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

fastcompany.com

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

#481

Post by TeMPOraL »

laurentl wrote: post #450
simonh wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>why is that? Are they too old? Latency. When you're making music and interacting with it directly, you can't afford any noticeable latency. When you're passively listening to it, that doesn't really matter. For phone/tablet users the main place this matters is games, due to their interactive nature.

Don’t forget video. Bluetooth adds latency, and “true wireless” (no cable between the earbuds) adds another layer of latency as the signal has to be sent from one earbud to the other. Noticeable enough that you have to manually add delay between the video and audio tracks, if your player allows it.

Exactly. I bought Bluetooth headphones to listen to music at work & home, and it was all fine... until I decided to watch some TV shows in my free time. It was then that I realized I have 0.5 - 1.5s lag in audio (growing with time), which made movies unwatchable. Very quickly I bought two pairs of wired headphones instead.

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

#482

Post by TeMPOraL »

williamdclt wrote: post #477
simonh wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>why is that? Are they too old? Latency. When you're making music and interacting with it directly, you can't afford any noticeable latency. When you're passively listening to it, that doesn't really matter. For phone/tablet users the main place this matters is games, due to their interactive nature.

Reliability, too. I don't trust bluetooth at all . And price: a jack is dumb tech and cheap (cheap anough that I always had about 10 extra jacks of all kinds with me when I was doing a gig). But to be fair, wireless transmitters/receivers do exist for musicians. They don't use bluetooth ofc, but that means that the latency can be bearable with wireless. It's made for live playing though (freedom of movement), no poin…

Yup. It's not the radio that causes the latency, but the software stack. You absolutely can make low-latency and just-works wireless solution for musicians, but it's name will not be Bluetooth.

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

#484

Post by C1sc0cat »

sacado2 wrote: post #438
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'm not an eldery, and I prefer a jack socket. I just don't get the benefit of bluetooth in most situations. Jacks are more reliable and definitely plug-and-play. Unless it has a physical failure, your jack socket always just works. As you state it, bluetooth requires you to "Turn on Bluetooth on your phone, then turn on your headphones, then hold down the button to pair, etc", for no benefit. Oh, and now you need ba…

And they don't have some of the audio problems the blue tooth and USB have.

I am having a lot of trouble with my works laptop /docking station using usb for skype - To the point where I am going to try brining in a real sound card and use one of my Shure dynamic mics with a 1/4 inch jack

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

#485

Post by superflyguy »

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…

Fragmentation! Lol! The only people who seem to care about "Android fragmentation" are lonely Apple fanbois. It makes no difference to Android users as the version of Android you run and the apps you can install/websites you browse are entirely unconnected.

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

#486

Post by superflyguy »

threeseed wrote: post #394
einr wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were removed only when few people used them because there was a better alternative. Many, many people use headphones with 3,5 mm plugs and it is not at all clear that the alternative is better.

Well it is pretty clear that the alternative is at least satisfactory. Because iPhone sales aren't dropping because of the headphone jack and people seem to be enjoying Bluetooth headphones given how popular those are.

What's your source for the reason iPhone sales are dropping?

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

#487

Post by [deleted] »

dwighttk wrote: post #466
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why, I'm assuming, the author added the last bit, which sounds like it covers your exact experience: every time I have had to use wired earphones since have been worse than if I had my AirPods on me

I’m simply countering the absurd blanket statement “...no human’s life is measurably better...” Mine is. The statement is false.

[deleted]

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

#488

Post by TeMPOraL »

muse900 wrote: post #414
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…

Personally I feel like makers saw an opportunity on 1) boost sales on new headphones 2) get rid of the cable hanging around. I can understand and feel your fathers frustration trying to use wireless headphones, on the other side if they never ever get rid of the headphone jack then users are going to end up never getting trained on how to use wireless headphones. Generally with leaps in tech there are leaps in reduce…

> I can understand and feel your fathers frustration trying to use wireless headphones, on the other side if they never ever get rid of the headphone jack then users are going to end up never getting trained on how to use wireless headphones.

But why do you want to get rid of the headphone jack? For iPhone, this is a direct downgrade, loss of very useful functionality. That's why people are complaining; while companies seem to like trading utility for fashion all the time, this case was unprecedently blatant.

> Also at the end of the day I think there are adaptors that convert the jack into whatever port your phone has.

That's the trick though. Someone's gonna make money on the adapters :). Also, I start to think this was a move meant to "disrupt" the headphones market. Suddenly the perfectly good headphones no longer work for a big and rich chunk of people, and out come new wireless options. The conspiracist in me wonders whether people responsible for this decision have any ties to people selling AirPods and their alternatives :).

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

#489

Post by kazen44 »

cm2187 wrote: post #472

One thing I don't understand is that if the port size is really a problem, why don't the big tech companies agree on a smaller format? The same applies to ethernet. Pretty much all laptops have dropped the ethernet port, mostly because it too bulky for modern formats. Why can't they simply agree on another socket?

in ethernet's case, having another connector would be useless because all the other devices still use good old rj45.

RJ45 connectors are in terms of their size, already not that large considering the size of the cable they deal with. (CAT cable is far larger then a 3.5mm headphone cable).

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

#490

Post by HappyFapMachine »

sacado2 wrote: post #438
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'm not an eldery, and I prefer a jack socket. I just don't get the benefit of bluetooth in most situations. Jacks are more reliable and definitely plug-and-play. Unless it has a physical failure, your jack socket always just works. As you state it, bluetooth requires you to "Turn on Bluetooth on your phone, then turn on your headphones, then hold down the button to pair, etc", for no benefit. Oh, and now you need ba…

Eeehhh...wireless is a usual thing in the music industry, just not via Bluetooth.
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