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

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

#401

Post by daemin »

seanhunter wrote: post #341

People just love to find things to complain about. There are a number of great options: 1)Get a different phone or keep your old phone. Noone's forcing you to use one without a headphone jack. You could even use an older iPhone if innovation frightens you in general and you're happy with your old setup 2)Get/use an adapter. THey're not expensive and sometimes come with the phone 3)Get/use headphones with the new styl…

1) There are many reasons to get a new phone, the biggest one is battery life, after a few years your phone will not last as long as when you bought it. Also a smaller reason are security updates, since they are quite needed due to the increased processing power available.

This also depends on where the market goes, because pretty much all phone manufacturers follow Apple's lead to some extent. Removing the headphone jack, the notch and curved screen corners, and the non-replaceable battery are all features that Apple popularised.

So it may not be possible to get a phone without these features any more in the future.

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

#402

Post by Aeolun »

coldtea wrote: post #347
LeonM wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a security point of view, it's really worrying that a lot of users refuse to upgrade software because of the track record of Apple making devices less usable with every upgrade. I prefer the method of Samsung in this case, they clearly state for the monthly update that it is mostly a security update. Where Apple seems to apply marketing by promising 'the best experience yet' and shiny new features with each majo…

> From a security point of view, it's really worrying that a lot of users refuse to upgrade software because of the track record of Apple making devices less usable with every upgrade. A lot of users? iOS has the fastest and widest adoption rate for new releases of any mobile or not OS. Android specifically used to have awful fragmentation issues and phones never updated by the vendor 3 and 4 releases behind. APPLE I…

I mean, it’s much easier to update if you own the entire platform

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

#403

Post by sytelus »

yiyus wrote: post #340
pookieinc wrote: post #213

We 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.

One would think Android phone makets would take this as opportunity given the massive uproar. But instead they are absolutely determined to blindly follow Apple off the cliff. Now many major Android phones have not only removed headphone jack but even introduced unnecessary notch even though they don’t have FaceID!! The lack of independent thinking is stunning among leading Android phone makers and very sad thing for consumers in this duopoly.

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

#404

Post by lagadu »

stouset wrote: post #274
ddingus wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easy, get a phone that does not force this stuff.

Ah yes, let me just throw out the hundreds of dollars worth of apps, not to mention the rest of my investment in the ecosystem, because I might have to buy, once, an adapter that costs 1% of the sticker price of the phone and can just be permanently left attached. “Easy”.

So Apple is effectively holding you hostage.

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

#405

Post by mcintyre1994 »

pookieinc wrote: post #283
skgoa wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they've alienated so many people to find their own path when they don't include the adapter. My iPhone came with an adapter, though. I continue using the same headphones as I did with my old phone.

My understanding is that the latest version of iPhone doesn't ship with the adapter anymore.[0] 0: https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/12/17827970/no-more-free-iph...

Confirmed - XR didn't come with it, only lightning headphones.

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

#406

Post by lagadu »

aerophilic wrote: post #16

One of the things I feel happens in the tech world is innovation for innovation’s sake. In my opinion, “Real innovation” solves problems. What was the problem Apple was really trying to solve by removing the jack? The only thing I can come up with is to allow a “thinner” design. In all the previous “radical changes”, they created a “better solution” to a problem. Take the removal of Floppies or CD drives, in both cas…

> The only thing I can come up with is to allow a “thinner” design.

The thinnest iPhone ever was the 6s, which had a headphone jack so that doesn't hold water.

The only justification that I know that works out is that by removing the headphone jack you do free up a bunch of space inside the phone, which can be used for more electronics or battery.

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

#407

Post by faceplanted »

sneak wrote: post #335
mangecoeur wrote: post #331

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 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.

One of the reasons people buy expensive tech is that it comes "batteries included" so to speak, the idea that to do something as simple as use headphones requires making another purchase after you've just spent $1000 is pretty antithetical to that.

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

#409

Post by Arnt »

sytelus wrote: post #393
pookieinc wrote: post #213

We 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…

I am also very strongly against having 2.4GHz Bluetooth radiation wrapped right around my head. There is a good chance this doesn’t matter but some chance that it does. No one knows. I refuse to be forced guinea pig in this wireless headset experiment.

The radiator is your phone. The wireless headset does a lot of receiving and very, very little radiation. That's why those tiny bluetooth things can have many weeks of battery lifetime on a battery the size of a fingernail: They don't radiate much energy either towards your brain or towards the phone.

(Digressing, I wonder how much radiation incidental WLAN use on a phone causes, compared to a bluetooth headset. I mean things like googleplay chancing to upgrade a few apps via WLAN while you're holding the phone against your ear.)

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

#410

Post by rusk »

majewsky wrote: post #374
rusk wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience was opposite. My car stereo has bluetooth and I would often listen to my phone that way because, well convenient .. one day I accidentally used the wired mode because I was charging my phone from it and boom the improvement in sound quality just blew me away. I looked into this, and the Bluetooth audio codecs just aren't that good. From heated discussions I have learned that the AirPod ones are in fact…

> It's digital all the way to your ears. You mean to say "lossless all the way". Also, it cannot be digital all the way except if you were linking up your aural nerves to the airpod directly. ;)

I guess it depends on whether you define "ears" as "the general vicinity of" or "the actual thing" - I had expected that the former definition was evident but forgot this was HN ...

It's digital all the way to your ears in that you don't need to decode and then reencode, thus eliminating that intermediate "lossy" analogue transition phase. So yeah digital all the way, and by implication "lossless" because of that.

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