The 19th Century plug that's still being used
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Re: The 19th Century plug that's still being used
#2> it received complaints that the headphone jack was sunk into the casing.
I had forgotten that. I paid $12.99 for an adapter that shouldn't have been necessary. I expect with modern times, the Lightning-to-3.5mm adapter will be twice the price, and just as unnecessary.
Re: The 19th Century plug that's still being used
#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 situation (e.g. people exercising) and you can't have the charger plugged while you listen to music
Just as a reminder it was the EU who ended the BS of every company having a stupid proprietary charger.
Re: The 19th Century plug that's still being used
#4It's not quite 19th c. technology. It was .25 inches, but it had only two conductors, the tip, and the ring, separated by an insulator. Hence the "tip" and "ring" nomenclature for analog telephone wiring. Analog phone technology is remarkably back-compatible. You can use an 80 year old phone today. Not many, if any technology products could claim that level of compatibility.
But, so what? Analog phones are going away. They just lasted longer than most other technologies. So should codecs and amps inside of mobile devices. Those things belong with the transducer, so they can be tuned to the characteristics of the transducer.
Re: The 19th Century plug that's still being used
#5And 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).
Re: The 19th Century plug that's still being used
#6How is USB-C working out as a connector, from the ruggedness standpoint? It has a huge number of pins (24) in a small space. How many insertion cycles can it survive in the real world? Is connector wearout going to limit phone life?
Re: The 19th Century plug that's still being used
#7It's not quite 19th c. technology. It was .25 inches, but it had only two conductors, the tip, and the ring, separated by an insulator. Hence the "tip" and "ring" nomenclature for analog telephone wiring. Analog phone technology is remarkably back-compatible. You can use an 80 year old phone today. Not many, if any technology products could claim that level of compatibility. But, so what? Analog phones are going away…
The original 1/4" phone plug for switchboard use had a ball tip, rather than a pointed one. It's almost compatible with modern 1/4" jacks, but the proper jack is a "long frame telephone jack". I use those with antique Teletype machines. Unlike 1/4" audio jacks, the ring is not a ground, and the shell is always insulated.
Re: The 19th Century plug that's still being used
#8"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…
> Just as a reminder it was the EU who ended the BS of every company having a stupid proprietary charger.
Did they? How did Apple get away with it?
Re: The 19th Century plug that's still being used
#9"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…
I just got a pair of Bose noise-canceling bluetooth headphones. They work great. I'm looking forward to doing away with the headphone jack.
Re: The 19th Century plug that's still being used
#10"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…
I agree with the bluetooth being inferior, I hate that the standard headphone jack is going away. If it isn't broken, don't fix it.
That said I've been told that the 3.5mm jack takes up a surprising amount of internal space, and that between freeing up that space and a few other tweaks, getting rid of the jack substantially boosts battery life. Still, I think it's not a great trade-off, now you have to babysit a new battery in your headphones, which probably won't last a full day of use.
On a personal note, anticipated lack of a standard headphone jack is one of the reasons I upgraded to a 6S recently, this way I'll have the best 3.5-mm phone Apple made for a while. If I do have to upgrade later on, I'll be strongly tempted to get an SE instead of a higher end phone, as long as it has a 3.5mm jack.