14 ms·

I'm always blown away out how little cell phone manufacturers seem to listen to customer feedback. I don't care about my phone being paper thin. I'd guess most

• crispyambulance 10y ago
  Why don't you plug your nice headphones/headset into the computer and pair your phone bluetooth to the computer? That way you can listen to audio from your phone and your computer without swapping jacks.
  • robin_reala 10y ago
    Great, until I use my Playstation Vita to play a game on my commute home. Then open my computer at home to watch a video. Or maybe plug my headphones into the PS4 pad. I’ve got 5 different systems I regularly plug my headphones into.
  • linker3000 10y ago
    I got my Bluetooth headset to pair and work with my laptop (2015 Dell) and Windows 8.1 for all of an evening before the audio stream quit. After around 4hr of troubleshooting and a few subsequent sessions in the office, gave up. That was about 6 months ago. I've reverted to a USB wired headset.
    • wlesieutre 10y ago
      I have a bluetooth speaker and bluetooth earbuds. Both worked fine under Android 4.4, now both stutter under Android 6. It's too bad, especially since the SRS-X3 was not a cheap purchase. And NFC speaker pairing is all sorts of cool. But music that stutters constantly? The crappiest $2.50 earbuds you can find make for better listening than that.
      • voltagex_ 10y ago
        Both my Nexus 4 and 5 stuttered constantly when paired with a Hyundai i30's head deck. I'm of the opinion that the Android bluetooth stack is not the greatest thing ever... Less problems with CyanogenMod 12 and 13's stack, though.
  • mhurron 10y ago
    I plug my phone into my car. It as 3.5" jack and no bluetooth. I don't have to buy yet another device to plug into the jack to provide a bluetooth interface.
    • mavhc 10y ago
      I installed a $10 a2dp to 3.5mm device, powered by usb into my car, works quite well. Better than bluetooth built into cars which seem to start playing music instead of the podcast I've been listening to.
  • Wilya 10y ago
    I think you are overestimating how functional real world bluetooth is...
  • throwanem 10y ago
    It'd be great if device and OS developers made that a thing you could do!
• voodootrucker 10y ago
  They don't listen to their customers because there is tremendous financial pressure to close "the analog hole". Once data has to be transmitted wirelessly, there is a much better chance that you will do it in ways that can't be pirated, but can be controlled, monitored, and profited from.
  • sosuke 10y ago
    I know you're right but at the same time I can't remember the last time I had to use the analog hole to save some kind of media.
  • dloose 10y ago
    Is the "analog hole" still an issue for music, now that all-you-can-eat streaming services have become the norm? Is anyone using their 3.5mm jack to capture a Spotify stream?
    • 13years 10y ago
      Possibly, considering that the industry historically lagged significantly behind current reality when it comes to business practices and mindset.
    • teh_klev 10y ago
      Every day I plug my phone (or tablet) into my kitchen DAB radio's auxiliary socket to listen to stuff I play on these devices whilst cooking, sitting round the table chatting with friends or just staring out the window watching the birds in my garden. I guess for me it's less about "capturing" streams but that every audio/amp device in my house, that's attached to speakers, has a line-in cable with 3.5mm jack on the end. Not having an analogue hole would be a right royal pain in the arse. [edited to fix my english]
    • imgabe 10y ago
      I download songs to Spotify with premium and use the 3.5mm jack to plug it into the aux jack in my car. I guess a lot of newer cars have bluetooth pairing, but mine doesn't.
• CJefferson 10y ago
  The problem is that explicit customer feedback doesn't line up with reality. Many companies have tried making slightly thicker phones with bigger batteries (which many people claim is what they want), no-one buys them. Companies make thinner phones, lots of them get sold. These companies (mostly) aren't idiots, they do huge amounts of measurements on what people say they want to buy, and what they actually buy.
  • cmurphycode 10y ago
    The main reason I bought my Galaxy S7 is because they made it thicker and with a bigger battery than the S6.
    • tehrei 10y ago
      That is incorrect, citizen. The S7 has always been thinner than the S6. Source: I am a Minitrue officer.
    • rplst8 10y ago
      Same reason I went with the Droid Turbo over other choices.
    • Fuxy 10y ago
      I went for the Samsung Galaxy Note for the same reason. I don't know about any other customers but I for one would buy a long battery life phone in a heartbeat regardless how thick it may be.
