The 19th Century plug that's still being used • Hacker News Board

Re: The 19th Century plug that's still being used

#81

Post by tonmoy » Mon, Aug 01, 2016, 3:55 AM UTC

raverbashing wrote: post #3

"Thinner phone" is a stupid requirement. A thinner phone will be mechanically weaker. Yes, Apple retired Floppy disks and DVD readers, because those were replaced by something better. This is not the case here. A Bluetooth headphone will give you an inferior experience. A lightning converter will give you a worse experience because I can bet it doesn't stay plugged as firmly as a headphone in a high vibration situati…

To use a 3.5mm jack headset you need to add power amplifiers inside the phone, do proper impedance matching and hope that noise in the path does not corrupt the data. But sending power and digital data solves all these problems, the wires don't need to be as well made either!

Re: The 19th Century plug that's still being used

#82

Post by cm2187 » Mon, Aug 01, 2016, 4:21 AM UTC

raverbashing wrote: post #32

rayiner wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to recharge my phone too, if I forget my phone at home I can't get a replacement for cheap, and after the initial setup, Bluetooth is easier than plugging in headphones.

Sure, but I never forgot my phone on a trip or going to work. My headphones, on the other hand...

For me it's actually the opposite. I have small high quality headphones that I can forget in a pocket. I always have them on me, and they work on all my devices: iphone, ipad, laptop, work desktop.

My iphone losing the audio jack would be a major inconvenience. I would have to carry multiple headphones, and also potentially bigger headphones since they will need to do more (blutooth, DAC, etc). Frankly, after having owned pretty much every iphone and ipod model since the begining, I will most likely be looking for an alternative.

Re: The 19th Century plug that's still being used

#83

Post by jeffbush » Mon, Aug 01, 2016, 4:26 AM UTC

While working on mobile phones, I've found a number of problems with the TRS style jack.

One is they trap lint internally, which can often result in the internal switch that detects insertion permanently thinking there is a headphone in it (Google "phone thinks headphones are in"). The external speaker is usually muted when a jack is inserted, so when this happens, the phone doesn't make any sounds. Lint is very difficult to remove from the outside the connector.

The other problem--which the original inventors couldn't have anticipated--involves the hook switch (hangup button) on wired phone earbuds. The switch usually works by shorting the microphone to ground. The problem is that, because of the geometry of the plug, the microphone is also shorted to ground while the plug is inserted or removed. To avoid erroneously interpreting insertion/removal as a hangup, the software must wait for the button to be held for around a second. This precludes doing other interesting things with the button, like having double clicks, or clicks with different durations perform other functions. It also feels a bit awkward to have to hold it for so long.

Re: The 19th Century plug that's still being used

#84

Post by cm2187 » Mon, Aug 01, 2016, 4:28 AM UTC

mdip wrote: post #79

dingo_bat wrote: post #72

This is the sort of thing the market will sort out anyways. If there is enough of a market for people who don't care about the 3.5mm port, apple will be fine. People like me will buy something else. Just because apple doesn't have expandable storage hasn't made samsung discontinue it either. Same deal with the headphone jack.

While I'm with you and won't be buying one for reasons beyond the 3.5mm jack (but that would be a deal breaker if I was on the fence), I'll be more surprised if the removal of that feature stops scores of people lining up to get the latest phone (along with a new set of over-priced headphones). At the end of the day, it's "give up the 3.5mm jack" or "don't get the latest iPhone " and I'll wager that they'll have no p…

The worst is that the apple-issued headphones are and have always been absolutely crap. If fact in public transports when you hear the loud music of a fellow passenger, it is almost always the crappy, leaky headphones that come with the iphone.

If I ever buy an audio jack free iphone (god save), the last company I will purchase headphones from is Apple.

Re: The 19th Century plug that's still being used

#85

Post by perilunar » Mon, Aug 01, 2016, 4:39 AM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #15

hackaflocka wrote: post #5

And it works beautifully. When for some reason, my bluetooth headphone's connectivity is acting up (happens often), I can take my wired headphone and plug it in without even looking, knowing that it WILL work. One of my car's electric windows has stopped working. For my next car, I want something where there's a fallback to a mechanical crank (the way car windows used to be).

