6 ms·

They finally killed the headphone jack in the plain-jane iPad, what a shame. I'm not exactly a tablet person -- my ereader suits me just fine for reading, which

They finally killed the headphone jack in the plain-jane iPad, what a shame. I'm not exactly a tablet person -- my ereader suits me just fine for reading, which is all I'd want to do on a tablet, anyway -- but why do people put up with this? I understand that phones are small, and thus "hard" to fit the jack into... but why remove it from tablets?

mattnewton 4y ago
Apple sells a lot of wireless headphones.
- skrause 4y ago
  So which wireless headphones do I get for $19 like the EarPods?
  - mattnewton 4y ago
    Those wired headphones used to be cheap enough to include in the box. Now you're upsold $169 airpods from apple, or $79 power beats (also from apple). The experience is better, sure, but they also left nothing to chance here by closing the door on your existing cheap wired headphones.
    - scarface74 4y ago
      Or you can buy literally any BT or USB C headphones.
  - ThatPlayer 4y ago
    https://www.scarbir.com/truewireless https://www.scarbir.com/truewireless : This guy has done a ton of reviews on cheap TWS. I've picked a few 25$ ones off his recommendations and they work fine.
andrewstuart 4y ago
“No. You don’t want or need that headphone jack”. …… anonymous Apple designer.
ASalazarMX 4y ago
They had to because it's impossible to water proof the iPad with a headphone jack, or because there's not enough space inside the device, I forgot what was the official reason they used for the iPhone. The unofficial reason is that no headphone port means more AirPod sales.
- mattnewton 4y ago
  Lots of waterproof android phones on the market had a 3.5mm jack before their brand of wireless headphones was ready to upsell, which I think points pretty conclusively to the "unofficial" reason being the real reason.
- frosted-flakes 4y ago
  The iPad is not waterproof anyway, and I'm currently holding a smaller, waterproof Android phone with a headphone jack (Samsung Galaxy S10e), so whoever gives that as an excuse doesn't know what they're talking about.
samcat116 4y ago
At this point all my headphones are bluetooth anyways. One less port water and stuff can get into (although I agree they probably should have kept it here).
- asdff 4y ago
  OTOH my earpods have gone though the wash several times, I don't think the bluetooth headphones will cooperate with a rainstorm much less the laundry machine.
brk 4y ago
At this point I’m over wired headphones. I carry a couple of pairs in my backpack for use on airplane seat back entertainment systems, but otherwise I prefer Bluetooth earbuds.
- naravara 4y ago
  I prefer the bluetooth ones for convenience, but the option to go wired would be nice. Especially since some VOIP and conference software does weird stuff with latency compensation when you're on bluetooth.
D13Fd 4y ago
Yeah! And why can't don't they have ports for SD cards, USB sticks, and floppy disks! At some point, things change. We're at that point with wired headphones. You can already share Bluetooth headphones across a Mac/iPhone/Tablet with extreme ease. And if you really want, you can adapt regular wired headphones to bluetooth. And on iPads specifically, it's not like people are carrying them around in their pocket to listen to music.
- dont__panic 4y ago
  Hilarious. SD card support in phones and tablets is another requirement for me, and yet another reason why I won't buy Apple products in those categories. Built-in storage is expensive and anemic. SD cards are especially appropriate for photo and music storage, since they're read-heavy workloads and convenient to transfer between devices when you want to move the data around. I don't care what anybody says: bluetooth is still trash: - I routinely block bluetooth signals with just my body, for instance when I exercise with my phone in my pocket. - Bluetooth headphones live on borrowed time since batteries are not repairable in most over-ear models, much less buds. - I don't want to manage another set of batteries. - Bluetooth audio suffers from an order of magnitude greater latency than wired audio. - Bluetooth audio is noticeably worse quality, and codec compatibility is a mess between devices. - Using bluetooth for audio input and output simultaneously inevitably results in garbage quality for both. Just ask any of my coworkers in an audio call where they use AirPods. Obviously floppy discs are not needed anymore, especially in mobile form factors. By "USB sticks," I assume you're referring to USB-A ports, and guess what: I still have a ton of USB-A devices, and I'm not about to generate pounds of ewaste by throwing out the devices and/or cables. That port is going to be useful for years still. But you bring up a good point: why can't we at least have two USB-C ports on the iPad Pro? Wouldn't it be useful to charge and use a peripheral sometimes? People play games and watch videos all the time on iPads. The aux jack is useful. There's almost certainly enough free space in the chassis to fit the port. It's great that you're utterly in love with bluetooth and you can't imagine using anything else, but it really sucks for everyone else that we don't even have an option any more.
- gkbrk 4y ago
  Huh? Android phones support SD cards and USB sticks.
KindAndFriendly 4y ago
The main use case for my current iPad is to connect the audio-jack to my guitar amp and use GarageBand - which currently works great because I can charge the iPad at the same time. I guess in the future one can only use the audio out OR charge - which is a shame. Edit: No, I can't really use bluetooth here since a) 99% of guitar amps have no BT support and b) the latency is noticeable.
- lathiat 4y ago
  If you search Belkin Rockstar there is a dual port lightning adaptor and also a lightning+3.5mm adaptor. Can still be done with a dongle at least.
  - KindAndFriendly 4y ago
    Thank you. >> Rockstar -> ...looks like Belkin still does user research ;-)
  - barbazoo 4y ago
    Having to buy more stuff. Mission accomplished.
    - brewdad 4y ago
      One can always keep using the old iPad. By the time you decide to upgrade devices, yeah, you probably will need to "buy more stuff". This has been true, along varying timelines, for all computers at least since USB was released.
  - nfriedly 4y ago
    I believe this iPad has USB-C instead of lightning, but there's a "Belkin Rockstar" for that too: https://www.belkin.com/us/adapters/audio-charge/rockstar-3-5mm-audio-usb-c-charge-adapter/p/p-npa004/ https://www.belkin.com/us/adapters/audio-charge/rockstar-3-5... (as well as several other brands)
- jamesgeck0 4y ago
  At least generic USB-C/Aux splitters are much cheaper than Apple's Lightning/Aux splitters were. The product in my first search result was only $15.
diebeforei485 4y ago
Professionals and audiophiles (not the audience of the base iPad) use an external DAC, etc. Regular people these days use Bluetooth audio. That leaves people who just want wired headphones. Plenty of cheap USB-C to 3.5mm adapters out there.
- lern_too_spel 4y ago
  All the Apple devices I've used have notoriously buggy Bluetooth implementations. Maybe their implementation for communicating with Apple headphones is less buggy, but even when I have working Bluetooth, I'd much rather charge fewer devices and not have to deal with dongles when switching devices.
- secabeen 4y ago
  K-12 schools will have to replace their existing headphones with USB-C models, but that's not too bad, the headphones take a lot of abuse in that environment. EOLing the lightning charging infrastructure they have is going to be more impactful.
  - diebeforei485 4y ago
    Note that Apple still sells the Lightning iPad with 3.5mm jack, so this is only a concern post 2024 (the EU mandate comes into force at the end of 2024). > K-12 schools will have to replace their existing headphones with USB-C models No, they just need adapters. These are fairly cheap, especially when purchased in bulk (which is what a school would do). I agree re charging, and personally I wish things stayed on Lightning for a while longer. But USB-C charging cables are also fairly cheap, thankfully. There is always a transition cost. I don't personally believe there is much benefit going from Lightning to USB-C except for transferring large files (videos), but it arguably means we need to carry fewer cables when traveling.
ls15 4y ago
> but why do people put up with this? What is the alternative? Android tablets are no drop-in replacement. Ipads are great for music production. Many great apps only exist on iOS. Bluetooth audio introduces a delay which makes playing software instruments live impractical. So dongles until Apple comes to reason.
layer8 4y ago
Apple wants you to buy AirPods.

