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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

#81

Post by gergles »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #7

Folks buy new headphones for their phone all the time. Just get the right one. Headphones with wires fail all the time, so wireless is arguable better for most folks most of the time. The arguments about sound failures are cherry-picked to ignore that. Also phones are compromised by every hole in the case (water, dirt, static etc). So now there will be fewer catastrophic failures. And now you can walk with your phone…

> And now you can walk with your phone in your pants pocket or purse (or anywhere), without a wire dangling!

Citation needed. Have you actually used Bluetooth headsets? Unless the phone has unimpeded LOS to the headset, expect the sound to drop samples, or introduce static, or otherwise be shitty and horrible.

Have your phone in a pocket on the other side of your body from where your headphones' antenna is? Enjoy shit audio.

Did someone turn on a microwave in the same area code? Enjoy shit audio.

Did you run by a new Wi-Fi network? You get the idea.

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

#82

Post by falcolas »

ghshephard wrote: post #46
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 came here to say just this, but you captured every though I had, and better. USB-C finally has the chance to be the universal adapter for "phone sized" devices (there will probably have to be a micro-USB C for things that are tinier) - and if Apple really wanted to show courage/leadership, they would replace their lightning ports with a standard that every device in the world is moving to. I'd have no problem with…

> I'd have no problem with USB-C headphones.

I would. Can you imagine how terrible the sound would be for 90% of the headphone market? We have all of these manufacturers racing to the bottom of the headphone market, offering crappy speakers and microphones for $50. Now we expect them to also include an amp and DAC?

The least expensive, decent headphone USB DAC that I've personally used was already over $70, and it's about the size of an Altoids tin. There's not a trivial amount of additional circuitry to handle the data and power requirements.

Perhaps it's just me, but I'm not really interested in buying yet another dongle for my phone so I can use decent headphones (that I already own) with it. I thought the goal was to reduce the size of phones.

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

#83

Post by drdaeman »

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!)?

Don't have a port, and user will be forced to buy the new headphones => profit for the market. Implement some "genuine accessories" program that'd start spamming user with alerts if the connected headphones won't pass Apple-style cryptographic handshake and they'll have buy it from you => profit for yourself. Also allows for vendor-specific proprietary extensions that weren't easy to have with analog plugs (but still existed), but easy to have with USB-C. Oh, and tell users that it's all for them - improved audio quality (in earbuds, yeah), thinner smartphones, and whatever other advantages marketing division could invent - and users'll eventually accept it.

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

#84

Post by smt88 »

SloopJon wrote: post #37
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…

Yeah, this is amazing apologism, even for Gruber. "And in five years we’ll look at analog headphone jacks the way we look at all the other legacy ports we’ve abandoned." In five years, there are going to a lot of crappy Lightning earbuds in drawers and landfills.

> look at all the other legacy ports we’ve abandoned

I miss a lot of those ports. A lot of people do. Fumbling around the office for an Apple-compatible video cable is a relatively frequent event, in my experience.

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

#85

Post by gergles »

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.

Eh, you pretty much do. If you want to use any apps to interact with websites, Apple's aggressive upgrade treadmill forces you to upgrade your iOS to upgrade your apps to continue using what you're already happy with.

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

#86

Post by TillE »

coldtea wrote: post #68
thirdsun wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course you won't buy new headphones. You'll buy adaptors - buying an Apple-specific headphone would be insane in my opinion.

Or you know, you wont buy anything. In the future, Bluetooth headphones will be the norm.

Even in a distant-future fantasy world where everything works perfectly, charging your headphones still sucks.

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

#87

Post by smt88 »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #34
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

Any hole in the phone case compromises reliability. Water, dirt, static electricity. Holes are hated by hardware designers. In Apple's case with their stress on look and feel I'm surprised the designers haven't been able to ditch the headphone jack years ago, simply based on "it looks better without the hole".

I've owned a few dozen phones for work and personal use, including some old flip phones. All of them had headphone jacks, and none of them failed due to the headphone jack. I've never even heard of a headphone jack being the point of failure.

Along those lines, I've had several waterproof phones with headphone jacks (and no rubber covers, either).

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

#88

Post by dceddia »

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.

It's getting harder and harder to avoid, though.

Every single day, my iPhone pops up a box asking if I want to upgrade to the latest 9.whatever. It does this in the morning, when I'm tired... or at other seemingly-random times of the day.

It offers 3 options: "Install Now", "Install Tonight", and "Ask me Later". There is no "Stop asking me" option. One of these days I will slip up and hit Install Now, and probably lose the use of my phone for the next hour.

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

#89

Post by smt88 »

coldtea wrote: post #68
thirdsun wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course you won't buy new headphones. You'll buy adaptors - buying an Apple-specific headphone would be insane in my opinion.

Or you know, you wont buy anything. In the future, Bluetooth headphones will be the norm.

I've had Bluetooth headphones for years and still prefer wired headphones unless my phone is charging.

BT headphones discharge very quickly, have terrible audio quality, and are somewhat uncomfortable due to the added weight.

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

#90

Post by TillE »

adrenalinelol wrote: post #6

You aren't forced to buy a new iPhone, better yet the one you have probably doesn't really need to be upgraded at all. Apple will understand you're displeasure if you vote w/your wallet; they won't care about your displeasure if you tweet them or complain in the comments section.

Ironically, I switched from Android to an iPhone 6 partially due to Apple's high-quality headphone jacks, after having two really bad experiences with expensive Android phones.

I'll be happy enough to switch back if Apple really shoots themselves in the foot like this, but despite the rumors, I still think it's extremely unlikely.

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