I'm just old enough to remember cars with mechanical hand cranks to open the windows. You couldn't open the passenger side window if you were driving. It was dangerous to open the driver's side window if there was a lot going on. The rear passenger windows often didn't open at all in cheaper cars. The number of times you'd leave a window open by mistake was far higher because cars didn't alert you about it. I'd much…

I miss hand-cranked windows. Would love to have a dual system so you can easily open the windows with the electric power off, and as a backup. I also miss the old quarter glass vent windows that cars used to have on the front doors.

Re: The 19th Century plug that's still being used

#86

Post by perilunar » Mon, Aug 01, 2016, 4:52 AM UTC

If they want thinner, just go from 3.5 mm audio to 2.5 mm audio. Already an existing standard.

If thinness is just a cover for wanting digital, then go TOSLINK and have digital with analog fall-back. They already have it in the MacBook Pros.

Re: The 19th Century plug that's still being used

#87

Post by x1798DE » Mon, Aug 01, 2016, 4:58 AM UTC

Camillo wrote: post #77

raverbashing wrote: post #3

"Thinner phone" is a stupid requirement. A thinner phone will be mechanically weaker. Yes, Apple retired Floppy disks and DVD readers, because those were replaced by something better. This is not the case here. A Bluetooth headphone will give you an inferior experience. A lightning converter will give you a worse experience because I can bet it doesn't stay plugged as firmly as a headphone in a high vibration situati…

> "Thinner phone" is a stupid requirement. You may think that the current iPhones are thin enough, but almost nobody actually uses the phone on its own. You need to take into account the thickness of the case, and now that people are playing Pokemon Go, it really needs to be a battery case, which is even thicker. So the base phone needs to be thinner. (They can't just make the phone a little thicker and put the extra…

Doesn't need to be a battery case if they design a phone with a replaceable battery, like every phone I've ever owned (after iPhone 3G, which was more or less the only option at the time).

Re: The 19th Century plug that's still being used

#88

Post by unexistance » Mon, Aug 01, 2016, 4:59 AM UTC

modfodder wrote: post #44

hackaflocka wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good to hear! Elon Musk: if you're reading this: if you put a manual window crank option in your cars (especially as a fallback in case the electric window fails), that's what I'll buy.

Maybe the hand crank could charge the battery as well. On long road trips just have your passengers crank through the night....

the rise of professional hand-cranker

Re: The 19th Century plug that's still being used

#89

Post by 1anh2kqowg » Mon, Aug 01, 2016, 5:23 AM UTC

jurassic wrote: post #30

If they are moving to a paradigm where I can't listen and charge at the same time, the 6 will be my last iPhone. I wish they would stop trying to shave millimeters off my phone thickness and address actual user needs like battery life. When was the last time any of you said, "Damn, I wish this phone was thinner!"? Probably never. But many of us regularly bemoan the battery life of our devices.

I think users would be happier day-to-day with a larger battery, but in the ATT showroom they are more likely to go for the thinner phone with a small battery and no headphone jack.

Re: The 19th Century plug that's still being used

#90

Post by deathanatos » Mon, Aug 01, 2016, 5:36 AM UTC

jeffbush wrote: post #83

While working on mobile phones, I've found a number of problems with the TRS style jack. One is they trap lint internally, which can often result in the internal switch that detects insertion permanently thinking there is a headphone in it (Google "phone thinks headphones are in"). The external speaker is usually muted when a jack is inserted, so when this happens, the phone doesn't make any sounds. Lint is very diff…

> One is they trap lint internally,

I've owned my current phone for ~4 years, and the first port to stop working — due to lint — was the USB port, not the audio port.

> Lint is very difficult to remove from the outside the connector.

Removing lint from a 3.5mm audio port is going to be vastly easier than removing it from a USB port (which is completely possible). The entrance is much wider, and you don't have to worry about damaging the connector thing that USB has in the middle, as it doesn't exist. I've even removed a silica gel ball (which are apparently about 3.5mm wide …) from an audio port (and needed a paper clip to crush it first). I'd not want to try the same thing on a digital USB or lightning port …