While we're whinging about loss of headphone jacks, lets add latency! Apple have always pushed their kit as being friendly for musicians and such. Now try playing an iOS MIDI instrument over bluetooth - with ~200ms delay between you hitting a key and hearing it. Useless and infuriating. So back to the dongle it is. Except of course if you want to charge and listen at the same time (which, you know, tends to happen when you are running a few power-hungry audio apps).
I still miss my headphone jack, and I want it back
331–340 of 741 posts
Re: I still miss my headphone jack, and I want it back
#332We need to take into account _Accessibility_. A large use case that I've found most people seems to miss are individuals who are older and don't have much experience with bluetooth or wireless technology. I'm fine with Apple removing the headphone jack, but they've alienated so many people to find their own path when they don't include the adapter. Anecdotal example: I recently purchased headphones for my 65-year old…
It's no coincidence that you never see anybody with a visible disability in any general purpose Apple advertisement -- video or print. Or an overweight person, for that matter.
Or any ad, really. Apple is at least one order of magnitude better at a11y than everyone else in the industry; this is simply a nonsense comment. Nobody else remotely approaches them on this front—it may be their biggest and most unassailable moat, albeit for a tiny market that won’t ever increase in size. It’s one of the most charitable things they do as an organization.
Re: I still miss my headphone jack, and I want it back
#333Next, get rid of the USB jack and get 100% hermetically sealed units? Apple already has Qi charging.
They could get rid of the screen, too, and call it iBrick.
The iBrick can still run truly side-effect free programs.
Re: I still miss my headphone jack, and I want it back
#334Earlier quoted context omitted.
OK, since I like to write, have more so lately, have started a newsletter before and was planning to start a similar one soon, I'll bite. Except if Poe's law comes bite me and it wasn't in earnest (checked your comment history and you don't seem to make trashy comments like me), what'd you like to read about in this style? Technology, technological change, society, languages, editors, open source? What periodicity wo…
Just finished Snow Crash! It's really good; as I was reading it I would stop and check the date it was authored. It holds up very well.
Read 'The Diamond Age'. Personally I think it's the best of his books.
Re: I still miss my headphone jack, and I want it back
#335While we're whinging about loss of headphone jacks, lets add latency! Apple have always pushed their kit as being friendly for musicians and such. Now try playing an iOS MIDI instrument over bluetooth - with ~200ms delay between you hitting a key and hearing it. Useless and infuriating. So back to the dongle it is. Except of course if you want to charge and listen at the same time (which, you know, tends to happen wh…
The Y-cable that allows charging+headphone simultaneously is widely available for $13 or so. I simply don’t understand why everyone in this narrow use case finds this to be such a monumental hassle.
Re: I still miss my headphone jack, and I want it back
#336The blog ends with the best and most insightful comment: And no human’s life is measurably better since Apple had the “courage” to remove the 3.5 mm jack. But a lot of our lives are just a little worse. The author also points towards active de-standardisation between Android and iOS: "if only there was one universal audio port they both could use" Apple gets an advantage from this with their iron-grip on compatible p…
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…
See also: Floppies, RS-232 serial, optical drives.
Re: I still miss my headphone jack, and I want it back
#337I have a lovely pair of Bluetooth headphones, yet when I bought a new phone the other month I deliberately went for one that still has a headphone jack. Why? Because much as I love Bluetooth, I still use the jack. Maybe not every day, but if I want to plug into pretty much anything that's not my headphones or my car then I need a jack.
Apple make a lot of money from phones. They also make a lot of money from Bluetooth headphones. It makes a lot of sense for them, from an ecosystem building perspective, to push people from cheap wired headphones to expensive Apple headphones. I'm less certain what non-Apple manufacturers expect to gain.
Re: I still miss my headphone jack, and I want it back
#338I am an audiophile and I don't miss the headphone jack at all. I've always hated the headphone jack on most phones since most of them are inherently low quality. If you have a high end headphone then the weakest link usually is the DAC ( Digital to Analog ) chip on your device. While there are some devices which are made with high fidelity audio in mind ( LG V30 which does come with a headphone jack ), most of the devices in the market aren't. Also good high fidelity headphones usually have higher resistance ( I use DT770 Pro regularly with is rated at 250 ohms ) and almost none of the phones in market today can drive them to the best of their ability. Historically I've always carried a mini amp(Fiio A3) to use my headphones with headphone jacks in my phone to be able to get good audio quality from headphones. Mobile devices just don't have enough juice to give you good sound quality and drive high end headphones to the best of their ability. Even headphones rated at 32 ohms can benefit hugely from a higher audio output.
So for me, audio from a mobile device comes down to 2 use cases:
1. Calling and other low-fidelity tasks
I have a sennheiser bluetooth headphones which supports AptX for these purposes. Bluetooth is lossy and AptX gives you much better audio quality. They are rated at 10+ hours and usually work pretty well for calling and other light uses.
2. Listening to audio
I carry a portable DAC ( Fiio X3) but there are many portable ones available in the market. If you have an iPhone you can get the Fiio i1 which is based on apple's lightning. A portable DAC will usually come with it's own Amp and the audio output will be far better than what a standard phone is capable of. If you have high end headphones you'll be pleasantly surprised at how much difference a good DAC+Amp combo can make. I exclusively use TIDAL for audio streaming since their lossless audio has much higher fidelity compared to other streaming providers.
Re: I still miss my headphone jack, and I want it back
#339Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even if it was stupid, that doesn't stop something from being courageous.
What stops it from being courageous isn't that it's stupid, but that "taking a lot of shit" isn't inherently dangerous. Apple's a behemoth with a captive audience, and their past history taught them that they could push I/O changes on their customers with little risk. Little risk = no courage needed.
They've been courageous in the past, and its generally worked out well for them (keyboards?), but no two cases are the same, and the past doesn't determine the future, so it still takes courage. It's still risky. There are plenty of companies that
wouldn't have the courage to do something that is going to, in the short term at least, annoy so many people.
Re: I still miss my headphone jack, and I want it back
#340We need to take into account _Accessibility_. A large use case that I've found most people seems to miss are individuals who are older and don't have much experience with bluetooth or wireless technology. I'm fine with Apple removing the headphone jack, but they've alienated so many people to find their own path when they don't include the adapter. Anecdotal example: I recently purchased headphones for my 65-year old…
There is a good supply of Chinese phones that include a headphone jack. If the iPhone is a product you don't like, just buy another phone. It will be cheaper and will do the same and probably more.
It may take a while to get used to a different OS, but I've seen my parents switching between iPhone and Android without problems so I don't think your father (about the same age) will have more difficulties.