call I do 2 things:
1. plug in a set of headphones
2. plug the phone into power
3.5mm connector is not optional. As of now I own iPhone SE and expect to continue in foreseeable future (might buy another SE spare just in case). Eventually either:
Eventually I will have to decide between imessage/facetime (that's the primary reason I stick with IOS, though not being Google product is a close second) and
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Time may fix it (Score:2)
Maybe it's a me-too fad that will die off as people gradually realize they miss it and stop buying lame phones.
Apple manipulation (Score:2)
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Analog mini jack great Ethernet RJ45 too! (Score:2)
The two ports:
1.) Analog mini jack for audio out and in
2.) Ethernet RJ 45
Mess with either and your business growth if used will suffer for sure.
Me it tops out iPhone 6s and forget the 7 and nice Xr Max OLED screen or even switch to Note a port be gone is a mistake for customer demand
Same goes for ports on network gear or even make it different for edge gear, security forces through App instead of at least a hard link to physical device, what?
USB-C is really just Ethernet flattened out looks like an interest
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Wow, I've never seen a phone with an RJ-45 port!
But my iPhone 6S still has a headphone port, and the battery's in pretty good shape. And, when the battery eventually dies, I'll gladly pay $49 for a new one - beats paying $1200 for a new, headphone-jack-less phone.
Just because you miss it doesn't mean others do (Score:2)
I don't miss it on my iPhone 7. The adapter that Apple shipped with the phone lives in the little pouch that came with my IEM ear buds, and everything else connects via Bluetooth, USB (Car), or wifi (home stereo).
Removing the 3.5mm jack was not necessary (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Removing the 3.5mm jack was not necessary (Score:5, Informative)
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So are new (all other competitors premium phones which still have a 3.5mm jack). Hell the Galaxy series was IP rated with headphone jack before Apple even know what water resistance was.
Revable batteries... (Score:5, Insightful)
I Don't Miss the Headphone Jack (Score:5, Informative)
This isn't an appropriately Luddite response for Slashdot, but I don't miss the headphone jack. Why? Because I don't miss one-half of my audio disappearing when I bumped the cable or, worse, the headphone jack just stop working for one ear because the contacts got messed up in the jack itself. I don't miss the cable flapping around. I don't miss bending/breaking the plugs that for some mind-numbing reason rarely were the 90-degree angle that would keep them from getting bent/broken.
Yeah, charging headphones is a bit of a pain. But so is charging my phone, my notebook and my tablet. I've learned to deal with that. If ditching the headphone jack truly was a trade-off to allow more room for a battery, I'm fine with it, I'd rather have the battery life. Perhaps if I was also a blogger for Tech Crunch or similar publication, I would have enough devices that the Bluetooth pairing issue described would be annoying, but I don't. For me, and my small universe of devices, Bluetooth headphones work well enough, even the cheap Ankers I use 90% of the time.
I don't see this as a freedom (or "bravery") topic or even a big deal. It's an area where for reasons of efficiency (or more likely, cost) the market moved away from something. For the audiophiles with $400 cans, they were complaining about the digitized music in the first place. For the people who miss getting cheap $10 headphones at Ross or Marshall's that they could lose or throw away without feeling bad, there are almost as-cheap Bluetooth alternatives. It sort of reminds me when physical keyboards went away. We adapted, and we're fine.
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That would be fine if the phone had a dock embedded right into the device, not unlike a pen dock on some devices, which charged the cordless earphones when the phone is also plugged in.... it would also provide a convenient storage that you don't have to keep separate track of when you aren't using the bluetooth headphones.
I just bought some iPods (Score:3)
I've forgotten to charge my BT headphones, or just plain forgot my BT headset, or forgotten my dongle so many times that I just bought a couple of old iPods, converted them to flash, and carry them around with me.
I could care less about waterproofing. I dropped or placed my iPhone in water like 0 times in the last 11 years.
After evaluating my iPhone usage, I'll be moving back to an iPhone SE this year. I'll miss the camera, but I have a real camera that I can carry around now.
I have a headphone port (Score:3)
I have a headphone port and it is immensely useful while still being crappy in some respects. My phone is an LG V20. The audio system is excellent: it adaptively supports low and high impedance IEMs and headphones. It offers bit perfect decoding and playback of all the music I own (ranges from 16-bit 44100 kHz to 24-bit 88200 kHz derived from SACD as well as purchased 24-bit 96 and 192 kHz tracks. But the port/jack itself is a thowback, and especially bad on a portable device that is exposed to the elements, pocket lint etc.
Surely the ideal solution is not to force the decoding and amplification into a low power and inadequate chip, but to update the very simple physical interface from a crude jack into to one of pins with reliable connection and the capacity to be adapted and enhanced? It would also make converters very simple and cheap and universal. ....oh shit, I forgot....it's not about quality or customer satisfaction, it's about squeezing more money out of us cattle.
May Have My 2 Yr Old S7 Edge (Score:2)
... a really long time if the only new alternative is a phone without a headphone jack. Use the H out of it, and am NOT going to buy a new set of bluetooth headphones or some cockeyed adapter. That's just the way it is. That is all...
Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
USB sticks are superior in every way to a floppy disk; therefore invalid comparison.
Touch-tone phone ares superior in every way to a rotary phone; therefore invalid comparison.
Verdict: Point missed.
Re: (Score:2)
USB sticks are superior in every way to a floppy disk; therefore invalid comparison.
Three words: Write Protect Tab.
Re: Seriously? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
A high density floppy drive held 1.44MB. You could get a 128MB USB drive for $0.25/MB in 2003 with a whopping $33 investment.
https://www.jcmit.net/flashpri... [jcmit.net]
A floppy drive was popular because there were no alternatives. Zip drives proved that.
Re: (Score:3)
If your file is smaller than 1.25 MB, $33 is a lot of money to spend to sneakernet one copy of a file to one person. It was also bigger than many email providers' attachment limit prior to wide availability of Gmail.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
I'm not sure that it's serious so much as a troll post. Anyone who felt that strongly about a headphone port wouldn't have purchased a phone without one. Judging by the amount of shit it's already stirring up, I'd say it's a pretty successful troll at that.
Every purchase is a tradeoff, you rarely get everything you want.
A headphone jack could very well be important to some people, but not as important as other features.
Re: (Score:2)
Apostasy is a crime punishable by death.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
The latency is usually a much bigger problem with bluetooth audio for me than the quality. It's generally mitigated on phones, since there is latency compensation on the OS level (at least iOS does) for video playback. On a PC, via bluetooth, there may not be the automatic latency compensation, though you can often adjust audio latency manually in some video players.
If neither the OS nor the player compensate for the latency, and you're not using a really low latency audio codec (there's a version of aptx f