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Taking the headphone jack off phones is user-hostile and stupid

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Re: Taking the headphone jack off phones is user-hostile and stupid

#71

Post by haddr »

bsimpson wrote: post #5

John Gruber's response ( http://daringfireball.net/2016/06/headphone_jacks_are_the_ne... ): > Should the analog headphone jack remain on our devices forever? If you think so, you can stop reading. What's the advantage to removing the headphone jack? Is the jack some sort of bottleneck to sound quality that nobody noticed until now? I really don't see a benefit in removing the headphone jack, now or anytime in the for…

Floppy disk is a straw man argument.

But hey, Apple can now impose the change from the position of power. And they have Beats who will follow this change...

Re: Taking the headphone jack off phones is user-hostile and stupid

#72

Post by arcticbull »

Navarr wrote: post #13

I don't think abandoning the headphone jack is a bad idea. I think abandoning it for lightning is a bad idea. Is apple so desperate for hardware money that there is not a single "open" connector on the iPhone? Why Lightning as opposed to USB-C? Why make it so that people need a completely different set of headphones just for apple devices? (Bluetooth not withstanding)

Bluetooth LE is open for use on iOS devices without license fees, AFAIK it's the only one.

Re: Taking the headphone jack off phones is user-hostile and stupid

#73

Post by shanemhansen »

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #35

I'd be completely comfortable for replacing it with USB-C. You already have the port, it's an industry standard, it's de facto open to use for anyone. It's smaller, both in terms of thickness (which I don't care much about by now, but I'll grant it's a thing), as well as volume. What concerns me is that the most popular phone and probably listening device in the world, will move towards a proprietary sound system, fr…

I already use my phone's charging port for charging. I'd find it very annoying if I couldn't charge and listen to music at the same time (without buying some sort of USBC hub).

Re: Taking the headphone jack off phones is user-hostile and stupid

#74

Post by pyre »

trowawee wrote: post #55
gambiting wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like it's very prophetic that we already had 2.5mm jacks on phones and everyone I spoke to(me included) hated them because you had to use an adapter for your normal headphones. It doesn't matter if your phone has a 2.5mm jack, usb-c, lightning or any other connector - as long as it's not the most common standard on the market it's going to be disliked.

> as long as it's not the most common standard on the market it's going to be disliked. Eh. Apple's done this before, as Gruber points out, and they basically won. Nobody at this point (at least, that I hear) complains about Lightning cables. Ditching the 3.5mm jack might be a bad idea, but Apple does have a track record of doing this, which is probably why they think they can get away with it now.

What did Lightning cables usurp that was as ubiquitous as the 3.5mm audio jack?

Re: Taking the headphone jack off phones is user-hostile and stupid

#75

Post by Volt »

rayiner wrote: post #56
treehau5 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You aren't forced, just coercively "suggested" into it, via updates pushed out by the carrier that inevitably make your phone run slower than a Celeron laptop from the early 2000s

You don't have to upgrade your iOS.

At the risk of…?

Re: Taking the headphone jack off phones is user-hostile and stupid

#76

Post by dsr_ »

wlesieutre wrote: post #40
rplst8 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing the 3.5 mm audio jack to the floppy drive is ridiculous. The jack has become far, far, more ubiquitous than the floppy drive. Additionally, the things that use the jack are often of higher quality and not disposible like a floppy disk was. And this ignores the fact that the floppy disk/drive was technologically usurped by other removable storage formats. The 3.5 mm jack still delivers the absolute best soun…

> The 3.5 mm jack still delivers the absolute best sound quality compared to the other options available on a smart phone. That's only true because the only headphones that exist for smartphones are headphone jack or Bluetooth. You can build a USB-C or Lightning headset with much higher impedance and use a digital signal to a higher quality DAC than the one built into the phone.

You can do that with USB2 as well, but hardly anyone does, because they aren't forced to do so.

Most people don't want a higher quality DAC than the one built into the phone. High quality DACs are cheap. If the one in your phone isn't good enough for you, in two years you will get a new phone -- pick one with a better DAC, since now you know that's important to you. In the meantime, your $1000 headphones from four years ago will still work on all the phones with 3.5mm jacks, and so will the $6 pair you picked up on the boardwalk when you realized that there was no way in heck you wanted to wear the good headphones out on the beach.

Re: Taking the headphone jack off phones is user-hostile and stupid

#77

Post by jwebb99 »

I don't understand this push to get rid of the analogue headphone jack.

It's a solution in search of a problem--like removing physical buttons from the Kindle...the alternative (touch screen page turns) is more high-tech, but not as pleasant.

I'm sure audophiles would appreciate a digital interface for their headphones, but everyone else is perfectly content to use cheap $5 earbuds for their highly compressed audio files.

Yet, we're now supposed to believe that the general public will enjoy paying a premium for new gear that replaces their cheap and perfectly functional headphones?

Just because a technology is old and low tech doesn't mean it's antiquated.

Re: Taking the headphone jack off phones is user-hostile and stupid

#78

Post by sp332 »

creshal wrote: post #17
elthran wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the argument that is made is that it's stopping phones becoming thinner - which looking at the size of the jack on my Nexus 5X, I can believe. However, personally, I'll live with a thicker phone if it means I can have a larger capacity battery, let alone a 3.5mm jack

The whole discussion is based on the dishonest claim that it's either 3.5mm or no analog. We already have a standardized 2.5mm jack to replace the 3.5mm one in space-constrained environments (just like 6.35mm is still around for hifi setups). Why is everyone pretending we need to ditch analog audio completely for smaller phones when we can just start using 2.5mm (again!)?

We're trying to put headphones, a microphone, and remote controls into this connector. It's already kinda flaky with a 3.5mm form factor, and detecting when something is plugged in is a hard problem that gets even harder when you shrink it.

Re: Taking the headphone jack off phones is user-hostile and stupid

#79

Post by rufius »

rikkus wrote: post #61
rufius wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet I've got three pair of $300 headphones in my house between my wife and I, two of which are 6+ years old. If you take care of high quality headphones they will last quite along time. Wire wears out? Replace it. Ear pads lost their shape? Replace them. So yaaaay dongles? Which that's even more fun because if I'm listening music for any length of time, there's a portable amp in between the phone and my headphone…

If you care enough about sound fidelity to buy 3x $300 headphones and have a separate amp, it's surprising you don't have a separate DAC too. Not that I'm suggesting you should be 'forced' to buy one, but a decent DAC is a cheap component of such a setup.

I have a DAC actually and didn't find it to considerably improve the sound for me over the P2AV2 (my amp). This is on the iPhone 6s. At least not enough to warrant carrying it and the amp between work and home. I do use it at home at my computer. If I wanted to drop the money I could get one for work as well but I don't think it's worth it.

I don't claim to be able to hear all of the amazing details in songs that many people with HiFi gear can but I do know what the music should sound like and what sound I want out of my headphones. That's why I have the nice headphones and part of why they're 6+ years old... I'm a creature of habit and I like the way those headphones sound :).

EDIT: Now that I'm thinking about it. A DAC/amp with a Lightning/USB-C input and analog output would be tolerable. It's something I have to pay more for and I'd always have to use the DAC/amp.

I don't like it but I can see a workaround.

Re: Taking the headphone jack off phones is user-hostile and stupid

#80

Post by pyre »

rayiner wrote: post #56
treehau5 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You aren't forced, just coercively "suggested" into it, via updates pushed out by the carrier that inevitably make your phone run slower than a Celeron laptop from the early 2000s

You don't have to upgrade your iOS.

But... this also means that you don't get security updates.
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