      • t3ra 10y ago
        I have thick amzer case on my note to keep it safe. Who cares about paper thin phones!? Not like the phone is always in my pocket ; but actually thicker phones are usually better to grip on to
      • seanp2k2 10y ago
        Same with the iPhone 6 Plus. I did want a bigger screen, but the battery was the main draw for me. Paper thin phones never appealed to me. I used to use an HTC Apache (Verizon XV6700) with a bulge battery. That thing was over an inch thick and it barely lasted a whole day, but it still fit easily into the front pocket of jeans. Phones were rugged enough back then to not require cases. I think manufacturers realize this more than we give them credit for and consider cases a personalization option, but IMO the best phone design would be a back-plate-less design where the case provides some of the structure as well. This would allow a choice: thin backplate only if you want that, or more protection without tons of thickness, or bigger battery as part of the case without some hacky battery-charging-the-other-battery-and-blocking-the-charging-port ugly super thick case like we've seen for e.g. iPhones.
• dloose 10y ago
  > I'm always blown away out how little cell phone manufacturers seem to listen to customer feedback. I don't care about my phone being paper thin. I'd guess most people don't either. We can only guess based on what we hear. Cell phone manufacturers have a lot more data than we do and they keep going for thinness, so I have to imagine there's a demand for it. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that most consumers prefer battery life to thinness in surveys and polls but actually wind up buying the thinner phone when presented with actual hardware. Thinness is easy to see. If you're comparing phones in a Best Buy, the thinner one might feel more modern and impressive. Battery life is a hard feature to demo in that environment. In other words, maybe the average person only wants battery life in the abstract, but opts for thinness when making a purchase.
  • fefifofu 10y ago
    I remember this being one of the things that caught Blackberry by surprise. BB had better battery life and functionality etc, so BB co-CEOs never thought the iPhone would catch on.
    • digi_owl 10y ago
      Then again, the iPhone had years of iPod install base to bootstrap from. People in part bought it because it was an iPod with a mobile radio attached. The tech press had been hammering Apple for years to get into the phone market, as Nokia etc was eating their lunch with MP3 playing featurephones (at least in Europe). And i seem to recall the stated surprise for BB was how much of the iPhone was battery.
  • Laforet 10y ago
    I have worked in tech retail and the customer's needs are actually quite flexible with a bit of marketing. In any case the thinner and bigger trend seems to have ran its course: With the current UX design in iOS and Android, phones with screens larger than 5in are uncomfortable to a lot of average people and thus manufacturers can no longer cheat the thickness game by making the screen and chassis bigger.
  • digi_owl 10y ago
• rkangel 10y ago
  In this case (as in many others) the standard desire of a Hacker New user may well not line up with what the rest of the population (consciously or unconsciously) desires. And as others have pointed out, these manufacturers will have data on what actually sells.
• mavhc 10y ago
  Can't your headphones be paired with multiple devices? On the UI side just need the OS to present local bluetooth devices as output options, just like they switch to usb/hdmi/internal/headphones
  • tracker1 10y ago
    Most bluetooth headsets that I've tried really only pair with one device at a time, and it can be cumbersome to impractical to actually switch with any convenience.
• gmazza 10y ago
  what an annoying hassle it would be to have to pair and unpair the same bluetooth headphones between two devices There are actually bluetooth headsets that can be paired to two audio sources at the same time [1] and switch between sources automatically. That said, such headsets are pretty rare and command a surprising premium for what looks like a purely software feature. [1] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Jabra-Easygo-Bluetooth-Headset-colore/dp/B00439DUXS https://www.amazon.co.uk/Jabra-Easygo-Bluetooth-Headset-colo...
  • kwhitefoot 10y ago
    I don't think they are that rare or expensive so long as you don't insist on hi-fi brand names. My Awei earbuds pair with two devices and they cost under NOK 150 (about USD 18) including shipping from China to Norway. They are not as good as my wired Sennheiser HD 595s but are plenty good enough for casual listening while on the move or working, considerably more portable, and about a tenth of the price!
• steffan 10y ago
  > I don't care about my phone being paper thin. I'd guess most people don't either. Sales seem to prove otherwise > Can you imagine what an annoying hassle it would be to have to pair and unpair the same bluetooth headphones between two devices like that? Bose seems to have come with a solution to avoid un-pairing and re-pairing: https://www.bose.com/en_us/products/headphones/over_ear_headphones/quietcomfort-35-wireless.html https://www.bose.com/en_us/products/headphones/over_ear_head... > I don't want to have to get new ones, and I don't want to have to carry around a stupid lightning adaptor for them Well, you can always not upgrade, or purchase a phone that has a 3.5mm jack. If enough people feel the same, manufacturers will continue to produce compatible products. I suspect that (outside of HN), you're in the minority, however.
