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As an audio engineer, the headphone jack removal trend is an absolute travesty in an industry that utilizes AUX IN audio capabilities night after night. I'm of

• whipoodle 9y ago
  Yes, I've hated this change ever since I got my last iPhone. It's a pain and doesn't actually improve anything. I bought a bunch of those little dongles because I always lose them.
  • zippergz 9y ago
    I've also had some break. They are apparently pretty flimsy.
• legohead 9y ago
  I love my Pixel, but they just lost me as a customer for this reason. I'm not totally against removing the headphone jack, but it's not time yet -- the transition has been done poorly.
  • Washuu 9y ago
    Yep. All that was needed to get me to switch from my current iPhone 6/iOS was a current Google branded Android phone with a headphone jack. Now there is no reason for me to switch if I am going to be stuck buying a bunch of adapters.
  • gambiting 9y ago
    Yep, after being really impressed with the Pixel I knew Pixel 2 was going to be my next phone. Not anymore. Lack of the headphone jack is an absolute no-go for me.
    • codq 9y ago
      LG V30 is going to be the phone to get in 2017.
    • criddell 9y ago
      I think Google is okay with that. They know the phone isn't for everybody and fortunately there's a lot of choice in the Android world. If you want to run iOS apps, you are kind of stuck taking what Apple gives you and so I think the frustration with removal of the headphone jack there is warranted. I don't understand why anybody cares that Google is doing this. We have a lot of choice in the Android world.
      • gambiting 9y ago
        >>I don't understand why anybody cares that Google is doing this. Because I wanted to buy a Pixel, and now I won't because of a decision they made? I can of course go and buy something else, but I'm just voicing my displeasure with this.
      • sapphire_tomb 9y ago
        Because being forced to go to another Android device means you no longer get stock Android. That's why it's annoying. Having used every Nexus device from the One through to my current PixelXL, except for the Nexus 6 which I skipped in favour of the OnePlus One, I'm very annoyed I'm going to have to put up with : 1) Someone else's skin on Android 2) Someone else's schedule for supplying my phone with software updates, which from my experience with the OnePlus One, and with anecdotal evidence from everyone who hasn't had a Google device seems to be "sometime, if ever". That's why this is annoying to me at least.
        • criddell 9y ago
          Do you actually use the headphone jack? Most people don't and because of wireless headphones, I bet the number that do is getting smaller each year. I think the best you could say is that it's too early to get rid of the jack. It's definitely on track to get to the point where the value of it is less than the cost of it.
  • wpietri 9y ago
    Same. I have a variety of different things that use the headphone jack. A good pair of headphones, a couple of pairs of sound-isolating earbuds, a couple of pairs of open-ear headphones for running and walking. Because those are cheap, I can always keep a set where I need them. If I lose them or give them away, NBD. Taking away the headphone jack does not solve any problem I have. It would impose extra costs, both in conversion, and ongoing. And it gives me a worse experience overall.
  • robterrell 9y ago
    Why is it not time yet? When I lost my Pixel on a trip, I switched to an iPhone 7 + airpods and it's been great. I don't want to go back to wired headphones. Apple certainly seems to have nailed it. I can't imagine Google + HTC can't too.
    • eropple 9y ago
      It's great that they work well for you, but AirPods and the like don't work well for me at all. The audio quality drop is noticeable to me; interference is a perpetual problem even when I'm just walking down the street or walking through my apartment. Bluetooth on both Android and iOS is clunky and annoying (and it's not totally their fault, the devices and the protocol have something to say about that) that the physical act of jacking headphones into a device makes unambiguous and easy. I very much want to be able to take the headphones I use on my computer and just go rather than play the pairing/reconnect dance or whatever. If I don't care about what I'm listening to that much (podcasts etc.), wireless headphones are fine, don't get me wrong, but the usability across-the-board still sucks, while not in any way or at any level improving the experience for me. It is a strictly worse experience.
      • kpxxx3 9y ago
        > The audio quality drop is noticeable to me. I'm not going to get into an audiophile/golden ear flamewar, but I am always skeptical of this claim. Yes, SBC is not the world's best, but it supports bitrates upto 500 kbit/s. I'm not going to claim it is completely transparent, but 9 times out of 10 it is being used with shitty bluetooth headphones (where the alternative is shitty wired headphones)... at that point the quality of the headphones (wired or not) has far more to do with the audio quality than anything. And yes, I doubt most people will notice an audio quality drop in a pair of high quality Sennheisers going from wired to SBC (there isn't convincing evidence that aptX is much better than SBC). I wouldn't be too surprised about a conflicting experimental result, but skeptical for now. Anyway, most people are not hooking up high quality headphones to their phone, or they are purposefully using phones tuned for a particular lo-fi response (Beats)... who cares about whatever SBC does at 350 kbit/s at that point. Edit: And walking down the street is hardly a hi-fi listening environment.
