11 ms·

I honestly believe that the headphone jack is done. Done as in, we can just keep using it. It perfectly solves the problem of moving audio and similar from a d

by rvense 9y ago

I honestly believe that the headphone jack is done. Done as in, we can just keep using it. It perfectly solves the problem of moving audio and similar from a device on or near my person to my ears. There's no need for any such device to be smaller in any dimension than the minijack allows. Wires are fine, they're so easy to understand. There is absolutely no need to keep working on this, it's fine as it is. They should still be making headphones with minijacks in a 1000 years - because maybe in time we would learn to make devices that lasted that long. In general I really wish our culture would become used to the idea of solved problems.

AndrewDucker 9y ago
Yup. Unless you can replace it with something which requires no power and costs £10 then I'm not interested in moving to a new technology.
- pls2halp 9y ago
  The Apple dongle is just an external DAC(someone put the circuit in a phone) and costs $10US.
  - syrgian 9y ago
    It also seems to be unforgivably low quality: https://www.apple.com/shop/reviews/MMX62AM/A/lightning-to-35-mm-headphone-jack-adapter https://www.apple.com/shop/reviews/MMX62AM/A/lightning-to-35...
  - raverbashing 9y ago
    Yes, however there are several issues in having it in a dongle instead of inside the phone You're needlessly converting to 'lightning protocol' and back. DAC will be lower quality than an internal one (because of size and power constraints and the fact that you need one internal and one external)
    - emsy 9y ago
      In reality those constraints don't have any humanly discernable impact on the quality. Plus the part about the lightning protocol makes no sense whatsoever. Here's an idea: Try blind testing 10 songs or so and see if you can figure out which one is played from the adapter and which one isn't. I bet you won't hear the difference.
      - snvzz 9y ago
        The real issue is the extra item to carry and plug. Headphones -> headphone jack in device is sensible. A dongle isn't.
        emsy 9y ago
        I have an iPhone 7. In reality even that isn't an issue. You can keep the dongle attached to your headphones and it will stick safely to it. I would really like to know how many people who find issue with the dongle have day-to-day experience with a headphone jack-less device. My bigger concern is that headphone jacks will vanish from headphones.
        solarkraft 9y ago
        Because I have broken all my headphones and then my phone's audio jack I am trying out the dongly life. So far it hasn't been that bad, but I suspect that there will be situations in which I'll want to charge and have an audio device connected.
        emsy 9y ago
        I dislike Apples love for dongles, but the headphone donglegate is mainly a constructed problem by people that just want to rage about something. Sure, it sucks that you can't use your headphones while charging but in reality I had this problem exactly once in a year of usage. There are actual problems with modern smartphones and iPhones in particular but the headphone jack is a ridiculously propped up issue.
  - krzat 9y ago
    I was using something similiar for my Siemens SX1. Who would have though that this 15 years old phone was equipped with such next-gen technology.
sheraz 9y ago
well said. That stupid apple dongle on iPhone. Amazing that I can't charge AND use my urban ears. Wtf. Or apple abandoning that cool magnetic charger! My mbp 2010 had that skinny one, and I never came off. Now we have usbc or whatever it is called, but waaaaay longer battery life, so that might be the answer there. Come to think of it, is there wireless charging for laptops yet?
- zimpenfish 9y ago
  > Come to think of it, is there wireless charging for laptops yet? Amazon has a few Qi receivers with USB-C plugs outputting 1A - that's probably enough to (slowly) charge the 12" Macbook.
- KozmoNau7 9y ago
  >Come to think of it, is there wireless charging for laptops yet? A docking station serves that purpose already, and it allows much faster charging than a Qi pad.
- zeveb 9y ago
  > Amazing that I can't charge AND use my urban ears. I think Apple must have fired all of their UX engineers. That's the only thing that can explain the inability to charge & use headphones and the inability to charge & use a mouse[0]. [0] https://www.geek.com/apple/design-before-function-apple-magic-mouse-2-cant-be-used-while-charging-1636939/ https://www.geek.com/apple/design-before-function-apple-magi...
dx034 9y ago
Not to forget that wireless connections are less reliable, esp with a lot of devices or other sources nearby. Switching headphones off with cable is much faster than with bluetooth (just unplug it) and quality is about as good as it gets.
