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Bluetooth Headphone Jacking: A Key to Your Phone [video]

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Re: Bluetooth Headphone Jacking: A Key to Your Phone [video]

#141

Post by gopher_space »

simpaticoder wrote: post #57
makeitdouble wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most frustrating part is when Apple dropped the jack we laughed at the "courage" bit, Apple's given reasons where already seen as bullshit, Samsung had their finger pointing moment. And it just went on, Apple weathered the critics, the other makers also dropped it, and at some point there was just nowhere to go for anyone still wanted a 3.5 jack with a decent phone.

I agree the loss of the 3.5mm jack is a short-sighted and poor decision. There is at least one mitigation, which is the ability to recover the jack through a USB-C DAC. Apple sells them for USD10. I have several, in the car and in my backpack. It's not a good solution though. In particular I find the USB-C port gets worn out pretty quickly. Its also easy to lose the dongle and of course it's more complicated to setup…

Get a set of wired headphones without a built-in cord. Then you can use any USB-C to 3.5 male cord like normal.

Re: Bluetooth Headphone Jacking: A Key to Your Phone [video]

#142

Post by makeitdouble »

wat10000 wrote: post #122
Rygian wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the figured sense that you describe. It reverses the logical suite of cause and effect. Instead of describing the true cause (Apple chooses to drop the jack) and the consequence (customers "don't care", which I believe is wrong), the conveyed message blames those without a choice: "customers don't care, therefore we should drop the jack". The survey that you link is built on the premise that "you can pic…

Why would Apple dropping the jack cause other phone makers to drop it, if their customers still want it? 1. Apple drops the headphone jack. 2. ??? 3. Google Pixels don't have a headphone jack. What is the ??? if not "few customers care"?

"few customers care" is not the democratic ideal you make it sound to be.

It's the same as glued batteries, unrepairable phones. Few customers making it an absolute criteria for their phone choice still doesn't make mean the majority sees it as a positive thing nor they agree. At the time on the android side, only Pixel and Samsung's lines were serious about the camera or international NFC support, moving to other phones just for the jack came with huge compromises that had nothing to do with the jack itself.

Re: Bluetooth Headphone Jacking: A Key to Your Phone [video]

#143

Post by simpaticoder »

gopher_space wrote: post #141
simpaticoder wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree the loss of the 3.5mm jack is a short-sighted and poor decision. There is at least one mitigation, which is the ability to recover the jack through a USB-C DAC. Apple sells them for USD10. I have several, in the car and in my backpack. It's not a good solution though. In particular I find the USB-C port gets worn out pretty quickly. Its also easy to lose the dongle and of course it's more complicated to setup…

Get a set of wired headphones without a built-in cord. Then you can use any USB-C to 3.5 male cord like normal.

You can't use a passive cable for this - there may be a USB-to-audio standard, but it's not widely implemented anymore. You need a DAC.

Re: Bluetooth Headphone Jacking: A Key to Your Phone [video]

#144

Post by CGMthrowaway »

miduil wrote: post #13

Glad this submission is finally receiving upvotes. This was just shown at the 39C3 in Hamburg, few days back. Common (unpached) Bluetooth headsets using Airoha's SoCs can be completely taken over by any unauthenticated bystander with a Linux laptop. (CVE-2025-20700, CVE-2025-20701, CVE-2025-20702) This includes firmware dumps, user preferences, Bluetooth Classic session keys, current playing track, ... > Examples of…

Kamala Harris, citing seemingly classified intelligence, famously raised the alarm on Bluetooth earphones to Stephen Colbert:

“I know I've been teased about this, but I like these kinds of earpods that have the thing [pointing to the wire] because I served on the Senate Intelligence Committee. I have been in classified briefings, and I'm telling you, don't be on the train using your earpods thinking somebody can't listen to your conversation.”

https://www.aol.com/kamala-harris-warns-against-wireless-150...

Re: Bluetooth Headphone Jacking: A Key to Your Phone [video]

#145

Post by Namidairo »

amelius wrote: post #73
dijit wrote: post #3

And everyone got mad at OpenBSD for refusing to develop bluetooth. It’s a messy standard and we shouldn’t be surprised that the race to the bottom has left some major gaps.. though Sony WH1000’s are premium tier hardware and they have no real excuses.. I always wondered how people could justify the growth of the bluetooth headphone market in such a way.. Everyone seems to use bluetooth headphones exclusively (in Swed…

Honestly, can't we just ditch BT and send audio over WiFi? One thing less to worry about.

Qualcomm kind of does this with their XPAN extension, sends the audio over local network. I believe it's mostly a proprietary solution though, so I haven't seen any serious attempts to re-implement it yet.

