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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

#201

Post by Grishnakh »

rufius wrote: post #23
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 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…

>Ear pads lost their shape? Replace them.

The only problem I have with your comment is this line. It sounds great in theory, but in practice I've found that getting replacement earpads for my Sennheisers is not that easy: new earpads are almost as expensive as the headphones themselves! Or I can get cheap Chinese ones, and they aren't even that cheap, and have simply terrible fit and thickness.

Seriously, I think there's a great market opportunity here for someone who wants to make OEM-quality high-end headphone earpads. The Chinese ones I've tried actually seem to have decent enough feel quality, it's the size and fit that are all wrong (they don't really fit the headphones, and the pads are too thin, and many don't have the mesh inside).

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

#202

Post by Grishnakh »

StavrosK wrote: post #48
alexnewman wrote: post #36

I lose my earphone regularly and replace them with 15$ headphones I can get at the drugstore. I guess that means I'm getting off the iPhone .

$15? Jeez, for $20 you can get the Xiaomi Piston, which is great. Otherwise, just buy ten $2 buds from dx.com.

This is a great example of the absolutely terrible moderation here. This is a very good comment, pointing out how someone can either pay about the same money and get a much higher-quality product, or save a bunch of money by going to a different vendor (dx.com) and buying in bulk (since the OP admits he loses his headphones frequently). Personally I'd be happy if someone quickly pointed out how I could save 87% on something I buy regularly.

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

#203

Post by Grishnakh »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #20
dasil003 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand your point: if sales go up then it matters fuck all how many people complain (see: Facebook redesigns and growth from 2004-2011). However, ideally you will both not purchase and complain publicly, preferably with well-reasoned arguments. Not only will this potentially help dissuade far more people from purchasing a new iPhone than your meager 1-person boycott will, but you can bet there are factions insi…

I take a similar tack when upset with a retail establishment. Rather than angrily claiming "I'm never coming back! And I'm telling my friends to never come here again!" which they've all heard ten million times, I try this: "I've been a customer for years, and this experience disappoints me. I've come to expect more from you folks. I hope in future we can come to a better conclusion. Is there somebody I can talk to a…

Retail stores are much more connected to their local communities, and more worried about individual customers. They also believe more in the old saw that for every 1 person who complains, there's 9 more who just walked away. And finally, there usually is real competition in place for any given retail store.

Big global manufacturers don't really see that, and don't care. If people are going to continue to buy from them regardless, they have little incentive to listen to their petty concerns. While there is significant competition for the iPhone (called Android), Apple is extremely profitable, far more so than Android, and there doesn't seem to be any limit to how much Apple can squeeze its customers.

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

#204

Post by basch »

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.

your apps stop updating, and when web service apis change your app stops working. ios is nothing like your copy of photoshop 5 still working.

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

#205

Post by coldtea »

y4mi wrote: post #187
coldtea wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the BT headphones. I've had 7+ hours of listening (normally don't go around wearing headphones for more than that in a day), and good audio quality with Parrot Zik (and they even use bluetooth 3, and not the lighter on battery and better 4 version).

and they cost $400! headphones with pretty good sound quality start at $50 and get diminishing returns around $150...

Well, I've bought them for $220 -- version 2.0 whereas now they are at 3.0, but still.

And I have studio monitor headphones too, but still prefer those for casual listening.

>headphones with pretty good sound quality start at $50 and get diminishing returns around $150...

You'd be surprised.

Of course the ones we talk about also have BT wireless operation, noise cancelling and even touch sensitive case (to control volume/forward/stop etc) -- to justify the higher asking price, but even without those things, a good $250 or $300 headphone will be much better than a good $150 one, pretty similarly to a $50 vs $150.

If you look for diminishing returns, that would start around the $400-500 mark.

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

#206

Post by Grishnakh »

marcosdumay wrote: post #194
Grishnakh wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a good point, however, what was the price differential between the two? If the double-capacity version cost twice as much, then obviously not many people are going to buy it. I think it'd be interesting to have an experiment where some flagship phone (like the Galaxy S*) is sold in two versions, one with double the battery life but a little thicker (and cases for both sizes are available), at the exact sa…

When I last brought a Motorolla phone, the Maxx was a bit more than double the price of the similar, but thinner one I brought.

Yeah, that would explain why the thinner one sold better. It's not because people value thin, it's because people value saving money.

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

#207

Post by calgoo »

Does anyone else think its time to move away from Bluetooth and start over with a new wireless protocol? No network or serial or other protocols, just good full duplex high quality audio (with encryption and authentication). It just seams that we are having too many issues with the Bluetooth protocol and everything around it. Maybe a fresh start would be good?

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

#208

Post by xbmcuser »

ctrl-j wrote: post #146
IkmoIkmo wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. (althoug…

When I work from home my office calls my cell. So I often have my headset plugged in and my phone charging. Wireless headphone tech isn't there yet. There's problems that are going to be fairly difficult to solve. Problems that won't be solved in the next iPhone. For instance, again when I'm working from home, my headphones get unplugged from my computer and plugged into my phone when a call comes in. With wireless I…

Wireless charging would help with that though as you won't be using the USB or lightning port for charging. For cars a phone holder with a wireless charging pad built in would be a good idea. Actually that would work with old cars as well connect the phone holder with the USB charger and connect the phone using the auxiliary USB jack

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

#209

Post by dingaling »

trowawee wrote: post #63
SeanBoocock wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

http://www.wired.com/2012/04/why-is-htc-choosing-phone-thinn... > According to Kilburn, HTC’s consumer research shows people prefer thin smartphones — between 8 mm and 10 mm thick — as opposed to thicker devices with longer battery life. One data point, but that's what HTC's claiming their customer research shows, and Apple's trends suggest their internal data points the same way.

> between 8 mm and 10 mm thick

That's not particularly thin, both Vivo and Oppo have models under 5mm. The former even managed to keep the 3.5 jack in the 4.75mm X5.

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

#210

Post by imtringued »

CaptSpify wrote: post #165
rikkus wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://webcusp.com/ulefone-joins-the-6200-mah-battery-club-w... Might not be a whole week, but I'm assuming you'll be buying one?

I'm not who you are replying to but... If it meets my other requirements (that article seems to be short on details), then yes, I absolutely will buy it. Unfortunately, buying phones isn't like buying a laptop. I can't choose to the bigger battery option, while leaving all the other specs the same.

Strangely enough some laptop manufacturers prefer to have a dozen models of the same laptop instead of just letting you straight up choose a base model and let you configure it.
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