  • deleted 10y ago
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  • drdeadringer 10y ago
    Do you expect "everyone" to buy $350 headphones, or for headphones with the same capability to be viably cheaper in price?
    • chansecodina 10y ago
      My $20 totally off-brand bluetooth headphones support multi-pairing. Does it always work 100%? No. Do I think cheap multi-pairing capable headphones will get a lot better as it becomes more important? Definitely.
      • teaneedz 10y ago
        How often does it need to be recharged? Will it last a whole day at the beach?
      • JadeNB 10y ago
        > My $20 totally off-brand bluetooth headphones support multi-pairing. What do you use? I also buy $20 totally off-brand Bluetooth headphones (I wear them while exercising, and sweat ruins them every few months), and mine don't have this feature, which I would love.
• graedus 10y ago
  > I'd be paranoid it's not connected to the right device and suddenly I'm blasting music to the people in my office. This regularly happens to people who sit near me and use bluetooth headphones. It is pretty awkward when they are listening to pick-up artist tutorials on Youtube.
• pkulak 10y ago
  I love my bluetooth headphones at work. Sure, about once a year my co-workers get subjected to Mars Volta for about 3 seconds, but I also don't have a cord getting stuck on everything and keeping me literally tethered to my desk. An entire port just for audio out seems silly to me. But, I do seem to be in the vast minority here. haha
• justicezyx 10y ago
  I would like to point out that any individual's opinion is mostly likely just for him/herself. He/she might be more tech-savvy, or knows more than average consumers, but that does not translate to be more representative. For example, I absolutely love thinner phones. I cannot revert to thicker ones after each time I switched to thinner ones. I guess my experience aligns with the majority of the consumers, but I do not know. I totally respect Apple's (or any smart phone manufacture) decision, they certainly know much more than me on how to cater millions and billions consumers.
• projct 10y ago
  I don't have to un-pair and re-pair my LG Tone BT headphones. It's paired to my laptop and my phone all the time
• wallacoloo 10y ago
  Regarding the pairing, there ARE headphones out on the market that support being paired to two devices (maybe some support more). I think this is specifically to address your concerns, and it seemed to be a pretty common feature in any $50+ Bluetooth headphone I looked at the other day while shopping.
• Johnny555 10y ago
  "...I'll then see a little video or something has been sent to me by a friend on my phone. I unplug the headphones from my macbook, plug them into my phone, watch the video..." Why don't you just watch the video on your laptop? Even with a simple 3.5mm plug, moving the headphones over sounds like a lot of work for something that you can just do on the laptop. Even if your friends send you an SMS with the video, there are plenty of ways to get an SMS on your laptop.
  • greyboy 10y ago
    > Often I'm sitting at work with my headphones plugged into my computer to listen to music... Perhaps the videos aren't reachable via his work network, or the OP doesn't want his "work" to know what's being viewed at the office? I'm sure there are other reasons to use a cell network (which is the assumption).
• kevincox 10y ago
  > Often I'm sitting at work with my headphones plugged into my computer to listen to music. I'll then see a little video or something has been sent to me by a friend on my phone. I unplug the headphones from my macbook, plug them into my phone, watch the video, then plug my headphones back into my macbook. Simple. For this I just connect my phone to my computer so that all audio comes out of my laptop.
• teaneedz 10y ago
  This. Exactly my take too. Manufacturers are not as tuned in to user feedback as most might think. Many think they know better. No one worth any chops in UX though sees the removal of the audio jack as good. I've read and heard all the arguments in favor of removing the 3.5mm audio jack. Everyone ignores the fundamentals of good UX principles though. Too many companies have a very narrow UX scope though.
• eeeeeeeeeeeee 10y ago
  Completely agree. It feels like Apple is now focusing their features entirely on marketing alone -- "look how small it is!" -- instead of how people actually use their devices.
  • zimpenfish 10y ago
    I find it incredible that you think a company with an installed base of hundreds of millions of devices and a ludicrously high customer satisfaction rating somehow ignore how people actually use their devices in favour of marketing.
• mordant 10y ago
  Modern Bluetooth headphones, like my Sennheiser Momentum 2.0 Wireless ones, pair and connect to multiple devices at the same time. And should I exhaust their (measured, actual) 22-hour battery life, they can be used in wired mode, as well. Apple earbuds aren't 'nice' headphones.
• agret 10y ago
  It's the same with ultrabook manufacturers killing the ethernet port :(
  • Vexs 10y ago
    Difference is that there's huge variance in laptops, but phones are all largely similar, and build off each other. If they start swapping off 3.5, it's gone. You can still get ultrabooks with fold-out Ethernet jacks, which while a little flimsy, are still there.