- solarkraft 9y ago
  Except when you break all of your headphones while cycling ... And then your phone.
  - craftyguy 9y ago
    You can still break wireless headphones, your phone, and pretty much anything with you (including you) while cycling, so I fail to see how your point is relevant.
skate22 9y ago
Im a fan of wired headphones with the exception of excercise. If youve ever skateboarded, popped a trick, had the wire get caught on your knee, violently tug the headphones out of your ears, and get caught up in your wheels, then you know this pain.
- arethuza 9y ago
  I managed to cut the cord on two pairs of headphones gardening before I decided to get a wireless pair - don't think I'd ever go back to wired headphones.
- tomcooks 9y ago
  Keep phone in front pocket, with wire under clothes
  - solarkraft 9y ago
    Even that can get annoying. Movement is still limited.
  - skate22 9y ago
    The wire sticks to you when you start sweating and pulls out of the headphone jack. And wearing extra layers is not a great soltion
KozmoNau7 9y ago
The minijack is essentially perfect, which I know is a word that shouldn't be used lightly. It's intuitive, durable, reliable, inexpensive and compact. In the 4-pole incarnation, it handles the addition of a microphone with backwards compatibility. A headphone-only plug works without issues in a 4-pole socket, and a 4-pole plug works equally without issues in a headphone-only 3-pole socket. Obviously you won't be able to use the microphone, but it will not mess up anything, only give you sound in one ear or something similarly weird and unexpected. There was a small issue with TRRS standards, OMTP on one side and CTIA on the other, where the mic and ground pins were switched in relation to each other. Everyone seems to have agreed on using the CTIA standard now, though. And a lot of headsets are able to accomodate both automatically. The minijack has stood the test of time.
- wilsonnb 9y ago
  While I do love the 3.5mm jack (along with the 1/4", XLR, and pretty much any other analog audio connector known to man) it seems like it's redundant on modern smartphones and in the near future possibly laptops. If everything is already going to have a USB C port, and USB C can handle audio transmission, then I see no reason to keep the 3.5mm around. Sure, there's an argument to be made about keeping the DAC inside the smartphone, but once we are out of the transition period, any pair of headphones you want will either be wireless, come with a dongle, or forgo the 3.5mm entirely and just have a USB C cable. It would be nice if Apple would join the rest of the world (and their own Macbooks) by replacing lightning with USB C, but I think that will happen eventually.
  - zeveb 9y ago
    > … once we are out of the transition period, any pair of headphones you want will either be wireless, come with a dongle, or forgo the 3.5mm entirely and just have a USB C cable. Any pair of headphones I would want will be analogue, because I dislike audio delay & expense and I like audio quality. Adding DACs & dongles is just adding needless complexity. The analogue headphone is basically perfect: it doesn't need improving, and it can't be improved. Wireless headphones add expense, waste, complexity and quality/delay problems.
agumonkey 9y ago
I get the simplicity, but 1) I hate tangled wires 2) wire break, I take care of them but very often a minute crack will happen and your cable is now a random silence generator. Maybe there's a middle ground solution.
- larkeith 9y ago
  There is - it's called providing both Bluetooth and minijack.
  - agumonkey 9y ago
    I meant something else but anyway.
    - solarkraft 9y ago
      What are you imagining? A dongle that runs over Bluetooth? Strapping the phone to your ear directly? Cables through your body?
      - agumonkey 9y ago
        Something better.
johnchristopher 9y ago
Except minijacks on every devices (smartphones and portable media player) I have ever owned have become useless after some time because the plug starts working randomly. I am so much happier with a bluetooth headphones: free movement \o/. Software problems but you know what they say: software eats the world.
- solarkraft 9y ago
  Too bad good Bluetooth earphones are still ridiculously expensive and the cheap ones (Taotronics ) keep breaking. I'll consider them again when the extra cost for the Bluetooth hardware (it shouldn't be more than 5€) gets to a manageable level.
devit 9y ago
An analog connector doesn't necessarily seem perfect since sound can degrade undetectably. I think what would be perfect would be something carrying both power and a lossless digital signal.

