When Nintendo got rid of the headphone jack • Hacker News Board

Re: When Nintendo got rid of the headphone jack

#91

Post by kuschku » Sun, Sep 18, 2016, 12:56 PM UTC

eriknstr wrote: post #59

arm wrote: post #11

I remember this as well (I still have mine in fact!). However, I didn’t really care that much considering how much better the Game Boy Advance SP was than all the previous Game Boys. It was the first Game Boy to have a backlit screen, which meant I could finally easily sneak and play on it in the night without alerting my parents (instead of trying to do the same with the much less effective wormlight accessory I had…

>It was the first Game Boy to have a backlit screen, which meant I could finally easily sneak and play on it in the night without alerting my parents Actually, there was another Game Boy with backlit screen released much earlier -- just a few months before the Game Boy Color, though only in Japan. I remember said Game Boy because a friend of mine whose father traveled to Japan had brought one such Game Boy back with…

Are you sure the Game Boy Light was Japan-only?

I’ve seen at least a handful of them in my childhood here in Germany. Backlit screen, exact same format, etc.

Re: When Nintendo got rid of the headphone jack

#92

Post by madeofpalk » Sun, Sep 18, 2016, 12:59 PM UTC

pilif wrote: post #78

madeofpalk wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also USB C is significantly thicker than lightning, and the part that's supposed to go on the phone isn't reversible.

Both ends of my USB C cables are identical and reversible.

Oops - you're right. I got USB C and USB 3 confused for a second then, thinking that USB C cables for phones have the micro USB 3 connector on them

Re: When Nintendo got rid of the headphone jack

#93

Post by douche » Sun, Sep 18, 2016, 1:00 PM UTC

elmigranto wrote: post #15

chris_wot wrote: post #3

The difference here is that the primary purpose of an iPhone is to make phone calls. And uses multimedia, like music. Leading to this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z_wImaGRkNY

Making calls might not even make it to Top 5 things people use iPhone for.

Smartphones are really terribly designed to be actually used as a telephone.

Personally, I say good riddance. Anything that can be communicated in text, whether email, SMS or other, ought to be. That leaves very little use for telephone, which has all of the disadvantages of synchronous, face-to-face voice communication, with none of the benefits.

Re: When Nintendo got rid of the headphone jack

#94

Post by jsmeaton » Sun, Sep 18, 2016, 1:06 PM UTC

chris_wot wrote: post #62

Kiro wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, people are using their phones to make phone calls but I still don't think it's in the top 5. That's what this discussion is about.

Pew Research Center said the following in 2015: Fully 97% of smartphone owners used text messaging at least once over the course of the study period, making it the most widely-used basic feature or app; it is also the feature that is used most frequently, as the smartphone owners in this study reported having used text messaging in the past hour in an average of seven surveys (out of a maximum total of 14 across the…

I fear this thread is getting a little long already, but let me point you to the graph in your own link (looking at 18-29 year olds).

SMS: 100% Internet: 97% Voice Calls: 93%

Looking at those numbers, from an article you provided, could you imagine a fairly large portion of those users using 5 apps on their phone more than they use the phone app? That's the only argument being made here.

Re: When Nintendo got rid of the headphone jack

#95

Post by lh7777 » Sun, Sep 18, 2016, 1:12 PM UTC

shasheene wrote: post #12

This reminds me of the "feature phone" era in the early 2000s, where every phone had a proprietary charging port, proprietary headphone jack and the removable memory interface was not yet standardized on MicroSD. Thankfully European Union pushed for MicroUSB standardization. While vendors (like Apple) can still get around it by bundling an adapter in European markets, it was enough to push the entire industry to stan…

I doubt it's about price gouging -- Apple makes most of its money selling phones, tablets, and computers, not adapters and accessories. Sure, you could argue that they're trying to lock their customers in by getting them to invest in tons of adapters and accessories that would need to be replaced if they switch to another ecosystem, but I think iOS and the App Store ecosystem are much better at that. Besides, why would they keep changing port designs every few years if lock-in was the goal? There's no better time than a port redesign to switch to someone else's hardware if you need a new device and have to buy new accessories anyway.