mattnewton 4y ago

Apple sells a lot of wireless headphones.

skrause 4y ago
So which wireless headphones do I get for $19 like the EarPods?
- mattnewton 4y ago
  Those wired headphones used to be cheap enough to include in the box. Now you're upsold $169 airpods from apple, or $79 power beats (also from apple). The experience is better, sure, but they also left nothing to chance here by closing the door on your existing cheap wired headphones.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    Or you can buy literally any BT or USB C headphones.
- ThatPlayer 4y ago
  https://www.scarbir.com/truewireless https://www.scarbir.com/truewireless : This guy has done a ton of reviews on cheap TWS. I've picked a few 25$ ones off his recommendations and they work fine.

andrewstuart 4y ago

“No. You don’t want or need that headphone jack”. …… anonymous Apple designer.

ASalazarMX 4y ago

They had to because it's impossible to water proof the iPad with a headphone jack, or because there's not enough space inside the device, I forgot what was the official reason they used for the iPhone. The unofficial reason is that no headphone port means more AirPod sales.

mattnewton 4y ago
Lots of waterproof android phones on the market had a 3.5mm jack before their brand of wireless headphones was ready to upsell, which I think points pretty conclusively to the "unofficial" reason being the real reason.
frosted-flakes 4y ago
The iPad is not waterproof anyway, and I'm currently holding a smaller, waterproof Android phone with a headphone jack (Samsung Galaxy S10e), so whoever gives that as an excuse doesn't know what they're talking about.

samcat116 4y ago

At this point all my headphones are bluetooth anyways. One less port water and stuff can get into (although I agree they probably should have kept it here).

asdff 4y ago
OTOH my earpods have gone though the wash several times, I don't think the bluetooth headphones will cooperate with a rainstorm much less the laundry machine.

brk 4y ago

At this point I’m over wired headphones. I carry a couple of pairs in my backpack for use on airplane seat back entertainment systems, but otherwise I prefer Bluetooth earbuds.

naravara 4y ago
I prefer the bluetooth ones for convenience, but the option to go wired would be nice. Especially since some VOIP and conference software does weird stuff with latency compensation when you're on bluetooth.

