Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I still miss my headphone jack, and I want it back

fastcompany.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 741 posts

Re: I still miss my headphone jack, and I want it back

#231

Post by azag0 »

whiddershins wrote: post #47

Apple has had great success in the past by pushing new standards in computer peripherals, deprecating old standards, and generally moving the industry forward by fiat. I think we've all benefitted somewhat from this attitude, even if it was inconvenient. The distinction here is that the 3.5mm standard isn't/wasn't a computer peripheral standard. It is/was an audio industry standard. There are many uses for 3.5mm that…

The $15 adapter is most likely of similar quality as the DAC and other audio components in the phone, so I don’t see the point. (Also, most people I know with $1000 headphones use an external audiophile-grade DAC anyway.)

Re: I still miss my headphone jack, and I want it back

#232

Post by Cogito »

city41 wrote: post #202
eksemplar wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could they have build the iPhone XS with a jack? Because if they couldn’t, I’d argue that everyone who owns one benefits from it not having a jack. The real annoyance for me isn’t the lack of the jack, it’s that they haven’t also replaced the jack on the MacBook line yet.

Why couldn’t they build it with a jack? Due to the thickness? I’m typing this out on my iPhone 6 (which I will keep until it disintegrates because of its headphone jack) and it is plenty thin. I think only Apple themselves are obsessed with thin devices.

Thinness and waterproofing are the two things I've heard that lead to removing the jack.

Neither seems insurmountable, but if you want to try and remove as many obstacles as possible in the search of those two things then the headphone jack is apparently one of the simpler ones.

Speakers, camera lens, physical buttons, charging, and data transfer are the remaining ones I can think of, and many of those have already been replaced in some models.

Re: I still miss my headphone jack, and I want it back

#233

Post by jamesrcole »

arvinsim wrote: post #199
jamesrcole wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think wireless headphones are a good thing, so making them cheaper is a good thing. As you can see in my original comment, I'm just saying this is my view, and I know many people see it otherwise.

I can see your point but I disagree that it's worth it. I think wireless would have gotten better even if we did not remove the headphone jack.

But that's different to my point, in two ways. 1) I was talking about cost not quality (c.f. "wireless would have gotten better even if"). 2) I wasn't arguing about whether it would get better or not, but the rate at which it happens being changed by removing the jack (c.f. "would have gotten better even if we did not remove the headphone jack.")

Re: I still miss my headphone jack, and I want it back

#234

Post by yellowapple »

kbenson wrote: post #172
goldfeld wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use another brand phone? It couldn't really be simpler, free market and all. Wireless things suck, I've never considered bluetooth for anything and I really, really hate my bluetooth keyboards. They have nice keys and petite builds, but I haven't used any of them for years now (one Apple, another also with great build). Can't be bothered for batteries, can't be bothered with bluetooth for different linux distros, des…

> Use another brand phone? It couldn't really be simpler, free market and all. Well, it could be simpler, and more of a free market, if you could choose your OS across different brands instead of also having to change that, or if you didn't lose access to everything you have already bought for one OS's app marketplace. There are plenty of things being done by the vendors in this space specifically to combat the effec…

All the more reason to put your money toward phones that run an operating system that's not locked to one specific device vendor.

Re: I still miss my headphone jack, and I want it back

#235

Post by dragonwriter »

nerdwaller wrote: post #71
S_A_P wrote: post #17

100% agree with this. Its pretty interesting that I almost never use headphones anymore now because bluetooth headphones require a few things: 1) preplanning/foresight in charging the headphones 2) refer to number 1. I have 2 really nice pairs of bluetooth headphones, and almost NEVER use them. Guess what pair gets used almost daily? my 15 year old beyerdynamic DT770s. 3.5mm or ¼" plug, closed back. Not really the mo…

While “we” are in the 10% I try to think about the changes in the frame of the “90/10 rule” (also how I consider the impact of features in my applications). Anecdotally, dropping the headphone jack (and similarly adding the Touch Bar) has negatively impacted 0% of non-developers I’ve talked to about both. If I were a company, I doubt I’d change course immediately unless the larger data set said something significantl…

> Anecdotally, dropping the headphone jack (and similarly adding the Touch Bar) has negatively impacted 0% of non-developers I’ve talked to about both.

Anecdotally, the headphone jack loss negatively impacted 100% of the non-developerd I've talked to about it. Now, I recognize the particular skew to that experience that biases it to a negative impact—most of the people I've talked to about it happened to be ballroom dance instructors or students in a ballroom teacher training program at a studio where the routine was to plug your device in to the sound system via 1/8” plug (neither keeping the adapter permanently on the phone or on the studio sound system was a viable solution for any of them, so it was one more thing to forget, misplace, etc.)

But I suspect your 100% is also skewed. Anecdotal experience usually is.

Re: I still miss my headphone jack, and I want it back

#236

Post by jamesrcole »

xg15 wrote: post #203
jamesrcole wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I detest wired headphones. I find they always get caught on things while I'm wearing them, and because of the neck problems I have that's a big issue for me (and as well as that, they'd always get tangled up in my bag, which was a bit of a hassle). So I'm personally glad they've removed the headphone jack, because it will help push wireless into the mass market (and bring down prices) at a faster rate tha…

I don't know, I don't think any of those personal reasons invalidates the arguments of the parent. Your mileage on cables may vary, but the removal of an interface that had been understood by laypeople and was universally supported for the last 50 years seems a more important point to me.

It invalidates the quoted bit they endorsed that said "no human's life is measurably better since Apple had the “courage” to remove the 3.5 mm jack." "No human's life" is a blanket, absolute statement, and it's wrong. Wireless headphones are much more ubiquitous and cheap these days, and a major brand removing headphone jacks is part of the reason for this.

Re: I still miss my headphone jack, and I want it back

#238

Post by yellowapple »

Cogito wrote: post #232
city41 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why couldn’t they build it with a jack? Due to the thickness? I’m typing this out on my iPhone 6 (which I will keep until it disintegrates because of its headphone jack) and it is plenty thin. I think only Apple themselves are obsessed with thin devices.

Thinness and waterproofing are the two things I've heard that lead to removing the jack. Neither seems insurmountable, but if you want to try and remove as many obstacles as possible in the search of those two things then the headphone jack is apparently one of the simpler ones. Speakers, camera lens, physical buttons, charging, and data transfer are the remaining ones I can think of, and many of those have already b…

Samsung's been shipping waterproof (or at least water-resistant) headphone-jacked phones for years now.

Re: I still miss my headphone jack, and I want it back

#239

Post by metafunctor »

Based on all the other comments here I'm probably in the minority, but I still think the author should just get some decent Bluetooth headphones.

I have AirPods and Sennheiser Momentums. I'm looking forward to another year of my life when I don't need to untangle a mess of wires in my jacket pocket every day. Battery life is very good, and I haven't had any problems with running out of juice on these.

Re: I still miss my headphone jack, and I want it back

#240

Post by sidchilling »

I still want to be able to charge my phone and listen to music using the headphone jack. How is that not even a use case anymore? I don’t like the AirPods because they are too easy to lose, and I’m so clumsy with headphones that I buy cheap ones every month, which comes with headphone jack only.

I think Apple made a very bad UX, and never cared about users. I moved to Android phones as a result, which frankly aren’t as inferior as they used to be 4 years ago.

Post reply on HN