by rvense 9y ago

AndrewDucker 9y ago

Yup. Unless you can replace it with something which requires no power and costs £10 then I'm not interested in moving to a new technology.

pls2halp 9y ago
The Apple dongle is just an external DAC(someone put the circuit in a phone) and costs $10US.
- syrgian 9y ago
  It also seems to be unforgivably low quality: https://www.apple.com/shop/reviews/MMX62AM/A/lightning-to-35-mm-headphone-jack-adapter https://www.apple.com/shop/reviews/MMX62AM/A/lightning-to-35...
- raverbashing 9y ago
  Yes, however there are several issues in having it in a dongle instead of inside the phone You're needlessly converting to 'lightning protocol' and back. DAC will be lower quality than an internal one (because of size and power constraints and the fact that you need one internal and one external)
  - emsy 9y ago
    In reality those constraints don't have any humanly discernable impact on the quality. Plus the part about the lightning protocol makes no sense whatsoever. Here's an idea: Try blind testing 10 songs or so and see if you can figure out which one is played from the adapter and which one isn't. I bet you won't hear the difference.
    - snvzz 9y ago
      The real issue is the extra item to carry and plug. Headphones -> headphone jack in device is sensible. A dongle isn't.
      - emsy 9y ago
        I have an iPhone 7. In reality even that isn't an issue. You can keep the dongle attached to your headphones and it will stick safely to it. I would really like to know how many people who find issue with the dongle have day-to-day experience with a headphone jack-less device. My bigger concern is that headphone jacks will vanish from headphones.
        solarkraft 9y ago
        Because I have broken all my headphones and then my phone's audio jack I am trying out the dongly life. So far it hasn't been that bad, but I suspect that there will be situations in which I'll want to charge and have an audio device connected.
        emsy 9y ago
        I dislike Apples love for dongles, but the headphone donglegate is mainly a constructed problem by people that just want to rage about something. Sure, it sucks that you can't use your headphones while charging but in reality I had this problem exactly once in a year of usage. There are actual problems with modern smartphones and iPhones in particular but the headphone jack is a ridiculously propped up issue.
- krzat 9y ago
  I was using something similiar for my Siemens SX1. Who would have though that this 15 years old phone was equipped with such next-gen technology.

sheraz 9y ago

well said. That stupid apple dongle on iPhone. Amazing that I can't charge AND use my urban ears. Wtf. Or apple abandoning that cool magnetic charger! My mbp 2010 had that skinny one, and I never came off. Now we have usbc or whatever it is called, but waaaaay longer battery life, so that might be the answer there. Come to think of it, is there wireless charging for laptops yet?

zimpenfish 9y ago
> Come to think of it, is there wireless charging for laptops yet? Amazon has a few Qi receivers with USB-C plugs outputting 1A - that's probably enough to (slowly) charge the 12" Macbook.
KozmoNau7 9y ago
>Come to think of it, is there wireless charging for laptops yet? A docking station serves that purpose already, and it allows much faster charging than a Qi pad.
zeveb 9y ago
> Amazing that I can't charge AND use my urban ears. I think Apple must have fired all of their UX engineers. That's the only thing that can explain the inability to charge & use headphones and the inability to charge & use a mouse[0]. [0] https://www.geek.com/apple/design-before-function-apple-magic-mouse-2-cant-be-used-while-charging-1636939/ https://www.geek.com/apple/design-before-function-apple-magi...

dx034 9y ago

Not to forget that wireless connections are less reliable, esp with a lot of devices or other sources nearby. Switching headphones off with cable is much faster than with bluetooth (just unplug it) and quality is about as good as it gets.