  • modzu 9y ago
    its always time to buy replacements for all those things in capitalism!
• mcjiggerlog 9y ago
  I wonder how many customers they will lose because of this decision? What I don't actually understand is what exactly is gained by its removal? It doesn't seem to be a limiting factor in either thinness or waterproofing, which are the only two I can think of. I know I for one will never buy a phone with no headphone jack.
  • jamesrcole 9y ago
    I think (good implementations of) wireless headphones are the way of the future. What did they gain by removing floppy disk drives from laptops? Well, nothing per se, but it allowed them to make smaller laptops. Removing the jack will allow them to make phones thinner - if not now, in future iterations. And the thing with keeping features around is that it's not just a question of that one feature. It's cumulative over time. It's not just a question of removing the floppy drive, it's that AND the internal modem AND the CD drive, etc. The effects can add up.
    • mcjiggerlog 9y ago
      I mostly use my headphone jack to connect to stereo systems at home and in the car, so wireless headphones don't really help (nevermind how much more expensive they are and issues with sound).
      • jamesrcole 9y ago
        I understand that's the case now - I did say "the way of the future". I believe wireless will become the standard everywhere (for everyday use, at least). Any transition like that is going to be awkward at first. If people tried to wait for perfect conditions, progress would never be made.
        • dracodoc 9y ago
          Wifi didn't replace Ethernet after many years. Even wifi has become much more reliable, faster and cheaper, Ethernet is always several steps better. Pushing progress is not an excuse to force transition with cost and effort burden on customers.
• adewinter 9y ago
  If you work in 'the industry', surely it would not be a big deal to carry around an adapter a long with the other standard tools of your trade? I imagine it'll be about as inconvenient as carrying around ear buds.
  • limeblack 9y ago
    Having used the adapters they often break very easily and look like a complete mess. I have been through several on my iPhone.
  • eropple 9y ago
    It is much more likely that I misplace an adapter or break the connector or break the port than it is that I have a problem with a built-in 3.5mm jack. And, similarly, this is why we still use 1/4" jacks and XLR for real audio gear. We could make all this stuff smaller, we could make all this stuff digital, but it'd be more stuff that breaks on us.
  • rburhum 9y ago
    I lost my iOS headphones and the little white adapter so I can use the "old" plug. For the past two days I have been running in the gym without listening to absolutely nothing even though I have like 20 headphones in my closet. What a stupid idea.
  • binaryblitz 9y ago
    You can't charge your phone and listen to music through the dongle. This is the deal breaker for me.
    • kpxxx3 9y ago
      At least for the iphone, this is not true. I'm not going to argue that the dongle is elegant, but you can do it.
  • __sha3d2 9y ago
    "I'm sure you can put up with this massive inconvenience for a job and workflow I have no understanding of or context for but sure do have an opinion on" Found the SWE!
• rmwaite 9y ago
  man. you're in the audio industry. most people are not. I'm talking the VAST majority of people. So they should cater to you? I think it is not unreasonable to expect the professional to have whatever equipment they need - there are aux adapters for USB C and lightning. They are small. They are inexpensive.
  • bpicolo 9y ago
    Everybody with a pair of wired headphones would appreciate a standard jack, too.
    • redorb 9y ago
      I agree the fact that a huge majority of headphones are still sold with the standard head phone jack - means the move is too early. Last release they even mentioned the head phone jack as a feature (and it was).. I'll be sticking with my pixel xl
    • rmwaite 9y ago
      Then don't buy this phone. Headphones will soon all be either wireless or use USB C or lighting anyway. And if there are headphones that do not, use an adapter.
      • mattnewton 9y ago
        No one is going to move to usb c or lightning, it offers absolutely no intrinsic advantages over the 3.5 jack and isn’t going away from laptops, desktops, speakers and other electronics. You’ll just buy dongles or Bluetooth.
        • WillPostForFood 9y ago
          They end up having an intrinsic advantage when they are the only port present. I want the same jack for my headphones on my phone and laptop. I wish it was a 3.5mm, but since it isn't I'd prefer a lightning or USB C that did.
