Taking the headphone jack off phones is user-hostile and stupid • Hacker News Board

Re: Taking the headphone jack off phones is user-hostile and stupid

#171

Post by kalleboo » Wed, Jun 22, 2016, 4:30 PM UTC

prof_hobart wrote: post #25

rufius wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet I've got three pair of $300 headphones in my house between my wife and I, two of which are 6+ years old. If you take care of high quality headphones they will last quite along time. Wire wears out? Replace it. Ear pads lost their shape? Replace them. So yaaaay dongles? Which that's even more fun because if I'm listening music for any length of time, there's a portable amp in between the phone and my headphone…

>Wire wears out? Replace it. Is there any reason why a replacement wire with a lightning connection on one end wouldn't be possible?

> Is there any reason why a replacement wire with a lightning connection on one end wouldn't be possible?

Good luck getting "piece of replacement wire" approved by the MFi program. Apple will only let you sell a complete device (because otherwise someone could just buy lots of these replacement wires and bypass their licensing program)

Re: Taking the headphone jack off phones is user-hostile and stupid

#172

Post by SloopJon » Wed, Jun 22, 2016, 4:32 PM UTC

jccc wrote: post #102

SloopJon wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this is amazing apologism, even for Gruber. "And in five years we’ll look at analog headphone jacks the way we look at all the other legacy ports we’ve abandoned." In five years, there are going to a lot of crappy Lightning earbuds in drawers and landfills.

> Maybe now is the wrong time, and Apple is making a mistake. I don’t know. > Patel misses the bigger problem. It’s not enforcement of DRM on audio playback. It’s enforcement of the MFi Program for certifying hardware that uses the Lightning port. Right now any headphone maker in the world can make any headphones they want for the standard jack. Not so with the Lightning port. > Presumably Apple’s Lightning earbuds w…

Gruber practically begs the question by assuming that 3.5mm is a legacy port in need of replacement, lumping it together with other short-lived artifacts of the PC era like VGA, ADB, and the 30-pin dock connector.

As for quotes, cherry picked or otherwise, here are some that jump out:

> But I say at some point [3.5mm] will go away

> Apple has proven to be very good at timing the removal of established legacy ports.

> If it weren’t for Apple we’d probably still be using computers with VGA and serial ports.

> surely removing the deep headphone socket can only leave more room for a larger battery

> in five years we’ll look at analog headphone jacks the way we look at all the other legacy ports we’ve abandoned.

Re: Taking the headphone jack off phones is user-hostile and stupid

#173

Post by Grishnakh » Wed, Jun 22, 2016, 4:37 PM UTC

Godel_unicode wrote: post #141

rayiner wrote: post #64

I'm looking forward to getting rid of the headphone jack. I'm looking forward to getting a MacBook Pro with the MacBook low-travel keyboard. I'd even be fine with a MacBook Pro with a single USB-C port! One thing Apple gets is that you don't need to constrain your design to appease small minorities of users. I bet 99.9% of people only ever plug in the stock earbuds or a pair of Beats they bought at the Apple Store. S…

Have you never been on an airplane? Bose on virtually every head, because their noise cancelling is the best (and protected by patent). Look at all the work Bose and Beats put in to fighting each other for endorsement and "official headphones of..." deals. This is about giving Beats a leg up on Bose, or at least stealing revenue in licensing or dongles.

I have no problem with that. If those Bose users really value their Bose headphones so much, then they won't buy a new iPhone that doesn't work with them.

Apple only gets away with this behavior because countless sheep happily pay them for it.

Re: Taking the headphone jack off phones is user-hostile and stupid

#174

Post by markbao » Wed, Jun 22, 2016, 4:39 PM UTC

riprowan wrote: post #170

markbao wrote: post #108

Four opinions, going off of this article and partly in response to Gruber's[0]: 1. There was a functional reason that CDs and floppies went out of style: low capacity and the Internet. What’s the functional reason to get rid of analog headphones? It’s not quality – analog headphones have excellent sound quality, and 99% of people won’t be able to tell the difference with ‘digital’ sound, right? 2. So what happens if…

> What’s the functional reason to get rid of analog headphones? It’s not quality – analog headphones have excellent sound quality, and 99% of people won’t be able to tell the difference with ‘digital’ sound, right? You have it backward - analog headphones are superior, generally speaking. The signal chain is: digital source > D/A converter > amplifier > transducer (speaker / headphone) "Digital headphones" simply mov…

Wow, that's super interesting. I learned something today, thanks!

Yes, I worry even more about Bluetooth. But I guess 80% of people won't be able to tell the difference (or care), so I don't know.

Re: Taking the headphone jack off phones is user-hostile and stupid

#175

Post by treehau5 » Wed, Jun 22, 2016, 4:40 PM UTC

smt88 wrote: post #91

gambiting wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least you get latest updates, unlike phones from literally any other manufacturer. If it's not the top-range model then you can consider yourself lucky to get even one update before the phone is completely forgotten.

Not true of Nexus and some HTC devices. Moto phones used to be the same way, but I'm not sure what Lenovo's doing with that brand. My original Moto X was my favorite phone ever. Android has a lot of choice, but that also means extra work to find the phone that works for you. I won't even consider a phone that isn't "vanilla" Android and backed by a guarantee of upgrades (so basically I'm stuck on Nexus).

Sounds like a good place to be stuck at.