solarkraft 9y ago
Except when you break all of your headphones while cycling ... And then your phone.
- craftyguy 9y ago
  You can still break wireless headphones, your phone, and pretty much anything with you (including you) while cycling, so I fail to see how your point is relevant.

skate22 9y ago

Im a fan of wired headphones with the exception of excercise. If youve ever skateboarded, popped a trick, had the wire get caught on your knee, violently tug the headphones out of your ears, and get caught up in your wheels, then you know this pain.

arethuza 9y ago
I managed to cut the cord on two pairs of headphones gardening before I decided to get a wireless pair - don't think I'd ever go back to wired headphones.
tomcooks 9y ago
Keep phone in front pocket, with wire under clothes
- solarkraft 9y ago
  Even that can get annoying. Movement is still limited.
- skate22 9y ago
  The wire sticks to you when you start sweating and pulls out of the headphone jack. And wearing extra layers is not a great soltion

KozmoNau7 9y ago

The minijack is essentially perfect, which I know is a word that shouldn't be used lightly. It's intuitive, durable, reliable, inexpensive and compact. In the 4-pole incarnation, it handles the addition of a microphone with backwards compatibility. A headphone-only plug works without issues in a 4-pole socket, and a 4-pole plug works equally without issues in a headphone-only 3-pole socket. Obviously you won't be able to use the microphone, but it will not mess up anything, only give you sound in one ear or something similarly weird and unexpected. There was a small issue with TRRS standards, OMTP on one side and CTIA on the other, where the mic and ground pins were switched in relation to each other. Everyone seems to have agreed on using the CTIA standard now, though. And a lot of headsets are able to accomodate both automatically. The minijack has stood the test of time.

wilsonnb 9y ago
While I do love the 3.5mm jack (along with the 1/4", XLR, and pretty much any other analog audio connector known to man) it seems like it's redundant on modern smartphones and in the near future possibly laptops. If everything is already going to have a USB C port, and USB C can handle audio transmission, then I see no reason to keep the 3.5mm around. Sure, there's an argument to be made about keeping the DAC inside the smartphone, but once we are out of the transition period, any pair of headphones you want will either be wireless, come with a dongle, or forgo the 3.5mm entirely and just have a USB C cable. It would be nice if Apple would join the rest of the world (and their own Macbooks) by replacing lightning with USB C, but I think that will happen eventually.
- zeveb 9y ago
  > … once we are out of the transition period, any pair of headphones you want will either be wireless, come with a dongle, or forgo the 3.5mm entirely and just have a USB C cable. Any pair of headphones I would want will be analogue, because I dislike audio delay & expense and I like audio quality. Adding DACs & dongles is just adding needless complexity. The analogue headphone is basically perfect: it doesn't need improving, and it can't be improved. Wireless headphones add expense, waste, complexity and quality/delay problems.

agumonkey 9y ago

I get the simplicity, but 1) I hate tangled wires 2) wire break, I take care of them but very often a minute crack will happen and your cable is now a random silence generator. Maybe there's a middle ground solution.

larkeith 9y ago
There is - it's called providing both Bluetooth and minijack.
- agumonkey 9y ago
  I meant something else but anyway.
  - solarkraft 9y ago
    What are you imagining? A dongle that runs over Bluetooth? Strapping the phone to your ear directly? Cables through your body?
    - agumonkey 9y ago
      Something better.

johnchristopher 9y ago

Except minijacks on every devices (smartphones and portable media player) I have ever owned have become useless after some time because the plug starts working randomly. I am so much happier with a bluetooth headphones: free movement \o/. Software problems but you know what they say: software eats the world.

solarkraft 9y ago
Too bad good Bluetooth earphones are still ridiculously expensive and the cheap ones (Taotronics ) keep breaking. I'll consider them again when the extra cost for the Bluetooth hardware (it shouldn't be more than 5€) gets to a manageable level.

devit 9y ago

An analog connector doesn't necessarily seem perfect since sound can degrade undetectably. I think what would be perfect would be something carrying both power and a lossless digital signal.