Re: Bluetooth Headphone Jacking: A Key to Your Phone [video]

#146

Post by wat10000 »

immibis wrote: post #138
wat10000 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are these popular models? Pretty sure they aren’t. So there you go: people have a choice, and they largely choose not to get a headphone jack.

Almost like there were at least three other features more important. The most important letters in English are E, T and A. I'm sure you won't notice if we remove H from all keyboards, right? After all, the survey says it's not in the top three. And given a choice between a keyboard without E and one without H, nobody buys the one without H, proving they really don't need the H.

Why wouldn’t some keyboard manufacturer realize that a lot of people actually do need all of the letters, sell a keyboard with all of them, and make bank?

This theory that people want headphone jacks and phone makers won’t provide them makes no sense. It requires phone makers to be so cost conscious that they’ll remove a desirable feature to save a few cents, yet simultaneously so clueless that they won’t take advantage of consumer preferences to beat their competition. This sort of thing happens with individual companies, but not with every single company in a competitive market with many competitors.

I don’t know why people can’t just accept that they have a minority preference. There’s nothing wrong with that. I’m sure it’s far from your only one (I have plenty of my own, just not this one). There’s nothing wrong with general complaints that the market doesn’t cater to your minority preference. But arguing that it’s actually the majority, when it plainly isn’t, it just weird.

Re: Bluetooth Headphone Jacking: A Key to Your Phone [video]

#147

Post by wat10000 »

makeitdouble wrote: post #142
wat10000 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would Apple dropping the jack cause other phone makers to drop it, if their customers still want it? 1. Apple drops the headphone jack. 2. ??? 3. Google Pixels don't have a headphone jack. What is the ??? if not "few customers care"?

"few customers care" is not the democratic ideal you make it sound to be. It's the same as glued batteries, unrepairable phones. Few customers making it an absolute criteria for their phone choice still doesn't make mean the majority sees it as a positive thing nor they agree. At the time on the android side, only Pixel and Samsung's lines were serious about the camera or international NFC support, moving to other ph…

It’s a competitive market. If removable batteries mattered to a lot of people, some company would take advantage of that to make a lot of money.

Feature combinations aren’t immutable facts of nature. Manufacturers make a conscious choice about what to include. If a good camera and international NFC combined with a headphone jack would attract a lot of buyers, don’t you think Samsung or Google would make a phone like that to better compete?

It’s nothing to do with “democratic ideal.” It’s about understanding that companies want to make money and if a feature is desirable, they will leverage that in their quest to make money. Some may fail to understand what their customers want, but all of them? It’s not plausible.

Re: Bluetooth Headphone Jacking: A Key to Your Phone [video]

#148

Post by chmod775 »

ricardobeat wrote: post #61
makeitdouble wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most frustrating part is when Apple dropped the jack we laughed at the "courage" bit, Apple's given reasons where already seen as bullshit, Samsung had their finger pointing moment. And it just went on, Apple weathered the critics, the other makers also dropped it, and at some point there was just nowhere to go for anyone still wanted a 3.5 jack with a decent phone.

The jacks are a physical impediment for slim phones. An adapter costs $3 if you still want it. It’s not a bad trade.

Phones are already way slimmer than they should be. Now we have top-heavy "slim" phones with huge bulges for cameras*, 50% less battery life, reduced performance because of thermal issues, glued together in favor of screws and rubber seals, wasting weight and space on additional strengthening and internal routing.

Just because people think it looks neater than the more practical alternative.

The S2 had an amazing form factor - also with a small bulge, but at the bottom. It's a thousand times nicer to hold and carry than pretty much anything that came after. The S5 was fine too (waterproof AND you could pop open the back to swap the battery, if you can believe it!)

It's silly how much more ergonomic phones feel that don't have to compensate for an extra half millimeter.

* Many phones had this, but it's getting really bad now. Older phones typically also had the lens recessed to protect it, with a slim border around it. No more space for that now.

Re: Bluetooth Headphone Jacking: A Key to Your Phone [video]

#149

Post by cloudfudge »

barbazoo wrote: post #80
p0w3n3d wrote: post #4

Meanwhile all the phones dropping jack because Apple started it. Official reason is to "waterproof phones"

I just don’t know a single real person that still wants to use wired earphones with their phone. To me it’s the same as complaining that an artist only has CDs, not records.

The security, performance, usability and reliability of wired headphones will always be superior to wireless. There is just no substitute for the simplicity of an uninterrupted piece of copper carrying an analog signal. The convenience of having no wires simply isn't worth the downgrade in these other aspects.
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