USB C seems like the future for basically _all_ ports on all devices, so I do think it's a shame that Apple's going to stick with Lightning for iOS devices. It's hard to blame them for this -- Lightning is quite a bit thinner[1]. But I also don't share their obsession with device thinness.

[1] http://josh-ua.co/blog/2015/3/15/usb-c-dimensions-size-compa...

Re: When Nintendo got rid of the headphone jack

#96

Post by arm » Sun, Sep 18, 2016, 1:38 PM UTC

douche wrote: post #89

arm wrote: post #11

I remember this as well (I still have mine in fact!). However, I didn’t really care that much considering how much better the Game Boy Advance SP was than all the previous Game Boys. It was the first Game Boy to have a backlit screen, which meant I could finally easily sneak and play on it in the night without alerting my parents (instead of trying to do the same with the much less effective wormlight accessory I had…

> And the biggest point: it was the first Game Boy to include a rechargeable battery! This was huge, since people really didn’t buy rechargeable batteries nearly as much back then as they do now, so you’d pretty much be either wasting two alkaline batteries per day or two, or staying tethered to a wall by using the included AC adapter. I definitely had a rechargeable battery pack for my Gameboy Color[1], and at the h…

True, I did eventually get a similar one¹ for my Game Boy Color as well, but it took quite a while before that happened since I didn’t want to ask my parents to buy me something else when they already paid for the Game Boy Color and an AC adapter (which I now realize wasn’t included with the Game Boy Color; they actually had to buy it separately!) that I could use to power it instead. It’s definitely more convenient for kids (and parents!) when rechargeable batteries are already included.

――――――

¹ — https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00000K4LC

Re: When Nintendo got rid of the headphone jack

#97

Post by usaar333 » Sun, Sep 18, 2016, 1:43 PM UTC

jwildeboer wrote: post #13

Remember the time when the first Android phone was released and it didn't have a headphone jack? The HTC Dream AKA the G1? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_Dream

Yup. I recall upgrading to an HTC Hero the next year and feeling relieved that I no longer needed to constantly have a usb to headphone dongle on hand.

Re: When Nintendo got rid of the headphone jack

#98

Post by majewsky » Sun, Sep 18, 2016, 2:16 PM UTC

douche wrote: post #93

elmigranto wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making calls might not even make it to Top 5 things people use iPhone for.

Smartphones are really terribly designed to be actually used as a telephone. Personally, I say good riddance. Anything that can be communicated in text, whether email, SMS or other, ought to be. That leaves very little use for telephone, which has all of the disadvantages of synchronous, face-to-face voice communication, with none of the benefits.

> Anything that can be communicated in text, whether email, SMS or other, ought to be.

I see you never had a heated argument going on for hours that only started because people were missing your tone of voice.

Re: When Nintendo got rid of the headphone jack

#99

Post by rocky1138 » Sun, Sep 18, 2016, 2:36 PM UTC

byuu wrote: post #79

djhworld wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Gamecube example is interesting. From the Wikipedia page: > The only cables that can output a 480p signal from the GameCube are the official Nintendo-brand YPBPR component cables, available in both RCA[note 1] and D-Terminal[note 2] variations. These cables are equipped with a unique digital-to-analog converter developed by Nintendo which has not been reproduced by any third party company. So the adapter is propr…

The real irony is that component is an analog standard; yet Nintendo chose to output it over their digital port by using a custom DAC. And yet they never released any true digital cable (eg HDMI) for said port. Although the image quality is said to be slightly worse; at this point your best bet is to buy one of the older, backward-compatible Wiis to get component output. Much cheaper.

This is what I did.

Re: When Nintendo got rid of the headphone jack

#100

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Sep 18, 2016, 2:40 PM UTC

byuu wrote: post #23

Bandai did the same with the Wonderswan devices, which competed against the Game Boy Color and Advance. The device was only released in Japan around '98 - '01. And so now, if you want to use headphones with it (and you do; as not only do you get stereo instead of monaural sound; you get an extra channel of audio so you'll be missing certain sound effects in some games without them!), you get to buy one of these price…

[deleted]