D13Fd 4y ago

Yeah! And why can't don't they have ports for SD cards, USB sticks, and floppy disks! At some point, things change. We're at that point with wired headphones. You can already share Bluetooth headphones across a Mac/iPhone/Tablet with extreme ease. And if you really want, you can adapt regular wired headphones to bluetooth. And on iPads specifically, it's not like people are carrying them around in their pocket to listen to music.

dont__panic 4y ago
Hilarious. SD card support in phones and tablets is another requirement for me, and yet another reason why I won't buy Apple products in those categories. Built-in storage is expensive and anemic. SD cards are especially appropriate for photo and music storage, since they're read-heavy workloads and convenient to transfer between devices when you want to move the data around. I don't care what anybody says: bluetooth is still trash: - I routinely block bluetooth signals with just my body, for instance when I exercise with my phone in my pocket. - Bluetooth headphones live on borrowed time since batteries are not repairable in most over-ear models, much less buds. - I don't want to manage another set of batteries. - Bluetooth audio suffers from an order of magnitude greater latency than wired audio. - Bluetooth audio is noticeably worse quality, and codec compatibility is a mess between devices. - Using bluetooth for audio input and output simultaneously inevitably results in garbage quality for both. Just ask any of my coworkers in an audio call where they use AirPods. Obviously floppy discs are not needed anymore, especially in mobile form factors. By "USB sticks," I assume you're referring to USB-A ports, and guess what: I still have a ton of USB-A devices, and I'm not about to generate pounds of ewaste by throwing out the devices and/or cables. That port is going to be useful for years still. But you bring up a good point: why can't we at least have two USB-C ports on the iPad Pro? Wouldn't it be useful to charge and use a peripheral sometimes? People play games and watch videos all the time on iPads. The aux jack is useful. There's almost certainly enough free space in the chassis to fit the port. It's great that you're utterly in love with bluetooth and you can't imagine using anything else, but it really sucks for everyone else that we don't even have an option any more.
gkbrk 4y ago
Huh? Android phones support SD cards and USB sticks.

KindAndFriendly 4y ago

The main use case for my current iPad is to connect the audio-jack to my guitar amp and use GarageBand - which currently works great because I can charge the iPad at the same time. I guess in the future one can only use the audio out OR charge - which is a shame. Edit: No, I can't really use bluetooth here since a) 99% of guitar amps have no BT support and b) the latency is noticeable.

lathiat 4y ago
If you search Belkin Rockstar there is a dual port lightning adaptor and also a lightning+3.5mm adaptor. Can still be done with a dongle at least.
- KindAndFriendly 4y ago
  Thank you. >> Rockstar -> ...looks like Belkin still does user research ;-)
- barbazoo 4y ago
  Having to buy more stuff. Mission accomplished.
  - brewdad 4y ago
    One can always keep using the old iPad. By the time you decide to upgrade devices, yeah, you probably will need to "buy more stuff". This has been true, along varying timelines, for all computers at least since USB was released.
- nfriedly 4y ago
  I believe this iPad has USB-C instead of lightning, but there's a "Belkin Rockstar" for that too: https://www.belkin.com/us/adapters/audio-charge/rockstar-3-5mm-audio-usb-c-charge-adapter/p/p-npa004/ https://www.belkin.com/us/adapters/audio-charge/rockstar-3-5... (as well as several other brands)
jamesgeck0 4y ago
At least generic USB-C/Aux splitters are much cheaper than Apple's Lightning/Aux splitters were. The product in my first search result was only $15.

diebeforei485 4y ago

Professionals and audiophiles (not the audience of the base iPad) use an external DAC, etc. Regular people these days use Bluetooth audio. That leaves people who just want wired headphones. Plenty of cheap USB-C to 3.5mm adapters out there.

lern_too_spel 4y ago
All the Apple devices I've used have notoriously buggy Bluetooth implementations. Maybe their implementation for communicating with Apple headphones is less buggy, but even when I have working Bluetooth, I'd much rather charge fewer devices and not have to deal with dongles when switching devices.
secabeen 4y ago
K-12 schools will have to replace their existing headphones with USB-C models, but that's not too bad, the headphones take a lot of abuse in that environment. EOLing the lightning charging infrastructure they have is going to be more impactful.
- diebeforei485 4y ago
  Note that Apple still sells the Lightning iPad with 3.5mm jack, so this is only a concern post 2024 (the EU mandate comes into force at the end of 2024). > K-12 schools will have to replace their existing headphones with USB-C models No, they just need adapters. These are fairly cheap, especially when purchased in bulk (which is what a school would do). I agree re charging, and personally I wish things stayed on Lightning for a while longer. But USB-C charging cables are also fairly cheap, thankfully. There is always a transition cost. I don't personally believe there is much benefit going from Lightning to USB-C except for transferring large files (videos), but it arguably means we need to carry fewer cables when traveling.

ls15 4y ago

> but why do people put up with this? What is the alternative? Android tablets are no drop-in replacement. Ipads are great for music production. Many great apps only exist on iOS. Bluetooth audio introduces a delay which makes playing software instruments live impractical. So dongles until Apple comes to reason.

layer8 4y ago

Apple wants you to buy AirPods.