Re: Taking the headphone jack off phones is user-hostile and stupid

#176

Post by wlesieutre » Wed, Jun 22, 2016, 4:43 PM UTC

dsr_ wrote: post #156

wlesieutre wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can do that with USB2 as well, but hardly anyone does, because they aren't forced to do so. You can plug a USB2 DAC into your phone? A ton of people who own good headphones for their computer use a USB sound device instead of the motherboard's built-in audio. But today, similarly good headphones for mobile phones do not exist because phones can't drive them. This may not be a priority for a lot of people yet, b…

Yes, you can plug a USB2 DAC into your phone. There's a list of working configs here: http://www.head-fi.org/t/595071/android-phones-and-usb-dacs/... and of course lots of discussion.

Huh, I hadn't seen that before. Still, I have to imagine if you made better audio hardware a built-in feature instead of something that requires dangling a big USB2 device off of your phone, you're going to get a lot more interest from users.

Re: Taking the headphone jack off phones is user-hostile and stupid

#177

Post by kale » Wed, Jun 22, 2016, 4:44 PM UTC

mrob wrote: post #138

smt88 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> look at all the other legacy ports we’ve abandoned I miss a lot of those ports. A lot of people do. Fumbling around the office for an Apple-compatible video cable is a relatively frequent event, in my experience.

I still have an old fashioned parallel port (via PCI card) on my PC, because there's no other option for convenient and low-latency GPIO. And I don't remember old fashioned serial ports needing special drivers that would brick unapproved hardware, like some modern FTDI USB serial adaptors did. "Legacy" ports are simple and reliable. Let's not abandon the simple and reliable 3.5mm headphone port.

This is a great point. I am gearing up to use a Raspberry Pi in a project for GPIO. It doesn't have to be low-powered necessarily, but the abandonment of the parallel port means that getting GPIO on a PC is more difficult.

Re: Taking the headphone jack off phones is user-hostile and stupid

#178

Post by deelowe » Wed, Jun 22, 2016, 4:48 PM UTC

Grishnakh wrote: post #166

deelowe wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When an industry leader makes decisions that are anti-consumer, other members in the industry have a duty to speak up. Whether we support Apple or not as a consumer is irrelevant. We also don't have to use IE as a browser, windows as an OS, cisco devices for networking, or anything else. That doesn't mean we won't take issue when a market leader makes a decision that will take the industry in a bad direction. Just li…

You have to put your money where your mouth is. If you "call foul" on Apple, but continue sending them your money for their new iPhone sans headphone jack, then you're a hypocrite and Apple has no incentive to listen to your complaints. IE (6 mainly, that was what everyone was complaining about the most) finally failed not because of people "calling foul" on it, it failed because people abandoned the thing and used a…

> "Calling foul" on an industry leader is useless, unless you're trying to convince people to abandon that leader and switch to an alternative.

This is exactly what these discussions are about.

Re: Taking the headphone jack off phones is user-hostile and stupid

#179

Post by jccc » Wed, Jun 22, 2016, 4:50 PM UTC

doktrin wrote: post #163

jccc wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, pretty much never: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7013002

As mentioned, I'm not a regular reader of his, so the fact that I've somehow missed 3 pieces of his published 3+ years ago shouldn't come as much of a surprise. Would you feel less defensive if I just called him a biased partisan instead of using an absolute-sounding word like "ever"?

I think Gruber has become more and more captured by the beat he covers. I really hate it when he uses language only Apple pitch-folk use, like "with iPhone" or "on iPad." I think he's lost more of his objectivity than perhaps he himself realizes.

What I object to is the instant dismissal of every Gruber article by people who can't see nuance but only black and white. It's simply not true that he is as partisan and in-the-tank for Apple as many people here think he is.

And the point is that this degrades our ability to have meaningful discussion.

> Would you feel less defensive [...]

Making assumptions about people's biases is exactly my objection about the reflex reaction many HN commenters have toward Gruber.

Re: Taking the headphone jack off phones is user-hostile and stupid

#180

Post by tzs » Wed, Jun 22, 2016, 4:53 PM UTC

riprowan wrote: post #170

markbao wrote: post #108

Four opinions, going off of this article and partly in response to Gruber's[0]: 1. There was a functional reason that CDs and floppies went out of style: low capacity and the Internet. What’s the functional reason to get rid of analog headphones? It’s not quality – analog headphones have excellent sound quality, and 99% of people won’t be able to tell the difference with ‘digital’ sound, right? 2. So what happens if…

> What’s the functional reason to get rid of analog headphones? It’s not quality – analog headphones have excellent sound quality, and 99% of people won’t be able to tell the difference with ‘digital’ sound, right? You have it backward - analog headphones are superior, generally speaking. The signal chain is: digital source > D/A converter > amplifier > transducer (speaker / headphone) "Digital headphones" simply mov…

I think it makes more sense to put the D/A and amp in the headphones. If you want a particular quality level of sound, you need a particular quality level D/A, amp, and transducer. If these are all in the headphones then you choose your quality level by choosing your headphones. If you use your headphones with more than one device you get your chosen quality level on all of those devices.

With the D/A and amp in the device then your quality level can vary from device to device depending on the D/A and amp quality of those devices. If you want higher quality you not only need to get high quality headphones, you also have to get high quality devices.

Since device makers are going to tend to put their best D/As and amps on their higher end devices those who want higher audio quality will have to be higher end devices even if they don't need most of the features those higher end devices offer.

With the D/A and amp in the headphones they can buy phones and tablets and such that just do what they need and no more, which should save them some money (money which can go toward one set of headphones with a top notch D/A and amp).