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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

#131
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…

> John Gruber's response Does this guy ever write critically about Apple? I've come across his pieces over the years, and he honestly always comes across like a zealous ideologue.

Yeah, pretty much never:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7013002

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

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's the line, not the goal. The goal is more centralized control of the entire stack. At this point, there's still no corporate control from the jack to the ear. To fix that, you need to make the thing in the ear negotiate with the jack.

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

#133
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actions speak louder than words. People continue to say they want more durable phones and longer battery life, but continue to buy thinner and shinier phones.

I'd be interested to hear and read about examples of this being tested in the market. Have consumers been presented with a choice between phone thinness and battery life on the otherwise same phone hardware?

Well, look at the RAZR Maxx - people still went for the slightly thinner RAZR with half the battery capacity...

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

#134
post #117

Four opinions, going off of this article and partly in response to Gruber's[0]: 1. There was a functional reason that CDs and floppies went out of style: low capacity and the Internet. What’s the functional reason to get rid of analog headphones? It’s not quality – analog headphones have excellent sound quality, and 99% of people won’t be able to tell the difference with ‘digital’ sound, right? 2. So what happens if…

"So what happens if I want to charge my phone (e.g. from an external battery) and listen to headphones at the same time? Do I have to use some sort of ... dongle? That’s going to get silly." What happens if you want to charge your new 12" macbook and you also need to use your cellular dongle ? They've shown total contempt for even this common, necessary use-case - why would they not show the same contempt for your us…

I have a strong distaste for what C.S. Lewis called "chronological snobbery;" the idea that something is worthless simply because it isn't new.

Age is meaningless when evaluating technology and its function. It could be 1000 years old or 10; what matters if fulfills the requirements of the relevant use-case in an acceptable manner.

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

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I investigated building a DAC a couple of weeks ago, the cost price of the ICs for building a good DAC is ~$25 from TI (admittedly that's the price for single components, but I don't think it would be hugely cheaper for bulk).

It's stupid to bundle headphones and DACs into one package. I like to follow the unix philosophy when doing A/V. Each component should do one thing, that way when you want to upgrade/replace broken components, it's easier and cheaper.

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

#136

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).

Is it reasonable to say the vast majority of people simply do not sit next to a charger with the headphones in, more than once a year? I'd think so. I've literally never done it myself.

I appreciate there are edge cases and that it's a tricky decision, but getting 5% of a phone's volume/thickness back for a port Further I think the majority of charge & listen usecases are those where dongles aren't horrible. (although they'll always suck). i.e., listening to music while charging in a car, is a specific use case where dropping $25-50 on a one-time solution is somewhat reasonable for the edgecase user who does that every single day. Same with a setup at work where you've got a headphone on and charge because you're a heavy user or forgot to plug it in before bedtime the night before. These are non-mobile situations in known/safe areas, where you can just leave the dongle. Which is a bit different from the dongle experience one has with say a Macbook which is charged during the day, on the go, in many different locations etc.

Despite the fact I think it makes sense for the majority, I'll grant it's still a shitty situation for the minority. But even then, I think the ubiquitous advent of wireless audio is around the corner. We've seen big gains in quality of connectivity, range, price level, battery, style and comfort. And we're now seeing some pretty unique innovations too like swiping your earbud to silence the room. I'm not a big fan yet, but I think it's a very decent extra solution to some of these issues.

Overal, I'm quite alright, even in favour to see the port get dropped, if it was usb-c all the way.

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

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iPhone is definitely not the most popular phone in the world. Its market share is about 15%.

Which phone has more? Smartphone only, I think is fair to say in this context. I'm not talking about iOS or e.g. an umbrella brand of tens of different phones, but a specific device.

Samsung, depending on how you define a specific device.

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

#138
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I still have an old fashioned parallel port (via PCI card) on my PC, because there's no other option for convenient and low-latency GPIO.

And I don't remember old fashioned serial ports needing special drivers that would brick unapproved hardware, like some modern FTDI USB serial adaptors did.

"Legacy" ports are simple and reliable. Let's not abandon the simple and reliable 3.5mm headphone port.

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

#139

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.

> Nobody at this point (at least, that I hear) complains about Lightning cables.

Lightning was a proprietary Apple connector that replaced the older proprietary 30-pin Apple connector. Not at all comparable to removing the 3.5mm jack.

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

#140
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ye…

> You can do that with USB2 as well, but hardly anyone does, because they aren't forced to do so. You can plug a USB2 DAC into your phone? A ton of people who own good headphones for their computer use a USB sound device instead of the motherboard's built-in audio. But today, similarly good headphones for mobile phones do not exist because phones can't drive them. This may not be a priority for a lot of people yet, b…

Is it not possible to have a DAC that plugs into the lightning port, while keeping 3.5 mm audio for the masses who don't want/need a separate DAC?

99% of listeners aren't using headphones that are good enough to notice a difference in quality from an offboard DAC.

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