      • 9y ago
• NikolaeVarius 9y ago
  I'm not against removing the Aux port on principal or anything, but I just don't understand why we're going toward removing seemingly core hardware. Even on desktops/laptops 3.5mm audio is still used. Why do we need dongles to use core features? Especially since we're removing an "out" port, now we're reliant on a single port to manage all in and out. I don't want to carry dongles to be able to use my phone normally.
  • I_am_someone 9y ago
    I wonder what they'll remove next? Volume buttons? "Oh you can just turn it down with software already on the phone!" Well I could, but damn would that be inconvenient...
  • criddell 9y ago
    Desktops and laptops have different constraints than phones. Bluetooth uses less power (from the device), makes waterproofing easier, and frees up space for battery. I personally would prefer having a headphone jack on the phone (even though I've never used mine), but I understand why they did what they did.
    • OrwellianChild 9y ago
      Bluetooth uses less power... than what? Than a headphone jack?
      • criddell 9y ago
        Yes. It uses less power than driving headphones.
        • lambda_lover 9y ago
          Evidence seems hard to come by on this subject, but a web search yields a lot of results along these lines: https://www.quora.com/Which-uses-less-battery-for-a-car-audio-Bluetooth-or-AUX https://www.quora.com/Which-uses-less-battery-for-a-car-audi... It's hardly a scientific study, but it reinforces my prior belief that aux doesn't inherently require any electricity, while bluetooth is sending information over radio waves which of course has to use electricity. I'm not sure about the difference when it comes to fancy, high-powered headphones, but my (anecdotal) experience with bluetooth vs. analog certainly supports the idea that bluetooth uses more power. I'd appreciate some citations if you have some other information about this subject.
• wnevets 9y ago
  >If my 1st generation Pixel were to break today, I'd buy another 1st generation Pixel. Yup, no way I'm buying new a car just to listen to music while driving.
  • ggreer 9y ago
    Instead of buying a new car, you could just use the adaptor that comes with the phone.
    • wnevets 9y ago
      and when I lose that adaptor I won't be able to listen to music until I buy a new one. Why are we adding extra steps to an already solved problem?
    • codq 9y ago
      So you can arrive to your destination with 50% battery. There's really no argument that paints headphone jack removal as a net positive. Samsung has proved you can waterproof a phone with one (and an SD card!).
      • Zee2 9y ago
        Wait, what? Am I understanding you correctly, that you mean the adapter will use more battery? USB-C allows for analog audio passthrough, unlike Lightning.
        • kuschku 9y ago
          The adapter doesn’t allow charging while passing audio through, unless you use yet another adapter.
          • JaRail 9y ago
            It's not going to take a genius to start adding an aux-out to usb-c car chargers. I'll have to replace my micro usb car charger anyway.
• almonj 9y ago
  Has anyone ever actually been bothered by having an audio jack? Having to plug in an adapter is not futuristic, its annoying.
  • irrational 9y ago
    Well, for some reason the ports on my phones would always kind of stop working at some point unless I held the headphone jack in at just the right angle. It wasn't the headphones because they would work fine on other devices.
    • eric_h 9y ago
      > Well, for some reason the ports on my phones would always kind of stop working at some point Lint. Headphone jacks and lightning ports on every iPhone I've ever owned would always stop working properly after 6 months to a year of being carried around in my pocket. (Sort of) easily fixed with a paperclip to pick the lint out of the port, of course, but annoying and the headphone jack was harder to clean than the lighting/dock connecter port.
• KayL 9y ago
  I wonder if it's better water resistance after removing the jack, anyone knows that?
• mozumder 9y ago
  I just ended up buying a bunch of cheap Bluetooth audio adapters: https://www.amazon.com/Mpow-Bluetooth-Receiver-Streaming-Hands-free/dp/B008AGQMQC/ https://www.amazon.com/Mpow-Bluetooth-Receiver-Streaming-Han... About the same price as an overpriced cable from Best Buy.
• itodd 9y ago
  I am not an audio engineer but I own a pair of bluetooth headphones and 2 devices that I use them with and it's a nightmare as both devices fight over it. It seems to be the USB problem all over but an order of magnitude worse. I can't just flip the cable over, I need to disable bluetooth temporarily on the device that I don't want to pair.
  • rimliu 9y ago
    I am not an audio engineer but I own BeatsX and use them across four devices without even thinking about it.
• deleted 9y ago
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• Humphrey 9y ago
  Yeah, I love the direction LG has taken here. Rather than removing the port, they have added a higher quality DAC to make the inbuilt 3.5mm port even better! So, I use it all the 3.5mm jack even more now. Is the idea behind an adaptor so that the user can use an even higher quality DAC?